Smarter stock contract system.

[Vaporized Steel]

While my hopes aren't high for the devs to ever fix one of the few calamaties in KSP I'm suffering from since they're leaving, I want to discuss a very important aspect of the stock contracts system, that fails miserably.

I had about 12 tech nodes unlocked at which point Wernher asked me to Fly by Duna. I couldn't get to Duna yet!
Not because of lacking tech nodes but the fact that Duna was about 140 through 180 degrees behind the desired launch window (months behind). I'm not willing to store that contract in the active mission list because I want to fully uttilize the max contracts available, not have one sitting idle for a few months until the mission actually arrives. I would need a Eve/Kerbin gravity assist with a very very long mission time just to get there.

I would really consider a in game system that detects this interplanetary dance around the sun to know it's even possible to get the mission done that the random slot machine (that is the KSP contract system) pumps out now and then.It's about as random as a slotmachine, you can get 3 berries or 3 x 7, KSP doesn't give a #@!*#@&

This should also be incredibly easy to program. The KSP universe starts at a fixed date with the planets at a fixed position. So a toddler could program the actual time frame in which these contracts should spawn in your contracts list.

Atleast these missions don't spawn in the early career game when your reputation is to low. But they also don't when you do have higher rep before your first Duna launch window (or Eve for that matter)
Atleast not in my case, and I got my rep very high in one of my savegames prior to my first Duna launch window. So that's the overal silliness of the contract system for you.

This is very important atleast to me because since it's random the contract system oftenly refuses to spawn Duna missions in the contract window when Duna does reveal itself in a desired relation to Kerbin.
Very Ironic, because I want my Duna missions to earn money. When I go to Duna first time in 1.2 I want multiple sattelites being sent right there immediately on the first transfer window.

Preferably including atleast a fly-by contract if not a additional contract to obtain experiment data around Duna and it's surface.
Also I want the contract system to have the intelligence to determine that I have actually send a mission to Duna.

And when it detects this that the contract system atleast spawns 1 additional mission with Duna in this case as a target in the next week after signing the first Duna contract so I don't have to wait 2-3 revolutions around Kerbol to do a 2nd Duna mission.

Also, certain game activities seem to trigger certain contracts. So it might not be completely random. However, I don't know this for sure.

But it seems that when I go interplanetary from the get go the contract system seems to spawn more interplanetary contracts from there on.
Maybe you'll have to go interplanetary first before such missions are spawned in mass.

The thing is, I don't want THAT!

In the early career, either Duna or Eve are months away from their desired launch window, In those early weeks months I do many Mun/Minmus missions.
I want that damn contract system to give me any interplanetary missions whenever any target planet is in a normal hohman transfer window. Duna in this example, but the same goes for Eve/gilly or Ike obviously.

I don't want to install a contract configurator as a necessity to bypass this silliness or have to use the Debug panel to spawn contracts I desire in stock KSP.

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[Superfluous J]

I agree with everything you said except

18 minutes ago, Vaporized Steel said:

While my hopes aren't high for the devs to ever fix one of the few calamaties in KSP I'm suffering from since they're leaving

Really they're not "leaving." Squad has more developers now than they did last year at this time. A bunch of big-names left but we don't know the reasons and for all we know it was just because their work was done.

There are many reasons why your ideas may not be implemented (which is sad because I totally agree that it would be nice) but "not enough devs" isn't one of them.

[Vaporized Steel]

Your right, but that are some big names that leave.
Because of that I get the impression that we have to deal with a new crew that may not orientate itself in fixing broken aspects of the game. (or better said, hard to implement aspects as you call it)
They might rather leave us with the option to install a contract configurator, and that is okay. But I would like to see it work flawlessly in stock, and I hope the new team sees value in that.

Can you tell me the reasons that you think prevent implementing what I'm suggesting. The contract system has been bombarded with critique since it was introduced since v 0.22 I think. And while it has been reworked several times little has been done to balance it despite multiple requests for a overhaul.

[Fendrin]

When I first sent a probe (hard landing) to Duna the contract system offered me a lot of Duna related contracts afterwards. Accepted a bunch of them and launched another (unmanned) mission to Duna at the next launch window. When arriving at Duna everything went wrong.

One contract wanted testing a headshield above the planet. The wiki mentions Duna can be approached by air braking and so the contract seemed to fit into a sounding mission planing. But the parameters of that test contract were so artificial that I had no chance to fulfill it with my craft and be at the right speed in the altitude range. The contract was both, stupid and very not beginner friendly.

Another one wanted to put a satellite in a specific orbit around Duna. Of course that orbit was so different to the one I arrived at that I had no chance for that as well. Again, not the best contract for the first few flights to Duna.

The second part testing related contract was stupid and failed as well, don't remember the details anymore...

The Ike flyby contract was actually a good one. Ike is so near and huge that you can't miss him. But that contract vanished somehow. Maybe it was me messing with some contract related mods.

So the only thing I could do was a "gather some science from the surface" contract. Although I had brought in a nice but small rover. But he ended in the middle of nowhere nothing to do but driving several days to the next biome.

My point is the whole contract system while being a nice start is not polished enough to give me a good gaming experience. The new player is not guided enough. At least one handcrafted Duna contract with some words about launch window and planet constellations, a rough estimation about the needed deltaV. It should also encourage a sounding mission planning, not introduce silly goals which make it more difficult. When there is a goal that makes it more difficult it needs to be optional, make some sense, give a reward that is balanced and be very verbose about the extra difficulties involved (with extra deltaV if needed). Later in the game you learn to judge better which contracts are suited for you or don't make much sense at all. Still I end up mostly doing 3 different type of missions: 

1. Fulfill mostly silly contracts for gathering money
2. Spend that money on missions for gathering science
3. Missions I actually want to do, after more money and science gathering to pay them

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Vaporized Steel said:

So a toddler could program the actual time frame in which these contracts should spawn in your contracts list.

Seriously, just stop, you're embarrassing yourself.

As far as the suggestion goes, the deadlines for contracts are loose enough to allow you all the time you need and the information on how and when to perform effective transfers to other planets properly belongs in KSPedia, not in the contract. Upgrading the Admin building is fairly cheap as those things go so you'll still have, what, 6 free contract slots to use if you accept the Duna exploration contract? Plenty of opportunity there.

If you're really worried about it just increase the available contracts in the config files and it's a done deal.

E: Also, moving the explore contracts to only show during optimum Hohmann transfer times would reverse the situation you're describing for people doing other interesting things with those contracts, such as using an Eve -> Duna slingshot or a high-energy transfer; instead of you waiting with the contract in queue now they'd be waiting. Hardly fair. The great thing about KSP is that people can play it the way they want and explore different spaceflight concepts.

Edited October 11, 2016 by regex