Command points - what are they and how to use them properly?

[jpinard]

Sorry this is probably a real dumb question.  I think command points are experience for the kerbals?  But I can't seem to figure out how to see how much Command points  have, nor can I seem to be able to get my scientist any.  What should I be doing with Command Points?

 

Thanks!

[Speeding Mullet]

Hi there!

I believe this should go some way to answering your question

If I've missed the mark or you have any further questions let me know!

SM

[Streetwind]

I've never seen the term "Command Points" used anywhere in KSP... o__O

[Hodari]

7 hours ago, Streetwind said:

I've never seen the term "Command Points" used anywhere in KSP... o__O

Neither have I.  Could be mod related?

[jpinard]

Oh I'm sorry, it's "Reputation" and is signified by the star icon.  I'm playing version beta 1.1

 

And I really am not sure I"m understanding the Administration Building stuff.  I am short on money and science.  I've got unpaid Research Program going but am not sure it's doing anything for me, or if it's worth it.  Or if I even should be using it.  Thanks so much!  You guys are amazing!

Edited April 18, 2016 by jpinard

[soulsource]

Reputation determines how difficult and lucrative the contracts are that are offered to you. The wiki also states that it has an influence on the number of contracts that are being offered.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Reputation

So, if you think that the contracts you get are too hard, better reduce reputation. If you only get contracts that aren't paid well, try to increase it.

[Plusck]

3 hours ago, jpinard said:

Oh I'm sorry, it's "Reputation" and is signified by the star icon.  I'm playing version beta 1.1

 

And I really am not sure I"m understanding the Administration Building stuff.  I am short on money and science.  I've got unpaid Research Program going but am not sure it's doing anything for me, or if it's worth it.  Or if I even should be using it.  Thanks so much!  You guys are amazing!

If you're short of money and science, then the only thing you have to trade for either of them is reputation. So you can either (a) sell yourself out and shamelessly profit from interns, via Fundraising + Unpaid Research Program, getting money and science in return for reduced reputation, or (b) lose some money on contracts and gain from world firsts via Leadershp Initiative.

Beware, however, if you are on medium or hard difficulty because I'm not sure whether that percentage hit you take on income, reputation and science gains isn't deducted after the strategies' effects are calculated. Also, reputation gains seem to be nerfed as you start to reach 100%, but reputation losses are applied in full - so I found (oddly, still not sure if it was a bug or the result of that nerfing) that a high commitment to Leadership Initiative can actually give negative rep on contracts.

So if you're in early career and getting lots of world firsts, adopting Leadership Initiative might help you out. Other than that, you just need to maximise science gathering and only unlock the parts you really need, until the huge contracts start to appear in mission control.

[jpinard]

1 hour ago, soulsource said:

Reputation determines how difficult and lucrative the contracts are that are offered to you. The wiki also states that it has an influence on the number of contracts that are being offered.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Reputation

So, if you think that the contracts you get are too hard, better reduce reputation. If you only get contracts that aren't paid well, try to increase it.

 

Ohhhhh interesting!  Is there a place where I can see how many reputation points I have?  I see a bar that has a mix of rep/money/science but I can't get any good details out of it since it's mostly green.  Or am I reading that bar wrong?

 

9 minutes ago, Plusck said:

If you're short of money and science, then the only thing you have to trade for either of them is reputation. So you can either (a) sell yourself out and shamelessly profit from interns, via Fundraising + Unpaid Research Program, getting money and science in return for reduced reputation, or (b) lose some money on contracts and gain from world firsts via Leadershp Initiative.

Beware, however, if you are on medium or hard difficulty because I'm not sure whether that percentage hit you take on income, reputation and science gains isn't deducted after the strategies' effects are calculated. Also, reputation gains seem to be nerfed as you start to reach 100%, but reputation losses are applied in full - so I found (oddly, still not sure if it was a bug or the result of that nerfing) that a high commitment to Leadership Initiative can actually give negative rep on contracts.

