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Part Recovery Rates


Xavven

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So, I observed that landing near Kerbal Space Center nets me between 90%-98% of the cost of my vessel's parts back when recovering, so I decided to run some tests.

  • I'm happy to report that you get 100% of your Funds back for parts that are on the Launchpad. This is nice for those time I just want to see how much the vessel weighs, or that my ladders are placed correctly. Great idea, Squad!
  • Debris that land on the surface of Kerbin without a probe core or command pod [uPDATE: apparently DO return funds depending on distance to KSC as long as they land while in physics range (<2.5km) and don't auto-unload, and you go to the tracking station to recover them. You get no notification of the Funds returned, but your Funds counter will reflect the new amount.] <s>don't net ANY funds. 0%. This is sad considering you can recover science from them. Why not Funds?</s>
  • Landing as far away as possible from KSC, i.e. the exact opposite side of the planet, nets you only 10% of your money back. Ouch!

Edited by Xavven
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All I can think of is how to mod this so that it measures from the closest launch site or just defaults to a flat rate.

Suppose I should get my dev environment up and running again...

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I'm wondering what it does if you land at KSC, but not KSC.

...You know, like here:

72203928616F6261A18673727CACE1EEFCCAB7DD

(Single Stage Round Trip to Duna that didn't have enough fuel to make it to the runway after Aerobraking.)

There's a launchpad and everything (don't recall if it had launchpad biome, but it did have KSC biome.)

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All I can think of is how to mod this so that it measures from the closest launch site or just defaults to a flat rate.

Suppose I should get my dev environment up and running again...

Flat rate please, if you lucky enuff to get down without killing your Kerbal then you should get all the parts back at full price :)

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  • Debris that land on the surface of Kerbin without a probe core or command pod don't net ANY funds. 0%. This is sad considering you can recover science from them. Why not Funds?

I'm sure you do get the funds back. There's just no notification that funds have been returned. Try comparing before and after funds amounts when recovering debris.

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So, I observed that landing near Kerbal Space Center nets me between 90%-98% of the cost of my vessel's parts back when recovering, so I decided to run some tests.

  • I'm happy to report that you get 100% of your Funds back for parts that are on the Launchpad. This is nice for those time I just want to see how much the vessel weighs, or that my ladders are placed correctly. Great idea, Squad!
  • Debris that land on the surface of Kerbin without a probe core or command pod don't net ANY funds. 0%. This is sad considering you can recover science from them. Why not Funds?
  • Landing as far away as possible from KSC, i.e. the exact opposite side of the planet, nets you only 10% of your money back. Ouch!

Ok so I'm new to the contract recovery system.

If my solid fuel rockets or liquid fuel tanks are set up to parachute to the surface after separation.... do we get money back for recycling these?

Or do I just kiss those goodbye?

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Ok so I'm new to the contract recovery system.

If my solid fuel rockets or liquid fuel tanks are set up to parachute to the surface after separation.... do we get money back for recycling these?

Or do I just kiss those goodbye?

They go bye-bye, without mods.

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I'm sure you do get the funds back. There's just no notification that funds have been returned. Try comparing before and after funds amounts when recovering debris.

Wow, thanks! I stand corrected. I ran a test on the Launchpad and created some debris by shooting a radial decoupler with a girder attached. Sure enough, there's no notification, but I was refunded the exact cost of the debris.

Ok so I'm new to the contract recovery system.

If my solid fuel rockets or liquid fuel tanks are set up to parachute to the surface after separation.... do we get money back for recycling these?

Or do I just kiss those goodbye?

If your parachuted tanks get out of physics range (>2.5km) then they will disappear and you will not get funds returned. They are considered destroyed.

However, if conditions are right, and they don't unload before landing, or if your payload is high enough in orbit or on a suborbital trajectory above 40km (or maybe it's 20km? someone help me here) altitude, then you can switch focus to the debris and stay on it until it touches down. Then switch back to your payload before it unloads.

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"I can think of is how to mod this so that it measures from the closest launch site or just defaults to a flat rate.

Suppose I should get my dev environment up and running again... "

If multiple 100% sites can be supported this would open the possibility for multiple designated landing/recovery areas other than the KSC such as the small Island Airstrip and perhaps an ocean splashdown zone with ships standing by? Your fund recovery would be calculated to the closest recovery area. This could also incorporate Prime recovery areas (higher fund recovery percentage) and Emergency/secondary recovery areas (less percentage) much as that other space program on that human world.

