Question about career mode contracts & milestones

[ConArt70]

I made some mistakes early on in my current hard career and nearly went bankrupt. So I had to sacrifice a ton of rep to gain some funds and spent a long time after that grinding one start contracts to get my rep and finances back on track. 

I did a lot of tourist contacts and rescue contacts so I can appreciate what quazarz is talking about. 

[quazarz]

[snip]

How many contracts do you have to decline to get four orbital station missions to the same destination at the same time? IDK about you but I don't get those contracts very often. My whole point is that I am playing "Kerbal Space Program: Career Mode" and trying to excel within the game on its own terms, and set up a system that allows me to take all of the most lucrative contracts offered, when they are offered, and without having to worry about the specific details of each one. And I don't have to suffer the shame of spamming one-star contracts. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Vanamonde

[bewing]

21 minutes ago, quazarz said:

How many contracts do you have to decline to get four orbital station missions to the same destination at the same time?

I suspect it's an infinite number. The game is smart enough not to let you off that easy.

 

[Spricigo]

11 hours ago, quazarz said:

How many contracts do you have to decline to get four orbital station missions to the same destination at the same time?

0

11 hours ago, bewing said:

I suspect it's an infinite number. The game is smart enough not to let you off that easy.

I'm not aware of any limitation except the  probability of getting a different contract instead, and I read somewhere*

Contracts // Below you will find many career mode options, and most are commented
...
AverageAvailableContracts = 10 // The average number of contracts in Mission Control

A thought crossed my mind: "MOAR!!"

Having option is so nice.

*/Gamdata/Squad/Contracts/Contracts.cfg

 

[paul_c]

So you've modified a file to alter how many concurrent assignments it generates?

[Spricigo]

7 hours ago, paul_c said:

So you've modified a file to alter how many concurrent assignments it generates?

A simple mod, yes. Just a few lines in a Module Manager patch. But if is just for you and you don't care about it getting undone in a update just editing the file in notepad works too.  Also, the previously mentioned Contract Configurator may  be used in a similar fashion.

 

[Srpadget]

On 12/16/2020 at 12:05 PM, quazarz said:

And a more subjective follow up: If this happens, how much more difficult would it be to go from Minmus, to Kerbol SOI, then back down to Kerbin to complete that leg of the journey each time? (how to do that efficiently?)

With all the discussion about Tourist contracts being (the greatest thing ever)/(a waste of time), nobody's really touched on that question.

My standard single-launch "training run" once I've got the relevant tech & infrastructure in place is Launch to LKO -> Minmus-> Sun SOI -> Mun -> home.   In my experience, it's trivial to go from Minmus to Sun SOI and pretty easy to get a good Mun intercept from just outside Kerbin SOI (regardless of the Minmus-Mun geometry when you leave Minmus--so no "launch windows" to worry about).

The Mun's orbital period is short, and you can drastically change your ship's travel time from Sun SOI with a relatively small change in dV requirements.  So it's not hard to set up a return trajectory that grazes the Mun's orbit on a tangent and allows a simple, low-dV capture.

[Superfluous J]

On 12/19/2020 at 1:19 PM, quazarz said:

How many contracts do you have to decline to get four orbital station missions to the same destination at the same time? IDK about you but I don't get those contracts very often. My whole point is that I am playing "Kerbal Space Program: Career Mode" and trying to excel within the game on its own terms, and set up a system that allows me to take all of the most lucrative contracts offered, when they are offered, and without having to worry about the specific details of each one. And I don't have to suffer the shame of spamming one-star contracts. 

While in the stock game you can't get dozens (or even 5) contracts for - say - a base on Gilly. you *CAN* however get one each for:

• Station Orbiting Kerbin*
• Station Orbiting Sun*
• Station Orbiting Eve*
• Station Orbiting Gilly*
• Base on Gilly

...And build one craft that satisfies all requirements. The act of sending that craft to Gilly will just complete the other contracts.

Similarly, you can take a bevy of "Satellite around [place]" contracts, and build one satellite that satisfies all contracts.

You can also take "take a temperature reading X meters above/below a location" and as a bonus, whatever craft you put up there to do it can continue to knock out future contracts of the same type, no "new vessel" required.

You can NOT do similar with tourist contracts, as each one generates new tourists. Trying to combine tourist contracts ends up being MORE expensive because you end up taking tourists who only wanted to go to LKO, all the way to your Mun landing.

*IIRC you can only get 3 "station" contracts at a time so really you only get 3 of these, not all 4. But still it's a ridiculous return on investment. So much so that in my own games I've stopped doing it because just doing one such contract pretty much turns your game into a Science mode save.

[quazarz]

1 minute ago, Superfluous J said:

 

Station construction contracts are fairly rare for me. Tourist contracts are very common.

