More science for survey and part test contracts

[TheFlyingKerman]

On one hand we see people complaining science collection being to mechanical. The biomes are always the same and one just move form one to another and do the same clicking. On the other hand the survey and part test contracts seem to be less popular. Interestingly they are the more sciency contracts - for the survey contract one is supposed to do science at places with special scientific interest, part tests are supposedly related to developing space technology. It seems greatly increasing the science award for these contracts, so that they become a valid way of collecting science, would address both complaints.

I did some tests with 10x science for surveys and 5x for part tests and it seems to work quite well. It would be even better if science multiplier also applies.

[Gargamel]

18 hours ago, TheFlyingKerman said:

It seems greatly increasing the science award for these contracts, so that they become a valid way of collecting science, would address both complaints.

While the science mechanic is very, well, mechanical as you say, the biggest complaint I have seen is that it is too easy to max out the tech tree without leaving Kerbin's SOI, increasing the contract rewards would just inflate this issue.  Without a balancing nerf to the rest of the science collection mechanics, this would just make the game even easier.    And nerfing the rest of the science just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.  So while I agree that survey contracts should have more of a reward, the balancing offset to this would not improve the game. 

As for test contracts, I would think there would be a limit to how much science you should be able to get from testing a prototype part. The theory is already there, so the science to build the item has already been researched, they just want a place/scenario to test their theories.  So the return to your space program is limited.   Now if there was a small chance of failure when the test is run (ie big explosion), that should boost the science return for that contract.  When looking for experimental results to confirm a theory, it is usually more interesting and informative when the experiment is a failure. 

[MajorTomtom]

Doing the full tech tree while staying around kerbin is probably feasible but not easy at all, unless you spend a LOT of hours going from biome to biome and doing the same thing over and over again...

I agree that these contracts should be more rewarding, because today I simply don't do them because they usually require incredible parameters (20 000 m high and under 300m/s for example for a SRB test) or a lot of time (science at 3 points around the whole planet).

Maybe they could make them less hard, like "put a rover down in this valley and do this experiment" or "test a part in space"