Mission Pacing, Life Support, and Tech Tree Fixed!

[nholzric]

The problems:

1) Playing on Moderate difficulty, I have finished the Tech Tree after visiting the Mun, Minmus, and orbiting Duna. The Tech Tree is one of, if not the, key driver of progress through the game. Reputation and Cost are both limiters, but unlocking the Tech Tree works like a progress indicator. The Tech Tree is completed too early.

2) The first several weeks/months of my space agency were exciting, full of satellite launches, test flights, and trips to the Mun and Minmus. Then progress sort of stops as we wait months and years for transfer windows to come and missions to transit to and from Duna, Eve, etc. This change in pace is uncomfortable.

Several Bad Solutions:

1) Make the Tech Tree last longer by making science more difficult to come by, either by making it more grindy or by limiting the science near Kerbin to require other planet exploration. This is bad because a) grind is bad. And - though this is highly speculative - I think people expect the kind of large rockets, nuclear engines, tech to go to other planets. Although you can Scott Manley your way there after unlocking one or two tech nodes (or half of the Tech Tree in a less exaggerated example), I don't think this is what players expect, and although the challenge may be fun for some, in general it's not fun for most.

2) Add future rocket tech to the Tech Tree. I appreciate Squad keeping the tech to current or "near future" or whatever the standard is.

3) Keep up the pace of "maintenance" tasks even while you launch missions to other planets - allow Rep to degrade over time, make monthly agency bills, loose Rep and Funds for allowing contracts to expire, etc. Although I love contracts for launching satellites, at a certain point space around Kerbin is too full and I want to move on to the next challenge. Requiring me to pay attention to these mundane details while I want to time warp is tedium.

The Good Solution:

Both of these problems can be fixed by adding stock life support to the late stages of the Tech Tree. Not only does this stretch out the Tech Tree but it would do so at the exact time when crewed missions transition from a week or two to Minmus and back to a year or two to other planets. In other words, with proper balancing you can make life support optional for in-Kerbin activities (just don't forget about your guys in the Minmus base until you retrofit an air scrubber or whatever).

With contracts incessantly wanting to go to the Mun and Minmus, being able to make multiple trips to these destinations is a reasonable requirement meaning you can cycle crew, supplies, or simply evacuate the base if you haven't unlocked life support yet.

Stock life support would add another dimension to interplanetary travels which means that even though the Tech Tree (the current version) is filled out and you have very nice rockets, there's still a progression of technologies that make subsequent trips better, easier, longer. For example, I would either content myself with sending probes to several planets to harvest science, or I could send a crewed mission but I don't have sufficient life support to linger so it has to be quick or I have to have a small crew compared to the number of snacks, etc. But as I unlock the nodes in the extended Tech Tree I am able to send a crewed mission for longer or with less supplies (because they'll be recycled) or however the mechanic works. This would also be an opportunity to include some pretty parts as stock, everything from an inline and radial life support widget which turns electricity into go-juice to an inflatable habitat which has a huge supply of keep-em-alive-crackers.

Acknowledgments:

Life Support has been suggested a lot, so has "better" Tech Trees. I haven't seen a lot of traffic about the pacing of missions changing over the course of a career save. I think this is a novel solution to "fix" several issues in one go and therefore worth mentioning. I am sensitive to the fact that there are radically different play styles across the community, I'd be interested to know if this wouldn't work for you. Mods implement different levels of detail of "life support" because people want everything from no life support to every-little-detail life support, I'm confident that any system that ever becomes stock will be pretty simple (one, maybe two, quantities to keep track of) which is all it'd take to implement this suggestion.

[tater]

Just saw your thread in the other thread. Excellent points. You might want to take a look at Roverdude's WIP, as the notion of having to add LS to stock short-duration fits nicely.

BTW, where are you in CO?

Edited April 8, 2015 by tater

[JumpsterG]

You might want to take a look at Roverdude's WIP, as the notion of having to add LS to stock short-duration fits nicely.

Thank you for pointing to that, I was unaware of his plans for that new life support addition. I second that it is exactly what this OP is proposing and would work beautifully at not creating distractions from the missions you really want to focus on while adding interesting challenge and requirements for the interplanetary mid/late-game for career mode.

I heavily agree with your take on the proposed "Bad Solutions" also. They all "fix" a problem or two but in my opinion come with many new problems that would need further features and refinements to work.

