Multiple Satelite missions with a single probe - feels like abuse?

[InfectedGrowth]

I think the best way to fix this is to

a) remove control of the vessel after finishing the contract

and

make a new ship tag for other companies' vessels

When you get it into the right orbit and stay stable for 10 seconds, a button could pop up (maybe in the message system) which, when clicked would ask you if you wanted to yield control of the vessel and complete the contract. If you hit no, the contract won't complete. If you hit yes, then the game would basically deactivate the probe cores and pods in th craft, rendering it uncontrollable. Then it would re-declare it as a new category, like debris, which is for other companies' vessels. The game could even add the company's name in front of the ship as a prefix.

Edited May 5, 2015 by InfectedGrowth
Spelling

[Sirrobert]

That's a fair point. However, you could also use realism to argue the opposite point. If two different countries on opposite sides of the Earth want to launch a satellite into geosynchronous orbit above their country, you can't really do that with one satellite at all.

Do you keep all satalites launched for a contract in your flight list? Cause I delete them. Deactivate by classing as debris, or just crash into whatever it's orbiting

[Wesreidau]

I wouldn't mind if you had to right click the probe body, select "complete contract", confirmed a dialog box, and then permanently lost control of the device to the customer, either as debris or simply deleting it. But as it stands it isn't a bug, its a feature.

[Mic_n]

Absolutely not abuse.

In fact, I'd suggest if you're launching missions that only accomplish a single contract is a sign of poor planning. I could forgive it if it was your first Mun mission or some big milestone event like that, but even then you ought to be looking for suitable contracts you could achieve on the way.

I was actually at the point of "mission planning" in earlier versions (haven't had much time to play of late), working out a mission profile that would allow me to satisfy four or more contracts over the course of a single brief mission.. testing parts at various envelopes while en route to the next... "ok, I can test that separator on the way up, need to be around speed X at altitude Y.. keep climbing but back off the throttle to keep the speed below Z where I can fire up that engine, cut it back off and decend down to then drop back and test this chute..."

In the end: it's a contract. You meet the terms of the contract and are rewarded appropriately. There's no bonus for over-servicing it. Doing so is a waste.

[Renegrade]

To me that sounds both reasonable and plausible.

Having worked for huge telcos in the past (and near future, it looks like) - I can tell you, they would sue your intestines out if they paid you to place a telecom sat and it was then later repurposed in any way by you.

Not sure how the weather guys would feel about their weather sat going away. Could be better, or could involve cutting pinkies off. Who knows?

Anyhow, reusing the same core is definitely against the design. The reason why the in-game rules aren't stricter are for technical reasons (ex. imagine the ways the 'delete after deploy' thing could go wrong - especially given that sometimes craft can't undock properly and remain associated even after the undock), and also to allow for legitimate deployment (ex. using a single launcher containing multiple satellites).

Here's a counter example: how well would an RT2 comm sat constellation work with just ONE sat? Could you make a four-sat relay system with just one?

[Temeter]

I'm not really convinced by feels. If you invest an unlimited amount of time into fulfilling contracts, then you get an unlimited amount of money. Does that feel exploity too?

Seriously, a million isn't actually much money considering how much time you must have put into executing the contracts, not to mention collecting them, since quite a few actually have a clause that the craft needs to be launched after the contract is accepted. Could have earned a lot more in that time.

Comepleting so many missions in a single flight is an achievement. I'm not seeing why the game shouldn't reward you for the effort?

[Motokid600]

Only if there isn't a large inclination change needed, yea Ill jump to another orbit to complete a second contract.

[mikegarrison]

Having worked for huge telcos in the past (and near future, it looks like) - I can tell you, they would sue your intestines out if they paid you to place a telecom sat and it was then later repurposed in any way by you.

Not sure how the weather guys would feel about their weather sat going away. Could be better, or could involve cutting pinkies off. Who knows?

