A Change to Vehicle Recovery

[rebelcommando1807]

It's a simple idea, mainly. While, yes, the current system works, an idea came to mind that might make it be a bit more.. Well, interesting.
What I mean by this is, mainly, doing an integrity check. Say I have a craft that is fully capable of SSTO stuff, and is meant to deliver a cargo and return.. But I'm off on my aim a bit (And don't particularly feel like flying halfway around the world to the space center). If the craft still has enough fuel to fly to the space center (Probably by doing some math regarding TWR and optimal fuel consumption of air-breathing engines), then instead of taking a hit to the value of the recovery amount, allow it to be refunded for the full value of the parts (and whatever fuel remains from the calculation of fuel needed).
An alternate idea to that is to have an option to simply refurbish and refuel (for a lowish cost). Of course, we don't want this to be abused with something that is just barely able to fly - That'd just be silly. There could be a couple ways of doing this..

1: Variants. This is, essentially, saying that 'this craft is based off of this design, and anything extra is considered payload'. This may be the most flexible option in most cases - Acting similarly to just plonking a payload in that's different each time. Any payload brought back would be refunded as normal, and launching a new craft that's a variant of the base hull just costs the amount for the payload and fuel (on top of the refurbish cost, of course). There would have to be limits, though, on what can be counted as payload, which would probably up the complexity a fair bit.

2: Tagging decouplers/docking ports. This idea could potentially be a fair bit more abusable than the Variant idea - But it might be better in some ways. Namely, shuttle-type craft could benefit from this quite easily (Tag the stuff in the bay and the external tank as 'payload' or 'disposable', whichever works better).


So, yeah. Just an idea.. Looking for feedback, as this is one of those 'kinda tired, need to get this out' ideas that I had after derping around in KSP a bit.

[Temstar]

I had an idea recently about these "other side of the world" type recovery.

Why not give the player the capability to deploy a recovery team anywhere on the planet? So from the tracking station you can position your recovery team, takes 24 hours to deploy or undeploy. Once they are in position they will show up as either an aircraft carrier if positioned over water or a landing pad similar to the one SpaceX recently used if position on land. You land your craft on the pad or carrier and you get 100% recovery, if you land close to it you get a high % recovery just like as if it was another KSC.

This makes one of the most common scenario for recovery - down range - viable. You no longer have to fly the first stage or the carrier aircraft all the way back to KSC for recovery.

[rebelcommando1807]

That works, too! Perhaps bit less time, though - Transit time (perhaps with an icon moving across the planet to the selected location), Deployment time (where it's deploying), Re-pack Time (Inverse of Deployment), and then another round of transit time. The deployment range and cost could depend on the player's tech level or the upgrade level of a certain building, along with a strategy. Maybe make it so it costs x amount per kilometer (fuel costs) - So if you're just recovering, say, a relatively cheap pod, then it would be better to eat the cost reduction. Recovering a Jool-5 capable SSTO mothership, complete with all landers, on the other hand, would net a far greater ROI with the deployed recovery team as opposed to the recovered funds reduction.

..Would actually add an interesting dynamic, I think. Could totally see it as something in Kerbal Konstructs, too, come to think of it - Would give a good reason for having smaller bases across the planet.

[Temstar]

4 minutes ago, rebelcommando1807 said:

The deployment range and cost could depend on the player's tech level or the upgrade level of a certain building

Yeah tracking station, make recovery team as the benefit for upgrading to tier 2 and make patch conics, closest encounter and node creation available straight away from tier 1.

[rebelcommando1807]

Hmm. Maybe patched conics and node creation in T1, closest encounter and Recovery Team in T2.

Can also see, maybe, Patched Conics having a bit of a margin of error at T1, then being at full precision at T2. One of those "Yup. You are very clearly going to be in that sphere of influence now" for T1 - Improvements in the trajectory projection software or somesuch.

[Aperture Science Employee]

Hey guys, great idea. I love this, and I what I don't love has much is figuring out always how to land on the KSC.

I really have been pondering about the recovery team idea, but I think a mix of that and the variant idea would work flawlessly, as the 'payload' system in use, just with more "coolness" to it. Aircraft carriers!

[rebelcommando1807]

Another fun thing about the 'Payload'/'Variant' system? One could set something up, ala Scott's Reusable Space Program series, using the lifter segment as the base.

..That would be really cool, actually. Though, if that does end up happening, we have to make it so that a Falcon-esque thing is viable. Detecting sub-assemblies as a recoverable unit would probably be quite the pain, but it would certainly make things quite interesting - In a good, non-fireball sort of way. Re-usable lifter segments and all.

[Aperture Science Employee]

9 minutes ago, rebelcommando1807 said:

Another fun thing about the 'Payload'/'Variant' system? One could set something up, ala Scott's Reusable Space Program series, using the lifter segment as the base.

..That would be really cool, actually. Though, if that does end up happening, we have to make it so that a Falcon-esque thing is viable. Detecting sub-assemblies as a recoverable unit would probably be quite the pain, but it would certainly make things quite interesting - In a good, non-fireball sort of way. Re-usable lifter segments and all.