So if you're in early career and getting lots of world firsts, adopting Leadership Initiative might help you out. Other than that, you just need to maximise science gathering and only unlock the parts you really need, until the huge contracts start to appear in mission control.

Have I screwed myself then?  Very early I grabbed "Unpaid Research Program" because I thought itt would always sacrifice a little reputation in return for research points.  My contracts are kind of middling.  I'm so new to the campaigns I don't know if these are good for money or not?  For instance right now I have one that says I can ferry 4 people around orbit for a combined $40k.  There is no longer an advance on this, and the craft will cost me $20k, so a $20k profit doesn't seem to great.

 

I have unlocked all tier 4 level science, Have just 2 buildings upgraded, and have $500k in bank.  I have 40 science right now.  It says if I wanted to do "Leadership Initiative" it would cost a whopping 73 research points. 15 command pointgs, and $36k.  Should I stay with Unpaid Research Program?  or dump it and just swap command for research when I need it?  Also, when you use Reputation for science or money swap, does that mean your contracts will get worse?  Also, where does it actually show the number of reputation points I have?

 

Thanks a ton for your help!

Edited April 18, 2016 by jpinard

[Plusck]

49 minutes ago, jpinard said:

 

Ohhhhh interesting!  Is there a place where I can see how many reputation points I have?  I see a bar that has a mix of rep/money/science but I can't get any good details out of it since it's mostly green.  Or am I reading that bar wrong?

 

Have I screwed myself then?  Very early I grabbed "Unpaid Research Program" because I thought itt would always sacrifice a little reputation in return for research points.  My contracts are kind of middling.  I'm so new to the campaigns I don't know if these are good for money or not?  For instance right now I have one that says I can ferry 4 people around orbit for a combined $40k.  There is no longer an advance on this, and the craft will cost me $20k, so a $20k profit doesn't seem to great.

 

I have unlocked all tier 4 level science, Have just 2 buildings upgraded, and have $500k in bank.  I have 40 science right now.  It says if I wanted to do "Leadership Initiative" it would cost a whopping 73 research points. 15 command pointgs, and $36k.  Should I stay with Unpaid Research Program?  or dump it and just swap command for research when I need it?  Also, when you use Reputation for science or money swap, does that mean your contracts will get worse?  Also, where does it actually show the number of reputation points I have?

 

Thanks a ton for your help!

You can see your rep points whenever you get Rep on a returned mission - the figure at the bottom of the window where your crew's XP gains are shown. It looks like your percentage is that divided by ten... but as it increases I don't think it increases linearly with each point you earn.

I really don't know whether you're screwing yourself or not. I too find some parts of the system confusing.

I personally only started with strategies once I maxed out the science tree, so that I could get maximum cash for science points. And now I'm tying to get maximum reputation for science and money, since I have oodles of cash in my career save.

As I said, I dabbled with Leadership Initiative but I regretted it - it was too late in career to start, my rep was probably too high to make it worthwhile, and it was messing up the returns on contracts badly.

 

So I would say - tread warily : D

You seem to have as good a grasp of the ins and outs of it as anyone, now, so you might be right avoid strategies until you raise your rep more. I'd suggest concentrating on science: do a couple of science-gathering trips, unlock science experiments in the tech tree, spend some of that 500k funds on more science trips to use those new experiments and complete Minmus biomes (for example). That may be a good time to just quit the strategies until you start running a surplus of something you don't need (rather than using them to make up for a deficit of something you do need...).

Also, 500k funds is enough for about 15 manned trips to Minmus. If you're spending more than about 25k on your rockets before adding science experiments, you're doing something very inefficiently. However, since you say you've designed a 4-person orbiting craft for 20k, I don't think that over-designing is a problem.

Yes, it's middling for a contract but sometimes it's worth doing these things just to get a reason to get some practice in.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Plusck

[Hodari]

I'd say don't even bother with strategies at all unless you have a very strong need for one resource and way too much of another.  And that certainly should be the last building you think about upgrading

[Hodari]

2 hours ago, jpinard said:

For instance right now I have one that says I can ferry 4 people around orbit for a combined $40k.  There is no longer an advance on this, and the craft will cost me $20k, so a $20k profit doesn't seem to great.

