"Return to KSC" contracts (make SSTO pertinent in career mode)

[beelzerob]

If this was implemented in some way in 1.0.5, please forgive me. I'm waiting for 1.1 before I dive back in. KSP overdose still in my system....

I've never built an SSTO, mainly because there was no need. Yes, "because I can" appeals on some degree, but not when I'm playing career mode. In career mode, I need a valid requirement in order to build it.

So I'd love to have a REASON to build an SSTO in career mode. And I can only think of two reasons to have an SSTO:

1) Building a rocket takes time, whereas if you have already built an SSTO, it would essentially be ready to go. So, a "needs immediate rescue" thing would be a good excuse to have an SSTO ready. Of course, in KSP, building a rocket takes no time at all, so none of that really applies. Yes, I know there's a mod that puts rocket building time into the equation. But that's quite a time sink added to the game just to make SSTO's pertinennt.

2) Require as a contract that something must be returned to the KSC to be successful.

Notice I didn't say "must land at KSC". While that would definitely make an SSTO attractive. But just requiring that it "returns" to KSC means that if something goes wrong and I have to land somewhere else on Kerbin, I can then dive into all sorts of contingency plans to get the stranded craft back to KSC. Heck, now there's even a reason for that huge cargo door on the plane (aka C5 door)....go fly where the downed capsule is that fell short of KSC and bring it back.

In career mode, I've RARELY ever landed on the runway, because....well...there was no reason. Yes, you get more Kerbin Buck$ if you land close, but it's not enough to justify the effort.

What if the contracts are:

"This science sample is so volatile, it must be taken directly to KSC"

"The Kerbal you rescued requires immediate emergency care. Get them to KSC within x hours."

etc.

I'd just like something that gives me a good excuse in career mode to make (at the very least) a space glider

[Wjolcz]

But... You have a reason to build SSTOs in career? You get PLENTY of cash if you use an SSTO for rescue and/or tourist missions.

Although I would like to have a "Bring this decaying satellite back to Kerbin" kind of mission.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Veeltch

[beelzerob]

I've always used simple capsules for those. Neither of those missions require landing close to KSC.

I guess, come to think of it, if career mode started CHARGING you to get your craft back to KSC (instead of simply giving you back less money), then that might have the same effect.

The farther away it was, or larger the object was, the more it would cost to have it moved back to KSC and the mission to be considered over. Kind of like when the shuttle would land at Edwards instead of Florida. NASA certainly didn't get money back in either case, but one cost them a lot less than the other.

[Wjolcz]

I've always used simple capsules for those. Neither of those missions require landing close to KSC.

I guess, come to think of it, if career mode started CHARGING you to get your craft back to KSC (instead of simply giving you back less money), then that might have the same effect.

The farther away it was, or larger the object was, the more it would cost to have it moved back to KSC and the mission to be considered over. Kind of like when the shuttle would land at Edwards instead of Florida. NASA certainly didn't get money back in either case, but one cost them a lot less than the other.

Except that is exactly how it works right now. You get less money the farther from KSC you land.

[beelzerob]

Except that is exactly how it works right now. You get less money the farther from KSC you land.

Right...but you'll never end up losing more than your parts cost in the first place. If you land on the complete opposite side of Kerbin....I'd have to check, but I think you might *still* end up getting some small percentage. Or at worse, it's 0%.

So without ever really making any effort to land at KSC, I was quickly doing pretty good in career mode, money-wise. (I honestly didn't even realize I was losing money by not landing near KSC) So, with no $$$ dis-incentive when landing far from KSC, and no contractual obligations to try and land at KSC....I hardly ever landed at KSC. And thus making an SSTO made no sense.

Ideally, there would be contracts where landing very near KSC is an actual requirement to complete the contract.

Or what if there were contracts to go retrieve Kerbals or parts from on Kerbin itself?

I guess ultimately I'm saying that even if you landed your craft completely pristine on the other side of Kerbin, you would end up having to spend a lot of money to get it back to KSC.

Maybe this is all semantics. If the end-mission summary actually indicated "You got X amount from your parts, but it cost you Y amount to get the parts back to KSC", and at the same time the cost of landing far from KSC was way more steep....then maybe that's what I'm looking for.

