Contracts at their finest :)

[SoWeMeetAgain]

contracts definitely need work - a few suggestions:

unique (prototype) parts for specific contracts (unique in look of course!). You only have it once, you really can fail your mission.

"rescue" contracts aren't only pods, instead "real" ships with no fuel (just for the eyecandy)

"recovery" contracts of parts, again unique parts either as part of an assembly or something

"bring x to y" not only land it on kerbin but get it to a specific location etc pp

[Edax]

Nope, they do Not regularly get people asking and capable of paying to go at any place NASA sent one unmanned probes. NASA didn't bring tourists on the Mun during the Apollo program and the only way for a Private Investor to land on Mars is if Elon Musk became an astronaut long after founding the world first most extraordinary mission of the century. (Those who read "The man who sold the Mun" should get what I'm coming at)

This is a big distinction because KSP's tourists are somehow fully capable of funding any damn missions even in non-reusable vehicle when they should actually not exist except for :

- that ONE tourist paying for a seat in an mission already planned.

- those dozen other tourists investing a lot of money for a mere suborbital hop in a cheap vehicle.

It's all about dosage and verisimilitude. If you treat 90% of stupid contract as if they were valid, your program will feel like 90% stupid.

To quote myself : I would like to stop feeling like I'm a Tour Operator in the game 'Kerbal Tourism Program'.

And as said numerous time now, the tourist aren't the source of the problem, they are only a symptom.

A symptoms of SQUAD not having put the time (yet) to balance and fully integrate several disparate features into a veritable cohesive Gameplay. Which is sad since most of the work must have been in the ability to track users action and generate specific contracts.

There's nothing bad in random generation of contents but by itself it don't necessarily mean random generation of goods contents, you need to filter thing.

And talking of filter, I don't think the game do (because no dV-reader) but I think it would improve to keep track of the mass/drymass of spacecraft sent anywhere. Because it's one thing to send a 4 tons in orbit, it's something else to send 100 tons on Eeloo.

I think the solution is to just not have tourist in contracts. I often conduct missions where I have spare seats, either in launching space stations or just on my Spaceplanes. It'd be nice if in the crew menu I could just stuff the empty seats with tourists for some extra coin. Generally I only have space stations manned by at most 2 Kerbals, despite the contracts demanding +5 capacity, so why not just stuff some tourists in there until I'm ready to deorbit a shuttle back to KSC. Let what they see be left to the player, the more they see, the more they'll pay. That's more or less already how the exp system works for the kerbonauts, they aren't rewarded for completing contracts, they get their exp from where they've been. Maybe for every "level" a tourist gains, the higher tier payout?

Edited July 16, 2015 by Edax

[Linventor]

If you don't like a contract, just decline it. If you have it set so that there isn't a penalty for declining contracts you haven't accepted yet, you can decline as many as you want with no backlash (I think)

[Mikki]

I accepted last weekend a contract to catch a fresh untouched newly discovered E size Asteroid in solar orbit near Kerbin, and bring it to Jools orbit.
-Cool...
Price tag completion: 4 million and some more Kerbucks.
-Goooood...
I went there and grabbed a around 2500 ton chunk and draw a maneuver. 
-Easy...
Burntime with 6 stock LV-Ns: 4 hours and some minutes.
-Abort Mission...
Mission failure: 1 and a half million Kerbucks.
-"insert swear words of favourite choice".

 

[Terwin]

4 minutes ago, Mikki said:

I accepted last weekend a contract to catch a fresh untouched newly discovered E size Asteroid in solar orbit near Kerbin, and bring it to Jools orbit.
-Cool...
Price tag completion: 4 million and some more Kerbucks.
-Goooood...
I went there and grabbed a around 2500 ton chunk and draw a maneuver. 
-Easy...
Burntime with 6 stock LV-Ns: 4 hours and some minutes.
-Abort Mission...
Mission failure: 1 and a half million Kerbucks.
-"insert swear words of favourite choice".

Every time I have grabbed an asteroid, I have always had ISRU on the vessel.

