Maybe some rescues should be more nuanced

[darthgently]

• All you get is a general location, orbital parameters, latitude/longitude from last known location and text of last communication ("OMG, Kraken!"). But no Tracking Station signal, nor targetable objects unless scanned (see next)
• A new part that can scan for wreckage and cadaverine molecules
• Body bags and flags in case the best case scenario is recovering remains for burial with honors on Kerbin or a space burial in solar orbit

J/k.  But seriously, some medevacs of injured kerbals would be cool.  Maybe science labs could double as field medical units.   A stretcher part and 2 Kerbals to carry it.  Higher on the tech tree a robotic walking stretcher.  Five star scientists can fix injuries on location (no science lab or stretcher required) if they have their sonic screwdriver with them

Edited July 14, 2021 by darthgently

[LHACK4142]

Good idea, except the dark parts seem a bit too... dark for KSP.

[shdwlrd]

Not a bad idea. Without confirmation that contracts will be in the game. Can't say that this would be a non-starter or not.

[herbal space program]

I totally like the idea of making rescues get more complicated somehow, beyond just making the locations more remote. I'm not sure if this was an artifact of updating to the new inventory system in the middle of a game, but my last Kerbal rescue contract was around Duna, and when I finally got around to picking the stranded Kerbal up from his dead capsule, it turned out he didn't have an EVA pack in his inventory, and neither did any of the crew of the rescue vessel. That sure made things more difficult, especially  given the large size and docking port wobbliness of the rescuing vessel! It ended up taking me almost an hour to finally get a hatch close enough for him to grab.  I can't say that I found getting blindsided by that particularly fun, but if I had known that was the situation, I could have planned for it.

As to your idea, I don't know so much about the whole injury aspect, but making it harder to find them in later rescue contracts sounds like a great idea to me, as does immobilizing them somehow. For example, they could be in a lander that's on its side, with its antenna broken off and  its exit hatch obstructed by the ground. The game would give you a general area of where the crash happened, but to actually find the stranded Kerbal,  you would have to get within some range like 10km to get a navigation signal from their EVA suit radio, and then within physics range perhaps to actually be allowed to switch to the stranded vessel or Kerbonaut. Then of course you would have to figure out how to right the vessel to do the rescue, and then perhaps even make some repairs to it so its occupant can fly/drive it to some predetermined location themselves.  There would be a lot of possibilities in that vein.