Two things to note on this:

1.  That contract may not give a huge amount of money, but it's still enough to cover a few missions at least.  Perhaps more importantly though, those tourism contracts also give a decent amount of reputation so they'll help you unlock better contracts later on.  If you don't have any better contracts available at the moment, it might be worth doing.

2.  Also keep in mind that you don't have to bring ALL of the tourists to all of their destinations in the same mission.  Sometimes they won't even all be going to the same places.  So it might be worth figuring out if you can do it more cheaply by splitting them up and only doing 2 of them at a time.

[ibanix]

Also, the Strategia mod makes  strategies way more interesting.

[mrclucks]

Have you been accepting reasonable contracts?

A good way to make money is to accept lots of satellite contracts and then make small rocket with lots of DV (small rockets are usually cheaper and light, which is cheaper and easier to launch).  Make sure that you plan out how you will achieve each orbit and in which order.  Always try to make your transactions as efficient as possible

[jpinard]

On 4/20/2016 at 10:56 PM, mrclucks said:

Have you been accepting reasonable contracts?

A good way to make money is to accept lots of satellite contracts and then make small rocket with lots of DV (small rockets are usually cheaper and light, which is cheaper and easier to launch).  Make sure that you plan out how you will achieve each orbit and in which order.  Always try to make your transactions as efficient as possible

I have not had any satellite contracts yet but will watch out for them.  My rep is pretty high and the missions I'm getting are really hard for me.

[Plusck]

I just started a new careeer save with 1.1, which has reminded me of a lot of details that I'd forgotten about...

First of all, I avoid all "location" contracts like the plague. I start by just taking contracts for things I'm going to do straight away anyway (like escape the atmosphere).

As soon as you get out of the atmosphere, you get tourist contracts. Suborbital hops are great for prestige (i.e. reputation) but poor on cash, but they only take 10 minutes to do. So I design myself a tour bus that can only just go suborbital, staying under 18t and 30 parts (i.e. dirt cheap and no building upgrades needed) and line up the punters. After a couple of them my design evolves into a dirt-cheap 4-tourist people carrier. That provides the cash to upgrade mission control to have 7 concurrent contracts.

In doing them, I found myself easily making orbit at 18t, upgraded to accept a contract to go to the Mun, started getting "VIP" orbit tourist contracts but by then, the part testing contracts started getting interesting. There's always going to be one that is really hard and pays a good advance - and the others can often be combined in a single ship or two. For example, I had a test a Poodle at 240,000m-250,000m - pretty much impossible without unlocking more 2.5m tech - but since I knew I was about to complete two other contracts and free up those slots, I took it for the advance and in the hope that something more interesting would come up in the same line if I accepted it...

I've been zealous in rescuing Kerbals (and now, having accepted a couple of Mun-based contracts, I have two stranded Kerbals waiting for me in orbit around the Mun), and now I'm trying to combine satellite contracts - always with a thermometer attached anyway because you never know when a "send science from space around X" is going to come up.

And now Minmus contracts have come up. That means much more cash and, soon, much more science.

So if I'd recommend anything in all that, it is to avoid upgrading VAB or launchpad too soon - force yourself to pare things down to the essential and you'll make greater profits. Do, however, ensure you have space to accept good contracts and check their expiry dates: if you have a wonderfully paid "plant flag on Mun" contract expiring in two days but a lost Kerbal in LKO comes up, take the Kerbal and do the rescue because you should be able to do the rescue in about 30 minutes to an hour (Kerbin time) if you time your launch right (i.e. when the wreck is over the sea just to the west of KSC). So you need to upgrade the complex to do EVAs, you need patched conics, but you don't need huge rockets.

[Godot]

1 hour ago, Plusck said:

I just started a new careeer save with 1.1, which has reminded me of a lot of details that I'd forgotten about...