"Return on investment" is about more than just a percentage of the cost of materials. If I spend 160k on a rocket that completes 10 contracts with 19 tourists and earn 5 million, that's better than 20 contracts that can all be completed with a single satellite, or even 3 contracts completed with a single orbital station (which is apparently the maximum).

You only need enough fuel to land on the Mun for refueling...

to get everywhere else...

[quazarz]

3 hours ago, Srpadget said:

 

The Mun's orbital period is short, and you can drastically change your ship's travel time from Sun SOI with a relatively small change in dV requirements.  So it's not hard to set up a return trajectory that grazes the Mun's orbit on a tangent and allows a simple, low-dV capture.

That's really interesting, I want to try that. How do you plan it, starting with the Minmus ejection?

[Srpadget]

1 hour ago, quazarz said:

That's really interesting, I want to try that. How do you plan it, starting with the Minmus ejection?

First, you may want to go into settings and increase the number of conics shown in Map View.  I have mine increased from the default in order to ease interplanetary trajectories involving moons of other planets.

(This bit assumes you're in a low, circular, prograde orbit around Minmus) Ejection burn on the trailing-and-outboard (from Kerbin) quadrant of Minmus; fuss with the placement to get an optimum burn (either minimum time for a given dV, or minimum dV if you're more patient than I am); if I recall correctly, ~300 m/s is a decent compromise between minimal fuel usage vs reasonable travel time--but don't take taht as gospel; I haven't done it in a while and I may be remembering wrong.  WARNING:  if you leave the Kerbin system with too much excess velocity, it can take a surprisingly large amount of dV to get back--so don't get too impatient in regards travel time.   And make sure you check that you're leaving Kerbin SOI, not just Minmus.  (Yeah, it may sound insultingly obvious, but it needs to be said.  Been there, done that...)

As you approach the transition from Kerbin SOI to Sun SOI, add a burn to kill most of your velocity.  (This step is not strictly necessary, but it makes me feel better to know that I'm just barely drifting out into interplanetary space; the dV is basically the same either way.)  I like to leave my ship pointed retrograde (back toward Kerbin) for this part, as it makes the initial guesstimate of the return burn easier.

Once out in interplanetary space and you've earned your "Sun SOI" merit badge, set up your return burn.  This will be ROUGHLY aligned with the axis of your ship if you left it oriented as described above; relative your orbit around the Sun, it will combine prograde/retrograde and axial in/out (the exact direction depends on where Minmus was in its orbit when you left it, and hence what direction you were going relative to the Sun when you got flung out of Kerbin SOI).

From here on out I can only give you arm-wavy "fiddle with this and see what happens" sorts of guidelines...

You'll want to play with the prograde and axial burns until A) you have a return to near-Kerbin space, then fiddle some more until your return trajectory has a Pe a bit smaller than the Mun's orbit.  You probably won't get an intercept at this point, but that's ok; you should get "closest approach" indicators--and they'll probably tell you that Mun is way over on the other side of its orbit at the critical time.  Not to worry.

Fiddle with the prograde & axial burn handles a bit more.  One of them will change your arrival time more than it changes the trajectory; the other will do the inverse.  Use that knowledge to tweak your Mun-orbit-distance arrival time such that you arrive there when the Mun is in the right place.  It'll be frustratingly slow the first couple times you do it, but you learn the trick of "dragging the Mun to the right place" with practice--it's like rendezvous and dock in that way.  The ideal goal is for your return trajectory to just-barely-graze the Mun's orbit (in the prograde direction!) so that you have the smallest possible capture burn when you get to Mun.   Since it can take 20 days or more to get back to the inner Kerbin system on a long slow trajectory and the Mun's orbit is 4-ish days, you CAN do it.

Depending on where Minmus was in its inclined orbit and how you ejected, you MIGHT come in above/below the Mun's SOI and need a plane change to get a decent intercept.  The Mun has a pretty big SOI, so it's unlikely, but it might happen.  Or you might want to capture into a near-equatorial orbit in order to refuel at a space station orbiting Mun--this also will need a plane change.  That will happen as a separate burn, while already well on your way back into the inner Kerbin system--but you may want to set that burn up at the same time as you set up the "return to Kerbin SOI" burn.  (Remember at the beginning, when I was recommending you increase the number of conics...?)  This part is really similar to the midcourse correction/plane change burn on an interplanetary trajectory--there are lots of tutorials on that topic which can explain it way better than I can.

It can be fussy, but you've got something working in your favor:  the Mun's SOI is a Great Big Honkin' Target(tm)--if you can reliably set up a Minmus intercept from low orbit, then you can get a Mun intercept from just outside Kerbin's SOI.  Just remember that you need to adjust BOTH the axial and prograde handles concurrently, and you'll be fine.

