HOW TO MAKE A PROFIT i know what it sounds like but i'm new

[moneytreee23]

I would love to know how to get funds coming from a new player. (besides bail out grants and selling science)

[Snark]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! 

Moving this question about gameplay to Gameplay Questions.

 

As for making money... suggest just doing contracts.  They pay a lot.    Do you have more specific questions?

[katateochi]

as Snark says, do contracts, and to get the biggest profit take several contracts that you can do all together as a single mission.  I find tourist contracts to be pretty lucrative  if you can get a whole bunch who want to go to the same place and have a craft that can take them all (and reusable craft make your profits even better).

If you find you don't enjoy the stock contracts there's also some mod contract packs to check out 

The Tourism Plus contract pack will have you rolling in funds!

[mrclucks]

Similar questions have been posted before.  Use the search.  

One strategy I use is to accept alot of 'put satellite into x orbit' contract that are within the kerbin system( kerbin, mun, minmus).  Then I look at what parts are needed so they can satisfy all of the contracts.  Keep the satellite kinda small and pour boat loads of dv into it.  By keeping the satellite small, costs for building the actual satellite and the launch vehicle are less than for a bigger rocket.  Then have atleast a rough draft of which orbits you will do when.  I have 10xed my funds even after including the cost of the rockets.  Bonus points for putting science stuffs on your satellite and fully recovering it with all that sweet sweet science.  

Another strategy I use is to accept alot of tourist contracts and make one ship for all of them.  It can be relatively cheap as long as you don't need to land on the mun( which isn't even that expensive DV wise).  I find this strategy not as lucrative as the satellite one, but you increase your rep up more.  

Don't forget you also get funds, rep and science for firsts ( first flyby, orbit, suborbit, escape from, return from) for all SOIs, so don't forget to to explore

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

As for making money... suggest just doing contracts.  They pay a lot.   

Most contracts can be easily done for less than a what you receive just for accepting then.  And it's pretty simple to setup a mission that finishes several in a single launch to cut the cost even further. AND you get part of (in some cases all) the investment back by recovering your crafts. 

Also notice that declining an available contract makes a fresh one appear and just cost a negligible amount of reputation.  Don't hesitate to get rid of a "bad"  contract. 

As for which kind of contract is best it will depend a bit on your playstile and preferences.  Some personal opinions:

-Test parts depending on the conditions of the test will be almost effortless to complete, also can give you earlier access to parts you didn't unlocked yet. 

-launch satellites,  easy to do,  good reward and you will soon have a good communication network in operation. 

-rescue missions, as @GoSlash27 says like taking candy from a baby that don't like candy.

-Tourists: simpler than satellite/rescue but less fun.  

[Snark]

3 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

-Tourists: simpler than satellite/rescue but less fun.

Tourist contracts also tend not to pay very much, compared with how much of your time they take to complete, which is why I tend not to do them very much, at least in the mid-to-late career.  However, it's often worth doing a few of them in early career, not so much because of the cash ('coz they're not worth all that much), but rather for the reputation.  Early-career tourist contracts are a pretty good reputation source, and doing a few of them can unlock some of the more lucrative contracts.  Think of it as an investment. 

Contracts that I like, a lot:

• "Rescue kerbal from LKO."  Pays reasonably... but it also gives you a free kerbal in your space program, which saves a bunch of cash, with the added bonus that they start at level 1 because they've already been in orbit.    Plus, this means you don't need to upgrade your astronaut complex all the way up to level 3; you can have as many kerbals as you want, if you acquire them via rescue rather than hiring.  Also, if you're new to KSP, rescuing kerbals from LKO is great "target practice" to develop your orbital-rendezvous skills, which you'll need a lot later on.
• "Science data from the surface of X" or "from space around X":  I love these things.  They pay reasonably well... and they pop up very frequently... and they only take like ten seconds to complete.  Just go to the tracking station, switch to the ship that I already have parked in the location it's asking for (e.g. orbiting the Mun, or whatever), take a quick temperature reading (even if it's not worth any science points anymore) and broadcast it.  There, done, chunk of cash for ten seconds' work.  Completely repeatable the next time the contract pops up.
• "New station on a solar orbit".  These don't come up until mid-career... but holy mackerel do they pay off.  Upwards of half a million funds at a pop.  And they're super quick and easy to bang out:  slap together a craft, launch it on an escape trajectory from Kerbin, then bang you're done as soon as it steps outside Kerbin's SoI.  Great gooey gobs of cash for just a few minutes' work, even including the time to build a custom craft from scratch.  When you see one of these, jump on it with both feet.