[Joonatan1998]

I disagree that players should have best parts before going interplanetary.

I think you shouldn't be able to unlock everything in kerbin SOI (at least not easily), but also shouldn't be forced to grind biomes on mun/minmus.

One solution would be that the first biome you do experiment in gives full Science, the next one gives 2/3, next 2/4, 2/5...

Science rewards from contracts could be significantly reduced or completely removed. (or maybe they start going down after you have done x number of contracts in the same SOI?)

This would discourage grinding and encourage going forward.

I think the life support solution wouldn't really help, it would essentially create a hard wall that stops any progression until you grind trough it. Some kind of life support would be good, but I think interplanetary flight should be near the middle of the tree, not at the top.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Joonatan1998

[JumpsterG]

I disagree that players should have best parts before going interplanetary.

I think you shouldn't be able to unlock everything in kerbin SOI (at least not easily), but also shouldn't be forced to grind biomes on mun/minmus.

I think OP is in agreement with you. Right now, he's able to finish the whole tech tree without going further than Duna orbit. He's proposing some new tech nodes (related to life support) to the game to spread the tree out (costing more overall and requiring more science from further places).

One solution would be that the first biome you do experiment in gives full Science, the next one gives 2/3, next 2/4, 2/5...

Science rewards from contracts could be significantly reduced or completely removed. (or maybe they start going down after you have done x number of contracts in the same SOI?)

This would discourage grinding and encourage going forward.

Although maybe what you suggest will provoke players to go interplanetary sooner, I think it will unintentionally make the game more grindy, since way less science will be generated over a comparable period of play.

I'm also not sure that players should really be pushed too hard to go interplanetary. If a player is not yet sure about how to go interplanetary or is just enjoying themselves scraping every biome of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus, that's fine. Once they grow bored of it, or want to reach the last segments of the tech tree (probably their least favorite nodes, since they would already have picked the best for their playstyle by this point), they'll go interplanetary without much prompting.

Finally, Some rebalancing of science rewards and costs of tech nodes is needed (and currently being worked on by the devs! We'll have to see what Harvester came up with).

I think the life support solution wouldn't really help, it would essentially create a hard wall that stops any progression until you grind trough it. Some kind of life support would be good, but I think interplanetary flight should be near the middle of the tree, not at the top.

Life Support doesn't have to be extreme. The proposed mod by RoverDude is interesting in that it doesn't enact permanent consequences (by default, anyway) for failing to meet its requirements. Kerbal ships essentially become uncontrollable once out of supplies, just like probe cores do when they run out of electricity. There's a little more complexity (and fun!) to it, but that's the idea.

Also, the parts for life support can vary by tech levels. Assuming dedicated life support is not required for the short trips within the Kerbin system, the first life support parts can come along around the time the game starts giving space station and planetary base contracts, which is suitably mid-game and should be enough for easy trips to, say, Eve, Duna, and Dres at least (creative players will always be able to go further). A few more parts going up the tech tree can give more flexibility the further along the tech tree you go (different size containers, recycling capability, generation of life support resources in the field).

[Frank327]

I think there's other reasons than just the game balance that makes people finish the tech tree before going interplanetary.

1. Many people still play the career mode the same way as before money was introduced. Everybody got used to making big ships to hoover up all the science at their destination without much concern for the money it would be costing or the (IRL) time you're spending on it. I think players who started KSP after money was introduced will play it differently, not bringing lots of science equipment with them to cut costs and move on to new moons/planets earlier looking for more challenges and money.

2. The game is balanced in such a way that time doesn't have much of an effect. I think the devs were expecting people to just skip months or even more than a year on end to get to the transfer window of duna or eve. If you do a few missions on mun/minmus and then head straight for the transfer window of duna, then the pace of the research would feel a lot more natural.

I can only speak from my own experience, and I didn't completely finish the tech tree after visiting duna/eve/ike/gilly on moderate.

[tater]

I'm playing a RSS 6.4X kerbol system career with LS, etc. My career is now year 18 I think, and I finished the tech tree (including 1000 science parts added by PF, KAS, etc) and have not sent manned missions past Minmus yet. I have sent probe orbiters and landers to Jool, Duna, Dres, Eve (and moons), but not manned stuff yet. Lost 2 kerbals to a tragic time-warp accident so far, maybe I should consider the odd quick save...