Anyhow, reusing the same core is definitely against the design. The reason why the in-game rules aren't stricter are for technical reasons (ex. imagine the ways the 'delete after deploy' thing could go wrong - especially given that sometimes craft can't undock properly and remain associated even after the undock), and also to allow for legitimate deployment (ex. using a single launcher containing multiple satellites).

Here's a counter example: how well would an RT2 comm sat constellation work with just ONE sat? Could you make a four-sat relay system with just one?

So if you want to play the game under those self-imposed constraints, go for it. There is no reason to ask squad to impose the same restraints on everyone else just because you like playing under them.

[Frybert]

Would be nice just to get some sat contracts.

[Arsonide]

LOL, is this seriously still exploitable in 1.0.2?

Kind of, as this thread shows, the community doesn't really perceive this as an exploit, so it was "soft fixed". Station and outpost contracts prevent this sort of contract "stacking" by never targeting the same planets. This essentially forces the player to launch a new facility for every contract, without explicitly telling that to the player. Unless the player can get a base from the surface of Duna to the surface of Ike, in which case, more power to him.

With satellite contracts, there are people that enjoyed stacking them, but there were also some people stacking upwards of eight per launch to abuse the "new vessel" objective. The solution was somewhere in the middle: no more than two satellite contracts can target the same planet. This requires the player to launch a new vessel for every two satellite contracts, essentially, even though it's a very subtle change.

It allows players to multitask, but ensures that a minimal amount of mission planning will be required, to avoid getting too exploitative.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Arsonide

[colonel0sanders]

I tend to do the satellite missions one at a time, but as cheaply as possible. I had a sat in 0.9 that cost less than 5k (boosters and everything included) and could get just about anywhere in the Kerbin SOI. I dunno if you could do that now with the engine nerfs, but you could probably get close

[Jarin]

I'd be in favor of removing control of the sat once in place. Is it an exploit? Not really. It decidedly feels like punching a hole in that 4th wall though. Those contracts should want the satellite to stay put for some unstated future use, not just be there for a few seconds.

[fairytalefox]

I believe the devs should do something with these sat contracts. In the real world, nobody will pay you for keeping a satellite at an orbit for freakin' ten seconds. KSP is not a real world obviously and don't have to be 100% realistic, but this is just ridiculous.

Of course, in a single player game we are free to exploit any glitches and inconsistencies we feel like to, nothing wrong with it.

[Wesreidau]

Nobody is paying you to put it there for ten seconds. They're paying you to demonstrate you can take your hands off the keys and it won't explode.

[Jarin]

Nobody is paying you to put it there for ten seconds. They're paying you to demonstrate you can take your hands off the keys and it won't explode.

That is why the game has you stay put for 10 seconds, but that says nothing about the in-world agency paying for the contract. That's my complaint.

[fairytalefox]

Nobody is paying you to put it there for ten seconds. They're paying you to demonstrate you can take your hands off the keys and it won't explode.

I mean, it's just not fair.

Like, "Hello guys, here's your satellite, it's orbit is stable, where's my money?" And they're like, "Thank you Mr. Space Manager, this bag of money is now yours". And then you're like, "Hello guys, it's me again, sucks to be you because all your satellite are belong to us, and you cannot sue me for this because you're just a bunch of computer code and don't even actually exist". I mean, people can do it if they want but... it is just not fair.

[Jarin]

This is why I play with RemoteTech and just use satellite contracts as relays. I set them up as part of the network, point one antenna at my geosats and one at "active vessel" and then mark as debris so it doesn't clutter up my map view.

[fairytalefox]

I don't use RemoteTech so I just leave these satellites at their orbits for a couple of weeks. Nothing is forcing me to do this, I just feel better this way. For me, it's a pleasure to be a good guy, at least in games.

[Mic_n]

Don't think of it as launching someone's satellite.

Think of it as providing the results of that satellite's flight. It may not be a comms sat that needs to be in place indefinately, maybe they just want some sort of survey done? You're launching your own satellite to perform that survey. Once it's done, it's junk.

"Perform a flyover", if you will.

