Rescue missions too easy

[Rolan]

The rescue missions seem to be too easy.

Not only do you get a new Kerbal, you also get paid for it.  What's the point of hiring Kerbals at great expense, when you can just snag them from low orbit?

Why not limit the number of Kerbals you can rescue, and vary the missions?  (I know there is already some variation)

1. Rescue from low, nearly circular orbit, 0 inclination
2. Rescue from low, nearly circular orbit, polar
3. Rescue from some orbit, docking required
4. Rescue from some orbit, Kerbal cannot leave cabin  (Klaw required, or capture in a bay)
5. Rescue from high, nearly circular orbit, maybe 2 million meters
6. Rescue from high, very elliptical orbit, 100k at peri, 30M at apo, with Mun interaction likely  (prepare for asteroid catching)
7. Rescue from Mun or Minmus orbit, any kind
8. Rescue from Mun surface

Maybe a couple more, but that's it.  Maybe a Kerbal in orbit and on the surface of the other planets and moons.

And how about the space craft the Kerbals are in look like they are trying to do science?  Polar orbit rescue has a Kerbal in a craft with the magnetometer (or is that DMagic?).

 

My first post, let me know if this is in the wrong place.

Where do bugs go?  Rescue missions for me in 1.3.1 where the Kerbal is in the command chair don't have the Kerbal, unless I select that vessel from the Tracking station.  Starting from my rescue vessel and tabbing to the rescue-ee always shows nobody home.

KSP is an awesome game, I have spent way way too much time on it already, and still love it.

RolanCCC

[Tyko]

More difficult rescue missions show up as you continue. Once you've visited the Mun or Minmus you can get rescue missions for orbit and landed on the moons.

[Cavscout74]

Eventually you get them around the sun & other planets & moons once you've been to them as well.  The few I've taken around the sun have all been in orbits lower then Moho, so dV requirements are substantial - I'm sure higher orbits are possible, but I've not gotten any & I quit taking the contracts since it doesn't show the orbit before you accept. 

[SnailsAttack]

Rescue missions are a good bit of fun if they don't make you go too far from kerbin, so I'd like to see some additional challenges and requirements added to change things up.

[ZootinZack]

Bruh no animosity intended but how long have you played?

More difficult rescue missions happen (rescuing BillyBob and his wreckage from the *surface* of the Mun) so if you're looking for a challenge it's there.

(My current save has over fifty Kerbonauts and I never hired any of them. Hiring is for chumps who can't rendez-vous.)

[KerikBalm]

They do get more difficult, my problem is that I get spammed with a bunch of easy ones, that I already have 20 kerbonauts before I get the rescue contracts for ones in high and inclined orbits/retrograde orbits, etc (If I were playing the stock size system, and I could progress to mun and minmus faster, maybe they'd show up there faster).

I don't like leaving the rescue contracts unaccepted, but if I always accept them, then I get far too many kerbals. They need to place a limit on how many kerbals you get in each situation (low orbit, high inclined orbits, mun, etc)

[SnailsAttack]

29 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

They do get more difficult, my problem is that I get spammed with a bunch of easy ones, that I already have 20 kerbonauts before I get the rescue contracts for ones in high and inclined orbits/retrograde orbits, etc (If I were playing the stock size system, and I could progress to mun and minmus faster, maybe they'd show up there faster).

I don't like leaving the rescue contracts unaccepted, but if I always accept them, then I get far too many kerbals. They need to place a limit on how many kerbals you get in each situation (low orbit, high inclined orbits, mun, etc)

Can't you fire kerbals?

[MinimalMinmus]

In one memorable instance, I had a rescue mission that was in a low orbit around Sonnah from NH, so low it actually dipped into the atmosphere at periapsis. It was pretty fun.

 

However, it's true the most basic "grab a kerbal in orbit" mission should disappear after 5 or 6 kerbals rescued.

[Atkara]

19 hours ago, ZootinZack said:

Hiring is for chumps who can't rendez-vous.

Not necessarily. There was an occasion where I was short on scientists, had transfer windows incoming and rescues were giving me anything but scientists. I vaguely remember buying 10 of them for a total of ~15-20 million. That was on an old career.

Anyway, I've recovered Kerbals (and their pods, if the contract called for it) from a variety of predicaments, in orbit or on the surface of a body. As you go places, the variety of rescue locations increases -and so does the challenge. One type I haven't done so far, is a retrograde solar orbit rescue. This will be interesting when it pops up  

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I've stated my unpopular opinion before and will do so again: you should only get rep for rescues, no funds unless recovering hardware.

[KerikBalm]

10 hours ago, SnailsAttack said:

Can't you fire kerbals?

Yes, you can, but I do have plans to send 6-12 to various bases on other bodies... I'm just saying that my roster fills up really really fast, before any of those plans are even in planning (that comes after maxing the tech tree and going 100% science to funds, so that bases pay through themselves through the mobile labs)

[tater]

The rescues get more stupid, not just harder in terms of time/dv.

They should be more sensible, and interesting. Have real craft, not a single capsule or crew part.

Allow rescue via resupply/refueling. Craft in orbit of Mun is out of propellant, refill so it can go home. 

Time doesn't matter ever in KSP, but it should. Any rescue that takes longer than a crew would actually be able to survive is silly.

[Vanamonde]

You could just, you know, not do those contracts. 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Is no one going to welcome @Rolan to the forums?

Where have our manners gone lol?

Welcome to the forums guy! As others have explained; as your reputation increases you will stop being offered the easy recuse contracts and start running into harder ones. Best of luck!

[Rolan]

Thanks for the responses.  My main complaint was that it is too easy to gain crew and money, just by rescuing Low Orbit losers around Kerbin.  And where these guys coming from anyway?  How many space programs are on Kerbin?