First of all, I avoid all "location" contracts like the plague. I start by just taking contracts for things I'm going to do straight away anyway (like escape the atmosphere).

As soon as you get out of the atmosphere, you get tourist contracts. Suborbital hops are great for prestige (i.e. reputation) but poor on cash, but they only take 10 minutes to do. So I design myself a tour bus that can only just go suborbital, staying under 18t and 30 parts (i.e. dirt cheap and no building upgrades needed) and line up the punters. After a couple of them my design evolves into a dirt-cheap 4-tourist people carrier. That provides the cash to upgrade mission control to have 7 concurrent contracts.

...

 

I for my part make my suborbital (and also orbital) tour buses as recycleable as possible (which, in case of my suborbital tour buses, means 100%)

You can well do it by designing the ship in a way, that it only consists of 2 major stages (if we discount stages to fire off parachutes) and has the 2nd stage only then separate when you are already shortly before touchdown (i.e. around 10 km altitude) ... and, of course fit the second stage (as well as the first one) wsith enough parachutes to land.

 

This way you only have costs for fuel, as well as a small percentage of your spaceships worth that gets spent on recovery (which, as suborbital hops don´t take you too far from KSC, are really small costs)

[jpinard]

On 4/21/2016 at 2:54 AM, Godot said:

 

I for my part make my suborbital (and also orbital) tour buses as recycleable as possible (which, in case of my suborbital tour buses, means 100%)

You can well do it by designing the ship in a way, that it only consists of 2 major stages (if we discount stages to fire off parachutes) and has the 2nd stage only then separate when you are already shortly before touchdown (i.e. around 10 km altitude) ... and, of course fit the second stage (as well as the first one) wsith enough parachutes to land.

 

This way you only have costs for fuel, as well as a small percentage of your spaceships worth that gets spent on recovery (which, as suborbital hops don´t take you too far from KSC, are really small costs)

 

On 4/21/2016 at 1:37 AM, Plusck said:

I just started a new careeer save with 1.1, which has reminded me of a lot of details that I'd forgotten about...

First of all, I avoid all "location" contracts like the plague. I start by just taking contracts for things I'm going to do straight away anyway (like escape the atmosphere).

As soon as you get out of the atmosphere, you get tourist contracts. Suborbital hops are great for prestige (i.e. reputation) but poor on cash, but they only take 10 minutes to do. So I design myself a tour bus that can only just go suborbital, staying under 18t and 30 parts (i.e. dirt cheap and no building upgrades needed) and line up the punters. After a couple of them my design evolves into a dirt-cheap 4-tourist people carrier. That provides the cash to upgrade mission control to have 7 concurrent contracts.

In doing them, I found myself easily making orbit at 18t, upgraded to accept a contract to go to the Mun, started getting "VIP" orbit tourist contracts but by then, the part testing contracts started getting interesting. There's always going to be one that is really hard and pays a good advance - and the others can often be combined in a single ship or two. For example, I had a test a Poodle at 240,000m-250,000m - pretty much impossible without unlocking more 2.5m tech - but since I knew I was about to complete two other contracts and free up those slots, I took it for the advance and in the hope that something more interesting would come up in the same line if I accepted it...

I've been zealous in rescuing Kerbals (and now, having accepted a couple of Mun-based contracts, I have two stranded Kerbals waiting for me in orbit around the Mun), and now I'm trying to combine satellite contracts - always with a thermometer attached anyway because you never know when a "send science from space around X" is going to come up.

And now Minmus contracts have come up. That means much more cash and, soon, much more science.

So if I'd recommend anything in all that, it is to avoid upgrading VAB or launchpad too soon - force yourself to pare things down to the essential and you'll make greater profits. Do, however, ensure you have space to accept good contracts and check their expiry dates: if you have a wonderfully paid "plant flag on Mun" contract expiring in two days but a lost Kerbal in LKO comes up, take the Kerbal and do the rescue because you should be able to do the rescue in about 30 minutes to an hour (Kerbin time) if you time your launch right (i.e. when the wreck is over the sea just to the west of KSC). So you need to upgrade the complex to do EVAs, you need patched conics, but you don't need huge rockets.