[Superfluous J]

16 minutes ago, Snark said:

"New station on a solar orbit".

I take these every time they come up, but don't make a station. I just make sure my next interplanetary craft has whatever the contract wants.

And the moment I leave Kerbin's SOI I decouple all the extra garbage the contract wanted

[Spricigo]

Maybe this recent discussion it's of interest of the OP:

 

[bewing]

I'm not sure any of these answers quite got to the OP's point? To sell science and get bail out grants, you go into the Admin building. That is not what you want to do -- those "strategies" are really not worth the price.

The building you want to go into to make money is Mission Control. That is where you find the contracts that all the above posters are talking about. The more you upgrade Mission Control, the more contracts you can have. You start out limited to two, and there are always the same two offered at the start. Once you've done a couple, it gives you more, of many varieties. Trying to do many types of contracts -- or especially more than one contract in a single flight -- will stretch your mind and give you a lot of practice trying wacky things in the game.

[moneytreee23]

3 hours ago, Snark said:

Hello, and welcome to the forums! 

Moving this question about gameplay to Gameplay Questions.

 

As for making money... suggest just doing contracts.  They pay a lot.    Do you have more specific questions?

Im sorry that i am such a noob but where do you find contracts within mission control

 

Edited January 5, 2017 by moneytreee23

[Snark]

54 minutes ago, moneytreee23 said:

where do you find contracts within mission control

The KSP wiki has some helpful guidance:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mission_Control

Just mouse-over the various buildings in KSC until you find it, then click to go in.  The available contracts will be displayed.

[moneytreee23]

Thanks too all who answered this question you are all greatly appreciated

 

[bewing]

2 hours ago, moneytreee23 said:

Im sorry that i am such a noob but where do you find contracts within mission control

 

There are 3 tabs. The one that says "Available" is the one you want.

The contracts are listed under that tab. Click on each of them to read details on the contract. They tell you how much money you will get in advance, and how much more you get on completing the contract.

When you find one that you like, there is a green checkmark in the upper right corner. Click that to "accept" the contract.

Then you have to build a rocket (in the VAB) and fly a mission that fills the requirements of the contract.

 

 

 

[GoSlash27]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet: World's first accomplishments.

Being successful pays off big in this game. Simply putting a craft in orbit and recovering it intact will pay a whole lot of cash, but only once. The first time you leave or enter a new sphere of influence is a major windfall for you.

 Beyond that, completing contracts gets the bills paid. Tourists, rescues, and satellites are my favorites in 1.2.2. Just be sure that the contract isn't asking for something beyond your ability to deliver. Read the fine print and understand what is being requested *before* you accept.

Good luck,
-Slashy

[Hodari]

14 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Test parts depending on the conditions of the test will be almost effortless to complete, also can give you earlier access to parts you didn't unlocked yet.

You do have to be VERY careful with these contracts though and make sure you understand exactly what is required before accepting them.  If it's just testing the part at the launch site, it's basically free money and almost always worth taking early on in your career.  Sometimes though, you'll get a contract that asks you to test the part at a very specific speed and altitude(which may be almost impossible to match both at the same time) or to test it someplace where you would normally never use that part(like using an SRB while in orbit around Minmus).  Contracts like this are probably not worth even attempting.

Also note that there are two types of these contracts.  Some will just require you to have the part in your vessel under the required conditions(these will usually say "Haul PartX to...") while others will require you to actually TEST the part under those conditions, which means for things like engines, you need to activate them through staging(just throttling to 0% and then back up won't work) and for other parts like heat shields, you need to right click the part and select Run Test while ALL of the conditions are still being met(and again, note that in some cases this may be a VERY narrow range of speed and altitudes, leaving you very little time).  Obviously, the "Haul" contracts are a bit easier.

As for more general advice, just be smart about which contracts you choose and try to pick ones that you can complete by doing missions you were planning to run anyway or combine multiple contracts into one mission.  Try to be as efficient as possible with designing your spacecraft.  As mentioned above, just the advance payment on many contracts will be enough to cover the cost of the craft needed to complete it. 

