How do u do rescue contracts when the target keeps having mun encounters.

[leocrumb]

I'm not sure if it is intentional on not but I'm finding this challenge next to impossible.

Its a standard rescue contract on a large Kirbin orbit, and my target gets constant mun encounters maybe 2 out of three orbits. Everytime I set up an encounter the Mun SOI encounter pushes him onto a different orbit, compounding to that problem my own orbit also ends up having SOI encounters. I ended up dropping the contract after I whizzed forward in time and saw that the encounters continued indefinitely.

Is there any way to do a contract like this, or is it just some freak accident?

[Captain H@dock]

It's probably a freak accident. Likewise you get sat contracts for orbits that clearly are too close to the mun (though you don't have to sync it with the actual mun phase).

As for trying to complete it, why not having the rescue pod wait in orbit of the mun? Wait for the next encounter, and depart the mun post target change of course. Then you just have to catch up with the target before it completes its next orbit (this will obviously require slightly more aggressive RDV maneuvers than usual).

Note: I've never tried that strategy and it would probably cost a lot more in dV than what these rescue was supposed to, making it less profitable.

[cybersol]

It could be worse, sometimes they crash into the Mun's surface within a couple of orbits after accepting the contract!

[Mister Dilsby]

Actually I love this, it adds some drama to the rescue! I send my rescue ships with a couple thousand more dV in the tank than I need for a straight Munshot and return. In a recent mission the stranded ship was in Mun orbit when I launched, but then got spat out to HKO again. I was watching carefully during transit, so I was able to burn to a parallel course when my rescue ship entered Mun SOI and then meet the target in HKO. Lots of fun, and what someone else called "paying the iron price" rather than the Kerbucks price to get a new crew member.

[One Wheeled Panda]

On Monday I accepted a "Rescue from Kerbin Orbit" contract where the Kerbal to be rescued was captured by Mun right away - on a collision course...

These contracts should really consider SOI boundaries. Is there a way of seeing the orbit before accepting the contract?

[Snark]

Agreed that the satellite-encounter problem makes the contract harder than you'd think when accepting the contract. I actually kinda like a challenge like this... but it ought to happen deliberately (with appropriate design), not by accident. That is, I wish they'd do something like this:

1. When the game is generating a rescue contract, and rolling the dice, it should decide "should this be a hard-rescue-with-encounters or not?"

2, If it decides "no, this is a normal rescue" (which should be the majority case), then the orbital parameters should be set up safely, to guarantee no encounters with the Mun or whatever.

3. If it decides "yes, this is a hard one", then the contract text should clearly include something like "NOTE: This orbit is subject to Mun encounters and is extra-hard" or whatever... and the contract reward should be made higher, to reflect the added difficulty.

Anyway, regarding the current problem,

As for trying to complete it, why not having the rescue pod wait in orbit of the mun? Wait for the next encounter, and depart the mun post target change of course. Then you just have to catch up with the target before it completes its next orbit (this will obviously require slightly more aggressive RDV maneuvers than usual).

...That's a brilliant suggestion, excellent idea! It actually wouldn't even be all that hard in terms of dV. Send your rescue craft into a Mun orbit, target the rescuee. Even before the rescuee enters the Mun's SOI, you can see what its trajectory will be as it transits the SOI, so you just set up an intercept to that (it's pretty much the same problem as setting up a rendezvous to capture a passing asteroid). So it's a bit more dV, but not all that much (basically, the only extra dV you pay is to get captured by the Mun, and then to leave again; just a few hundred m/s). Totally doable.

[cephalo]

The bigger the difference in orbit between you and the target means it takes less orbits to do a rendezvous. In case you didn't know, you can drag the maneuver nodes along the orbit path making rendezvous a lot easier. If you are in LKO and he's in HKO, you should be able to meet him within one orbit.

[Captain H@dock]

...That's a brilliant suggestion, excellent idea! It actually wouldn't even be all that hard in terms of dV. Send your rescue craft into a Mun orbit, target the rescuee. Even before the rescuee enters the Mun's SOI, you can see what its trajectory will be as it transits the SOI, so you just set up an intercept to that (it's pretty much the same problem as setting up a rendezvous to capture a passing asteroid). So it's a bit more dV, but not all that much (basically, the only extra dV you pay is to get captured by the Mun, and then to leave again; just a few hundred m/s). Totally doable.

When I was typing it, I was reminded of the excellent guide to RDVing with an asteroid on an hyperbolic trajectory outside of Kerbin SOI. And if the target is on a collision course, you could even try to RDV in advance (for a huge dV budget). But like you said, freak accidents won't provision for the extra cost, so it's not really worth it.