Gonna try "no thrusters"

Welp, that wasn't that hard. Just very grindy in the beginning

could try a nuzlocke

1. losing a part makes all of that type of part unusable
2. max 1 medium battery and fuel
3. max 4 weapons
4. no revisiting planets - only one try per planet; only one trip to a garage or shop
5. can't harvest resource
6. must be hard difficulty

to clarify, harvesting treasure and scraps is also not allowed

Oh interesting. I will definitely try that. Does the core count as a part? Meaning if your core breaks, is that game over? Also, if a medium battery dies, can two small ones make up for it?

I have quite a few. These act as modifiers that you can add to another challenge. (WARNING: wall of text.)

"Melee only" Requires that you only use spikes, bumpers, etc and no ranged weapons. (If a weapon has a damage value of 0%, it is no longer considered a weapon and can be used anyway.) First 3 missions are exempt so you don't softlock from bad RNG not giving you any melee parts. If the RNG still doesn't cooperate after 3 missions and refuses to give you any melee parts at all, you become allowed to fire ranged weapons at point blank range only until you can get real melee parts. TNT is considered ranged. Abusing fuel tank explosions isn't allowed at all.

"Ranged only" is the opposite of the above, but has no grace period (Unless you have no ranged weapons somehow. If that happens, you may use melee until that is resolved.) AND you may only fire your weapons if the enemy is far away/at the edge of the weapon's range. Sparkthrowers and plasmathrowers with high spread are exempt from the range requirement since those projectiles are liable to go everywhere anyway. Its okay if projectiles hit a close enemy because they were in the way. You just can't target a close enemy. (Bouncing a laser or projectile off something to a close enemy is a valid tactic as long as the projectile goes a decent distance before impact.) Fuel tank abuse not allowed and TNT is considered Melee.

"Time trial" Has you set a timer and your drone self-destructs when that timer expires. Timer is dependent on a few factors: Size of planet (Larger = more time. Smaller = less time), Objective/Drone conflict or synergy (If you have all required parts to do it conventionally on your drone, reduce time by 5 seconds per extra part over the bare minimum needed. If you are missing parts needed for the mission type, +30 seconds for each missing part type and no penalty for duplicates of what you do have.) and part count (For each part past the max for free launch, -10 seconds. Reduce penalty to -5 seconds per extra part if you are missing parts needed for the mission.) Base timer is either 10 minutes or 5 minutes. Your choice. Can't start a mission if your drone results in the time limit being under 3 minutes. If that happens, you must use a different drone for that mission so the timer would be valid.

"No harvesting" is self-explanatory.

"One life" Has you delete your save file upon core destruction UNLESS it was a challenge induced Self-destruct.

"Hardcore" Has you delete your save file upon core destruction, regardless of reason.

"To go even..." Move the win condition from beating the game to reaching galaxy 8.

"...Further beyond!" Moves the win condition from beating the game normally to reaching Galaxy 18. I hope you have a lot of time if you use this one.

"OSHA Compliant" Forces you to follow the building rules for Online tournaments (Your choice which one but can't be changed later) EXCEPT the weapon restrictions/weapon ban and the No external input rule.

"Illogical" Bans using any logic parts for any reason.

"Senseless" Sensors of all kinds are banned unless this somehow renders a mission impossible.

"The Void of Space(bar)" Space bar is the only input you can use. Logic parts are unaffected and may use any input or output. Other parts can also have something other than space bar as an input as long as that's automation only. Using mouse aiming is allowed as long as buttons on the mouse do nothing.

"Mouse mania" Restricts usable controls to M1, M2, and moving the mouse. That's all. Logic parts are exempt as you can't really emulate mouse movement with those, but non-logic parts may only have M1, M2, or F1 as inputs, with F1 being only allowed as a logic part output and cannot be pressed manually. (Other logic outputs are allowed, but can only be received by other logic parts.) Sensors don't count as logic parts for this and are limited to M1, M2, and F1 as outputs.

"WASD Warrior" Restricts usable inputs to WASD and nothing else, EVEN FOR LOGIC PARTS. Mouse movement not allowed and all weapons must be set to fixed. Nothing may be set to mouse targeting either. (Note. This only limits the inputs you have. Not how to use them. Try outside-the-box control layouts.)

All of these can be combined together (except the obviously mutually exclusive ones) to make custom challenges. These also make good modifiers for other challenges.

Oh nice! I'll try some of these too. I guess mouse mania can have an easier version that also includes M3, but I like the idea of only 2 buttons.

As for hardcore, it is trivial with the engineer or if using a camera on a core-less drone, so cameras should be banned then. The core should be with you at all times. Either that, or when you enter a planet, you NEED to succeed, so returning to hangar before a mission success is banned. I feel like that's proper hardcore

I intentionally left Core-less drones and cameras allowed for Hardcore as the core can still self-destruct from time trial and other modifiers anyway and other modifiers tend to throw both tricks out the window regardless. These are meant to be used as a set. Try picking 4 of your choice and putting them together. ("To go even..." "Senseless", and "No harvesting" only count as half a modifier for the counter. "...Further beyond!" counts as 1.5 modifiers because it may take ages if RNG does not cooperate.)