Contract Focus

[Parkaboy]

Hello, there!

Apparently version 1.05 introduced a new feature: a reputation cost for declining contracts. That's a bummer for many players who enjoyed having some control over the contracts accepted by declining contracts until one that fits their goals shows up. Sure, constantly clicking "decline" can get old really fast, but having to do certain types of contracts (such as repeating suborbital tourist contracts over and over) can be even more boring.

So, if ending the "decline" click-fest is the design goal, I'd like to make a suggestion: Contract Focus. In the Mission Control screen, the player would be able to activate a "focus" (or more than one) that would cause only a certain type of contract to be offered.

For instance, if I just completed the basic "Explore the Mun" contract, I might be able to activate a focus related to the Mun, such as:

- Mun Exploration: offers contracts for landing, planting flags, setting up bases and stations, extracting ore, etc.

- Mun Science: offers science contracts, surveys, etc.

- Mun Tourism: offers tours, rescues, etc.

Each planet or moon would have a few options that could be activated as soon as the planet/moon was visited. Maybe we could even have a difference between orbital and surface focus, for example: Jool Orbital Science, or Eve Surface Tourism (good luck with that one). What do you think?

[Snark]

A few things:

First, if you don't like the reputation penalty for declining contracts (I really, really hate it, myself), there's an option to set it when you're customizing the difficulty level of a new career. You can set it to zero. I strongly agree with you that the game shouldn't force the player to take contracts that aren't fun or interesting for that player.

Second, I seem to recall reading in a forum post somewhere that it's possible to customize the mix of contracts you get by tinkering with a config file somewhere.

Finally: I really like what they've done with the "World First" achievement series in 1.0.5. It means a mix of rewards for just doing new things in new places, and they've also offered a new strategy type that boosts the rewards for world-first achievements in exchange for getting lower rewards for other achievements, the idea being that it'll appeal to self-directed players who just want to go off and do their own thing. I haven't actually tried it yet, so I don't know how useful it actually is in practice. However, it shows that Squad is at least thinking about the issue, which is an encouraging sign. Either it'll work well, or if it turns out that it's not tuned quite right, they can tweak it in an upcoming patch.

Anecdotally, the funds mix seems a bit more forgiving in 1.0.5-- either that, or it just agrees better with my play style, I can't tell which. I've just started a new 1.0.5 career and haven't gotten any farther than a manned Mun flyby and a single unmanned Mun landing, and already I've upgraded the astronaut complex, landing pad, mission control, and tracking station, with a reasonable chunk of cash left and I'm within shouting distance of upgrading the VAB. I've done a few contracts, yes, but nothing that I'd call a serious grind. It seems to me that pre-1.0.5 I had to do a fair bit more contract grinding to get to the same point, financially.

Highly unscientific and based on my admittedly fuzzy memory of the last couple of times I started a new career, which were months ago. But so far it seems pretty reasonable.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Snark