If there are two clients out there want similar missions done, and you can satisfy both with one satellite, then good for you.

I _also_ work for a telco, one that runs satellites (though I have nothing to do with them myself)... We don't launch the sats ourselves, but once they're up there, we do take over control. The ones in-game aren't that sort of setup. KSP sats are designed, built, launched, controlled, paid for and ultimately owned by KSP. Not the client. They're just after the results you can provide.

NB: those comments are based on the older contracts - I haven't played enough 1.x yet to progress my career mode to satellite missions. If the things have changed significantly enough, I'll grant that some of that may not be quite so applicable any more.

[Mipe]

It's not their satellite. It's YOUR satellite - they're just buying 10 seconds of its time in certain conditions.

If you don't like this, why don't you use Contract Configurator to make a more permanent satellite contract pack?

[Hannu]

Using one satellite for multiple destinations isn't exploiting ... it's being EFFICIENT! Let's examine just one real-world example of this (Cassini) that mainly did this for gravity assists, but science was collected:

It seems that there are again realism guys vs. gameplay guys. I think that satellite contracts are some kind of communications, remote sensing or military satellites like in our world. Those who pays satellite launches want to use them years. Also NASA would not been happy, if it had been bought Cassini from some company which would have taken it back 10 seconds after Saturn orbit insertion.

But gameplay is also good aspect. You get a reward when you plan clever trajectory and fulfill several contracts with one satellite instead of grinding every satellites one at time. Current system gives both sides an opportunity to play with their style.

[LN400]

Perhaps it's as simple as this: Nothing in KSP is real. It's fantasy, it's a universe that only exists as 0s and 1s inside a computer as well as in our imagination. As such, these sats can be whatever each player wants them to be and it's perfectly fine. If you think of them as commsats, then they are commsats. If you think of them as spysats then they are spysats. If you imagine they are for scientific experiments and that's it, then that's exactly what they are. There is no right or wrong. It's all what each of us want it to be. To me, a satelite with a goo container is not a commsat. To someone else, it is. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either. It only becomes an issue if we start thinking that we all must imagine it all the exact same way. To me that thought is dreadful!

[KerbMav]

Skyrim and GTA are also sandboxes. A sandbox does not mean no rules

In a single player game there are only the rules we set for ourselves - but can we please leave this for the immortal MechJab threads.

.

My thoughts on this exactly since these contracts were announced!

.

As a safety feature in case you accidently sent a Duna probe into a parking orbit fitting a contract, yes!

.

Oh you little ...

So to summarize once more:

A dedicated part for each contract,

either always the same or picked from a random pool using already existing models and textures in the game,like the spawned debris another kind of contracts asks us to bring back to Kerbin,

using the part test mechanic to let them pop up in the VAB, vanishes again after contract is completed,

upfront payment and reward balanced with the price of the part so we get one of them "for free" technically, make less profit if we loose it during launch and if we really mess it up have to pay for it from our own pockets if we at least wish to avoid the reputation loss from failing the contract.

Handing it over to the client as part of the contract,

satellite is marked as debris and probably looses all salvage value or is even removed from the game entirely after it is unloaded,

an interaction with the mission part is required, so we can still send up more satellites in one launch, but do not loose the whole cargo (and launch vehicle) at the first correct orbit.

Edited May 6, 2015 by KerbMav

[Mipe]

You are reading into it too much. The next time you take a satellite contract, inspect it carefully - where does it say anything about ownership change?

If you want to orbit foreign satellites, then you should campaign for contracts with such terms.

[Wanderfound]

I believe the devs should do something with these sat contracts. In the real world, nobody will pay you for keeping a satellite at an orbit for freakin' ten seconds. KSP is not a real world obviously and don't have to be 100% realistic, but this is just ridiculous.

Actually, they kinda do. A fair bit of orbital research is "take this experiment to space, radio back the data, done". And on the budget end of space launches (Boxsats etc.) it's routine for a dozen small research labs to jointly fund one launch, with each of them taking up a small fraction of the payload.