And if that's the case, I'm probably talking a mod here. I've done mods before for a few games, but my searching for doing just as simple gameplay mod that doesn't involve parts in KSP isn't hitting a lot of results.

[Wjolcz]

It also depends on how you set up you career. I remember when I once decided to play hardcore mode set by myself. Contract rewards went down a ton. It was a good situation when I launched a rocket, completed some contracts and got back without losing too much money. Then I built myself an SSTO and it was a money machine. Had to land at KSC, because landing anywhere else was too risky.

TL;DR: You either build SSTOs for fun or out of necessity.

[Superfluous J]

I don't like the idea that the contract requires you to bring the part to KSC, considering when you recover your flight it presumably goes to KSC at that time.

I do like the idea of charging you to bring the ship back. Maybe you get full recovery of the ship (because parts don't degrade in this game) but have to pay a flat rate that is some function of distance, vessel mass, and your reputation. As either of the first two go up, the cost to recover goes up. As the latter goes up, the cost goes down.

[Tw1]

I guess, come to think of it, if career mode started CHARGING you to get your craft back to KSC (instead of simply giving you back less money), then that might have the same effect.

This is not a bad idea. I suppose the reduced recovery cost is meant to represent this, but doesn't do it adequately. There's a big psychological difference between being told you got getting less money back, and being told you were charged for something.

Plus, recovery cost could be based on mass, and maybe also vehicle size(or sum of size of the parts, if they want it to seem like you're recycling them). This way, recovery costs would be a far more variable thing.

It would feel more real, and be a extra challenge in how yoi plan missions. I like it.

I see no reasons why there couldn't be some that make you return things to KSC, but as whatever is recovering spacecraft exists, it would need a reason.

Time is not a bad one, but that depends how fast you assume recovery takes, compared to the scale of space travel. Maybe if you were on a tight schedule...

Privacy, or secrecy could be another. Recover at KSC, keep everything between you, and the contractor.

(which makes me think there could be room for contracts which involve secret deliveries, where you can't use recover on your way back.. Idk.)

Quarantine also is a good reason.

But I think a charge is a much better way to encourage landings at KSC.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Tw1

[Snark]

I really don't like the idea of charging money to recover when far from KSC. I like landing where I want to. I very strongly don't want to have to care about it that much, and for me it would just be adding an element of tedium to the game that would make coming home to Kerbin un-fun. I want "yay, you landed successfully, good for you", not punishment for failing to conform to somebody's idea of how my play style should be.

On a purely subjective note, I also don't like it because it would strongly favor spaceplanes over conventional rockets (since spaceplane can steer on the way down). I think spaceplanes have been given plenty enough love already (read: basically every new component added in the last several patches). That's fine, but let's not go overboard by actively punishing those of us who prefer real rockets, huh?

Subjective rants aside, I see two very practical problems with the idea of charging people to recover craft:

The first one is "realism". To charge for recovering a craft is essentially saying that the cost of transporting the craft is actually higher than the value of the craft itself. That simply makes no sense. When they landed the space shuttle at Edwards AFB in California, it's not as if they threw it away and built a new shuttle in Florida because it was cheaper that way. I don't know what it cost to move the shuttle from California to Florida, but I'm willing to bet that it was a heckuva lot cheaper than the cost of a new shuttle.

On a practical note: if you were to implement such a feature, all you will accomplish is get people to throw away craft more. Gee, here I am, I just landed my 20-ton ship successfully on Kerbin. So I simply don't recover it. Or, I mount a decoupler and pop off just the little command pod, and recover that. It means if I'm in orbit with a 20-ton ship, then instead of being rewarded for the challenging task of actually landing the whole thing on Kerbin, I have a financial incentive to throw away as much as possible and just land the command pod. That seems totally bassackwards to me. Yes, it's better to land near KSC than far away. But it's also better to land far away from KSC than it is not to land at all.

If you want to encourage general ship landings near KSC: that's a particular play-style choice, and it seems to me that that's what strategies are for. Maybe add a strategy that appeals to the spaceplane folks? There are a lot of ways to slice it, but one way it might work would be: if you adopt this strategy, then you get a bigger financial reward for completing contracts, at the cost of increasing the cost of all components at build time (doesn't matter if you recover them, right?) and maybe increase the distance penalty for recovering craft. This would give you much of what you're proposing, but people who don't like it can simply not adopt that strategy.

