Outpost Contract?

[BentRim]

I am trying to plan a Mun outpost to fulfill a contract.  Can a group of landers close to each other fulfill a contract or do they need to be physically connected with docking ports?

 

[bewing]

Docking ports or Klaws are required. You have to connect it all together into one "vessel" at the destination. (And you need to make sure that all the pieces are "new"! Which can mean "never docked to anything but each other before", sometimes.)

 

[Spricigo]

 

Anyone know if using an "old" module will fulfil an expansion contracts?

[bewing]

Generally not. The contracts almost always specify that the outposts/bases must be new.

 

[Spricigo]

 

Well, that is the case for the build spacestation contract, however for the expand spacestation things maybe different.
I will probably check it out for myself but my reasoning so far:

1.Only the craft with the required ID will complete the contract. Even if the game check the age of the craft, the age the station have when the contract is generated need to be valid.

2. Two vessels docked together become one vessel with the age of the older vessel. A module newer than the station will preserve the age, which is valid.

Now to clarify the situation I'm considering may not complete the contract:

I have two station in orbit: Mir is 2yo and support 5 kerbals, ISS is 1yo and support 10 kerbals.

A contract is generated asking to expand ISS to support 15 kerbals. What happens if I dock Mir and ISS together?

My supposition is that the resulting craft will have be considered Mir, so it will not complete the contract. However I think the game keep track of the  ISS ID, if nothing else to reassign the correct ID when undocking, so the contract will not end in failure when docking Mir and ISS together.

[bewing]

I agree with your reasoning. That sounds like a very interesting experiment to try sometime. I wasn't thinking about the "expand" contracts when I wrote that, so yes, that certainly might work. It might be possible to complete multiple "expand" contracts in that way, I suppose. Undocking and redocking to create different combinations.