Career Missions, what makes them tick?

[TerminalV]

I have been on a vacation from KSP since shortly after version 1.0 cam out.  With the release of 1.2 I have updated and am starting over with a new career.  Between the communications requirements and off world resources (never really got that far back in 1.0) I am looking forward to building new orbital and surface bases and exploring the system.

 

That said I still struggle to figure out what make some mission pop up and other do not.  It there a guide that helps you decide which missions to accept and decline and what order to unlock the tech tree that make better mission pop up in the Mission center?  Are there other factor that effect what mission are available?  Guidance and suggestion here would be greatly appreciated! 

Edited October 20, 2016 by TerminalV

[KerikBalm]

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there a guide that helps you decide which mission to accept and decline and what order to unlock the tech tree that make better mission pop up in the Mission center?

There isn't any guide on what order to unlock techs, but there will be lots of opinions. Solar panels are a high priority to unlock, of course. It used to be that fuel lines for asparagus staging -> not a priority anymore. LV-Ns are also often a high priority. Turboramjets used to be a high priority for me, but then they got moved back in the tech tree, and panthers, though earlier, aren't nearly as useful for SSTOs.

New science experiments are often a priority: invest science to get science. I dislike having to go back to a destination and biome hop all over again to get seismic/gravity scans...

Docking ports should also be a priority, especially for biome hoppers that refuel from orbital depots.

As to which order for contracts? I think most contracts are not tied to tech. Many are though: You don't get ore mining contracts until you unlock drills. You dont get part recovery contracts until you unlock the claw... You don't get asteroid redirect contracts until you unlock lvl3 of the tracking station

Most are tied to your career progression: You don't get rescue contracts until you've done a rendevous (can be done for a "worlds first" contracts) - at least this is my experience). You won't get a rescue from Mun contract until you've been in Mun's SOI (or had a trajectory going there? sometimes I've had contracts to rescue kerbals from a planet I had a mission en route to).

You won't get a contract to dock before a rendevous. You won't get a contract to rendevous until you get to orbit...

But some things are funky... I often get explore mun contracts, but a minmus one never spawns. It used to be that visitin the flag POLe caused you to get contracts around Pol.

At the moment, I've got a contract to put up a geosync relay sat around duna... despite not having left kerbin's SOI in my career... it spawned before I had even arrived at Minmus...

So I'm not quite sure.

They also depend upon your reputation... so... its a lot of things and its pseudo-random... so there is no real formula for getting the contracts that you want.

[TerminalV]

Thanks KerikBalm,  lots of good info there.  Presently I have almost all of Tech level 4 unlocked.  I have achieved orbit and taken a tourist to orbit.  I have just accepted the explore Mun mission, hope to orbit that tonight and get a lot of science collected while in orbit.  I have yet to see any orbital rescue mission (I always enjoyed those) and I have not seen any mission to launch satellites yet.  I think those would be great for building a com network.  I really need to get solar panels unlocked before I do that though.

[Ripper2900]

The difficulty and thus the money payout of the mission is based on your reputation. 
Get some world firsts which raises reputation: Get in orbit, flyby the Mun and such, and you'll see more 3 stars contracts pop up.

That being said, i also go the "spend science to earn science" road. The first tech i unlock from a new tier (or even from the next tier again) is those who unlocks new science-items.

A word of advice: as soon as you can, get the science-lab, put it in Mun or Minmus orbits and fill it with two scientists and lots of data. That baby will produce 5 times as much science as would normally be returned. The rate is determined by the xp of the scientists working inside - it will increase a lot with multi-star scientists. But just 1-star scientists will provide a steady trickle.

This will help getting more techs, which will allow more world-firsts which will make higher profile missions pop up, and before you know it that tech tree is full...

[KerikBalm]

7 hours ago, TerminalV said:

Thanks KerikBalm,  lots of good info there.  Presently I have almost all of Tech level 4 unlocked.  I have achieved orbit and taken a tourist to orbit.  I have just accepted the explore Mun mission, hope to orbit that tonight and get a lot of science collected while in orbit.  I have yet to see any orbital rescue mission (I always enjoyed those) and I have not seen any mission to launch satellites yet.  I think those would be great for building a com network.  I really need to get solar panels unlocked before I do that though.

In my most recent career, I didn't get rescue missions until after I had done an orbital rendezvous... have you rendezvoused two craft in orbit yet (I think you will get a worlds first for that... 2 seperate launches are needed im pretty sure)?

I wouldn't be surprised if your lack of solar panels (even the single flat panel ox stats?) is preventing sat contracts from spawning - I think they all require that the sat can generate power, so if you don't have any solar panel or RTG tech, they are probably blocked.

I've never confirmed though, because solar panels have always been a high priority unlock for me so that I can transmit lots of science to get immediate science gains days before recovering the craft.

[TerminalV]

Thanks guys,

The missions started to pop last night.  I did the quick flyby of Mun with a ship that barely had enough delta-V to get there.  I couldn't even orbit Mun with how little fuel I had left I just zip thru it SOI to complete the first explore Mun mission and came home.  That caused several new missions to appear.  I did two rescue missions one in low orbit and another in an orbit almost out to Mun ( I really do love orbital rendezvous).  Later I returned to Mun with a better ship that is presently in a near polar orbit doing a survey mission (surveying a point below 7600m near the north pole is a pain).  Science returned from that mission (EVA's over various biomes) in progress finally let me unlock solar panels so I am building a com-relay satellite to send to Mun and that will hopefully unlock some satellite missions soon.  I have about a third of the 5th (90sci) technologies unlocked at this point.

[Terwin]

Docking ports are needed before station contracts will appear.(love these, as one will usually pay for the entire launch, making any tourists/rescues or other station contracts I can manage with the same ship pure gravy)

You should *always* have at least 1 'world firsts' contract (active or available) to take your exploration one step further.

 

I think that anywhere you have taken a manned mission, tourists may want to go, so visiting Moho, or landing on Eve may make it hard to find cost-effective tourist contracts.