Edited by jpkerman
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If your parachuted tanks get out of physics range (>2.5km) then they will disappear and you will not get funds returned. They are considered destroyed.

However, if conditions are right, and they don't unload before landing, or if your payload is high enough in orbit or on a suborbital trajectory above 40km (or maybe it's 20km? someone help me here) altitude, then you can switch focus to the debris and stay on it until it touches down. Then switch back to your payload before it unloads.

22km, I believe. This is the point where the atmosphere reaches 0.01atm.

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That's actually a great idea. And if you can't SSTO, at least get a suborbital trajectory with the first stage that's high enough that you can circularize your upper stage before your lower stage disappears. Then just ride the lower stage down and "profit" as you say.

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I can say that I got 80->90% back from spaceships that landed in the ocean a few kms away from Kerbin, when I was able to recover all of their separated stages as well (i.e. when they remained within 2.5 km during descent and therefore were classified as recoverable debris).

It´s a truely big incentive to equip everything that will go down to Kerbin (but gets separated on descent) with chutes and separate it rather deep doen in the atmosphere (so it doesn´t drift too far away)

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One needs to calculate if recovering boosters will be worth the extra expense of adding parachutes, and, or, a remote pod.

The Parachutes will be among the recovered parts (i.e. will also give you money) ... so, definitely yes,

Not sure about a remote pod however, I guess it will cost a lot more than the boosters

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I wonder but haven't found out yet, do you pay less money if you start with empty tanks? Hmm, time for some experimentation.

Why? Because I usually disable the RCS fuel in the command pod, certainly on rockets that aren't even fitted with RCS ports, the extra weight does make a difference in some cases. (I'm a minimalist)

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The big question is, if your Kerbonaut than has fuel for his jetpack ...

I know that it was planned to let the Kerbonauts use RCS fuel for their jetpacks (which surely also is the reason for its inclusion within command modules) ...

the big question is, if they finally implemented it in 0.24 (former versions AFAIK didn´t have it implemented ... but it was always on their ToDo list)

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"I can think of is how to mod this so that it measures from the closest launch site or just defaults to a flat rate.

Suppose I should get my dev environment up and running again... "

If multiple 100% sites can be supported this would open the possibility for multiple designated landing/recovery areas other than the KSC such as the small Island Airstrip and perhaps an ocean splashdown zone with ships standing by? Your fund recovery would be calculated to the closest recovery area. This could also incorporate Prime recovery areas (higher fund recovery percentage) and Emergency/secondary recovery areas (less percentage) much as that other space program on that human world.

If you could designate that area at launch....

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The trick is a new sort of ssto- carry it all to orbit, put a probe on it with a engine just to de-orbit the whole lifter assembly with chutes.

I'd been working on airbreathing lower stages that get dropped after the payload apoapsis hits 100k and following them down, but they land so far from KSC the return just isn't there. My new set up has been cheap solid boosters that get dumped around 10k and a 6 turbojet mid-stage that gets up around 2400m/s. With some tweaking that stage can be dropped and chuted back down into KSC after the payload circularizes.

Ive been testing this for deadlifting orange tanks. Pretty good stand-in I've found for typical interplanetary payloads.

Edited by Pthigrivi
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If your parachuted tanks get out of physics range (>2.5km) then they will disappear and you will not get funds returned. They are considered destroyed.

However, if conditions are right, and they don't unload before landing, or if your payload is high enough in orbit or on a suborbital trajectory above 40km (or maybe it's 20km? someone help me here) altitude, then you can switch focus to the debris and stay on it until it touches down. Then switch back to your payload before it unloads.

I noticed that too. I hope there will be a mechanism to fix that - in my KSP Interstellar game, I tried to run a 'clean' space program, where everything returns to Kerbal intact as best as can be managed (at least, the designs do: boosters, etc. with parachutes, dry runs to test that they land intact, etc.)

I really hope Squad finds a feasible way to reward reusable-playstyle minded players for recovering boosters, etc. in KSP vanilla.

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The trick is a new sort of ssto- carry it all to orbit, put a probe on it with a engine just to de-orbit the whole lifter assembly with chutes.

PROFIT!

That's what I did in the pre-0.24 days for fun and role-play; the boosters and "main" drive stage all had probe cores, a solar panel or two, and enough fuel left over to de-orbit and VTOL (with 'chutes to aid).

You're right, the challenge is now to design an entire unit that can return to account for the loss of stage parts that the game doesn't track. Man, that's gonna be a big fuel budget...

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