And finally, keep in mind that this is mostly an issue early on in the game.  The biggest thing you need to worry about is upgrading all of your buildings.  Fortunately, you'll also be getting a lot of money from World First bonuses at this point which should covers a lot of those upgrade costs.

[Kerbart]

14 hours ago, Snark said:

Tourist contracts also tend not to pay very much, compared with how much of your time they take to complete, which is why I tend not to do them very much, at least in the mid-to-late career.  However, it's often worth doing a few of them in early career, not so much because of the cash ('coz they're not worth all that much)

Surely you are jesting—or our definition of "mid-to-late career" differs. I can stuff 6 tourists and a pilot in a Mk III capsule + Hitchiker, and pocket at least 600,000 (80-140k per tourist) for a Mun/Minmus orbit/flyby contract. I have several lined up right and look forward to the millions I'll receive from it!

[StrandedonEarth]

15 hours ago, Snark said:

"New station on a solar orbit".  These don't come up until mid-career... but holy mackerel do they pay off. 

As has been mentioned before, it's even more profitable to stack contracts. If you can find contracts for "Station in Kerbin orbit," "Station in Mun (or Minmus) orbit," and "Station in solar orbit" then you can launch a single station with the parts needed for all the contracts and complete them all with a single station in a single launch. After one of those multi-contract station missions, funds are generally never an issue again. Throw some landing legs on it and it doubles as a surface base too. I think the best I managed to chain together was Kerbin -> Solar -> Pol -> Pol Base, with a Jool sat piggybacked along for the ride for good measure. Five lucrative contracts in one launch. You could always tack on a part test too, if the test regime is sensible.

One of the first buildings I upgraded is Mission Control, so I can accept more contracts, whether I do them in one launch or more.

[Kryxal]

For that matter, tourist, station, and mining contracts can work well together too.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Surely you are jesting

Nope, quite serious. 

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

I can stuff 6 tourists and a pilot in a Mk III capsule + Hitchiker, and pocket at least 600,000 (80-140k per tourist) for a Mun/Minmus orbit/flyby contract.

Yes, and by my definition... that's a terrible deal.

The utility of a contract (as a money-making mechanism) has very little to do with how much the contract is worth.  What matters is, how much is it worth per minute of my time.  If there are two contracts both worth a half-million funds, and one of them takes two minutes of my time and the other takes an hour, guess which one wins?

Yes, there are tourist contracts that come along in mid-to-late career that can be worth 600K+ each.  I've seen them up to a million or more.  Lots of money, right?

Except... it's not, at least by my definition.  Those really high-value tourist contracts generally involve having lots of tourists (4, 5, or even 6).  The tourists all want slightly different things.  This "Mun/Minmus orbit/flyby contract" that you mention:  maybe your dice are luckier than mine, or something.  I find that when I get one of those, invariably at least one of the tourists will want to land on the Mun, and at least one will want to land on Minmus, and like-as-not at least one of them will want to orbit/flyby the Sun, which requires peeking outside Kerbin's SoI.

So this means that to complete this contract, I'll either have to launch multiple missions, or else I'll have to launch a ship which I'll have to navigate to the Mun, and land on it, and take off, and navigate from Mun to Minmus, and land on it, and take off again, and go outside Kerbin's SoI, and go home to Kerbin again, and go through all the reentry/landing process.

I find that to be a massive hassle.  It'll almost certainly take at least half an hour of my time, possibly more.  Let's be optimistic and say I can spend half an hour to do a tourist contract that pays 600K funds.  That's 20K funds per minute of my time.  It also likely involves a lot of context-switching, since it will take significant calendar time to do all of the above, which means like as not I'll have to keep mental track of the mission while I'm managing all my other dozens of flights going on, which adds to the hassle.

Now compare that to "science data from space around Kerbin."  ~30K funds for a task which takes (pessimistically) half a minute of my time.  So, 60K/minute, or three times the tourist contract.

Or "science data from space around Mun/Minmus" (or surface thereof).  ~50K funds for half a minute.  100K/minute, or five times the tourist contract.

Or "science data from space around <other planet>" (or surface thereof).  ~120K funds for half a minute.  240K/minute, or twelve times the tourist contract.

Or "station on a solar orbit".  ~600K funds for two minutes of my time.  300K/minute, or 15 times the tourist contract.

