Overrun with space tourists- career mode lost!

[FlyingPete]

I've had an early career mode save going, and got to the point of suborbital flight (basically a sounding rocket that clears the atmosphere). Trouble is, then the space tourist contracts started coming in, to the extent that there were very few meaningful science contracts, or part testing ones that were profitable. Managed to get Val into orbit, and suddenly everyone on Kerbin wants to go into space for peanuts- it's just as silly as everyone in the Soviet Union expecting to be taken into space straight after Gagarin's flight. Decline the tourist contract and another one pops up straight away. There are no contracts that give science available, so no part upgrades to be had in order to reach the Mun, plus there's nothing available to make money from, so I can't go off exploring and get science/new parts that way. IME, space tourists break career mode.

What would be nice is a button in mission control to 'decline all contracts of this type'.

[jkool702]

I'd somewhat agree with you then the space tourism contracts can get kind of annoying, but I've never had trouble making money off of them. Do you have funding rewards turned down?

[Chibbity]

Agreed, I find the compensation often isn't enough to warrant the cost of the ship/the time it takes...and that's assuming you don't muck something up and have to reload from the launchpad. I'd love to see an increase in the rewards for missions in general.

[Kerbart]

A few observations:

• Since 1.0 don't expect a lot of science of of contracts. There are contracts that will get you some science, but you run contracts for the money. And use that money to finance science (or manage to do some science while fulfilling contracts--but that's merely reducing the cost of your science experiments and not really "getting science from a contract").
  
• Career modeTourist contracts doesn't get you a lot of money but it does get you reputation, thus getting you better contracts
  
• IMHO the gravy train is in rescueing Kerbals. Rescueing a Kerbal from Munar orbit yields about $150,000 or more, and gets you an extra crew member, while you can run these missions for about $20,000 each. I also use these missions to ferry Mun science experiments back to Kerbin (but I digress). In my current career game I haven't even set foot on Minmus yet, and I've ungraded all buildings to their max level and have about a million bucks... BRING ON THE SCIENCE
  

If you fly a few more missions your contracts will probably getting more varied. If all you did was get into orbit, then most contracts will cater to just that.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Kerbart

[Vorg]

Use what ever parts you can cobble together to run around to the buildings and collect science. You could just drop a pod on the pad and have the kerbal run around on foot, but that takes too long and he has to run back each time. Use the landing gear you get to make a rocket car to tool around. You'll get enough science to unlock the better parts which will in turn unlock other missions. Don't forget, there are acheavment rewards you get just for doing things like reaching higher or getting into orbit that don't show up as missions you take.

[PB666]

I've had an early career mode save going, and got to the point of suborbital flight (basically a sounding rocket that clears the atmosphere). Trouble is, then the space tourist contracts started coming in, to the extent that there were very few meaningful science contracts, or part testing ones that were profitable. Managed to get Val into orbit, and suddenly everyone on Kerbin wants to go into space for peanuts- it's just as silly as everyone in the Soviet Union expecting to be taken into space straight after Gagarin's flight. Decline the tourist contract and another one pops up straight away. There are no contracts that give science available, so no part upgrades to be had in order to reach the Mun, plus there's nothing available to make money from, so I can't go off exploring and get science/new parts that way. IME, space tourists break career mode.

What would be nice is a button in mission control to 'decline all contracts of this type'.

Here are your science paydirt

Early game

Biomes-

shores

KSC

LP

RW

SPH(2)

VAB(2)

R&D(2)

MC

Ad

TS

FP

AC

CW

Waters (About 3 kilometers offshore)

Grasslands

Tundra if you can hit it

Tools-

1.EVA and goo

2. Mat sci

3. Temp

4. Baro

Levels

Ground

1 meter to 18000 meters

18000 to 70,000 meters

Mid Game

low kerbin orbit

high kerbin orbit.

low munar orbit

high munar orbit

low minum orbit

high minmus orbit

kerbol orbit

Biomes on Kerbin

Desert, highlands, polar, Mountains, Badlands, tundra

Midlate game

15 biomes of Mun and 9 biomes of Minmus (2 mat, 2 goo, 1 temp, 1 baro, 1 transmitted soil, 1 stored soil, ground EVA, EVA above)

Late game (2nd satellite exploration phase)

15 biomes of Mun and 9 biomes of Minmus (2 mat, 2 goo, 1 soil, 2 seismic, 2 gravoli), gravoli of kerbin biomes in orbit, and siesmic and gravoli on the ground.

