Contracts and Administration Strategies

[Invader Myk]

Strategies as mission statements would be a cool way to make meaningful multiplayer.

Player A chooses the "Munar Colonization" strategy which has a heavy focus on Mun bases, one way tourists, and mining resources.

Players B and C choose the "Space Race" strategy which focuses on getting to places first.

Player D chooses Dunar colonization.

Both B and C start pouring funds into A's pockets so they can refuel in Munar orbit reducing their need to send dozens of refuel flights from Kerbin to get enough /\V to get to <insert body here>, and to hoard those resources so the other racer can't use them.

Meanwhile D is paying B and C to take and leave hab cans with their Dunar expeditions.

[Crzyrndm]

Thinking about XCOM:EU and strategies, why don't strategies take after the XCOM base construction a bit more. In particular the investment in the building of laboratories and workshops which gives you benefits later on

To expand on this a bit more (which I should have done initially), XCOM:EU uses investing in workshops to decrease production time and costs, laboratories to accelerate research, power generators to keep everything running (You need space, power and money to build new things), the foundry to upgrade and build stuff.

Possible KSP equivalents:

• Investing money to get cheaper rockets in the future (maybe broken down into fuel discounts, manufacturer discounts, etc.).
  
• Invest in the other facilities (gradual increases in their capabilities instead of the huge jumps we have at the moment with huge upfront costs involved). Visual upgrades only at certain levels
  
• Parts upgrades, retrofitting our new expertise to older parts. This would require having earlier versions with lower capabilities than what we currently get
  

Then the admin building also starts to live up to it's name...

EDIT

Hmm, nightingale's earlier post is heading along a similar line, although a bit less program management related I think

Possible Strategies

Okay, here's one big list of random stuff! I won't try to categorizes these into the current categories, this is just brainstorming.

1. Advanced areodynamics - vessels have slightly less drag.
   
2. More efficient engines - engines have a slightly higher ISP.
   
3. Bigger engines - engines have slightly higher thrust.
   
4. Bigger panels - panels produce more power.
   
5. Better panels - panels lose efficiency due to distance from the Sun slower.
   
6. Better recruiting - Recruits start with some experience.
   
7. Apprenticeship - Kerbals gain experience faster when on the same vessel as a 5 star of the same profession.
   
8. Advanced Rovers - Rovers drive as if they were 2x heavier.
   
9. Nuclear non-proliferation treaty - No LVNs allowed. Receive more rep.
   
10. Girl Power - Receive more rep for missions done with all female crews
    
11. Closed borders - Cannot recover vessels that are more than 10km from KSC. Receive more funds in compensation.
    
12. Low tech - Science is locked at zero. Contract funds increased by x% for each unlocked tech node.
    
13. Megastructures - Receive funds for stations in orbit over a certain tonnage. (Funds over time, perhaps - if time mattered)
    
14. Killer asteroids - Increased funding. Increased asteroid detection. Player receives contracts to divert killer asteroids. Failing to divert them results in game over! May need a better hook to make the player want to pick this.
    

Edited March 2, 2015 by Crzyrndm

[tater]

OK, assume for the sake of argument time somehow matters, unlike the game now. Make building rockets take meaningful amounts of time. Simple test, if it takes less than a few years to get to the Mun, crank up the build times. Note that the experience for the player in terms of gaming time… unchanged. 1.0 is supposed to have a snap to maneuver node function, snap to rocket on the pad, but X weeks have passed. Also assume that Contracts are commercial (launch X, and once complete, it's not yours, and you get paid)., Missions are your own program's project ideas. Strategies can be switched, but cost will vary. Within, many sub-strategies/tactics/background will look like nightingale's post ideas.