 

I have spent a lot of time trying to come up with designs exactly like the two of you have discussed but have not come anywhere near your results.  For instance, the cheapest 4 tourist bus I've made costs 30k.  Would you two be up for posting your designs either as rocket files or pictures?  It would really help me expand my horizons and my lack of creativity!

[Godot]

4 hours ago, jpinard said:

 

 

I have spent a lot of time trying to come up with designs exactly like the two of you have discussed but have not come anywhere near your results.  For instance, the cheapest 4 tourist bus I've made costs 30k.  Would you two be up for posting your designs either as rocket files or pictures?  It would really help me expand my horizons and my lack of creativity!

Just made an album in imgur:

http://imgur.com/a/y0NAg

 

The 3 booster rockets of the orbital Touribus are unrecoverable and what can be recovered (i.e. the main engine stage and the passenger/pilot stage) usually nets me, depending on distance to KSP, around 10k 

I should also mention that in both Touribuses I leave fuel in the tanks for active braking during descent (witrh the suborbital touribus I just aim for ~80km Apoapsis and with the orbital touribus I usually get around 500-900 m/s dV in fuel remaining after circularising the orbit) and that, in the orbital touribus I choose a shallow descent for reentry (with an Apoapsis of around 45km).

And, as you see, I make use of drogue chutes for final braking when my rocket has slowed down to < 600 m/s 

Edited April 23, 2016 by Godot

[jpinard]

7 minutes ago, Godot said:

Just made an album in imgur:

http://imgur.com/a/y0NAg

 

The 3 booster rockets of the orbital Touribus are unrecoverable and what can be recovered (i.e. the main engine stage and the passenger/pilot stage) usually nets me, depending on distance to KSP, around 10k 

I should also mention that in both Touribuses I leave fuel in the tanks for active braking during descent and that, in the orbital touribus I choose a shallow descent for reentry (with an Apoapsis of around 45km).

And, as you see, I make use of drogue chutes for final braking when my rocket has slowed down to < 600 m/s 

Very cool!  Your 2 person orbital touribus + science.  Does that have the Poodle engine?  Or did you use 3 orange engines instead?  I have never used those engines myself.

I have had issues with my orbital returns that scare me.  Coming back to Kerbin from the Mun and meandering between 2,500-3,000 is frightening.  I've had a few times I blew up unexpectedly and lost my mouse over my shoulder.

Edited April 23, 2016 by jpinard

[Godot]

7 minutes ago, jpinard said:

Very cool!  Your 2 person orbital touribus + science.  Does that have the Poodle engine?  Or did you use 3 orange engines instead?  I have never used those engines myself.

Nope ... the engines can be seen at the lower edge of the tank ... it is 3 radial Thud-Engines.

I don´t have the necessary tech-level yet, to use poodle engines. But when they are unlocked I only use them for pure space stages ... poodle engines are really inefficient in an atmosphere (Isp of just 90 in an atmosphere, compared to the Isp of 275 for the radial engines)

Edited April 23, 2016 by Godot

[jpinard]

18 minutes ago, Godot said:

Just made an album in imgur:

http://imgur.com/a/y0NAg

 

The 3 booster rockets of the orbital Touribus are unrecoverable and what can be recovered (i.e. the main engine stage and the passenger/pilot stage) usually nets me, depending on distance to KSP, around 10k 

I should also mention that in both Touribuses I leave fuel in the tanks for active braking during descent and that, in the orbital touribus I choose a shallow descent for reentry (with an Apoapsis of around 45km).

And, as you see, I make use of drogue chutes for final braking when my rocket has slowed down to < 600 m/s 

Funny thing, with my 4 person to Mun and back tourist ship I used the poodle engine plus cause it was 5k cheaper than the other big one I'd tried...  So I had to add the gignostic SRB's to get into space.

