A Kerbal Suggestion - actual Recovering

[Tex_NL]

7 minutes ago, tater said:

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As for faster recovery... there is a limit to how fast you could recover, and it gets complicated as soon as you are on a different continent, because then ships would be required (and might always be depending on size).

i think the time should be distance related, except for stuff right near KSC (an incentive to land back on the runway).

Of course the main factor in recovery time is distance. That should be a dead-give-away. What I meant with 'faster recovery' was not necessarily the recovery time but rather the speed. e.g. A recovery that takes 3 days at tier 1 takes just 2 at tier 2.

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Perhaps recovery upgrades would unlock centers elsewhere on kerbin, and those would have the same recovery radius as KSC. What would be really cool would be the ability to place recovery zones for some cost, but I have no idea if that is possible. What if there were 2 parts that could be placed anywhere on Kerbin. One type is a ship (with a helo pad on deck), there other a building of some sort. They would be VERY expensive. Hundreds of thousands of funds or more. They would each have a substantial radius, and anything that lands within that is recovered as if it landed at KSC.

Additional recovery zones (be it fixed or custom) would add a whole new, and very interesting layer of game play. Now it really pays to pay attention on where you'll land.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Tex_NL

[Jonfliesgoats]

I like the ability to recover for full funds at different space centers.  While you have to transport a craft from, say, Muroch Dry Lake to Cape Canaveral, it's not like you have to figure out how to helicopter wreckage out of some forest in Siberia.

Going beyond crew, I think an exponential increase in recovery cost and time should occur with vessel mass.  Plucking a Mk1 capsule out of the wilderness is no big deal.  Recovering 20 tons of orbiter that has descended to Kerbin under a jelly-fish-nightmare of parachutes should be much more expensive and time consuming, proportionate to part cost.

Anything that increases the incentive to land accurately is good.

[tater]

5 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

Of course the main factor in recovery time is distance. That should be a dead-give-away. What I meant with 'faster recovery' was not necessarily the recovery time but rather the speed. e.g. A recovery that takes 3 days at tier 1 takes just 2 at tier 2.

Additional recovery zones (be it fixed or custom) would add a whole new, and very interesting layer of game play. Now it really pays to pay attention on where you'll land.

I'd think recovery time might be weeks, not days. At 30km/h (pretty fast, IMHO), a landing on the other side of kerbin should take 63 days to get back to KSC.

So recovery times should be between 0 and 63 days based on distance. Make the science not happen util recovery, and all of a sudden space programs are not going from "What's a rocket?" to "Let's land an SSTO spaceplane on Laythe!" in less than a year.

[pandaman]

Currently the refund for vessel recovery is reduced the further away from KSC you land, so there is a financial incentive for landing close to home already.

Probably the crew and science etc. should be recovered fairly quickly as they could just be put in a plane and flown back. But the vessel and any cash refund would take much longer. 

[Tex_NL]

8 hours ago, pandaman said:

Currently the refund for vessel recovery is reduced the further away from KSC you land, so there is a financial incentive for landing close to home already.

Probably the crew and science etc. should be recovered fairly quickly as they could just be put in a plane and flown back. But the vessel and any cash refund would take much longer. 

The only reason I recover my vessels is to get my crew and science back. In my 1.2 career I've completely unlocked the tech tree, completely upgraded KSC and have more than I know what to do with. And I barely left Kerbin's SOI.
In an early career recovery for is important. Later recovered are mere icing on the cake.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Tex_NL

[tater]

On October 15, 2016 at 4:57 PM, pandaman said:

Currently the refund for vessel recovery is reduced the further away from KSC you land, so there is a financial incentive for landing close to home already.

Probably the crew and science etc. should be recovered fairly quickly as they could just be put in a plane and flown back. But the vessel and any cash refund would take much longer. 

I'd say that that would depend. If you have a CVN on the other side of the world, then sure, you get the samples back---though having sent people to a distant world, would you really risk the precious samples on an airplane flight when the carrier will be back in port in a few weeks...

Honestly, the real world is not as rushed as KSP. In RL it's not like they'd fly the samples back so that in 6 hours later they'd have a brand new rocket engine. KSP NEEDS time to matter. This is a great way to add weeks at a clip to it.

Edited October 16, 2016 by tater

[BT Industries]

Delay would be nice and an optional cut scene would be cool.

While they are at it they could do a cut scene of your rocket being carried to the launch pad instead of the loading screen (also optional with a skip button when it has finished loading)

[razark]

The cut scene, while nice, would require a lot of work to make something that works for the many different return vehicles/terrain types/time of day/etc. that would need to be covered.

A delay in getting the crew back is good.  The crew should be in an unavailable state for the return to KSC based on distance, plus an additional time of recovery/debriefing/retraining/vacation days/parades/public affairs appearances/paperwork/etc.  based on how long they were on a mission.  This would also help to promote crew rotation, instead of always sending the same Kerbals every time.

A longer delay than the crew returning (not including the additional time) for the recovered spacecraft is good.  This would affect both funds and science from returned vessels.

 

As for a science delay:

Sample returns, materials bay, goo containers, and other "physical" returns should have a delay on return/processing.  Science from things like temperature crew reports, readings, barometers, and other instruments that collect "data" should be available much sooner.  In either case, there should be a pool of points available as soon as they are returned (data immediately, physical once returned to the center), and another pool that is slowly made available as they are processed/studied.

Edited October 16, 2016 by razark

[Jonfliesgoats]

I like the idea of investing in recovery infrastructure, maritime or otherwise.  I think it should actually replace recovery transponders nun the admin building.

[KSPFanatic102]

On October 16, 2016 at 1:57 AM, pandaman said:

Currently the refund for vessel recovery is reduced the further away from KSC you land, so there is a financial incentive for landing close to home already.

Probably the crew and science etc. should be recovered fairly quickly as they could just be put in a plane and flown back. But the vessel and any cash refund would take much longer. 

True

11 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

I like the idea of investing in recovery infrastructure, maritime or otherwise.  I think it should actually replace recovery transponders nun the admin building.

That's pretty realistic that's why I thought of that