And if your dV is limited, remember that a long slow trip is VASTLY more fuel efficient--you're gonna have to kill all that excess velocity once out in Sun SOI and then again at Mun capture.  So unless you've got some hard time limit (need to return before an interplanetary launch window, for instance), the long slow leisurely trip is going to be lots easier on the fuel tanks.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out!

[Spricigo]

6 hours ago, quazarz said:

"Return on investment" is about more than just a percentage of the cost of materials.

Again, all this discussion is moot. Funds are not scarce. 

KSP is not a MMO, not even a multiplayer game, and as such the game economy is very basic and lopsided. There are simple too many money faucets and too few money sinks.

Take whatever contract you feel like and the advance alone can pay for the mission (not making any big efforts to be efficient), whatever is listed as 'rewards' have no where to go other than facilities upgrades and parts unlock but the limit of what can go there is very low.  Take you example of a mission that yields 5m, a couple of those and all the facilities are maxed out and all parts are unlocked. From that point you just need to pick a contract once in a while( and that assuming you don't start to fund your space program from Research Rights Sell-Out or  Mining In the Launchpad) 

So,  you have that infrastructure that took considerable effort to build and part of it is somewhat obsolete but may still havesome use. On the other hand the approach  @Superfluous J describes will add a few clicks to each mission . The only reason you regard your strategy as best is because you give no importance for the effort to build the infrastructure and adapt it later. 

That is why it don't really matter if contract's RoI is 8 or 88 and that is why people pick contracts based  on how they want to expend their game time. Is a matter of preference and perspective. By the same token the next guy may decide to play in sandbox and skip career mode shenanigans altogether. 

 

9 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

*IIRC you can only get 3 "station" contracts at a time so really you only get 3 of these, not all 4. But still it's a ridiculous return on investment. So much so that in my own games I've stopped doing it because just doing one such contract pretty much turns your game into a Science mode save.

AFAIK only asteroid/comet detection are limited. Max available 3/1, max active 1 for both. Off course, it may just be that I already forgot how much I messed with the configs.  But yeah, who needs contracts anyways? 

[quazarz]

[snip]

4 hours ago, Spricigo said:

The only reason you regard your strategy as best is because you give no importance for the effort to build the infrastructure and adapt it later. 

All of the infrastructure that I built also satisfies other contracts for building outposts. I take contracts to build things that will benefit me in the future. 

[snip]... my play style, which is to optimize my network of equipment for maximum contracting efficiency. That, in my opinion, is the point of career mode. And if you start changing the rules to do that, like you do, then you lose. But that's just my opinion.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Vanamonde

[ConArt70]

On 12/18/2020 at 9:21 PM, quazarz said:

I appreciate the advice, but I think my system is better than anything else that others have mentioned here,

I think maybe why people are reacting so vehemently may just be down to this statement. I'm sure it isn't intended to sound the way it does. I think you do have a good system and it works for you. Everyone had a different approach to the game of course but it sounds like you've enjoyed planning and executing a good project. 

27 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

Funds are not scarce

This isn't necessarily true early on in a career though. I've nearly bankrupt after a couple of mistakes. One mistake was accidentally firing Jeb and then having to spend nearly all my money to get him back. Later I accidentally staged too early and blew a mission, losing more money. Also the cost of unlocking parts makes careful mission planning important. Later on in career money becomes less of an issue of course. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by ConArt70

[Spricigo]

13 hours ago, Srpadget said:

The Mun's orbital period is short, and you can drastically change your ship's travel time from Sun SOI with a relatively small change in dV requirements.  So it's not hard to set up a return trajectory that grazes the Mun's orbit on a tangent and allows a simple, low-dV capture.

Not only that, it don't take all that much deltaV(and effort)* to get your periapsis into Kerbin's atmosphere.  That aerobrake have no significant difference than areobraking from Minmus. 

 

*It may take quite a lot for a inexperienced(/impatient) player doing it in a inefficient way. But as you said, you learn the trick with practice.

13 hours ago, Srpadget said:

With all the discussion about Tourist contracts being (the greatest thing ever)/(a waste of time), nobody's really touched on that question.

Since the effect to contracts offers turned out to be a more important for the OP.   But getting in solar orbit or to the closer planets is just a bit more difficult than getting to Minmus (landing and, specially, coming back is a whole different story). 

[quazarz]

1 minute ago, Spricigo said:

Since the effect to contracts offers turned out to be a more important for the OP. 

No it didn't, I'm not the one who started that discussion. I was just talking to people who came to my thread while waiting for a more helpful answer.

[Echo__3]

I've made a little Career Mode video series. You may find a few of these helpful.