It would be different if I actually enjoyed the tourist contracts at all, which of course is entirely subjective; different folks like different things.  In that case, the fact that the tourist contracts pay far less per minute than virtually any other kind of contract wouldn't matter so much, because it wouldn't be the sole consideration.

But I find the tourist contracts to be utterly uninteresting.  Either they involve going to Mun/Minmus-- which I've already gone to umpty-zillion times when I was doing the science exploration in early career-- or they want to go to another planet that I've already been to-- which aside from not being super interesting ('coz I've already been there) are completely beyond the pale for me, because it involves tying up a contract slot for kerbal years to do something that I could do in just a few kerbal days by launching a solar station.

So, for me it's all about the money per minute, and I find that the tourist contracts are utterly terrible for that.

[Kerbart]

49 minutes ago, Snark said:

Nope, quite serious. 

Yes, and by my definition... that's a terrible deal.

The utility of a contract (as a money-making mechanism) has very little to do with how much the contract is worth.  What matters is, how much is it worth per minute of my time.  If there are two contracts both worth a half-million funds, and one of them takes two minutes of my time and the other takes an hour, guess which one wins?

Obviously a matter of definition

I agree that the tourist landings can be an annoyance but those don't show up for a long time (at least not in my career, YMMV). Dealing with the different requests is mainly a matter of having a whole lot of contracts open. One contract is a royal pain to execute. Five contracts... “OK, we're doing a Mun/Minmus trip. Who's coming along, let's see, we have Dandruff here, not Suzuki (Minmus only), Mayhem, Mike, and then from this contract Barbara, Kerbart, and Snark. Excellent, full house. Let's go!”

The stragglers that have specific wishes usually will hitch along on rescue and science missions.

By the time they want to land on Duna the effort/yield ration starts to drop, but by then you're already swimming in funds and have all buildings upgraded (at least I do, YMMV of course) and other contracts start showing up, as the forementioned "Solar Station" contracts.

[bewing]

3 hours ago, Snark said:

Yes, and by my definition... that's a terrible deal.

I basically agree with Kerbart -- that's how I handle the tourists too. But it's more than that, since I don't leave spare junk in orbit and on the ground on every possible CB. How am I supposed to fill the juicy "collect science in orbit of Minmus" contract if I don't have any krewed or robotic science ships in orbit of Minmus? (They are all just fuel tankers.) Answer: the tourist bus will handle it when it gets there. How do I get a couple of pilots, an engineer, and a scientist boosted to 3 star? Send them with the tourist bus on a Kerbol SOI orbit contract. How do I rotate a new engineer to my Mun drill? Land him with the tourist bus. How do I rescue a new victim and drag his scrap back to Kerbin? The tourist bus can do it, because it has a klaw. What's the most convenient way to get this 1142 points worth of science experiments back to Kerbin? The tourist bus will be here soon, and it can carry multiple copies of experiments. And I have to land the tourist bus on Minmus and the Mun to refuel anyway, so there's no real issue with landing.

Also, it takes me less than 2 minutes to land on the Mun or Minmus. The one that takes forever is Kerbin, because you can't warp. And I find that doing multihop Kerbin SOI tourist missions is fastest if I do them in the order Minmus - Sun orbit - Mun -- because the Mun is always in the way when I'm coming back in-system anyway, so it's really easy to stop there. It only takes a few m/s burn at the Kerbin SOI boundary to create a nice Mun encounter. If you can get the total time of the tourist bus mission (that is not devoted to other things) down from 30 to 10 minutes, they become competitive. Just gotta land faster and be a little less conservative with fuel.

 

 

[Spricigo]

In the end it's not about funds/contract or even funds/minute.  Is about finds/effort  and how much one enjoy a given tasks,  since one needs less effort to do something sometimes enjoyable. 

For me this means a big  drop in the value of tourists contracts and a boost for rescues  (wich it  don't  need). 

[Snark]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

How am I supposed to fill the juicy "collect science in orbit of Minmus" contract if I don't have any krewed or robotic science ships in orbit of Minmus? (They are all just fuel tankers.)

You use one of the fuel tankers.  You do stick a thermometer on every vessel to be left in situ for just this occasion, right? 