Back to the OP's idea of having bring-it-back-to-KSC contracts: I think that's a brilliant idea, would love to see it. Adds a fun challenge for everyone, and if you happen to want to do that with an SSTO, so much the better. And if someone doesn't care for such a contract, then just don't accept it.

Rewarding people for challenges = good.

Punishing people for valid gameplay choices = bad.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Snark

[Joonatan1998]

flat rate that is some function of distance, vessel mass, and your reputation.

+1

I think it could also care about the biome you recover from.

-Ocean and shores recoveries are cheap, and don't care about mass that much (since all you need is a ship, and you can just tow the vessel near KSC)

-Grasslands are normal

-Poles, Mountains, are expensive, especially for heavy vessels. (also gives a reason to fly back when exploring poles, instead of just recovering.)

etc

The first one is "realism". To charge for recovering a craft is essentially saying that the cost of transporting the craft is actually higher than the value of the craft itself. That simply makes no sense. When they landed the space shuttle at Edwards AFB in California, it's not as if they threw it away and built a new shuttle in Florida because it was cheaper that way. I don't know what it cost to move the shuttle from California to Florida, but I'm willing to bet that it was a heckuva lot cheaper than the cost of a new shuttle.

What if it landed on Antarctis, or in the middle of mountains in Switzerland?

Or in siberia?

(Yes, I know there is no way the shuttle could have landed there without crashing.)

I don't think it would be profitable to find a way to recover it from there.

As long as the rates are reasonable, it doensn't really punish you much more than it does now for landing inaccurately, as long as you land on the right side of the sphere, it would probably still give you funds for recovering it.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Joonatan1998

[nikokespprfan]

Another way of getting players to build SSTO's (and maybe also VTOL's) is by a contract that requires youi to build, and test a SSTO (or any other type of craft) for another company. These contracts would be huge moneymakers, as you are spending all of the effort to develop an SSTO (or any other craft that company might want.) and make it work(you have to test it after all). Effort that said company doesn't have to invest.

[Superfluous J]

Another way of getting players to build SSTO's (and maybe also VTOL's) is by a contract that requires youi to build, and test a SSTO (or any other type of craft) for another company. These contracts would be huge moneymakers, as you are spending all of the effort to develop an SSTO (or any other craft that company might want.) and make it work(you have to test it after all). Effort that said company doesn't have to invest.

I wonder how hard it would be to programmatically determine if something is an SSTO. Or a VTOL.

[Joonatan1998]

I wonder how hard it would be to programmatically determine if something is an SSTO. Or a VTOL.

SSTO could be easy, VTOL probably (very) hard

With SSTO you just have to see if it can reach orbit without dropping parts.

[Snark]

I think it could also care about the biome you recover from.

-Ocean and shores recoveries are cheap, and don't care about mass that much (since all you need is a ship, and you can just tow the vessel near KSC)

-Grasslands are normal

-Poles, Mountains, are expensive, especially for heavy vessels. (also gives a reason to fly back when exploring poles, instead of just recovering.)

I like the idea of biome influencing recovery funds, as you've described. However, I still maintain that recovery should always be positive funds, never a fee you're charged for recovery. So I'd suggest implementing what you just described as "you get a bigger penalty to your recovery bonus if you're recovered from such-and-such biomes."

What if it landed on Antarctis, or in the middle of mountains in Switzerland?

Or in siberia?

(Yes, I know there is no way the shuttle could have landed there without crashing.)

I don't think it would be profitable to find a way to recover it from there.

Are you kidding? A space shuttle costs billions of dollars. With a B. If you landed it anywhere on Earth, as long as it's undamaged and usable, it's going to be better to recover it than throw away and build a new one, no matter where you landed. Doesn't matter if it's in the middle of Siberia, the recovery cost is measured in millions rather than billions to physically recover the thing. I would be astonished if the recovery cost is even 1% of the value of the shuttle. (The dry mass of the shuttle is only 68 tons. It fits on the back of a specially modified 747; you only need to get it to the nearest big flat place to do that. Heck, you can lift 9 tons with a single helicopter. Moving the 5,000-ton Cape Hatteras Lighthouse cost only $4.6 million; yes, it was only a kilometer, but that was moving something 70 times more massive and far more fragile than a space shuttle, and which was really not designed to be moved.)

