Overhauled Contract System

[Windspren]

The current contract system is, in almost everyone's opinion, a mess. While the easier solution would be to just iron out the kinks, it would offer far more to the game to add a new contract system that is more realistic and fun at the same time.

My proposal is thus: Instead of contracts where you do X to get Y funds, and if you fail you lose Z funds, redo the contract system so that players can "haggle" with the various companies, and make contracts more generalized.

First off, reputation would now be per company. A high company reputation would offer rewards like discounts on parts for that company, and a higher reward margin in contracts (you could ask for more funds and would be more likely to get them). Your main reputation bar would be the average of all your company reputation.

Tourists would now be persistent, that is, you could get the same tourist multiple times, and they would "remember" you, so each tourist would get their own reputation bar. Killing a tourist would result in a detrimental loss in rep for all tourists. Tourists that you offer discounts to (more on that later) would be more likely to come back, while a kerbal that you charge the Kraken out of will likely never be seen again. To prevent clutter of tourist rep bars, they would become hidden if that tourist had not hired you in a year. If you later accepted a contract from them, the bar would reappear the same that it was.

Contract Format

Goal:
This is basically what the company wants you to do, like build a space station or launch a satellite. These are usually not up for negotiation, except for X Program contracts. Now, goals are much more generalized, so instead of a bunch of different contracts having to do with the Mun, you would get a single one called "Mun Program."

Subgoals:
This would be a checklist of things that you would need to do to complete the main goal, and you could select tasks that you want to do. For each contract, there would be a few mandatory tasks, and a minimum amount of subgoals would have to be selected. You could do more than one of each type, but you would get diminishing returns for each one. You would also get funds for each subgoal (more on that later). If you completed all of the tasks for a contract, you would get an additional 50% bonus on funds and company rep.
 

Advance, Completion and Penalty Funds and Rep
(Note: I am lumping the advance, completion, and penalty funds into one part of the contract format as they are all pretty similar)
Here, you would see the company's proposal for the contract's rewards, but there would be sliders for the amount of funds that you want for completing the contract. Each task has its own slider and rewards, which are given to you as you complete them. Some contracts are short-term, lasting only a few weeks with one thing to do, while some can last for years, like a long-term station maintenance contract with a huge list of things to do in that time period. The more funds you ask for, the less likely it is that you will get the contract. Requesting a large amount of funds will also make the penalty for failing the contract increase. This ensures that you can't ask for 10000000000 funds for launching a satellite to LKO. Offering discounts by asking for a slightly lower amount of reward funds will increase your reputation with that company.
 

Let's look at an example of a contract under this new system.

Mun Program
The sliders for the Mun Program can only affect fund rewards by 20%
Company: The Goverment

Minimum items: 5
Orbit an unmanned probe around the Mun (Mandatory) 30,000 Funds + 5 Rep
Land a unmanned ship on the Mun (Mandatory) 50,000 Funds + 7 Rep
Land a crewed ship in the Mun (Mandatory) 80,000 Funds + 15 rep
Perform a temperature scan in the Lowlands biome (Optional) 15,000 Funds
Perform a crew report in the Northwest Crater biome (Optional) 17,500 Funds
Perform a seismic scan over the Highands biome (Optional) 7,500 Funds
Return a surface sample from any biome (Mandatory) 10,000 Funds + 3 Rep
Take an EVA report over the Polar Regions (Optional) 17,500 Funds
Return a surface sample from the Polar Regions (Optional) 30,000 Funds + 2 Rep
Perform the first orbital rendezvous over the Mun (Optional) 15,000 Funds + 3 Rep
Transmit science from the surface of the Mun (Mandatory) 5,000 Funds + 2 Rep
 

As you can see, with this setup, it would be pretty hard to do this all in one launch. With these kinds of contracts, you can take as many launches as you want! If you wanted to save on funds, you could probably do most of the optional tasks and make a profit. If you just did the mandatory tasks, it might be a little hard to build a good rocket with those funds. A good strategy for this contract would be to launch 2 missions. one unmanned and one manned. The unmanned one would have plenty of fuel, so it could complete most of the optional tasks that require orbital science. It would later land and then complete more optional tasks. A manned mission would orbit, do the surveys, and then land to complete the rest of the tasks. If you wanted to complete every one of the tasks, a second manned mission could probably do it.

 

Let's look at the slightly easier, but more substantial Build a Space Station contract:
The sliders can only affect rewards by 15%
Minimum items:
Agency: Vac-Co

Launch a station core to Kerbin orbit with at least 4 docking ports, space for at least 2 kerbals, and power generation (Mandatory) 40,000 Funds + 5 Rep
Launch a power module with at least 8,000 EC storage capability and a power generation of at least 30 EC/S (Mandatory) 40,000 Funds + 2 Rep
Launch a second power module with at least 2,000 EC storage capability and a power generation of at least 15 EC/S (Optional) 30,000 Funds
Increase the station's crew capacity to at least 6 (Optional) 30,000 Funds
Transfer at least 2 Kerbals to the station (Mandatory) 30,000 Funds + 5 Rep
Launch a lab module with a Science Lab and at least 4 different experiments (Mandatory) 50,000 Funds + 5 Rep
Launch a communications module with at least 3 antennas (Mandatory) 30,000 Funds
Gather at least 100 science points from the station (Mandatory) 80,000 Funds + 7 Rep
Resupply the station (Optional) Note: If life support ever comes, you would have to transfer LS resources to the station. As it is now, you just need to dock to the station with a service bay on the ship. 25,000 Funds
Increase the amount of Kerbals on the station to at least 4 (Mandatory) 30,000 Funds
Transmit science back from the station (Mandatory) 10,000 Funds
Increase the crew capacity to at least 8 (Optional) 40,000 Funds
Perform a crew switch with those already on the station (Optional) 30,000 Funds
Analyze data in the science lab (Mandatory) 10,000 Funds
Deploy a small probe from the station (Optional) 20,000 Funds
Dock a reusable spaceplane to the station (Optional) 80,000 Funds
Create a fuel depot at the station with at least 3000 Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer 60,000 Funds (Optional)

 

So let's say you do all of the mandatory tasks, but it still doesn't cover the costs of the launches. Instead of using rockets, you could build a spaceplane and use it to construct most of the station. You would also get the 80,000 fund payment for docking a spaceplane. If spaceplanes aren't your thing, you could complete more optional tasks to pay off the costs.