A lot of it comes down to play styles.  You and Kerbart both give a lot of useful, valid cases where it's convenient for a tourist to hitch a ride on certain kinds of missions.  But I don't fly those kinds of missions, given the way I play, so it's not useful to me.  For example:  I go to the Mun a lot in early-to-mid game, since I'm mining it for science.  But I'm doing that on a shoestring, so there's no room on the ship for anyone but a scientist and a probe core.  And once I'm done with that science... I'm basically done with the Mun.  I have no reason to go back there.  So a tourist who wants to go there is a pain in the butt.  I may pick up a "rescue kerbal from orbit around the Mun" after that, for the cash, and I suppose a tourist could hitch a ride along with that.  But it's unlikely that the tourist contract and the rescue contract will pop up at the same time, and I don't like to take one and then sit around waiting for the other because then I've got a contract slot used up just sitting on the shelf.

Basically, it comes down to this:  You/Kerbart play in a way that having tourists hitch rides is little additional effort.  I play in a way that it would be a major inconvenience.

So, the moral of the story is:  yes, tourist contracts can be financially worthwhile... but only for certain play styles.

[Carl]

22 hours ago, Snark said:

Tourist contracts also tend not to pay very much, compared with how much of your time they take to complete, which is why I tend not to do them very much, at least in the mid-to-late career.  However, it's often worth doing a few of them in early career, not so much because of the cash ('coz they're not worth all that much), but rather for the reputation.  Early-career tourist contracts are a pretty good reputation source, and doing a few of them can unlock some of the more lucrative contracts.  Think of it as an investment. 

Contracts that I like, a lot:

• "Rescue kerbal from LKO."  Pays reasonably... but it also gives you a free kerbal in your space program, which saves a bunch of cash, with the added bonus that they start at level 1 because they've already been in orbit.    Plus, this means you don't need to upgrade your astronaut complex all the way up to level 3; you can have as many kerbals as you want, if you acquire them via rescue rather than hiring.  Also, if you're new to KSP, rescuing kerbals from LKO is great "target practice" to develop your orbital-rendezvous skills, which you'll need a lot later on.
• "Science data from the surface of X" or "from space around X":  I love these things.  They pay reasonably well... and they pop up very frequently... and they only take like ten seconds to complete.  Just go to the tracking station, switch to the ship that I already have parked in the location it's asking for (e.g. orbiting the Mun, or whatever), take a quick temperature reading (even if it's not worth any science points anymore) and broadcast it.  There, done, chunk of cash for ten seconds' work.  Completely repeatable the next time the contract pops up.
• "New station on a solar orbit".  These don't come up until mid-career... but holy mackerel do they pay off.  Upwards of half a million funds at a pop.  And they're super quick and easy to bang out:  slap together a craft, launch it on an escape trajectory from Kerbin, then bang you're done as soon as it steps outside Kerbin's SoI.  Great gooey gobs of cash for just a few minutes' work, even including the time to build a custom craft from scratch.  When you see one of these, jump on it with both feet.

Eh, i've just got to "tourist mun orbit" contracts and my latest 22 tourist design earns me around a mil a shot. For the time investment thats incredible. Tourist are good when you can build rockets able to take ludicrous numbers of them. And that with 40% of funds getting turned into science.

 

Finished reading the rest of the thread Snark. Not sure how your making your money honestly. There's nothing time to rewards that matches mass tourists, (playtime anyway), some contracts can pay more sure, but your still going to have to send a ship places to go do them, thats still going to take time, and you can;t stack as many of them. I agree when i get to the point of landings it is so going to be an epic pain. Probably gonna build a super lander to handle the Mun/Minmus run in one shot. I'm still at the "haul them to orbit and back" stage which is fairly easy.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Carl

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Carl said:

There's nothing time to rewards that matches mass tourists, (playtime anyway), some contracts can pay more sure, but your still going to have to send a ship places to go do them, thats still going to take time, and you can;t stack as many of them.

Satellites missions are pretty "stackable"  in the sense that you can launch several satellite at once or/and use the same satellite for several missions .  After launching it takes maybe a minute or so of actual playtime for matching a orbit. A trick I use its to change the satellite name to include the remaining deltaV so I don't take a mission to reposition a satellite without propulsion. Also,  as pointed out glue in a thermometer so it will be ready for the eventual "Science around X"  missions. 

For me the problem with tourism its not that it is not lucrative but rather that I don't like it, and since there is other options that give enough funds (even with 60% turned into science or reputation)  tourists are filler to give a reason to my rescue craft return early.