[Spricigo]

[snip] And while we are expected to be respectful with each other [snip]  the ideas are just like the targets in a shooting range, there is absolutely no problem in poking holes in each other claims.

[snip]  Play whatever the way you feel is best for you, other players will disagree. 

And it takes no effort for me to try to explain what is my perceptive as an experienced player when someone asks me. It may be the  case that I fail to convey the message in a way that is easily understood. If that seem to be the case, I will rather try to make it clearer than assume the other person is just trying to "win the discussion".

[snip]

Edited December 30, 2020 by Vanamonde

[quazarz]

[snip]

This thread derailed because people were making this argument: However, tourist contracts are much less lucrative than just about any other contract type over the long term.

This is objectively false, and I used data to made my point why. I agree that everyone should just play how they want, but it didn't start as a discussion about the variability of play style, it was about the value of tourist contracts within the Kerbin system versus any other type of contract - and no one made a convincing point that I was wrong.  [snip]

Edited December 30, 2020 by Vanamonde

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, quazarz said:

This thread derailed because people were making this argument: 

NOT an argument, just @bewing opinion. And he even stated that they are lucrative in the early game.

Seem that for some reason you took it as an statement that tourism contract shouldn't be done when that is simple not the case. Then you asked people to "present their case" and as result people talked even more about their opinion.

[snip]

That IS a matter of play style. Using the terms loosely: some people enjoy play KSP  "efficiently" some people enjoy doing  it "poorly".  It may be your goal to 'beat the game' but that don't means it the goal to anyone else.

[snip]

Not at all, I took an actual example from my modded game. I have a bunch of mods since the day I first installed KSP and I previously stated that one of the reasons I didn't want to get in details is because the mods you use will shift the balance in some way (might I add: a lot).  

If you prefer to keep your game stock, that is a self-imposed limitation that don't change anything about what is realistic. Case in point, "realism" mods like life support and part failures make it harsher but those are also self-imposed limitations.  In any case, modding is not only allowed, but supported by the games developers. The idea that is "not supposed to be that way" holds no water whatsoever.

 

[snip] Your game your preferences, your opinions... nothing of this affect my game, nor the other way around. If is competition that ou want, go to the challenge sub-forum and take one that interest you, if it is just a "hard" game just take the option that make it so for you. 

[snip]

So, just take what we are saying with a grain of salt and move on.  In particular, don't give much important to what I said,  not even I did. Sticking to that subject will just trigger my hyperfocus and you will not be able to keep up.

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Vanamonde

[Vanamonde]

Goodness. Things got awfully personal there for a while, but that's been expunged. As for the original question, yes, a problem with the tourist and rescue contracts is they are predominantly located at whatever destination you've most recently reached for the first time. Don't go to Mun, for example, until you're sure you're done rescuing and touring Kerbin orbit. For this reason I only do those early in my careers, I linger there until I build up my funds and improve my KSC buildings, and after that I set my own goals and only run contracts that will pay me to do things I want to do anyway. 

[paul_c]

Any comparisons are somewhat moot for these reasons:

1. It is a single player game - is one style better/worse than..........what are you comparing with?
2. Timewarp. Some contracts/missions take a long time, but become trivial if you timewarp thru them.

Anyway, notwithstanding the above, I look at it this way: reward vs investment. Initially, the reward was money, then science/reputation, but also its important you keep it fun and interesting in your own mind. So, if contracts seem dull for a bit, go build a huge rocket, go somewhere far away, do fun stuff.

Investment is interesting because there's (at least) 3 aspects: time, money, reusability. Pax flights you can't really re-use the vehicle but you can design one style of rocket (more or less) then use it again for another contract. Similarly, Tundra and Kolniya orbits are always going to have very similar deltaV requirement (different only if its a 63.4deg or 116.6deg inclination needed) and there is a limited range of scientific kit they ask for. So the design can be reused many times over (I have 16 Tundra orbit satellites around Kerbin and counting). Some rockets also you can re-use for additional contracts and money/science/rep. Any "change the orbit" (and mapping asteroids is effectively "change the orbit of a satellite" - once you have a Sentinel scanner or 2 launched and in solar orbit somewhere) counts, so does "science from orbit of....." if you put a thermometer/etc on it.

[quazarz]

20 minutes ago, paul_c said:

what are you comparing with?

I agree with what you said here:

On 12/18/2020 at 5:37 AM, paul_c said:

The approach would be quite simple - maximise the science/money/reputation per unit time taken.

 

[Spricigo]

4 hours ago, ConArt70 said:

This isn't necessarily true early on in a career though. I've nearly bankrupt after a couple of mistakes.

Yes, there is a few edge case where one can do a major screw-up, maybe because of inexperience or maybe because of overconfidence (and that is why I also got near bankrupt at least once) but it almost requires a dedicated effort.