Need More Rescue Missions

[Clipperride]

A while back I turned down a couple of rescue missions, but now I find I need to increase my astronaut numbers, but I haven't had a rescue contract in ages.  Is there any way to get the game to produce more reaches at Mission Control?

[bewing]

Are you willing to cheat a little?

Edited December 5, 2016 by bewing

[Gianni1122]

3 hours ago, bewing said:

Are you willing to cheat a little?

lol

[Srpadget]

The question about "cheat a little" is perfectly legit.  The answer is, yes there are two ways to increase the odds of getting rescue missions--and the easy/reliable way involve messing with the debug menu.

The game adjusts the probability of different mission types based on how often you accept them.  It assumes that if you accept several missions of Type X, you must like to do them and it will offer more of them.  If you turn down several missions of Type Y, the game assumes you dislike them and stops offering them.

So, it appears the game has decided you don't like to do rescue missions, since you turned down several in a row.  To change that, start accepting them when offered.  But I'm sure you see the Catch-22 here...it's got to offer you one before you can accept it.  And that is now a rare thing. 

Option 1 is to just be patient and slog through many many contract offers until you get lucky, then take the rescue contract that's offered -- even if it's one you wouldn't normally want to mess with.  This is completely kosher, stock, and utterly non-cheaty...but may be very boring and grindy.

Option 2 involves going in with Alt-F12 and doing a bit of surgery on either the contracts on offer or the probability weightings of contract types.  Which will let you exercise Option 1 (accept a rescue contract, and therefore make them more likely in future) much more quickly/conveniently/reliably.

So, would you consider it "too cheaty" or "just fixing a flaw in the contract system" to go in there and either force a rescue contract or directly make them more likely to come up on their own?

[Clipperride]

Thanks Guys.  Of course, now I've asked the question, KSP is making me out to be a liar by offering me a new rescue mission*!  But could you please explain (or link to) the "cheaty"** option just in case I get bored before the next one appears? Thanks.

* Probably as a result quite a bit of time warping - taking passengers to Minmus and visiting Duna for the first time (yey me!)

** My personal definition of cheating, when it comes to KSP, is doing something that removes the fun and challenge of the game.  I can easily justify tinkering in the debug window by imagining I sent out a few Kerbal suits to drum up business from wherever it is that launches all those doomed missions.  I hate to work for whoever it is, as they seem to have a horrific safety record!

[bewing]

1 hour ago, Clipperride said:

Thanks Guys.  Of course, now I've asked the question, KSP is making me out to be a liar by offering me a new rescue mission*!  But could you please explain (or link to) the "cheaty"** option just in case I get bored before the next one appears?

Hit Alt-F12 to go into the Debug menu. Select the "Contracts" tab. On the main window, row 5 is "RecoverAsset" contracts. Click the "trivial" button. You should now have a new rescue contract offered to you in Mission Control. But it may be a part recovery contract, rather than a rescue mission -- so you may have to do it again.

[Clipperride]

Thank you @bewing - for another easy to follow and informative answer

[Loren Pechtel]

On 12/5/2016 at 3:32 PM, Clipperride said:

Thanks Guys.  Of course, now I've asked the question, KSP is making me out to be a liar by offering me a new rescue mission*!  But could you please explain (or link to) the "cheaty"** option just in case I get bored before the next one appears? Thanks.

* Probably as a result quite a bit of time warping - taking passengers to Minmus and visiting Duna for the first time (yey me!)

** My personal definition of cheating, when it comes to KSP, is doing something that removes the fun and challenge of the game.  I can easily justify tinkering in the debug window by imagining I sent out a few Kerbal suits to drum up business from wherever it is that launches all those doomed missions.  I hate to work for whoever it is, as they seem to have a horrific safety record!

Personally, I define cheating to be doing something that produces a benefit other than having to fight the imperfections in the game engine.  I think the list of available contracts should be a lot larger, guaranteed to include one of every available type.  Using the cheat menu to overcome this is not a cheat in my book.

Likewise, I mistakenly accepted a contract with a location of "landed in water", not realizing that it's almost impossible to actually get to such a biome.  I sent out a rover that was able to do the mission while sitting just offshore (close enough that it was still supported, not floating)--that sounds like landed in water to me.  When it didn't work I went investigating and then completed it with Alt-F12 as actually doing it at this tech level is effectively impossible.  (I would need to get mapping satellites up to find a pond somewhere that qualifies.)

I've also used it in the past when the mission was to recover an object from a moon--and the object turned out to be underground.

[bewing]

2 hours ago, Loren Pechtel said:

Likewise, I mistakenly accepted a contract with a location of "landed in water", not realizing that it's almost impossible to actually get to such a biome.

Heh. Not so hard at all actually. You just need to think it through. To get landed on water, you have to find some solidified water to land on. Then you have to fly there.

(Alternately, you can make a 2 part raft. Then decouple it while it's floating in the water. The upper part is technically "landed" then.)

Spoiler

 

Edited December 7, 2016 by bewing