Real Strategies:

1. KASA. Your program is an analog of a national space program. The program gets to pick X missions/contracts per year based upon Rep. The missions will be broad, multi-part affairs like "explore the Mun" with enough parts that they will keep you busy. X will be small, and upgrade sort of like it does now. The Missions will have most cash up front, but large penalties for failure in terms of rep. Rep will actually determine budget, basically, so loss of rep will hurt next year's operations. Possible Mission goals might include a "beat the competing program to X" race like goal that is time critical. Very, very costly to switch to another strategy, and very unlike to switch TO this strategy from another unless your rep is stellar.

2. Commercial Launch Provider. You are a commercial outfit. A substantially lower annual budget than #1. You will have mostly Contracts, and maybe some Missions based upon infrastructure goals to facilitate future business. Easy to switch strategies to or from.

3. Commercial Development of Space. Another commercial company, a kind of SpaceX analog. A substantially lower annual budget than #1. They will do commercial contracts (launch, resupply, etc), but have an ultimate goal of exploitation/colonization of the solar system. They will have the usual Contracts, plus some tailored Missions related to their own goals (science and rep gain, little in the way of funding). Easy to change strategies.

What others are possible?

[Invader Myk]

What others are possible?

Breaking it out that broad those are really the only options. State sponsored space program vs space for profit.

If you break it into more specific goals, then there are almost infinite possibilities. Here are a few that are based on historical exploration programs.

The EITC model

This is setting your program to trade with a specific region or for a specific resource. For example, the Duna Trading Company picks up fuel mined from Duna and returns it to Kerbin.

The Virginia Company modelThis program would focus on colonizing a specific region and generating resources to be sold. A Laythe colony would be a prime example of this. A colony on Laythe is set up that makes fuel then sells it to ships visiting the Joolian system.

The Spanish/Portugese model

This program is a space race, with a goal. The program needs to be the first to set up a trade route to a location so that they can force exclusive trading rights with the destination.

The piracy and smuggler model

This strategy focuses on breaking into trading monopolies. After a company has succeeded with the Spanish model, then a company using the piracy model would do clandestine contacts with the target location. Rendezvouses on the dark side of a moon, intercept to landing with out entering orbit, launch to escape, intercept trade ships, etc.

As you may have noticed by now, most of these strategies require some opponent or at least an NPC space program.

[SorryDave]

Just brainstorming...

I think the strategies would make more sense if the game had victory conditions.

Victory conditions could be:

Achieve 75,000 science points

Accumulate 20M funds

Reach highest reputation

If someone uses strategy it should be towards a victory condition and more than one should be obtainable.

Unlocking the tech tree should not be a victory condition, I think a lot of players feel it is the goal of career mode.

[nightingale]

Just brainstorming...

I think the strategies would make more sense if the game had victory conditions.

Victory conditions could be:

Achieve 75,000 science points

Accumulate 20M funds

Reach highest reputation

If someone uses strategy it should be towards a victory condition and more than one should be obtainable.

Unlocking the tech tree should not be a victory condition, I think a lot of players feel it is the goal of career mode.

Career mode would certainly make more sense with victory conditions, but I don't like the ones you've mentioned because they seem like they would be boring and/or grindy and/or subject to just getting exploited even worse than what we have now. Since Squad has stated that career mode was supposed to be "like a tycoon game", I'll draw comparisons from there.

The first thing that would really open up victory conditions would be a rivals/opponents. You could then have pre-built scenarios or overall goals for beating your rivals to typical space-race goals. Of course, I've never heard anything mentioned about AI opponents, and we're nearing feature complete, so safe to assume this is off the table and put it in the "dare to dream" bucket.

You could accomplish the same thing by just setting a target date - you need to land a kerbal on the Mun by date X (or could have bronze, silver and gold for dates X/Y/Z). Now all of a sudden time matters. Bring in KCT-like behaviour and now the player starts having to make harder decisions... do I spend a week building a rocket for part testing to increase my cash flow so I can build a bigger rocket to get to the Mun? Or just launch a minimal one that doesn't include x and try to make it as is? Then the existing strategies have potential for meaning too when there's a time limit.

