New Contract type: Challenges

[Waxing_Kibbous]

It would be a lot of fun to integrate challenges into the stock game. They would act like contracts in that you would complete them and they would disappear, yet unlike contracts would have a payout system that is scalable based on the awesomeness of the attempt. I think not giving an initial payout would be good too, these are after all for bragging rights, not business. Some ideas:

Lightest craft to do X

Least dV to do X (either with a supplied vessel or a user made one)

Fastest to X

Do X with only Y number of parts

etc.

I think these could be a ton of fun in that they would shake up player's routines and build methods as well as provide a bit of "official" competition in the community by having some standard challenges.

[Van Disaster]

Well, they could be for reputation only perhaps, this sort of thing does happen IRL. If they had a minimal payout they could also inherently be "make the cheapest craft to do X" too...

[Wjolcz]

I would love to create my own contracts and send them to people as challenges.

[problemecium]

Hmmm. At one point, at least, there were occasionally contracts for things like "Complete the Kerbin 3 Challenge" requiring a ship to visit the Mun and Minmus and then return to Kerbin, etc. I'm not sure whether they're still present now though.

[Wjolcz]

2 hours ago, parameciumkid said:

Hmmm. At one point, at least, there were occasionally contracts for things like "Complete the Kerbin 3 Challenge" requiring a ship to visit the Mun and Minmus and then return to Kerbin, etc. I'm not sure whether they're still present now though.

I'm pretty sure it's one of the Grand Tour contracts, isn't it? I never do them. Who cares what planet, in what order and how many vessels I use to visit them? I'd rather pick/create few separate missions and complete them however I see suitable

Edited September 22, 2016 by Veeltch

[John FX]

This could be done if we had a `contract creator` in the game which allowed contract sharing.

Set your destinations (Bop, Pol etc), set the completion criteria (flyby, land, get X ore etc), set the time limit and all the other criteria then click `make` and there you have all the types of contract you could want, that can be shared with others as challenges.

This could mean mix and match contracts, like a contract to `get science from space around Jool, land on Bop, get 2480 Ore from Pol, scan tylo for resources, fly by dres, land on kerbin`

Challenges would be made better if you could get a score and judge the score in various ways, for example weight on the pad (descending) or height above Kerbin (ascending) vehicle cost (descending) mission time to contract completion (descending)

And with that the challenges forum gets a major boost and the game gets a boost to longevity.

[Jonfliesgoats]

I was considering what a gameplay experience would be like if I could issue contracts to other players.  I cold set a price, ask someone to lift such and such probe to a particular orbit, ferry fuel or crew to an orbital facility, etc.. The problem is one would rapidly become a space broker and you would not really do much engineering or flying of craft.

I suppose we could limit the amount of reputation or science you get from doing is.  Also, in the case of a player requested satellite launch, we need to be able to share craft files and make sure that vehicles appear.

This could be awesome or it could be not awesome at all.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

There could be a best of both worlds scenario- standard stock challenges, as well as user made ones. Something that might be cool also would be Easter-egg type challenges, that would appear at random 24 hour periods for everybody. That could make for some crazy forum activity

[Jonfliesgoats]

You know there are RL similarities too.  It could be neat to design a probe on your own and then contract other players to lift it to orbit by a given game-date for a given price.  The more I consider it, the more I think this could be a really rewarding game experience, as long as sufficient effort is given to developing it.  I may have been a little pessimistic about this initially.

Also, I could really see this being a neat thing to implement in the console community due to the large number of people in Xbox live, etc.

[IronCretin]

How about lifting specific payloads? You get the contract to insert a payload of some mass into some orbit, and when you accept it, the payload appears in you part menu, and you just have to build a rocket to lift it to the orbit. Or maybe secret payloads? Like, all you know is the approximate mass, and its inside a fairing or somesuch.

Edited September 23, 2016 by IronCretin

[Tweeker]

There used to be Kerbin world's first contracts, such as fly above 5km, 10km, 30km, etc or fly faster than 300m/s. 

    Wish they would bring those back

 

[IronCretin]

 

1 hour ago, Tweeker said:

There used to be Kerbin world's first contracts, such as fly above 5km, 10km, 30km, etc or fly faster than 300m/s. 

    Wish they would bring those back

 

That's what the milestones are for.

[Wjolcz]

8 hours ago, Tweeker said:

There used to be Kerbin world's first contracts, such as fly above 5km, 10km, 30km, etc or fly faster than 300m/s. 

    Wish they would bring those back

 

These were really annoying. Especially the ones that asked you to fly at a certain speed and within a set altitude. Completing them early in the career was a real purgatory.

[Tweeker]

7 hours ago, Veeltch said:

These were really annoying. Especially the ones that asked you to fly at a certain speed and within a set altitude. Completing them early in the career was a real purgatory.

Really? I enjoyed them, and I felt like they where a better example of things that you would do to advance your research than coing yet another crew report from the Mun 

[Wjolcz]

1 minute ago, Tweeker said:

Really? I enjoyed them, and I felt like they where a better example of things that you would do to advance your research than coing yet another crew report from the Mun 

I'd rather not do any of these to advance my reseach.

[Tweeker]

   Well, if you don't want to do a contract you aren't forced to. But I think it is better to have it available for people who like these types of contracts, and anyone who doesn't can ignore or decline it.  

[Wjolcz]

On 26/09/2016 at 4:36 AM, Tweeker said:

   Well, if you don't want to do a contract you aren't forced to. But I think it is better to have it available for people who like these types of contracts, and anyone who doesn't can ignore or decline it.  

Oh, I actually kinda misunderstood your previous post. I would love the testing contracts to be meaningful. Once the research of an engine is done it would need a few additional testing missions (maybe one in-flight and one on the ground).

But not the way it was done before. Example: "Achieve Dres escape orbit in order to test this jet engine". These were dumb.

Apart from that, I really wish for a career overhaul that lets me progress either by doing missions, hauling tourists, or take scientific data. Or everything at once. The only way to progress right now is to grind for science. The rest is just that not very useful "extra" stuff (contracts, reputation and strategies).

Edited September 27, 2016 by Veeltch