As long as the rates are reasonable, it doensn't really punish you much more than it does now for landing inaccurately, as long as you land on the right side of the sphere, it would probably still give you funds for recovering it.

My point is that it shouldn't "punish" the player at all. It should reward the player for the achievement of landing. The bigger the challenge, the better the reward. If the player lands something bigger? Reward them more. If the player lands closer to KSC? Reward them more. A punishment will just encourage players to throw away stuff rather than recovering it, which is neither realistic, challenging, or fun.

And if, as you say, "the rates are reasonable" and it doesn't make a career-crushing difference, then the current model is fine, yes?

Edited November 13, 2015 by Snark

[Joonatan1998]

then the current model is fine, yes?

Ok, I agree that space shuttle recovery from almost anywhere would be profitable.

There might be some places where it would be almost impossible.

(somewhere surrounded by mountains too high for helicopters, and too uneven for planes to land?, or maybe if there are political problems?)

But in 99.99% of places recovery would be profitable.

However space shuttles are more expensive than many other things launched, better example could be recovering space shuttle boosters from Antarctis and expecting profit.

My main problem with current model is that charging a certain % of the price is silly.

Why does recovering 2 tons of expensive engine cost hundreds of times more than recovering the same amount of liquid fuel?

I think the recovery should have fixed cost based on mass, distance, biome, reputation and strategies.

Maybe make it so that recovery may give you 0 funds in some situations, but never will take your money.

If it isn't worth recovering, they just leave it there.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Joonatan1998

[Snark]

My main problem with current model is that charging a certain % of the price is silly.

Why does recovering 2 tons of expensive engine cost hundreds of times more than recovering the same amount of liquid fuel?

I think the recovery should have fixed cost based on mass, distance, biome, reputation and strategies.

You do make an excellent point, in terms of realism. But we also have to take gameplay into perspective.

It seems to me that what KSP is primarily about is launching rockets. (Okay, and spaceplanes too, if you insist.) The visceral thrill of "I'm going to space!" is what makes it succeed as a game.

Part of what makes it so visceral is that it's realistic. I don't mean real-life-engineering realistic, I mean it gives our eyes and ears what they expect to see: it's sufficiently close to "reality" that we forget we're playing a game and are willing to suspend disbelief. I forget that I'm looking at a computer monitor and I'm riding to outer space.

So I think that "realism" is a strong argument when applied to in-game physics. When the game does something that's physically ludicrous (like a little solar panel exploding in a huge fireball when it overheats), then that's immersion-breaking and bad. It hurts the gameplay experience.

However, when we extend "realism" to other, more "administrative" aspects of the game, such as contracts, or funds, or science points, etc., then I think "realism" is much less relevant. The important thing is to develop gameplay mechanics that are fun. "You get a reward that helps your gameplay when you complete a challenging task" is a game mechanic, and important. The fact that you call it a "contract" rather than "a visit from the rocket fairy" or whatever is just window dressing, and not really germane to the central idea.

I agree that the "percentage of cost" model isn't very realistic. But I think it works pretty well as a gameplay mechanic. Players care about funds, because they're hard-earned and you need them to launch the rocketships that are why you play the game. A player cares more about a ship that has more effort invested in it, and "how much did it cost" is one aspect of the effort invested in a ship. Very expensive ships are much more important to the player. So adding a gameplay mechanic where you need to take extra care of the ship that you care most about makes sense.

Anyway, my two cents.

[beelzerob]

Ok, I agree that space shuttle recovery from almost anywhere would be profitable.

Sure. But the analogy with what is happening in KSP kind of breaks down at that point because we don't recover craft, we recover parts. It would be worth recovering the real shuttle because it cost billions in engineering. The actual PARTS of it were probably worth some millions.

In KSP, we recover craft via an industrial shredder.

So my original idea maybe doesn't make a lot of sense unless created craft were actually persistent, instead of reborn every launch. At this point, I'd be happy with a "Return to KSC" mission every now and then. Not just a "land at KSC", because with "return to" instead, at least there's some hope that if I land somewhere else on Kerbin, I can then create some new heavy-lift craft to go retrieve it overland. Adds to the challenge, and fun.

I'm sure there are mods already that give "land at or return to KSC" contracts, so I'll just content myself with those.