Previously I did career with 3.2X kerbol system and unlocked everything in what would have been a few weeks in stock, except I was running KCT, so it took years.

Regarding OP's way of adding meaningful time via Life Support, it clearly works to a point. Another way to do this is one I suggested in another thread.

1. Make a distinction between commercial Contracts (most all parts testing, most all satellite launches, and a FEW of the "science/survey" contracts would be "commercial") and Kerbal Space Center (your program) Missions. The latter are ALL Explore type missions (more would be added), most all the science/survey missions, most of the base/station missions, and a small number (early on, largely) of the satellite contracts and parts testing. Commercial contracts pay out as they do now roughly (though amounts might change).

2. All the Missions are funded entirely up front (including some of the "contract" based science), but the payment is not upon accepting the Mission, but it is dealt out every ~50 days over the duration (budget period) of that mission. So say there is a new "Explore" type mission with a bunch of steps. We'll call it "Orbital spaceflight." This appears after suborbital missions/achievements. First milestone is achieving orbit at all (manned or unmanned), next might be manned orbital flight and reentry. Another might be a plane change, creating elliptical orbits, etc (shown on map like sat contracts). Say this Mission has a time frame of 10 50 day months (50 days is one Minmus month (minmonth? minth?)). So the total reward might be 200,000 funds, but you'd only see it 20,000 every 50 days. Yes, you'd need to warp sometimes for funds. Still beats doing stupid parts testing.

Those 2 steps make the program make sense for once (private entities tuning planetary science for no reason in stock is bizarre), and make time instantly matter, particularly combined with LS at some level.

[Joonatan1998]

If the life support nodes are expensive enough to not be unlocked in kerbin SOI with the current system, they would be extremely grindy to unlock even after going interplanetary.

Actual total science does not really matter that much, because it can be changed with sliders and depends on the difficulty setting. science distribution matters much more.

If the science was reduced with each new biome the amount from the first biome would probably have to be higher than it is now.

With reducing science rewards, you could get most science from a object with less grind, but still reward

more exploration if the player wants to do an rover mission / base.

At the moment the fastest and easiest way to progress is to grind every planet/moon you visit empty, but it is also pretty boring. With my suggestion single landing on each planet would be an accetable way to progress, you could still grind, but the game wouldn't encourage it like it does now.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Joonatan1998

[tater]

Actually, another easy way to make time matter within the current mechanics. Make science useful.

One, rebalance the science gained in general, generally speaking, significantly downwards.

Two, make contract appearance dependent upon completing other contracts.

Want to land on Duna? Knock yourself out. Want to get offered "Land on Duna" or other lucrative Duna contracts? Then you need to first complete the "Explore Duna" contract which is no longer the current contract, but instead one that examines the atmosphere, maps it ("science from orbit" (maybe set up like a satellite contract with a low, polar orbit required)), etc. Have the "Land on Duna" contract like a station construction contract where the craft has to be built AFTER accepting the mission. Now, you need to send a mission to not land, and study Duna first. The same would be true of the Mun, etc. Jool? That means you need to send a probe first (manned or not), that roughly places first manned landing on a Joolian moon at some point after year 7 at best, assuming you send a Jool probe as soon as the first low dv window pops up. Duna is not bad until day 200, so early game gets your probe to Duna by the end of the year at some point if you get right on a Duna mission. That means you get the data to open the landing missions and the next good Duna window is mid year 3 to late year 3 (arrival at Duna early -mid year 4).

This at least spreads the career out to several years. Combined with LS, this would really spread stuff out.

[JumpsterG]

If the life support nodes are expensive enough to not be unlocked in kerbin SOI with the current system, they would be extremely grindy to unlock even after going interplanetary.

Agreed, there would need to be life support parts cheap enough and low enough on the tree to be worth it, since it does become a requirement to going interplanetary. Although, life support in no way restricts probes, so even if the parts were very expensive and/or high in the tech tree, that would push probes as the natural option for early interplanetary missions.

Actual total science does not really matter that much, because it can be changed with sliders and depends on the difficulty setting. science distribution matters much more.

If the science was reduced with each new biome the amount from the first biome would probably have to be higher than it is now.