Honestly, you can almost get this just by having steam achievements to the same effect... although I understand why they don't since you pretty much have to limit to no mods to make the steam achievements meaningful.

Another thing I think would be neat for career would be allowing the player to pick their start site. Current KSP could be "easy" mode and there could be "harder" launch sites with higher latitudes. But I'm getting way off topic for this discussion.

Back on topic - victory conditions make so much sense, and would potentially completely change the dynamic of contracts/strategies.

[tater]

Regarding a "Space Race," there is a way to do it without AI. Any AI. A kind of multiplayer. Click "Space Race" (a new career option). Your other settings for career become slightly more limited (to some presets). The game then uploads your progress per unit time to a server. Basically there point at which you reach each milestone (including some disasters) that matters for a space race, with date/time stamp and the craft files that accomplished said milestone. They would be tagged by preset difficulty level.

When you play, it will pick from those other players at the same diff level, chose ONE, and their milestones will represent the competition. So you are playing against other KSP players anonymously.

Ideally, there would be a competing center, and you'd play against people choosing that other center, in a "dream" version, there would be stock-alike soviet stuff for that center.

[pincushionman]

As others have noted, parts contracts seem off. Also, it's incredibly easy to unlock large portions of the tree with ugly speed. Here's how I would approach it:

1) Parts test contracts no longer simply spawn at random. They are keyed to the node unlock. On node unlock, a Development Time value is randomly assigned for each part. This could be days, months, or years. Science and Funds can be "donated" to reduce this.

2) Once Development Time passes, a test contract is spawned, and a similar Release Time value is randomly assigned.

3) On contract acceptance, one (1) instance of the test part is made available to you. No spamming of 48-7S before you unlock it!

4) On successful test, the remaining Release Time is halved. It's now in your best interest to do these tests.

5) Once Release Time has passed, the part is available for purchase. If you completed the test, the part will be discounted as described in the test contract. So you can ignore bad part contracts and let them do the development themselves, but you'll have to wait longer and it will cost more in the long run.

6) All parts in a node must be Released to advance to the next node along the branch.

This post is just about the concept of parts contracts. Yes, the nature and details must be less insane, but that's for another post.

[Crzyrndm]

@nightingale

Everything still comes down to time being a general factor, which it isn't, and probably won't ever be in stock. Victory conditions could be nice though...

since you pretty much have to limit to no mods to make the steam achievements meaningful.

Achievements are never particularly meaningful in the first place, and should never be a reason to limit mod use... (that and Squad would be creating their own award system since they don't want to tie themselves to steam).

Edited March 2, 2015 by Crzyrndm

[mattinoz]

Can the admin building have a zero tier with just the pool and no access to strategies at all until upgraded?

I think contracts would be better if they could exist outside the physics bubble, opening up possibility for long term contracts. Like monthly payments for keeping a satellite and space station powered and active.

These long running tailing contracts would need there own area so they don't stop you taking on initial and storyline contracts but to me this would improve the system greatly.

Then again I think most areas of the game would be improved by being able to do stuff out of the bubble.

[Superfluous J]

Everything still comes down to time being a general factor, which it isn't, and probably won't ever be in stock.

I agree that it won't, and I agree with Squad that it shoudln't. No matter what they do you'll eventually be in the position to simply time warp through a several-year wait for something and that is bad.

Which is why part testing should directly relate to a part's cost. Test a part, the cost goes down. Each part has 3 tests. In atmo, in space, and landed on a planet. Either:

1. If you deny a part test, eventually it will come back (in the regular rotation of tests) differently. This is how it works now and the good part is that you won't get stuck testing something at 50m traveling 1249m/s. The bad part is that you can just keep declining contracts until a milk run comes up.
   
