Multipart Tourist Contracts Query

[Clipperride]

I could experiment and work this out myself, but I'm not at the computer and I'm going a little KSP "cold turkey" so I'll throw it over to the knowledgeable.

I'm fairly early in my first Career Mode game and so have been earning some √ showing tourists the sights. When you have a multipart itinerary contract, where the passenger wants to go on both a sub-orbital and orbital trip; Does a single orbital trip fulfil both parts?

I ask as I've always done the sub, then full orbital flights. Last night I added a passenger to an orbital flight and I thought I saw both parts completed when the mission ended. But it was late and I might easily have been mistaken!

Edited October 12, 2015 by Clipperride

[arise257]

Yes, a single orbital trip will fulfill both requirements. I do it all the time, mostly because a sub-orbital-only flight usually represents lost recovery funds.

[Clipperride]

Thank you for clearing that up. Although "forehead slap" at the number of launches I could have saved!

[arise257]

No prob. On my first such contract, I did a launch without quicksaving to find out the same thing. When I saw both parts of that contract turn green, I was like

[Snark]

Yes, one flight can fulfill as many criteria as you can manage. If you have "orbit Kerbin" as a goal, you're pretty much guaranteed to satisfy "sub-orbital flight on Kerbin", since it's virtually impossible to achieve orbit without ever being on a suborbital path.

(Yes, it's technically possible, but would only happen in a very odd situation and never by accident. To achieve orbit without ever being suborbital, you'd have to hit escape velocity before exiting the atmosphere, coast until you're out of the atmosphere, and then do a burn to change to an orbit.)

The same thing applies to other bodies-- i.e. "land on Mun" and "suborbital flight on Mun", etc. Do be careful if you have both "land on Mun" and "orbit Mun"-- if you do a direct approach and land without ever changing to an orbit first, it's possible to land on the Mun without actually orbiting it first.

KSP doesn't care about "different flights for different conditions". It only cares about the conditions themselves, one by one.

Careful attention to contract conditions can be a money multiplier. For example, if you have a contract "put a station in orbit of the Mun" that needs six kerbals, and there's also a contract "put a station in orbit of Kerbin" that only needs five kerbals, then you can launch one station to satisfy both contracts.

[Alshain]

(Yes, it's technically possible, but would only happen in a very odd situation and never by accident. To achieve orbit without ever being suborbital, you'd have to hit escape velocity before exiting the atmosphere, coast until you're out of the atmosphere, and then do a burn to change to an orbit.

Funny thing is, "technically", that is still suborbital, even if the game doesn't think so. Simply having a Ap higher than the atmosphere would be considered a suborbital trajectory, even if your craft is still in the atmosphere. The contract system just doesn't consider it till you get to space because drag can cause the Ap to come back down.

[Clipperride]

I wish the game had made that a little clearer. I wouldn't have to have flown so many missions to get the √ I have. Oh well, it's all a (often sub-orbital) learning curve . Plus I can now actually do a reasonable gravity turn more often than not.

I'm glad I found out before heading to the Mun/Minmus. I thought, to achieve the sub-orbital flights there, I'd need to land and do a "hop".