With reducing science rewards, you could get most science from a object with less grind, but still reward

more exploration if the player wants to do an rover mission / base.

At the moment the fastest and easiest way to progress is to grind every planet/moon you visit empty, but it is also pretty boring. With my suggestion single landing on each planet would be an accetable way to progress, you could still grind, but the game wouldn't encourage it like it does now.

I actually agree with you 100%. I do not like revisiting a biome to do the same experiment. When I play, I already skip revisits almost entirely for going to new biomes, since these individual missions maximize the player-time : science gained ratio.

And you're right, adjusting the difficulty slider for science rewards up and down effectively adjusts how many revisits to biomes needs to be done, so maybe this isn't too critical a balance issue.

[Tw1]

Better solution: Take the focus away from the techtree, and make the game more about doing space stuff than unlocking stuff.

It needs an aim other than "unlock parts for going to space by uh, going to space."

1. Make a distinction between commercial Contracts (most all parts testing, most all satellite launches, and a FEW of the "science/survey" contracts would be "commercial") and Kerbal Space Center (your program) Missions.

2. All the Missions are funded entirely up front (including some of the "contract" based science), but the payment is not upon accepting the Mission, but it is dealt out every ~50 days over the duration (budget period) of that mission. So say there is a new "Explore" type mission with a bunch of steps. .

I know we've discussed this previously, but for the purposes of this thread: I would rather see something less superficial than the system proposed in idea one. The distinction does give a little immersion value, but also reduces it a little- where is my space program getting this extra money from?

Plus, I'm also not sure about two. Most of our costs, mainly new vessels, are big, up-front costs, which makes getting big lump sum payments practical. I imagine a system like this would end up making you do a lot of otherwise pointless warping to save up funds, which could feel more of a grind.

If it was warping until a budget/payday, rather than warping until you've collected enough, then I imagine it would seem a little different, as long as the payment system is balanced so you could earn enough to do a lot on interesting/productive things in between payouts.

This is, (As I've posed before,) my thoughts on time based payout gameplay:

Basically, it would reward you for doing space program type things with your space program.

Reputation, achievements and knowledge would act like multipliers, but if you haven't made any new achievements, or done any exploration or research that year, you won't be getting any payment from your sponsors.

Contracts would still be there, but would play more of a secondary, letting you earn a few funds on the side[/size

In my ideal game mode, most of your funds would come from a yearly payment from "sponsors".

determined by several factors: achievements, exploration, knowledge, research, and reputation.

Achievements: A hidden stat based on milestones you've completed in the game. Achieving orbit, achieving a docking, rendezvous, planets you've orbited/flew past/landed on, etc. Like kerbal experience points.

Exploration: How much planetary surface you've been to, taken samples of, taken photos of, etc, in the past year. Area not previously visited is worth more.

Knowledge: How much you've discovered about each planet. Collected sort of like the current science is.

Research: Determined by how many science experiments you've done, their valuedetermined similar to the current system, and how much research you've done. Research would be a special sort of contract. It would be run from a crewed lab, which would need a number of specific science parts, a number of kerbals, and take a considerable amount of time to complete. This idea assumes the addition of life support, making re-supply runs necessary.

Reputation: Basically what it is now. Gain it for completing contracts, achieving milestones, etc, loose it for killing or firing kerbals. Especially, veteran ones.

Ideally, I'd prefer it if the game could do without the explore contracts altogether. I mean, we don't need to be walked through the whole game. Inform the player of when launch windows are, and give them things worth going to the planets for, and they will go.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Tw1

[JumpsterG]

Hey tater!

Let me start by saying it's very clear that you prefer to play a more challenging and time-sensitive game than I do, so take my opinions below with a grain of salt.

... Lost 2 kerbals to a tragic time-warp accident so far, maybe I should consider the odd quick save...

I'm not a fan of the existing life support options for that exact reason. I'm very excited about RoverDude's proposed system, because it requires the player to be concerned with life support, and perform resupply missions, while letting you ignore stations and flights in progress that you aren't interested in playing with.

1. Make a distinction between commercial Contracts (most all parts testing, most all satellite launches, and a FEW of the "science/survey" contracts would be "commercial") and Kerbal Space Center (your program) Missions. The latter are ALL Explore type missions (more would be added), most all the science/survey missions, most of the base/station missions, and a small number (early on, largely) of the satellite contracts and parts testing. Commercial contracts pay out as they do now roughly (though amounts might change).