2. Once a part test condition has been set, that's it. You can decline it but eventually THE EXACT SAME CONTRACT will come back. If you want to save the money, eventually you'll have to take the contract. There should be a way to say "Don't ever offer me this contract again" and also a way to say "Hey that contract I didn't ever want? I'd like to try it now." This will require those atmo contracts to be tightened so you don't get crazy hard ones OR crazy easy ones. Or at least not crazy hard ones.
   

And These contracts should give you NOTHING except reduced prices on the parts. Maybe the parts would start costing 2x or even 3x as much as they do now, and after you've completed all 3 of the part tests the parts end up costing what they do now (or more accurately, what their appropriately balanced costs would be).

[Crzyrndm]

And These contracts should give you NOTHING except reduced prices on the parts.

Unless we head into upgrades territory (of which testing could be a part of), then a fully agree with this, cost is the only variable that should be altered on parts (2-3x costs is somewhat overkill. You end up with a 50-66% discount from the players PoV, which is pretty darned high). It would be nice to have another system to tie part testing into. Testing for currency doesn't make a whole lot of sense and just comes across as a grind to the player.

[nightingale]

@nightingale

Everything still comes down to time being a general factor, which it isn't, and probably won't ever be in stock. Victory conditions could be nice though...

I hope you're wrong, since I think there's a number of easy ways to make time matter, and even implementing some of them could make career mode better.

Achievements are never particularly meaningful in the first place, and should never be a reason to limit mod use... (that and Squad would be creating their own award system since they don't want to tie themselves to steam).

But they do have their own system already! It's just that it's used internally to track "progress" (first launch, first landing, etc.). All they need to do is add something to track globally and then add a pretty pop up (or whatever) to say, "congrats player, you launched your first vessel!". Anyway, didn't mean to steer the thread in this direction.

As far as the existing contracts, they feel too much like a sideshow - I'd like to see more "mission" contracts (as others have mentioned). Strong storylines and contracts with dependencies. Trees of contracts where you have different choices to make (perhaps by choosing one of two mutually exclusive contracts as the player). I'd also love more interesting implications for completing/not completing contracts. Random example:

1. I have two mutually exclusive contracts - one is to do "something" (don't care what) for Rockomax, and the other is "something else" for Kerbodyne. If I choose the Kerbodyne one, I get something really good (let's say lots of funds), but I lose access to all Rockomax parts for the rest of the game. If I choose the Rockomax one, it's a "normal" contracts (just get the slim rewards).
   

I think what I want to see more asymmetric decisions. The player has to spend more time thing... "Is it worth it to lose access to these Rockomax parts? How much are they worth to me?". This type of thing would turn career into far more than "sandbox with economy/tech unlock", which is what it sometimes feels like.

[Guest]

Quality of life (bears repeating):

° Allow the player to autoreject or filter contracts based on criteria such as location, type, and agency.

° Allow the player to group contracts by location, type, or agency.

° Generate contracts per location and generate more of them for choice.

Suggestion:

Create the concept of a "program" that includes over-arching goals that doles out goal-related contracts. Completion of a program might give bonus prestige or science. Alternatively, like Strategies, the player could have two or more that drive their space program. Maybe allow the player to design the program themselves (from some stock goals) so that they can pursue their own interests while advancing.

[tater]

I agree that it won't, and I agree with Squad that it shoudln't. No matter what they do you'll eventually be in the position to simply time warp through a several-year wait for something and that is bad.

That's not bad at all. People routinely do that right now. If you time warp to Jool, you are doing it. I tend to have many concurrent flights, and my longer missions only end up time-warped when I am warping in Kerbin SoI for rendezvous, transfers to Mun/Minmus. With KCT, I'm actually building stuff during part of that time. From a gameplay standpoint, almost no difference, except that something that would have taken 1 WEEK in stock, takes a couple years in KCT---with exactly the same real hours played, and missions flown.

