Mixed tourist destinations are making me angry. >:(

[Vanamonde]

I fly four of the little twits to orbit, but then one of them isn't happy. Why? Because he also wants a Mun fly-by. Or to pass out. Or one thing or another. Could all the tourists in the same contract have the same destination, please? 

[Aelfhe1m]

You could try the tourism plus mod.

[regex]

loltourists

[tater]

If career mode wasn't awful, then tourism might be a legitimate path to some sort of space company (BO or VG, for example). You'd design a mission type, and tourists would pay or they wouldn't.

The career contract paradigm is so awful, they are just random, silly side quests. (a description I think I'm stealing from @regex).

[qzgy]

Career mode seems to be one of the constant complaints about this game, I've noticed

Doesn't make sense and tedious. Also the whole contract thing is kinda boring after a while. Go there, do this, fly over there, put this into orbit.

[Helmetman]

7 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Or to pass out. 

What's the matter with darn stupid Kerbals. If I'm going to be a tourist after 324 days of work I wanna pass out in the sun. Not have some stupid yokel of a computer player toss me around in a flying washing machine at 15+ G's. I guess life in the universe is very dynamic and broadly envisioned.

I guess tourism is different for a Kerbal then for a human. Weird little buggers they are, huh, what did you say? Oh yeah, Twits!!

Personally I leave those contracts until a tourist contract pops up with similar destinations. Mind you that these exist a plenty. But yes, they should all be like that.
If one of the twits is willing to go to the mun beyond Lko you could aswell start programming the tourist contracts so that they all wanna go there, and reap the extra profits.

[Spricigo]

14 hours ago, tater said:

You'd design a mission type, and tourists would pay or they wouldn't.

Actually that seems like a interesting idea that can probably be extended for other kinds of services.

As in: "I just happen to have that spacecraft that can put Xt in orbit around the Mun for Y. Any taker?"

 

Yes, contract system is really weird at times:

-We get paid to slave Kerbals found in space.

-People ask us to put stuff in space just to get it robbed by us.

...

Personally, I use the mantra: "Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game...."

[qzgy]

4 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Personally, I use the mantra: "Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game...."

Maybe the best way to stay sane...

[magnemoe]

On 21.9.2017 at 4:35 AM, Vanamonde said:

I fly four of the little twits to orbit, but then one of them isn't happy. Why? Because he also wants a Mun fly-by. Or to pass out. Or one thing or another. Could all the tourists in the same contract have the same destination, please? 

Wait to you go interplanetary, you 3 who want to visit Duna, Ike but the last want dress rather than Ike. 

[invision]

the contract system is garbage and sometimes have to fast forward time up to a month or more before i can collect a couple to make the mission worthwhile.

sometimes it even places you on a suicide mission.......test  parachute over jool 36,000m PFFT

[Pthigrivi]

I don't know, the mixed tourism contracts can present some fun challenges, especially if you're setting up stations and reusing landers rather than just doing standalone missions. Shuttle one up to the station, drop them off, pick up another with a reusable lander and route them with science/training missions to the mun or minmus. In the mid game I've usually got missions going everywhere and its not hard to shuttle them about for extra cash. If this isn't your style you can just skip those contracts, right?

Edited September 27, 2017 by Pthigrivi

[pandaman]

I suppose you could roleplay a bit and rename 'tourists' in your head to something like 'Research Specialists', and assume they are on a combined research mission?  They all need to go to all the destinations as part of the wider mission, but some just have more specific tasks to do at certain places.

Ok.  This doesn't change the practicalities, but may help it make a bit more sense in your head at least.

[Spricigo]

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

If this isn't your style you can just skip those contracts, right? 

Yes and no. Given the weighting system there is less chance a new contract of the same type will be generated after the player skiped/declined and more chance if the player accepted/completed. The idea is to offer more contracts that the player like to do.

The problem is the system is not precise enough to understand that the player may like tourist mission but not mixed destinations. No matter what the player do, the game never adjust the contract offers properly.

 

About the idea that the mixed destination offer more 'challenging' missions: I have serious doubts that is intentional. It seems to be just a consequence of more and  more possible destinations being added faster than the game can notice we lost interest in the earlier ones. 

[Magzimum]

I love the tourist contracts, until Duna becomes a destination. At that moment I consider the tourist contracts "broken", precisely because one wants to go to Minmus, one wants a Mun flyby, one wants to land on Duna, and the 4th one wants to get to Ike.

The solution is both obvious and simple: No more than 2 destinations in any contract, and these destinations should be relatively near each other.

