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

[fairytalefox]

Well, nothing in the universe we can see is real, it only exists as excitatories and inhibitories of neurons inside our brains. It however is not a good reason for me to be a jerk.

It's not the the game I care about. It's myself. I'd call it karma if I were a Buddhist. I'd call it soul if I were a Christian. I'd call it ethics if I were a philosopher. I'm none of the above so I just call it "not being a jerk".

UPD.

Actually, they kinda do.

Well, maybe it's the point. I don't know. I just play the game in a way I like to.

These contracts say, "launch a new satellite". For me, it means I have to launch a satellite per contract. The game doesn't seem to actually check it but, as I said above, blah-blah-blah dinosaurs.

Edited May 6, 2015 by fairytalefox

[Mic_n]

They're paying for the data, not the ability to get that data.

[kurja]

But I suggest that satellite contracts should give some "black box" with size, mass and strength. Player would get money when that box is separated from player's craft on correct orbit.

The 'better than starting manned' mod does exactly this, there are payload to specific orbit- missions where these 'black boxes' of varying size and mass need to be lifted and detached to fulfill the contract. I think that's the best way to do it. I haven't played that mod in a while though so not sure if there have been changes.

[Pax Kerbana]

It's only abuse if its reported...

Maybe you'll stop cheating if you knew you could get a probe for most contracts into orbit for less than 10,000 roots (sans science)?

[Korizan]

If you feel it is abusive then don't do it.

The game is giving you the freedom to decide rather then enforce a rule.

So make make it as easy or as hard as you wish and enjoy it.

[Moonfrog]

Your game, your choice, its not game breaking. Abuse has to include another person or at least yourself. contract doesn't specify what the sat does when its up there, might just take a single picture and move on. Might want to take 5 pictures from 5 different locations, one sat can do that.

If it bothers you, make stuff up to fit the story. i repeat again its not game breaking.

[Spaps]

It does look a bit cheaty in my eyes. I like to leave those satellites on their orbits, and use them for science missions and whatnot. And modify them with newly researched parts!

[Znath]

In my career game I did this. I over-made a satellite with 3 baby probes and flew it to jool. At some point my over reaching caught up with me. I was out of money, layoffs, almost ready to just give in and give up. Then a mission came up "Gather data from around Tylo. Flew my probe from Jool over, got a bunch of money. Another mission comes up "Gather data from blabla" long story short. My fleet of idle probes hovering around each of the planets saved my program.

So really, this isn't cheating, it's what NASA does all the time. The more life and missions you can do with a single probe, the better. That's why Curiosity has so many sensors and instruments to experiment with. It's a long-life probe to gather tons of data.

[Deflinek]

As others said it's efficiency, not abuse. Would it change anything if you used 3-4 relatively cheep vessels to complete all those missions? You would still complete them within budget and probably it wouldn't take you much longer. Even "lost of control" wouldn't change much if the same design could be used for all of this.

Now, my point is - you can do in ONCE. If I understand correctly (I'm still new to this game) you won't get the same contracts to Mun and Minimus again. And for other astral bodies you will need to plan differently to accomplish similar achievement.

It definitely would be abuse if you could do it over and over to raise funds and science.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

If you can make a satellite that can do all of that by itself, then that's enough of an achievement in my eyes.

[sdj64]

I usually use multiple satellites instead. That way there are also many probes left in different orbits or landed for those "science from space around ___" contracts. In the Kerbin system, each satellite can usually make it from low orbit to its destination, while for interplanetary targets, I use a more powerful rocket, whose upper stage can get the probes out of Kerbin's SOI.

I don't think it's exploiting anything because in real life, rockets can launch multiple payloads. Also, there are examples of satellites adjusting their orbits, so that's not so far-fetched either. Though the "launch a new satellite" wording suggests that the contractor wants it to stay there. A possible solution (for a modder or for Squad in a future update) is paying half the payout immediately, and the other half in a year if the satellite is still in that orbit.

[Joonatan1998]

The "launch a new satellite" could maybe also be explained by that they want to slightly modify the parts from the normal state. All launches between taking and completing the contract have these modifications.

They only ask to keep it there for 10 seconds, I wouldn't say 10 seconds makes a "new" satellite "old".

[Renegrade]

I'm not one of the super-realism people (in fact, I usually cross swords with 'em if they so much as mention RSS scales above 2.0x), but there has to be a line drawn somewhere between 'reasonable abstraction' and senselessness.

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.

There's no reason for Squad to NOT impose the restraints. There IS a reason for them to impose 'em: gameplay. It's far more challenging and balanced (and interesting) to have to have a multi-payload rocket than just use the same damn single-payload rocket to hit six contracts in the Kerbin SOI. Also, see below at the very end for something that REQUIRES the payload to stay.

Or if you want to flip it around the other way, consider this logic: Why bother with the 'new vessel' thing at all? If they want a damn probe with a bloody thermometer in a given orbit, why can't I use my really old LKO science probe for that? It has an antenna, power, and a re-usable experiment. Why can't I just move that one a bit?

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.

The people paying for the one-shot radio data aren't paying more than a month's rent on a downtown apartment. Not five times the price of the entire launch vehicle. Besides, we already HAVE the 'radio back the data' contract. It's called 'science from orbit/surface/etc of x' (and it's kinda OP too but that's another thread~).

The box sat people sharing a boxsat would be VERY angry if the boxsat, targeted to LEO, was suddenly taken to the Moon after ten seconds and all of their experiments aborted. Well, except the people who want to place Jeb in orbit; I imagine they don't care where it is, as long as it's in space.