The "time warp" thing is a non-argument, really. With a KASA "strategy" where you have a budget, you'd not be able to just warp, because without any results, you'd simply have all your funding pulled. Long warps would effectively be "game over." What would be a "several year wait," other than an actual mission, anyway?

I should add that the lack of meaningful time creates a far worse exploit. Accept trivial contract with good payout. A couple clicks later, reward. Go back to contracts, reject until you get more trivial contracts, repeat. How is that possibly worse than time warping, exactly? I should load up stock, and just mess with this a little using stuff I already have in orbit/landed various places in a save. Other than the real-time seconds it takes to go to the different craft and click, that is my ONLY time constraint, I bet I could generate millions per Kerbin day just on "science from orbit" contracts alone. It;d be a grind, but I guess you could unlock the tree like that as well. Somehow that's better than time warping a month for a huge rocket to be built…

Edited March 2, 2015 by tater

[Claw]

There are a lot of great ideas flowing in here. I like it.

However, something that I'm still falling back and forth on in the conversations is the idea of "grindy" and "contract farming." There's discussions that people want different contracts, but somehow people fall back on "favorites" anyway. Balance is clearly an issue, but how do you prevent "contract farming" while still giving people contracts that they prefer? If you aren't offered contracts that you like, then it's "driving your space agency." But if you keep getting the same contracts, it becomes "grindy" or that you can simply get into "contract farming." "Stop showing me these other contracts!" and "Stop giving me the same contracts!" seem a bit at odds.

So how to solve contract farming without simply removing options that the player continuously uses? Since extensive use of a contract can also imply that the player enjoys those contracts...

Cheers,

~Claw

[Crzyrndm]

Suggestion:

Create the concept of a "program" that includes over-arching goals that doles out goal-related contracts. Completion of a program might give bonus prestige or science. Alternatively, like Strategies, the player could have two or more that drive their space program. Maybe allow the player to design the program themselves (from some stock goals) so that they can pursue their own interests while advancing.

This could work very well indeed for improving the contracts system. You have a big target that you can choose (eg. "Put a kerbal on the mun") which comes with a group of related sub-objectives (eg. return a kerbal safetly to Kerbin from a mun intercept) through which you can develop and test multiple parts of the mission (ie. can my return vessel survive reentry coming in from a lunar orbit). Wrap several contract types together with objective related goals and create a reason to be doing things like testing an lv-909 in lunar orbit (because you things always hit the fan the first time you try something)

Objective: Put a kerbal on the munar surface and return it to Kerbin safetly

Suggested sub-objectives:

• Dock two vessels while in orbit around Kerbin
  
• Perform a lunar intercept and return to Kerbin's surface in one piece
  
• Put a comsat/surveyor in lunar orbit
  
• Land a probe on lunar surface
  
• Assorted related parts testing (eg. lv-909 in lunar orbit. Can be used to suggest parts that may be suitable for various mission stages for newer players as well)
  

Nothing stopping you from just throwing a rocket together to complete the main objective, but the sub contracts being tied to a bigger goal makes things like satelites and part testing less random and annoying. Completing one objective could also open up others

Establish a mun base (survey contracts to establish a good location, improvements to comsat coverage)

occasional tourist contract

ISRU base expansion

Another advantage would be the reduced annoyance of trying to find a contract that fits your current development goals, since all the contracts are roughly grouped towards a similar aim (assuming you can find a group that's similar to what you want)

I guess this is something like a smaller version of tater's suggested strategies (which I can't say I'm a fan of. Long term stuff railroads the player a bit too much IMO)

E:

Keep parts testing to "explorative" groups that are breaking new ground (eg. getting to the mun for the first time). Long term the player should really be seeing less and less of them, and not testing the same thing in the same general situation multiple times ever.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Crzyrndm

[basic.syntax]

how do you prevent "contract farming" while still giving people contracts that they prefer?

