Contract progression

[AlpacaMall]

I'm playing on a save where my goal is just to complete the "world-firsts record-keeping" contracts ("Orbit Kerbin", "Dock vessels around Minmus", etc.). And the next one is telling me to plant a flag on Eve.

This is the farthest I've ever gone interplanetary - my last save had one probe on Moho, but I've never made it to another planet's SOI beyond that. 

Now I'm worried - will the next contract be returning from Eve? Since I'm only taking those contracts, if I get one I can't do, then I'm just stuck with no more income. Do I have to plan for an imminent Eve return mission?

[VoidSquid]

Eve is also known as "The Purple Widow Maker" - for reasons. Or, in other words, landing and returning (!) from Eve is considered one of the the most difficult tasks in KSP.

That said, if you want to go for this endeavor, I suggest you check the forum here as well as youtube for threads and videos how fellow Kerbonauts have been doing this.

[Guest]

You can just not take a World's First contract, there will be a new random one the next day. It might be Return from Eve, it might be something else.

But what @VoidSquid said: Eve is hard mode. It's pretty easy to send something /down/, at least a relatively small something, but getting that something back /up/ again is legit hard, even with an unlimited budget and fully unlocked tech tree. That said, if you've made it to Moho you clearly already know what you're doing as Moho is also quite hard – it's not easy to intercept and the dV requirements are punishing.

My guess? You ought to be able to plant a flag on Eve, but if you've never gotten back out of there before, you likely won't be able to do it with the constraints of your career and the self-imposed "only World's First" rule you've set. So if you feel comfortable abandoning a kerbal on Eve, go for it and ignore the "Return from Eve surface" contracts offered; if you don't, just ignore that one and see what tomorrow has to offer you.

[bewing]

There is no such thing as "contract progression". The contracts that get offered to you are mostly random -- with extenuating circumstances.

[VoidSquid]

Just now, bewing said:

The contracts that get offered to you are mostly random

But isn't it, that, say you get a contract like "do a flyby of CB X", next contract is "get into orbit of X" and "return science from X"?

[bewing]

1 hour ago, VoidSquid said:

But isn't it, that, say you get a contract like "do a flyby of CB X", next contract is "get into orbit of X" and "return science from X"?

Not really, no. The game keeps a list of everywhere you've visited, and what you've done there. When you do a new flyby, it adds a new CB to the list. Each new CB adds a bunch of possible contracts for things you haven't done yet. There is also a possibility of getting a new "flyby" contract for someplace you've never been. Then it makes a random choice. After visiting Eve, you may get a contract for something at the Mun.

 

[VoidSquid]

15 minutes ago, bewing said:

After visiting Eve, you may get a contract for something at the Mun.

Never paid much attention to that, lol. Just did what I could do, not caring much about those World's First contracts.