[Pthigrivi]

^That seems pretty reasonable. Honestly I think the best solution to almost all of the contract woes is to give players the ability to determine contract weighting directly through strategies in the Admin building. Just create a series of strategies to promote tourism or mining or station building that drive the contract type probability. 
 

[overkill13]

You know you don't have to take all the tourists on the same flight right?  They can all be on different rockets and recovered at different times, the contract just won't pay the completion reward until the last one is recovered.  This doesn't completely eliminate the frustration, sure, but if you tack a passenger module onto your next research flight or manage to get a bunch of tourists on different contracts going to the same place you can make a go at it.  Of course, things get trickier and less valuable once you've finished research in a system and only need to send a flight for one tourist.  Reusable craft with deflate modded heat shields or KIS/KAS replaceable heat shields might improve profitability.

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, overkill13 said:

This doesn't completely eliminate the frustration...

This is the very cause of the frustration.  

We'd like to be able to eventually take a simple tourist contract and do it with a simple mission design. Forcing a large scale commitment is not a solution. 

But the chance of a simple mission, with all tourists wanting the similar destinations, is so abysmal low that we are better off just ignoring it.

 

 

[The_Rocketeer]

I like @pandaman's suggestion. Research Specialist contracts could completely replace tourism afaic. Conceptually, space tourism is philosophical madness anyway.

[Helmetman]

45 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I like @pandaman's suggestion. Research Specialist contracts could completely replace tourism afaic. Conceptually, space tourism is philosophical madness anyway.

That is probably what KSP tourism is based upon. Facepalm...

 

Hey, I'm with the OP, I hate it to. Change it!!!!
Meanwhile I've been bothered by this career thing since it came to be. The early career is definitely the greatest nuisance. Once past that and I upgraded my mission control center I just try to group all the different tourists.

If one contract has suborbotial with a few orbital requests I just launch the two missions separately.
One suborbital rocket carrying all the suborbital tourists of 2 or more contracts in one launch.

Then the other rocket carrying the buggers that want to go to orbit.

2 rocket = 2 missions completed. But yeah, it still sucks, I'm with you.

[Vanamonde]

On 9/30/2017 at 7:49 AM, overkill13 said:

You know you don't have to take all the tourists on the same flight right? ...

This assumes that you notice that (for example) the third name on the list of 5 has a different destination, which is the thing that's frustrating me. 

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

If is frustrating indeed. To a point some difficult customers get spaced on entry trajectory.

Either;
1, Contracts should be simplified so everyone in one contract want same stuff or parts of it. If three want orbital flight and one just suborbital, that's a great contract. If everyone wants to land on different body in Kerbin system, it's just stupid.
2, Agency should be able to offer tours where player decides what the tour includes, how many get to go and stuff like that. Like actual travel agencies work.

[dvp]

IMO, just wait until you have a LOT of tourists, then build a ship that will do all of the things they want to do. (leave Kerbin, touch-and-go on Mun, Minmus, Duna/Ike, etc.) Make every one a "grand tour".

You'll need refueling stations in orbit of most/all of the planets/moons you've explored, though. But building infrastructure can be fun.

Alternatively, build your logistical infrastructure so you can shuttle kerbals to/from various points - then the only ships you need to build/recover are the ones that get your kerbals into LKO and back.

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, dvp said:

IMO, just wait until you have a LOT of tourists, then build a ship that will do all of the things they want to do.

...

Alternatively, build your logistical infrastructure 

That is not a "solution", that is making the logistical nighmare uptoeleven worse. 

Also "Been there,  done that". We* appreciate that people have ways to deal with the issue and we considered adopting or own  contingencies. Nonetheless or frustration remains because we didn't find reliable ways to:

1) filter out undesirable mission parameters.  

2) avoid an excessive complicated infrastructure just for tourism. 

3) keep the commitment of contracts (number and time) to tourism manageable. 

I'd be perfectly fine if those more convenient mission  offered considerable lower rewards. (Before someone argues the mess is a 'balance' thing)

 

 

*assuming other people have the same perception and experience.    

[dvp]

It's the same infrastructure you need for anything else. The "problem" is that there's no real reason for any of it.

[Spricigo]

4 minutes ago, dvp said:

It's the same infrastructure you need for anything else. The "problem" is that there's no real reason for any of it.

Touché!

Odd thing is that I build a considerable infrastructure (bases, station, reusable landers, reusable transfer vehicles) for other uses. Still, I suppose that is part of the issue for others.