Reusability In career mode?

[Cloakedwand72]

Does reusability make a big difference when it comes to the tycoon mode of the game? Like does it give out full refunds of landed parts at the KSC or splashed down gently off the coast of the KSC & or near the Island runway?

[Signo]

It really depends on the settings you are playing with. However the answer Is yes. If you Land at KSC you recover 100% of the parts value. Nevertheless with the default settings, if you pick the right contracts you do not really Need It. There is the "transponder" strategy that could be applied too to increase the recovered parts value if they Land far from KSC but It Is not really your best shot.

[bewing]

It makes a difference if you adapt to it. It's not a big difference with standard difficulty. If you eventually play with an extremely hard difficulty setting, then you will need every kerbuck in the worst way.

You get a 100% refund for anything you land on the runway, or on the launchpad platform. Or on the Island Runway itself. If you miss any of those targets, even by a little, then it gives you a partial refund, by measuring the distance to the VAB end of the Crawlerway. Obviously, it's smartest to land everything on the runway because it's the biggest target. This is really useful for planes, because you can always taxi them back onto the runway, no matter where at KSC you land them.

It also makes a difference for rockets, if you build them knowing that you will try to land them on the runway. Many players stage away all the expensive parts before reentry, and reenter with a bare capsule (and maybe a heatshield). This is a waste of money. It is very challenging and interesting to try to reenter a complete rocket, and then land it as close to the runway as you can -- to try to get that refund.

 

[paul23]

I notice that around 20-30% income it is a "make or break" for any contract. (I wish I could fine grain a bit more, going from 30% money to 20% is a 1/3rd cut in money per launch).

[CBase]

In my current career game I landed nearly everything and tried hard to be as close as possible to the runway as bewing said. And it made a big difference: After 3 launches I wasn't fund restricted anymore and very soon I had enough money to launch for contracts in parallel.

[Fierce Wolf]

In hard mode many contracts offer very little money, so reusability does make an impact. You could, however, skip lesser contracts and always go for the big fish, or accept 2-3 smallish ones than can be launched at the same time.

[mk1980]

an alternative to reusing stuff is to simply design reasonably efficient rockets. even in the "hard" difficulty you still get 60% of the base income. for most of the contracts the advance payment alone is still enough to fund the whole mission even at 60% and the actual payment is still pure profit. 

if you tweak the income down even further (custom difficulty) you will have to reuse stuff to make a profit, but at that level the game can become a grind.