I think - more contract variety, so that players have a chance to find more things they prefer. Unfortunately, there is no perfect answer here. Players exhaust content faster than it can be created. It can only be made "less grindy," and I think we have to try. Complaints are inevitable (but not "the end") and some players are already hacking their configs to nuke undesired contract types.

Squad could spend months on an update, we could get 4 new contract types that have diverse, interesting tasks and write nice compliments on the forums, only to be grumbling in the next week that we have played until dawn over the weekend, done 15 orbital rendezvous for different purposes, and are bored again. I think this is one reason they went with procedural contracts in the first place, because a story driven campaign (as much as I would like to have one!) is over when its over, limits some of the replay value, and if you liked it, you're crying for more to do.

###

Claw, I was expecting you to throw some cold water on this brainstorming, because we've pretty much reinvented how Strategies might work in the last 3 pages - your initial charter was asking us to look for what tweaks to existing Strategies - and Contracts that would fit inside the current Contract system - would be helpful.

To that end, Outsourced R&D popped up for most people as overpowered, although science availability is "overpowered" as well. I think Wanderfound summarized the problem with existing Strategies effectively, in post #47:

As well as the money -> science strategy being overpowered, the anything -> money strategies are underpowered. They're all off by about a factor of ten.

Toward existing contracts, I think many are wanting more sensible structures to them, where one builds upon another: if you've completed a temp scan from altitude, you might later be asked to do something on the ground in the same area. Don't randomly ask for a ground activity before an aerial one. Parts tests should progress the same way, and not repeat, and probably disappear entirely once you go to another planet's SoI, since its entry-level work. Ground > air > suborbital > orbit.

[Invader Myk]

So how to solve contract farming without simply removing options that the player continuously uses? Since extensive use of a contract can also imply that the player enjoys those contracts...

From what I've understood of the conversation, the complaints about "grinding" and "contract farming" go to the fact that contracts have no real purpose. In the real world a company hires another company to do something that the second party is better at and progresses the first party towards its business goals. In KSP a company hires the player's space agency to do random pointless busy work.

Giving the (npc/notional) agencies business goals that determine the types of contracts they offer would help. An over-arching strategy that defines the player's goals (ie complete the grand tour, colonize the Joolian moons) chosen when the game is started would give the possibility of contracts being offered if they support the player's grand design. For example, if the player wants to colonize Duna then contracts to establish outposts on or stations around Mun and Minmus would not be offered.

With my career mode game, I hate repeatedly doing 7 "test landed" contracts with one vessel because it isn't testing anything (I don't even include fuel tanks) and it isn't setting up infrastructure to make future missions easier (ie LKO refuel station). The only reason I do them is because I can't afford to do what I want with out doing mind-numbing click-fests on hundreds of ships designed to do nothing but hold 7 random parts together.

[Crzyrndm]

However, something that I'm still falling back and forth on in the conversations is the idea of "grindy" and "contract farming."

Probably has a lot to do with just how much money is required in 0.90 to get anywhere. You run into the science cap very quickly, but you need something like 2-3 million funds to upgrade all the KSC structures just once. Even just getting the first launchpad, VAB, and tracking station upgrades (aka the essentials) takes quite a bit of grinding at the various contracts before you can amass that much spare cash (and then you still need to hit the daunting task of the R&D upgrade :/)

Edited March 3, 2015 by Crzyrndm

[Guest]

So how to solve contract farming without simply removing options that the player continuously uses? Since extensive use of a contract can also imply that the player enjoys those contracts...

Why bother "solving" contract farming in the first place? KSP is a sandbox game at its heart and some amount of "gaming the system" should be expected from creative or skilled players. Contracts in KSP pretty much always introduce a certain level of "grind" unless those contracts coincide with the player's intended goals so I don't think this is nearly the problem people perceive it to be.

