manipulating contracts to get crew

[Callmedave]

Hi all

I read that with 1.1 it recognizes what sort of contracts you accept, and which you decline and gives you more of the same type as you accept. So if you accept the 'rescue a Kerbal from X' type contracts you would get a lot of these. For me these are really good, as i find them a good money return doing a single rescue mission is ok, but if i can rescue say 4 Kerbals with one launch (assuming all within Kebin SOI) then the returns are even greater. 

I need a large staff rosta as i have many missions underway at once, with scientists in labs all over the place, and pilots heading to places, etc. plus it saves me having to pay for staff.

What are your thoughts on this?

Have you purposely grinded a certain contract type knowing you can do it easily and it gives a good return?

[Plusck]

I didn't intend to grind rescue contracts, but I got a good system going which would let me pluck a rescuee out of low orbit with a 12-15 minute flight time, so I did a couple just for the cash. So I'm now up to 16 Kerbals on my roster on day 22 and still getting a load of contracts offered, and haven't even set foot on Minmus yet.

So yes, if you do a couple of tourist contracts to get the launchpad, mission control and astronaut complex upgraded, and avoid exploring too far (ideally without even going to the Mun), you can game the system to get dozens of crew quite quickly.

That said, 10 of those 16 are all engineeers. Dammit.

[moogoob]

These are the new "keep a lander on the Mun so Jeb can cash in on flag placement" contracts. In an earlier version I had a whole field of flags with various money puns and song lyric references.

Though A) you now have to work for it and B) most of your payout is in Kerbal resources.

[Hodari]

I definitely would take all the low Kerbin orbit rescue contracts you can get.  Early on at least, they're good money.  Later on, maybe not so much, but by then, extra crew members still make them worthwhile.  The reputation gains aren't bad either.  And once you design a ship for one, you can keep reusing that design for all the others, so no reason NOT to take those contracts unless you're getting completely sick of them and have enough Kerbals already.

[Streetwind]

19 hours ago, moogoob said:

Though A) you now have to work for it and B) most of your payout is in Kerbal resources.

That isn't even true though, unless the numbers were tweaked for 1.1... in my experience, even single rescue contracts usually net you a profit in cash comparable to other contracts, on top of the free Kerbal you get. Which can easily be worth six figures, due to the ridiculous hiring cost scaling. If you fly a mission that collects multiple Kerbals, the payout is even better. And they flat-out ignore your hiring limit as well. And the Kerbal you rescue starts with one experience star, due to returning from orbit, not with 0 stars like regular new hires.

Heck, even if rescue contracts gave you zero funds, they'd still be the most valuable contract you could possibly take if your goal was to get more Kerbals. But they do give you good money too. So yeah, if you want to min/max your contracts, doing exclusively rescue missions is definitely the way to cheese yourself to riches.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Streetwind

[Broco]

Those "rescue XY from low Kerbin orbit" actually made me construct a lot of more and more efficient SSTOs. I know have a wide variety to choose from