Drill out enough ore and what is left of the rock may weigh less than your 6 LV-N engines...

But for a Class E, I might want a larger engine to help burn off that excess fuel...

 

Of course I once did something similar, but not for a contract.  

I sent a ship out to grab an asteroid for a drop-tank on it's way to Jool.

Only problem is, the asteroid was far too large for the ship, so after a few cycles of 'top-off then burn most of the fuel' I finally gave up, topped off a final time and just went without it.

[klesh]

2 hours ago, Linventor said:

If you have it set so that there isn't a penalty for declining contracts you haven't accepted yet, you can decline as many as you want with no backlash (I think)

 

Correct.  This is how I set up my careers.

[eddiew]

I hear there's a 2 for 1 offer on necro threads this week...

[Guest]

1 hour ago, eddiew said:

I hear there's a 2 for 1 offer on necro threads this week...

60% off on threads more than a year old, according to Necromancy 101

[Draco T stand-up guy]

On 8/07/2015 at 11:07 AM, Rocket Farmer said:

Lol at people that complain about the inclusion of optional content. If you don't like the contracts then play sandbox. There you go, problem solved.

The contract system should actually tell a story. The first four actually do that and they'd be a great start but then it just goes all random with no logic or, seemingly, progression to it.

The other day I had a contract to position a satellite in an equatorial orbit of Kerbin. When I got back from doing that I had the exact same contract waiting for me to do again.

Now, it wouldn't be so bad if such was part of a process to get KSO satellites up to extend the DSN. That would have purpose, that would have reason and progression.

[problemecium]

^ I grind the hell out of "build a new station around Kerbin" and "Science data from space around X" contracts xD

Lately I've been amused at the new 1.2 contracts to "explore Kerbin." Don't we, uhh... um, don't we live on Kerbin?

[Blaarkies]

4 hours ago, Draco T stand-up guy said:

The contract system should actually tell a story. The first four actually do that and they'd be a great start but then it just goes all random with no logic or, seemingly, progression to it.

My new playthrough of 1.2 actually did. After the escape atmosphere, and get into orbit, i got a simple geostationary satelite contract. Then a Mun flyby(only) contract. Then a Explore Mun/plant flag. After that, both a Explore Minmus and flyby Duna...this is gearing up to be a Human Space Program

[Tw1]

5 hours ago, Draco T stand-up guy said:

The contract system should actually tell a story. The first four actually do that and they'd be a great start but then it just goes all random with no logic or, seemingly, progression to it.

The other day I had a contract to position a satellite in an equatorial orbit of Kerbin. When I got back from doing that I had the exact same contract waiting for me to do again.

Now, it wouldn't be so bad if such was part of a process to get KSO satellites up to extend the DSN. That would have purpose, that would have reason and progression.

Even better, IMHO, would be for the contract system, (or even better, the whole of career mode), to be set up in a way that the story emerges as you go, rather than as pop up tasks to follow. The problem is an experience based rather than a follow the task based approach would require a lot more to be added in to career mode, like time budgets and stuff. 

 

It would be more like this:

You succeed in landing on the Mun, get extra publicity and now have funds to try a run for Minmus. Or perhaps you could try develop a space station system first. You know that by building a space stations, science organisations will be willing to fund the experiments going on up there. And if you keep developing this stations, boosting its crew capacity and building a reputation for safe launches, it would do well if you set it as a destination for tourists....

Then again, going to Minmus would only require a small change to your current design, and could be just as good a publicity boost. The same design could later be modified for longer term Mun missions, which could lead to new discoveries, more publicity and funding, new opportunities.. 

 

The problem with KSP career stems from the way the developers put so much effort into recreating the engineering aspects of space flight, but then approached the things supposed to achieve with that space flight from the perspective of "how can we make players win points?" rather than "How can we make the players feel like they're really running a space program?" 

They also focused to much on things happening down on Kerbin, with companies and part development and stuff, rather than the interesting parts which happen in space. 
They're slowly moving away from it, modelling things like the communication systems and such.