[tater]

Those upgrades are still easy, though. I just played a RSS 3.2x career with KCT, life support, etc and have unlocked everything (including some mod parts past the stock tree). Was slightly harder funds wise at the start due to it being hard to make orbit (turns out I dragged my KIDS folder over forgetting it was set to make stock with FAR harder, oops). Past that, same as stock. Only difference is that a few years have elapsed in the game world instead of as many months (or weeks, lol) in stock.

BTW, the strategies i threw out there were spitballing, I just don't like the current stuff even a little, and it is misnamed, IMO.

Also, there is no real way around contracts, any contracts, from being grindy. Overly novel is contrived, and obvious are obvious. The flaw is that they are the ONLY way to get funds, and since time is meaningless, budgets would be meaningless.

The "tycoon" element isn't really in play, IMO, as there is no competition, no time frame, and your crews cannot actually do anything autonomously. For that we'd need to at least have the ability for kerbals to do some routine missions themselves (station resupply, etc). I'm trying hard to justify career vs sandbox, but it's difficult

[pertrep]

I joined KSP when .9 was released and rate this game for the challenge it provides. You start knowing sod all, get a contract, bumble your way through it and learn something. Then go back and exploit that learning. Yawn, then get to do it again and again - no learning, no confirmation of skill, just another probe around Kerbin. I have a rover at the South Pole of the Mun doing slalems up and down mountains in low sunlight to take temp readings. I have been at it for weeks and have one to go. Will be really sad when it gets there, but will not rush to do it that way again.

Would it be possible to matrix task (take temp reading on Mun at X) against method (using a rover, landing a can, with or without a Kerbal, without something that makes it easy, or on a really limited budget)? I wouldn't mind throwing up another satellite if it was more difficult that the last one (needs to refuel to get there, must then move it to a fiendishly difficult place when done, or drop someone somewhere on the way).

Too much stuff seems disposable. Could it not be used again in some future mission? I am too mean to throw stuff away, so my map view looks like a spider web. Adds to the challenge.

sorry if this post pops up twice - lost it trying to send it.

Anyway, don't mean to come across as a whiner; I still love this game and do not envy the development team trying to stay ahead of bright people who learn fast.

[pincushionman]

I agree that it won't, and I aree with Squad that it shoudln't. No matter what they do you'll eventually be in the position to simply time warp through a several-year wait for something and that is bad...

I disagree. Most of a space program's time isn't spent flying maneuvers - it's analyzing data, planning missions, astronaut training, developing RFQ's, testing equipment. Most of this isn't supposed to be simulated in-game, and players SHOULD be time-warping through it.

But you're right, there should be some incentive to keeping your hands full while you wait for transfers to complete or parts to be developed or ships to be built.

One thing that partially exists already is missed opportunities. During long timewarps you risk missing launch and tranfer windows, just due to the nature of the simulation. Not a huge loss, but it's there.

Another possibility of missed opportunities is for reputation to degrade if you're "doing nothing." Routinely ignoring contract requests could make Agencies less willing to give you good ones. This would work better if there were a competing space program to compete for the work. I know this is exactly the opposite of what some others like regex want, but it is a source of challenge to balance your program's wants against its needs.

Another possibility is overhead costs. You've got mortgage (and taxes, maybe? How government are we?), the gas and electric needs paid, and your employees sure want to buy Snacks for their families. A weekly funds drain based on the levels of your buildings would very much be an incentive to keep an eye on even the recurring, low-difficulty, safe contracts that keep showing up.

[JadedStoner]

Rescue contracts are weird. I don't know how to fix them. But having someone lost in a 100x100 orbit within seconds of me breaking the Kerbin World Record of height (70km, aka "escape the atmosphere") is weird and wrong.

It occurred to me, there is a perfect rescue mission in the game... in the tutorial! One tutorial has the player correct Jeb's orbit with a limited amount of fuel. Perhaps you could 'authorize' a test flight for rep and the game screws it up, giving a contract to fix it. Stranded in orbit, on the Mun, loads of stuff... and since you authorized the test flight, it's not some shadow space program...

JS