When to hire, when to rescue?

[Jestersage]

The KSP Wiki stated that at later stage, it is better to rescue Kerbals than to hire.

That being said, I only have 3 scientist, two of them are already assigned to a research lab.

So should I hire a scientist? Or should I wait until another rescue mission pop up? As of now I do not have contracts that require me to hire more, but would like to have one extra for my Minmus trip.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Jestersage

[Gaarst]

If you have only 3 scientists then you're not at an advanced stage (unless you've been extremely unlucky with Kerbal generation).

Hiring Kerbals become more expensive the more you hire. At one point it becomes so expensive that launching a rescue mission is worth the trouble.

[Geschosskopf]

28 minutes ago, Jestersage said:

The KSP Wiki stated that at later stage, it is better to rescue Kerbals than to hire.

In the stock game, the price for hiring Kerbals is just ridiculous.  It starts at the cost of a major building upgrade and increases exponentially from there, so that after 2 or 3 hires the next Kerbal will be more expensive than any rocket you're ever likely to launch even late in the game.  Thus, financially, you are essentially FORCED to do many repetitive, silly, grindy rescue missions to get even the minimum crew for a major project.  Boo!

Fortunately, there's a mod called CustomBarnKit that allows you to change the price of hiring Kerbals to some arbitrarily low value.  You can also set it at a constant value.  I highly recommend doing this.

[FancyMouse]

Never hire, always rescue.

Apart from the fact that hiring costs while rescuing earns, it is also an opportunity to practice rendezvous - try do a batching rescue, try to control the rendezvous point so that it never occurs at night side, etc. I've done like dozens of rescue missions and never find it repetitive or boring.

Hiring is too boring.

[Snark]

Yah, the cost of hiring is... exorbitant.

I guess the main determinant is what your tolerance is for doing rescue missions:  are they fun for you?  Or a grind?

I staff my own space program exclusively with rescuees.  Part of that's a money-saving measure, part of it is because I kinda enjoy rescuing them (even after the Nth time).  Also, I feel more like I've "earned" them if I had to do something to get them more than just clicking a button.  So I generally make it a house rule, and I'd probably do it even if hiring them were free.

[bewing]

It's not just hiring that makes the price of a new employee go up. Accepting a contract to rescue a victim also makes the price go up. So the price is always lowest at the very beginning. I don't need pilots. So before I do any rescuing, I try hard to hire at least one extra scientist and one extra engineer. But to save money, I try hard to rescue all the rest of my roster after that.

The thing is, Squad keeps looking at overhauling and/or making tweaks to the contract system. I've heard many great ideas for new contract types. But every time a new contract type gets added, it makes rescue contracts fewer and farther between. So the question comes down to: in your next 1.1.4 playthrough, can you really make your master strategy work with only half the roster you have now? If not, you're going to have to plan on making hiring a more prominent part of your game.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2016 by bewing

[GarrisonChisholm]

I tend to simply bear the cost of expensive Kerbalnauts.  I can rescue, and proved that I could (how could I not rescue such cool names as Ordred and Mind, plus my daughter's name Nina?), but I tend to not do that because I can't justify the exercise in my world-canon.

So, all these private companies are just endlessly and recklessly hucking poor souls into LKO?  On a weekly basis?  Unsuccessfully, and fearlessly?  Where do they come from?  What happens to the successful launches?  Why do they do it?  I just can't get my brain around it to accept it, so I ignore them.  I'd remove Rescue contracts entirely if I could.  I bet there's a way how, but I'm sure I'd screw it up.

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, bewing said:

The thing is, Squad keeps looking at overhauling and/or making tweaks to the contract system. I've heard many great ideas for new contract types. But every time a new contract type gets added, it makes rescue contracts fewer and farther between. So the question comes down to: in your next 1.1.4 playthrough, can you really make your master strategy work with only half the roster you have now? If not, you're going to have to plan on making hiring a more prominent part of your game.

I'd rather seem them totally revise the whole Kerbal class and experience system, along with how you acquire Kerbals.  Divorcing all that entirely from contracts would necessarily be part of this overhaul.  

I could go on and on with the things I hate about the existing "system" and all sorts of good ideas that have been suggested to replace it.  But I already have elsewhere, this isn't the place for that, and I doubt it would do any good anyway.

[Spricigo]

If you will not do anything better with that money... 

 

 

Personally I always find better things to do with my funds.  

[fourfa]

Never hire, always rescue X2.

In my most recent Hard mode career, I had to rescue about 20 kerbonauts before getting my third scientist.  It's random, just part of the game.

However to save headache, I usually increase the number of available contracts.  Then I always have a few active rescue contracts without having to clear out other ones first.  

 

Edited July 24, 2016 by fourfa

[dborgo]

I've never hired a Kerbal in all my time playing. The smile on their face at the landing and their undying devotion to the space program is all I need to keep rescuing every contract the comes.

Plus, I really enjoy the challenge of re-purposing multiple missions to a single task. One of my favorites was after just delivering an asteroid into orbit of Ike, a Kerbal popped up needing rescue from orbit around Duna. Another Kerbal had already been there in need of rescue, but had to come all the way home with his capsule intact. I had a small base established on Ike that had just enough dV to get back into orbit around Duna. It rendezvoused with the first Kerbal, loaded him up, but had no fuel left over to go anywhere. Asteroid tug then came down from Ike, grabbed the Kerbal that was still in his capsule with it's claw. The Ike base then docked with the asteroid tug on a side docking port that was only intended for refueling. The entire contraption, Tug with ike base hanging off the side at 90 degrees, with the horrendous center of mass vs. center of thrust, then limp burned its way back to Kerbin, but without the dV to enter orbit. A new mission was launched from Kerbin to meet them as they were on a sling shot through the Kerbin system. Kerbals transferred along with their capsule, then back to reentry and successful splashdown 30 miles from KSP. Two smiling Kerbals.

And if that wasn't enough, the asteroid tug had just enough fuel to transfer to the old Ike base that then allowed the base alone to enter orbit and land on Minmus, fulfilling one of those 4 different body flyby/landing missions. The money poured in, and I still have the Ike base (now Minmus base) ready to fly again. It was something like 5 different missions combined to produce a very satisfying outcome. Who said rescuing Kerbals was a "grind"!?