They've shown they can do complex systems, with heat and aerodynamics, and such. 
But they need to grasp that things like tourism, research, etc, should be modelled and simulated too, not just thrown in as quests from in with a somewhat situationally aware random number generator.

 

 

Rather than a scripted progression, playing the game should put the player in positions where needs emerge, and opportunists are found.  Like when playing the sims, or sim city, where a balance is found between randomly generated tasks, and situations where the player's choices and actions create situations which have consistences. E.g, you send a sim out for a swim, but they are getting too tired, so you have to send someone out with a boat to rescue them or whatever. KSP would be perfect for that non scripted, emergent model of game play. 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Tw1

[whaaw]

Hello Kerbonauts,

I started my 1.2 Career game a few days ago, and i also had a few strange contracts!
I was thinking about a system to filter those contracts or change them without rewriting the hole contract code. I had the Idea the we should get a Veto for such contracts. that means based on our Reputation we should be able convince the engineers and scientist behind the contracts, that it would be better to make a suborbital flight with an SRB stage on earth instead of the moon. if i have good reputation the chance to get this through the imaginary contracts committee is higher than with low reputation. 

Edited October 20, 2016 by whaaw

[Vaporized Steel]

I agree with most that has been said in this thread.

Video Clips:I would like in game video clips to be introduced that makes you feel like your progressing a real storyline, with some Kerbal bloopers in between
The storyline should be very basic. It should appeal to you regardless of what path you choose. This would be close-ended because you cannot expand it throughout a whole career ofcourse. But maybe something like that is favored, uplifting and important for the overall career experience.
Video files in a base game regardless of file compression is a hit on total storage requirements.
As this would involve extra bits and bytes it might be good to make something like that for a future DLC.

Better audio:Maybe expand the audio system for a better gaming ambience. Have a dedicated song for each and every object in the game. Now we have the same tune in space everywhere we go.
That last piece of advice is more aimed at newer players. Whenever I play a new game I'd like to be impressed with standard audio (as long as it is fitting ofcourse)
Expanding default audio might really give the game a better vibe. And you won't be running in agony for your playlist to find Eminem or Mozart.
Kinda helps with both sandbox and career.
 

I would copycat about everything what @tater described. A very accurate review of the current contract status indeed.

If programming allows it the game should detect whether your a docking, interplanetary, basebuilding, station building or other kind of guy.
And whatever of the above type of player you are, the contract system should then based on reputation expand the type of missions your aiming for with realistic objectives. Which means the expanding contracts should be logical and future oriented.

The contract system should then have a higher spawn priority for those missions that you are actively chasing. But it should always offer all the more basic oriented mission types so you always have the selection to choose freely if your willing to diverge from your main goals.
As for realism. I think you should be forced to always do 1 test contract for each and every part your willing to unlock. Regardless of whether you have the tech for your node and the money to unlock those parts.

Probably something not everybody will agree with, but it is my desire for better realism. Maybe have that in a advanced option menu specifically for career. Just like you can choose to purchase the parts before you unlock them.

I also don't want a Explore Duna/Ike mission from the start when Duna is in the wrong location from the get go. Even while I could use a Eve assist to get there from a unfavorable angle It would fill up the max contracts in the early career for a -1 to 2 year mission. And granted, a Duna mission from the start is still a sweet contract when you contradict it to some of the other ones mentioned in this thread.

Maybe hire RPG/boardgame associates on the team and see if the 2 different mindsets can compromise with one another for a better career system.
In the meanwhile I'll be substituting with mods. But to get that favorable career vibe you'd have to introduce a whole new system. Because the career is faulty in the ways that we discussed on a basis, not by details which is what career mods modify, and nothing else.



 

 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[WanderingKid]

I personally don't mind the current contract system, even if it could be streamlined and story-moded.  What I'd personally like is some sanity introduced to the system, so I'll stop seeing contracts like this:

I'm 90% sure that if I can orbit the Mun, I'm doing a flyby.  That particularly isn't what I find annoying.  It's the guy with the flyby and orbit of the Mun is worth more than the guy who simply wants an orbit.

There's 100's of little things like this that the randomizer comes up with that don't make sense.