This seems to be a very small change that mostly comes down to the names of things and changing the rewards around. I'm not saying it's wrong, since it sounds more logically laid out (the contract types being separated by funds-generating and science-gathering is cool) but I don't feel it changes anything in the long run, since players will still be doing the same things. With the right balancing and tuning, this would work fine, but the impact wouldn't be huge.

2. All the Missions are funded entirely up front (including some of the "contract" based science), but the payment is not upon accepting the Mission, but it is dealt out every ~50 days over the duration (budget period) of that mission. So say there is a new "Explore" type mission with a bunch of steps. We'll call it "Orbital spaceflight." This appears after suborbital missions/achievements. First milestone is achieving orbit at all (manned or unmanned), next might be manned orbital flight and reentry. Another might be a plane change, creating elliptical orbits, etc (shown on map like sat contracts). Say this Mission has a time frame of 10 50 day months (50 days is one Minmus month (minmonth? minth?)). So the total reward might be 200,000 funds, but you'd only see it 20,000 every 50 days. Yes, you'd need to warp sometimes for funds. Still beats doing stupid parts testing.

Here, I have to disagree. Sure, if you want to eliminate redundant part-testing contracts, a good rebalance might be in order, or maybe give the entirety of "Mission" contracts payout right away, so you have enough to do all steps of the mission as you go. But why would you ever enjoy sitting at the space center and playing the timewarp-stopwatch mini-game?

If you are playing a more complex game that manages ongoing incomes and expenses and there are other time-constraints, THEN it makes sense. But the base game is very likely not going to go that route. I personally would not enjoy that level of management, since it detracts from the time I would otherwise be spending building things and flying missions, and I think most players are in the same boat I am.

- - - Updated - - -

Better solution: Take the focus away from the techtree, and make the game more about doing space stuff than unlocking stuff.

Ultimately, I agree, the tech tree shouldn't appear to be the goal of the game. How specifically to fix this should probably be the subject of a larger discussion.

The suggestion in this thread has some merit beyond fixing the tech tree though, since it would also affect Sandbox mode and create new and interesting design challenges. The OP is offering that Life Support is a feature that would enrich multiple parts of the game at once, including helping tech tree progression.

[tater]

Better solution: Take the focus away from the techtree, and make the game more about doing space stuff than unlocking stuff.

It needs an aim other than "unlock parts for going to space by uh, going to space."

I agree, but the tech unlock thing is THE reward system in the game right now. In multiplayer games, the reward is winning. In single player games, there are things a game gives you which powerfully drive gameplay, even when we are unaware of it.

I know we've discussed this previously, but for the purposes of this thread: I would rather see something less superficial than the system proposed in idea one. The distinction does give a little immersion value, but also reduces it a little- where is my space program getting this extra money from?

I don't disagree. Remember that many of these ideas are not posted as what I would wish for, but rather what I think is easy for them to do, given the assumption that the gross mechanics of the career are not going to change. I'd wager that the gross mechanics are not going to change, so I hope that they might see that there are ways to make time matter within their (broken) system.

Plus, I'm also not sure about two. Most of our costs, mainly new vessels, are big, up-front costs, which makes getting big lump sum payments practical. I imagine a system like this would end up making you do a lot of otherwise pointless warping to save up funds, which could feel more of a grind.

The POINT of my ideas is "pointless warping." I want people to have to warp. They said that "warp to waypoint" was a thing for 1.0. Add a button that warps to day 1 of the next calendar month (using 50 day minmus months). Your large rocket needs 2 months of your budget for that project? Accept mission, hit the button twice. 2 months has passed. Without this, in the current game you accept the "contract," build the rocket, and fly it 30 minutes of less after accepting it. Maybe you warp to the destination and back… a day passes on Kerbin. Unless you are warping to completion of a Duna return mission or farther, effectively no time passes in game. I launch missions, but continue to do Kerbin SoI missions… as a result, time only passes in my game for Kerbin-Minmus transfers at most, or perhaps a few orbits for a rendezvous. I rarely warp for an encounter with a distant world, as I am doing resupply, etc. UNless people warp all distant missions to completion, time barely passes in KSP, you go from no spaceflight, to massive munar/minmar bases before the first low-energy transfer to Duna appears.