The 'better than starting manned' mod does exactly this, there are payload to specific orbit- missions where these 'black boxes' of varying size and mass need to be lifted and detached to fulfill the contract. I think that's the best way to do it. I haven't played that mod in a while though so not sure if there have been changes.

Yep, it's still like that, and that's still the best way to do it. You can launch multiple payloads on a given mission still, and each payload has a button to deliver it. It doesn't have to have anything attached, it just has to remain in the orbit it's placed in. You CAN delete 'em from the tracking center (although that will remove it from possible future resupply/recover missions) once they're delivered.

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.

You mean six. It's trivially easy to fart around the Kerbin SOI once you're out of LKO.. could easily pick up a pair of LKOs, a pair of Mun progrades, and a pair of Minmus anythings.. Man, don't backpedal on a good concept just because a bunch of end-users who know nothing of game design want to get their easy-mode on.

I don't think it's exploiting anything because in real life, rockets can launch multiple payloads. Also, there are examples of satellites adjusting their orbits, so that's not so far-fetched either. Though the "launch a new satellite" wording suggests that the contractor wants it to stay there. A possible solution (for a modder or for Squad in a future update) is paying half the payout immediately, and the other half in a year if the satellite is still in that orbit.

We're not talking about one rocket launching multiple satellites (which is indeed a very reasonable, sensible, and non-cheaty design) - we're talking about a single satellite being in an orbit for ten seconds, and then being carted off to fulfill another order, and then another, etc.

An easy solution is the BTSM design, as mentioned above. It's sensible, works, and is rock-solid in BTSM and could therefore be rock-solid in stock too.

A more interesting solution would be to have it controlled entirely by the 'third party' once deployed, and that they would request various things like additional parts added (would be via docking ports right now, but if KAS or KAS-like functionality ever became stock, we could have missions like the Hubble Telescope repair etc), resupply, crew rotation, whatnot. That would take a good deal more work than the BTSM solution, of course..

[fairytalefox]

A more interesting solution would be to have it controlled entirely by the 'third party' once deployed, and that they would request various things like additional parts added (would be via docking ports right now, but if KAS or KAS-like functionality ever became stock, we could have missions like the Hubble Telescope repair etc), resupply, crew rotation, whatnot. That would take a good deal more work than the BTSM solution, of course..

Wooooow, didn't even think about it. Would be exceptionally cool.

BTSM's approach isn't bad, too. But it comes with BTSM itself which is kinda unnecessarily cruel.

[Renegrade]

Wooooow, didn't even think about it. Would be exceptionally cool.

Well, it's come up from time to time in the suggestions forum since contracts appeared - some good ideas floating around in that forum.

BTSM's approach isn't bad, too. But it comes with BTSM itself which is kinda unnecessarily cruel.

It's very harsh, but the harshness makes rewards feel that much better - imagine, for example, having your favorite dinner. Now, imagine having it after starving for three days

[Wanderfound]

It's very harsh, but the harshness makes rewards feel that much better - imagine, for example, having your favorite dinner. Now, imagine having it after starving for three days

BTSM is appealing, but the lack of FAR-compatability makes it a non-starter, unfortunately.

[Nim]

You think like a true kerbal! Good on you!

[arkie87]

Why cant you just lose control of the satellite (i.e. deliver into the hands of the organization that funded you in the first place) that way you cannot do this. Something like this will be needed when multiplayer is implemented to prevent you from controlling other players' crafts.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Wait, why is it incompatible with FAR?

For the topic - I prefer launching multiple sats per launch. Sometimes it's even easier than doing all in one launch - I felt strangely satisfied when I put one sat in a synchronous orbit and the second one into a retrograde orbit in one launch, using a single bi-elliptic transfer maneuver.

I also feel like I abused the contract a bit when I got a Mun polar orbit contract and, well... thanks for paying for my survey satellite, I guess.

Why cant you just lose control of the satellite (i.e. deliver into the hands of the organization that funded you in the first place) that way you cannot do this. Something like this will be needed when multiplayer is implemented to prevent you from controlling other players' crafts.

Bad idea. You might lose control of your upper stage with multiple sats attached...

[Freshmeat]

I am squarely on the "wow, nice one" side of the fence. While it might not have been the intent of the contracts, you had a fine challenge designing a vessel and flying it. And that is after all what KSP is about. YMMV though, and if you feel it is abuse, stop doing it. I did orbits as single jobs in 0.90, because I never considered the benefits of stacking. But once I get time to do something serious about the update, I will remember this thread.

[Wanderfound]

Wait, why is it incompatible with FAR?

Not designed to work with it; there used to be a section in the BTSM OP that specifically advised against FAR. Now it seems to have been edited to "don't use anything except DRE with BTSM".

See Flowerchild's assorted comments at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/search.php?searchid=5178658

[WhirlwindMonk]

Bad idea. You might lose control of your upper stage with multiple sats attached...

They could always add a "Complete Contract" button that's only clickable when in the proper orbit so you can detach whatever you need to before you lose control.

[Falkenherz]

Uh, I am pretty sure I saw a video from DFWanderingKid where he tried that exploit and failed in 0.9. I guess the difference is, as long as you build the satelite *after* you accepted the contracs, the game lets you get away with re-using the same satelite? Anyways, launching satelites is dirt cheap compared to the profit, so I do not see much difference whether you launch a new one or just re-steer the same one again.