Genius. Using sub-assemblies as a craft detection vs. payload system is quick and easy way to get this to work. In fact, it is even better, because it gets more people to use sub-assemblies, which in the new menu layout, is almost completely hidden.

[rebelcommando1807]

Hmm.
Would it be implemented in a sort of way where, when a sub-assembly is added, it puts those parts in a tag block? And then compare the parts in the block against the parts in the source assembly?
..Might work, actually, depending on how things are set up. Would also account for parts getting jettisoned; would just have to have it ignore resource levels in the parts.

Though, if that's done, there has to be some way to easily grab a craft (say, in this case, a shuttle) and save it as a sub-assembly added, if only for the sake of being able to have the shuttle count as something fully-recovered.
Elements of the 'variant' system would be nice, though, for SSTOs - In the sense of being able to change the cargo more or less on the fly, and have that be recognized as something that isn't needed for intact recovery.

And, again, I would love to have some way of calculating an air vehicle's range so that way one could, so long as they are in Kerbin's atmosphere, have another recovery button - Similar to the Recovery Team's movement, it puts the craft into a similar state (icon moving across the globe, can't be switched to [Well, maybe can. I dunno], and will be counted as recovered after X amount of time. Vehicle would have to have landing gear, an air-breathing engine, an air intake, Some lifting mechanism, and enough fuel (again, via some algorithm) to make it to the space center.

 

..Also, is it wrong that I totally thought of the XCOM hologlobe when picturing this idea?

[Nich]

Yes but if you sent a recovery team to the other side of the world you would have to pay them and pay to lug the recovered vessel back.  This is what the % means essentially your doing it without having to do it.

[rebelcommando1807]

18 minutes ago, Nich said:

Yes but if you sent a recovery team to the other side of the world you would have to pay them and pay to lug the recovered vessel back.  This is what the % means essentially your doing it without having to do it.

I know. It just seems like something that would be an interesting option for those of us who want to do it. That, and this can potentially tie into a system where you refurbish an intact vehicle/segment of a vehicle rather than 'sell' (I assume that's what's going on, at least) it for scrap right away.
And perhaps it can be used, as a save option, instead of the 'press button, recover vessel' system that we currently have. One of the ideas I mentioned for it as well was having it so that it gave the full recovery boost (once returned to base) to all recovered vehicles in an area, as opposed to just one - Which is where the real difference shines through, beyond the 'cheaper to recover bigger things with that team' aspect. So instead of taking a hit in part value for every little part in the area around the crash site (or landing area, if you're clustering landings together), it just takes the single cost to deploy the recovery team to get everything back at full value.

..And I find it somewhat funny, as a side note, how quickly the topic went from 'Make it so intact spaceplanes can fly back for full recovery on their own given enough fuel' to recovery teams.

Edited February 24, 2016 by rebelcommando1807

[MKI]

On 2/24/2016 at 11:29 AM, rebelcommando1807 said:

I know. It just seems like something that would be an interesting option for those of us who want to do it. That, and this can potentially tie into a system where you refurbish an intact vehicle/segment of a vehicle rather than 'sell' (I assume that's what's going on, at least) it for scrap right away.
And perhaps it can be used, as a save option, instead of the 'press button, recover vessel' system that we currently have. One of the ideas I mentioned for it as well was having it so that it gave the full recovery boost (once returned to base) to all recovered vehicles in an area, as opposed to just one - Which is where the real difference shines through, beyond the 'cheaper to recover bigger things with that team' aspect. So instead of taking a hit in part value for every little part in the area around the crash site (or landing area, if you're clustering landings together), it just takes the single cost to deploy the recovery team to get everything back at full value.

..And I find it somewhat funny, as a side note, how quickly the topic went from 'Make it so intact spaceplanes can fly back for full recovery on their own given enough fuel' to recovery teams.

 Isn't allowing the player the option to land anywhere and "cheap" cash return kind of beating the point? I could technically land my SLS first stage on land half way around the world and use this system. Yea I'd need to save a little fuel to get back, or a lot if you want to make things complicated and force me to save "enough" fuel to "logically" make it back to the KSC, but if that saves thousands of cold hard cash for almost 0 work then why not?

I always thought the penalty to recovery was the recovery of those objects. As far as I know Kerbals are cheap, they will re-use parts until they explode, things are reliable enough they will work forever if treated correctly. Id also ask what do you define as "The area" to recover all from, since the game will already auto-recover everything on the launchpad and the runway Id assume you mean elsewhere across the world, which means defining a whole new set of tools to deal with what is basically wrecks haha.

I just don't see much of a difference between "recovery teams" and our current system. There are already strategies that can assist in recovery options to make more gameplans viable.

I'm also an advocate for just adding more runways/launchpads which are already somewhat in the game. This would allow the landing of other-side SSTOs within reason, and open the door to more sophisticated launches from different places around the world.