KSC adds biomes with facility upgrade plus new science tools, revisit KSC sites to gather more science (grindy at best).

Late game hard mode

Processing lab over Minmus, in Kerbol orbit

Late game landers should rotate between science lab in satellite orbit, refueled from kerbin data return during each 'game' should comprise two tried reentry vessels for data. Each vessel holds part of the data for each landing mission. Each game sends science lab and lander to both mun and minmus, the return to high munar orbit to send data back. The lander will have to be replaced for late game missions because of upgraded tools.

[FancyMouse]

What would be nice is a button in mission control to 'decline all contracts of this type'.

There are mods that do that, e.g. ContractFilter

[boostme]

I'm just getting into the late mid-game, but I remember quite enjoying those early suborbital missions. I stuck some basic jets on a srb and made a single-stage suborbital craft. It goes straight up and comes straight down again, landing close to the KSC for 97% recovery. It cost peanuts to operate and did a fair amount of science too. It was great for tourist hops and for the various equipment testing missions.

I waited until I had a fully recoverable space-plane before doing the orbital tourist/testing missions. My current design can lift 6 kerbals and two small (or one large) satellites into LKO. I've lost count of the missions I've flown this way, and by now I'm nailing the un-powered runway landings every time. It's amazing how far you can take an octo core with a single Oscar-B tank and a 48-7s spark engine once it's in LKO. These can be launched three at a time.

[r4pt0r]

That spark can use 180 units of fuel, to get a probecore, heatshield, small science things, and a parachute from gilly to kerbin.

If you can get it there, it will come home.

Really its become one of my favorite engines.

As for space tourists I like the kerbin orbit ones because I always bring an extra seat to rescue some new recruits.

[Grumman]

Take two tourist contracts at the same time - if you push for the Hitchhiker capsule you can easily make 80,000 + 10,000 recovery off a 30,000 launch to orbit - more if you pretend your orbiter is a space station.

[Tynrael]

If they are all similar in what they want, do them all at the same time. If you can build a rocket to bring 1 capsule to orbit adding 2-3 more might make the rocket look silly but will not really add much weight. The available contracts are based on your reputation so to get better ones you will have to accomplish enough of these generic ones. If you can also get a "rescue from orbit" add an extra capsule and fuel for the maneuvering, doing as many contracts as possible with the fewest rockets is the best way to manage the funds.

If you need some simple starter science, the Space Center has over half a dozen biomes if you want to drop a rocket into them with some experiments.

[Grumman]

If you need some simple starter science, the Space Center has over half a dozen biomes if you want to drop a rocket into them with some experiments.

Better than a rocket is a jet engine with landing gear as a jet-powered science car.

[SkyRender]

I'm kind of amazed that there's still no mod to add "do not generate this type of contract" functionality to KSP. Well, at least not intuitively. There IS a mod (Contract Configurator) that lets you do something like that, but it's a lot of work to set that up and it's a complete pain to get rid of stock contract types.

[Evanitis]

I just -love- tourist contracts. Not by themeselves, but by taking them along with more serious missions. I tend to include so many civilians on various tasks that I keep forgeting they are there. A Duna expedition just returned with two tourists that only wanted a Mun flyby. It's their fault telling me they had 6 years of free time. There's a guy on my Minmus mining rig too. I should keep in mind to drop him off with the next ore-load that leaves the place.

Ahh, and my last 6-8 rescued LKO kerbonauts were greeted by tourists. Jeb is a bit envy, but what can one do? Advanced probes can fly my SSTOs just as well, so I can close 3-4 contracts in a zero cost flight.

My only related wish is if could strap the hitch-hikers into external command seats. I'd prefer my valuable kerbonauts to use the safer and more comfy spots.

[oglommi]

You can go into the /gamedata/squad/contracts/contracts.cfg file and increase number of available contracts. So you have more to choose from.