[Godot]

34 minutes ago, jpinard said:

Funny thing, with my 4 person to Mun and back tourist ship I used the poodle engine plus cause it was 5k cheaper than the other big one I'd tried...  So I had to add the gignostic SRB's to get into space.

Most probably because in this case, most of the dV expended in maneuvres took place in space (and  low atmosphere pressure environments) ... and for the first 20kms most of your thrust could be prodived by boosters (which also have a way higher Isp in atmosphere than the poodle engine). So that the higher efficiency during the space passages was more than enough to balance out the poodle engines lower efficiency of the lower atmosphere passages.

In contrast to Kerbins suborbital and orbital tourist trips, where a much larger percentage of the dV needed is expended in atmosphere and the dV needed in space is (compared to this) only miniscule (and therefore the poodles low Isp is much more of a factor)

[jpinard]

23 minutes ago, Godot said:

Most probably because in this case, most of the dV expended in maneuvres took place in space (and  low atmosphere pressure environments) ... and for the first 20kms most of your thrust could be prodived by boosters (which also have a way higher Isp in atmosphere than the poodle engine). So that the higher efficiency during the space passages was more than enough to balance out the poodle engines lower efficiency of the lower atmosphere passages.

In contrast to Kerbins suborbital and orbital tourist trips, where a much larger percentage of the dV needed is expended in atmosphere and the dV needed in space is (compared to this) only miniscule (and therefore the poodles low Isp is much more of a factor)

This has been a fascinating line of chat.  Thank you so much for your insight!  So exciting from my point of view!

[Plusck]

Once you're above 10km, the Poodle does have quite a respectable ISP - that's the point it exceeds 300s (IIRC) - so even if you only get up to about 6 or 8km with boosters, it can be more efficient using a Poodle and a touch more fuel than using a bigger engine. Plus if you can get away with just the Poodle (due to overall ship size and therefore second stage TWR requirements) you save enormously on weight by not needing two separate lifter and middle stages.

Obviously that all depends on what you're going to do once you're in orbit. To go to the Mun with 2.5m parts, for example, you don't want to lug lots of empty fuel tanks around so it makes more sense giving the Poodle less fuel and putting a lifter stage underneath it.

My tourist buses:

First one is 4-tourist suborbital. I take it quite steeply up to 72km, then try to hold retrograde (since Jeb can't do it himself) and use the remaining fuel to slow in bursts at about 50km and 40km. It invariably flips, but by that time the drogue chute is usable. If there's fuel left, I don't decouple the bottom of the rocket and use engines to slow to about 8 m/s before splashdown. Total recovery: 5,300 funds, so the entire cost of a 4-tourist contract is 2,300 funds!

Second one is a natural extension of the same base, only orbital. Quite exactly 18 tonnes and only 22 parts. Actually cheaper than the 4-tourist suborbital because it has no science experiments on it, otherwise it went over 18t. It only has one drogue and one Mk16 parachute, so the engine is discarded shortly after re-entering the atmosphere. Remaining fuel is used to burn midway between retrograde and radial out, to reduce speed while maintaining a shallow descent profile.

In both cases, that's a Reliant under the cowling after the Fleas burn out.

I haven't tried making a 4-tourist orbiter. It seems to me that the added hastle and danger of re-entry, plus the need to expand the launchpad, makes it far simpler and cheaper to do two orbital trips.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Plusck

[jpinard]

See I had never even considered stacking two 2 tourist tubes on top of each other.  Not having to go with the fatter heftier components could have saved a lot.

You mentioned earlier saving Kerbal in space.  I have been terrified of the rescue Kerbal contracts.  2 years ago when I played I could barely rendezvous in space let alone dock.  I watched all of Scott Manley's new video tutorial series and he did a rescue... Made it look easy, but I'm not sure I can pull it off.  I certainly want to do it and know I need to figure out the skills.  One of the possible contracts I can grab right now is send two rockets up and have them within sight of each other,. Maybe that isn't as hard as I'm making it out to be.