 

World First contracts will largely remain the same, as they aren't really contracts; they are more like a prize that you get for breaking or making records. Things like "Explore X" and "Land a Kerbal on X" will now be exclusive to World First contracts. Part testing contracts will now become much more interesting; after completing a part test, you will have access to that part, no matter what tech level it is at. To balance this, part tests will only be available for parts 1-2 tech levels ahead of your highest level tech node. The somewhat ridiculous part tests that we have now would be replaced by something like, "Expose X part to Y Gs on Kerbin" or "Expose X part to Y degrees on Kerbin." This is something that actually makes sense, unlike "Test Mk-whatever parachute at 1000-2000 meters and 100-200 m/s while in flight over Kerbin."

 

This contract system, in my opinion, would allow many more strategies of gameplay to enter the game. It also gives the player some control over what they do in a contract, so they don't have to do random, meaningless achievements. I probably got Fund value horrible wrong, as I rarely play career. I'm just assuming that a medium sized rocket costs around 30-40k Funds, but it's probably waaay different.

Let me know what you all think!

Oh wow, I just noticed what a wall of text that was!

[pandaman]

I like your thinking on this one.  

If I understand correctly, the sliders would effectively increase or decrease the cash advance and (proportionally ? ) decrease or increase the final completion payment accordingly.  Would rep be boosted or reduced by giving the company a discount or upping the price on a separate slider?

[Pthigrivi]

I guess my broader question is what exactly do you think is the qualitative benefit of this system? I'm presuming these missions would still have to be procedurally generated, so its essentially packaging a great number of somewhat random (hopefully related) tasks together. It also seems from your examples that the game is being even more specifically proscriptive about what a player must do, which inclines me to think a player actually has less creative freedom compared to the current system, rather than more. Am I wrong about this?

Haggling sounds interesting, but as things stand with infinite reverts I wonder if the increasing the failure penalty has any real bite. Im quite sure I've never failed a contract. This isn't really a particular problem for you over the existing system, its just maybe something to think about.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Windspren]

41 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I guess my broader question is what exactly do you think is the qualitative benefit of this system? I'm presuming these missions would still have to be procedurally generated, so its essentially packaging a great number of somewhat random (hopefully related) tasks together. It also seems from your examples that the game is being even more specifically proscriptive about what a player must do, which inclines me to think a player actually has less creative freedom compared to the current system, rather than more. Am I wrong about this?

Haggling sounds interesting, but as things stand with infinite reverts I wonder if the increasing the failure penalty has any real bite. Im quite sure I've never failed a contract. This isn't really a particular problem for you over the existing system, its just maybe something to think about.

The reverting thing is basically a inherent issue with KSP, so there's nothing that can really be done unless you disable reverting for everyone. I'm sure no one would like that. The penalty thing is there so people can kind of accept that they messed up, and face the consequences without getting out of it by reverting.

As for the procedurally generated contracts, I was thinking that they could be semi-procedural. So there would be a "Program" contract for each body, but the list of tasks would have some randomness to it, like the biomes where you would need to get science from and other variables. But SQUAD would code in the basic tasks, just not the variables in them.

1 hour ago, pandaman said:

I like your thinking on this one.  

If I understand correctly, the sliders would effectively increase or decrease the cash advance and (proportionally ? ) decrease or increase the final completion payment accordingly.  Would rep be boosted or reduced by giving the company a discount or upping the price on a separate slider?

Yes to both questions.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Laythe Dweller

[Pthigrivi]

3 hours ago, Laythe Dweller said:

As for the procedurally generated contracts, I was thinking that they could be semi-procedural. So there would be a "Program" contract for each body, but the list of tasks would have some randomness to it, like the biomes where you would need to get science from and other variables. But SQUAD would code in the basic tasks, just not the variables in them.

As they have done already, Im sure with enormous effort. The question is, what is the specific advantage to packing them in the way you have that would be worth throwing all that effort away? It seems to me that by requiring a player to chose within a package deal rather than selecting from a broad platter of tasks (as we have now) a player's options are more restricted, not less.

[Windspren]

38 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

As they have done already, Im sure with enormous effort. The question is, what is the specific advantage to packing them in the way you have that would be worth throwing all that effort away? It seems to me that by requiring a player to chose within a package deal rather than selecting from a broad platter of tasks (as we have now) a player's options are more restricted, not less.

But current contracts are usually unrelated to other contracts that appear at the same time. Often, you get contracts for space stations around bodies before you even land a probe on them. Also, with this way, one contract effectively replaces a bunch of current contracts. This is especially useful when you have a limited amount of contracts that you can have active at one time.

It's pretty much like choosing between colors of m&ms or choosing between different kinds of candy. My suggestion offers different tasks within a contract that you can choose to do, and the current system just offers different individual contracts.