RolanCCC

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Rolan said:

Thanks for the responses.  My main complaint was that it is too easy to gain crew and money, just by rescuing Low Orbit losers around Kerbin.  And where these guys coming from anyway?  How many space programs are on Kerbin?

They come from the inside of the planet. They get up there using a K-drive powered by the black hole in the centre of Kerbin that gives the 600 km planet 1 g surface gravity. When the K-drive fails, it blows up the craft and vaporises most of the parts. The ones you're rescuing are the lucky survivors who happened to be in a part that made it through the explosion.

(Put another way: this falls under the big basket of things not to think about too seriously. KSP is a bit wacky and amusingly self-aware of the ways in which it parts ways with realism. If you want something that's seriously serious, go with Realism Overhaul. Also if you think making funds is too easy -- and it is easy -- then just dial down the rewards in the game settings.)

Edited March 7, 2018 by Guest

[Streetwind]

On 4.3.2018 at 3:27 AM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I've stated my unpopular opinion before and will do so again: you should only get rep for rescues, no funds unless recovering hardware.

Not an unpopular opinion at all. I always apply MM patches to that effect for my games.  

[AngryKitty]

It'd be nice if there was a better mix of Kerbals rescued, IMO. After a bunch of rescue contracts across the Kerbin system (none interplanetary yet), I have...a single pilot, a single scientist, and 8 engineers.

The engineers were promptly banished to my fueling bases.  

[Reactive Xenon]

14 hours ago, Rolan said:

Thanks for the responses.  My main complaint was that it is too easy to gain crew and money, just by rescuing Low Orbit losers around Kerbin.  And where these guys coming from anyway?  How many space programs are on Kerbin?

RolanCCC

As a person who just started playing ksp on console and did their first Mun flyby I would say no its not to easy. but I get your point

I needed a $250,000 upgrade so i accepted 5 missions that I weren't planning on doing for a while. Why? because each of those missions gave anywhere from 40k-60k in advanced money but I don't have to complete them in a very long time. This is very useful  but can be excessively used but then again you can easily crank up the difficulty and make it harder to do everything. besides easy mode I plan on completing career mode on all game modes so I can learn how to be a better ksp player step by step. I know some 12yr olds who play this game and if they made it too hard I suspect they wouldn't be able to play.In my opinion ksp is not too easy for anyone (except Scott Manley and Matt Lowne and a few super advanced players) You can always try new challenges that push your skills to the next level I do agree with your complaints but they are necessary for the default mode if you want a wide rang of skill players playing this game but like I said you can always crank up the difficulty. 

[Capt. Hunt]

4 hours ago, AngryKitty said:

It'd be nice if there was a better mix of Kerbals rescued, IMO. After a bunch of rescue contracts across the Kerbin system (none interplanetary yet), I have...a single pilot, a single scientist, and 8 engineers.

The engineers were promptly banished to my fueling bases.  

I don't know if it still is, but the type of rescued kerbal used to be based on which type you had the least of waiting in your astronaut complex.  Maybe you kept getting engineers because you were sending all of them to fuel depots?

[Streetwind]

On 7.3.2018 at 9:38 PM, Capt. Hunt said:

I don't know if it still is, but the type of rescued kerbal used to be based on which type you had the least of waiting in your astronaut complex.  Maybe you kept getting engineers because you were sending all of them to fuel depots?

I doubt that was ever a thing. If it was, it certainly isn't anymore.

Proof: you start the game with two pilots, one scientist, and one engineer. In my most recent career game, the list of rescues amounted to something like: pilot, pilot, pilot, engineer, pilot, pilot, engineer, engineer, scientist, pilot.

Most of these were flown with no other mission in progress, so if they checked my available Kerbals, they should not have given me any pilots at all until I had rescued at least 1-2 engineers and 1-2 scientists.

[ZootinZack]

On 03/03/2018 at 9:11 PM, Atkara said:

Not necessarily. There was an occasion where I was short on scientists, had transfer windows incoming and rescues were giving me anything but scientists. I vaguely remember buying 10 of them for a total of ~15-20 million. That was on an old career.

Anyway, I've recovered Kerbals (and their pods, if the contract called for it) from a variety of predicaments, in orbit or on the surface of a body. As you go places, the variety of rescue locations increases -and so does the challenge. One type I haven't done so far, is a retrograde solar orbit rescue. This will be interesting when it pops up  

I was really just playin'... Hiring is fine. Just sayin if you're diligent and rescue Kerbals on the reg, you won't run out of anything. But if out of luck sure. Also rescue missions are very time consuming so if that's not your cup of tea you might want to hire instead.

[GoSlash27]

I'd say the opposite is the problem: Hiring kerbals is too expensive. I always staff my careers with rescuees.

Best,
-Slashy

 

[MinimalMinmus]

23 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

I'd say the opposite is the problem: Hiring kerbals is too expensive. I always staff my careers with rescuees.

Best,
-Slashy

 

Yeah, why would anyone hire a kerbal for like 100k bucks when it's possible to simply grab him in orbit, even though the result may vary, for positive cash? And they'll even start with some XP then!

[GoSlash27]

20 hours ago, MinimalMinmus said:

Yeah, why would anyone hire a kerbal for like 100k bucks when it's possible to simply grab him in orbit, even though the result may vary, for positive cash? And they'll even start with some XP then!

And the more kerbals you have on your staff (whether from hiring or rescue), the more exponentially expensive it becomes to hire a kerbal. IMO it should never cost more than $10,000 or so to hire a candidate since that's roughly what it costs to rescue one.

Best,
-Slashy