If it was warping until a budget/payday, rather than warping until you've collected enough, then I imagine it would seem a little different, as long as the payment system is balanced so you could earn enough to do a lot on interesting/productive things in between payouts.

Yeah, I posted the warp to month thing in another thread about this concept, and forgot this time. The commercial contracts would pay right away, not be a budget thing, BTW. 2 ways to get funds.

Ideally, I'd prefer it if the game could do without the explore contracts altogether. I mean, we don't need to be walked through the whole game. Inform the player of when launch windows are, and give them things worth going to the planets for, and they will go.

I'd be all for this if there was fog of war in the game, useful science, etc. Right now, I want career to have some drivers. Right now, I consider more of the non-explore contracts to be nothing but a grind to get funds to do the explore contracts. Might as well play Science mode, I guess.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey tater!

I'm not a fan of the existing life support options for that exact reason. I'm very excited about RoverDude's proposed system, because it requires the player to be concerned with life support, and perform resupply missions, while letting you ignore stations and flights in progress that you aren't interested in playing with.

I'd have mine set to death, so roverdude's would not change much for me along those lines.

This seems to be a very small change that mostly comes down to the names of things and changing the rewards around. I'm not saying it's wrong, since it sounds more logically laid out (the contract types being separated by funds-generating and science-gathering is cool) but I don't feel it changes anything in the long run, since players will still be doing the same things. With the right balancing and tuning, this would work fine, but the impact wouldn't be huge.

They will be doing the same things, but their program will do them over time, instead of unlocking the entire tech tree long before a Duna launch window appears, which is what the game is like now. Adding time mechanics then allows for concepts like a space race, time based challenges, etc.

Here, I have to disagree. Sure, if you want to eliminate redundant part-testing contracts, a good rebalance might be in order, or maybe give the entirety of "Mission" contracts payout right away, so you have enough to do all steps of the mission as you go. But why would you ever enjoy sitting at the space center and playing the timewarp-stopwatch mini-game?

Squad has said there would be a warp to waypoint function in 1.0. Have "warp to the beginning of next month" button. The point is to move the calendar forward. It is less grindy to hit that button a couple times than it is to click away to get a few parts contracts you can do in 1 flight, then test them on the pad to get the same funds. Career right now is mostly grind, IMO.

If you are playing a more complex game that manages ongoing incomes and expenses and there are other time-constraints, THEN it makes sense. But the base game is very likely not going to go that route. I personally would not enjoy that level of management, since it detracts from the time I would otherwise be spending building things and flying missions, and I think most players are in the same boat I am.

My point is that time should matter for all kinds of other mechanics. I'm pretty disinterested in the "management" idea as a game. My ideal career KSP game would be time mattering, with an AI opposing space program that I am competing with.

I think LS alone adds constraints that improve gameplay.

[LABHOUSE]

Better solution: Take the focus away from the techtree, and make the game more about doing space stuff than unlocking stuff.

It needs an aim other than "unlock parts for going to space by uh, going to space."

I know we've discussed this previously, but for the purposes of this thread: I would rather see something less superficial than the system proposed in idea one. The distinction does give a little immersion value, but also reduces it a little- where is my space program getting this extra money from?

Plus, I'm also not sure about two. Most of our costs, mainly new vessels, are big, up-front costs, which makes getting big lump sum payments practical. I imagine a system like this would end up making you do a lot of otherwise pointless warping to save up funds, which could feel more of a grind.

If it was warping until a budget/payday, rather than warping until you've collected enough, then I imagine it would seem a little different, as long as the payment system is balanced so you could earn enough to do a lot on interesting/productive things in between payouts.

This is, (As I've posed before,) my thoughts on time based payout gameplay:

Ideally, I'd prefer it if the game could do without the explore contracts altogether. I mean, we don't need to be walked through the whole game. Inform the player of when launch windows are, and give them things worth going to the planets for, and they will go.

I usually play on an edited game mode with infinite science, but not infinite funds, so it is similar to what would happen if a new space agency would sprout up with little funding.

[Mr. Scruffy]

Tater, seems like we got our ´missions´. No need to sign contracts for altitude records for example in 1.0 - they are active by default and dont seem to count against the mission limit (if there still is one). Source: KSPTV stream.