Supply Missions Settings

[t_v]

The ksp 2 supply missions seem to be a great way to provide optional and worthwhile new content without overloading the player. Planning and executing missions allows players to both design and fly cool rockets and watch their capabilities grow. In my own playthrough, I oftentimes spend my time designing ships with lots of parts to deliver to colonies and it is great fun, especially when delivering parts for special missions. However, the question still remains, how will the supply missions actually work? Here are some ideas:

 

1. Taking stats from a mission and just using that

    This would be the simplest solution and probably the easiest to code, and it would result in only one mission being required for continuous supply to a base. If there are many planets and systems in the game, running up to a dozen missions for each colony could get tiresome and result in a less fun experience, which would mean that a single launch solution like this would help. Also, you can spend time optimizing a single rocket to deliver to a colony, which might be fun. 

 

2. Taking stats from multiple flights

    This suggestion has been posted in this forum before, and as far as I understand it, the premise is that multiple resupply missions would be taken into account, averaging the cost of deliveries. This seems like an improvement of the first suggestion, as it rewards skilled mission planning and execution, allows for fun while repeating missions to try to get a better average, and is skippable if a player simply wants to use save states to guarantee the perfect supply mission in one go. As an additional suggestion, it would be cool if you got more supplies with more different supply missions, to incentivize repeating missions (but not too much)

 

3. Running missions when the initial conditions are similar

    First off, I admit that this idea will be hard to implement perfectly, but here it is: Essentially, say you wanted a supply mission from Kerbin to Duna, and you launched it at the traditional transfer window. the mission stats are saved, and the mission will run again, but only when Kerbin and Duna are once again at the same angle compared to each other. The issue with this is that direct transfers are always going to be more common than gravity assist routes, so it discourages smart mission planning. This is where the hard coding comes in. The missions are not linked to a specific angle each time, they always have a range, so for example if you assisted off of the Mun to get to Duna but on the next transfer window the Mun was 15 degrees off, the mission will still run. 

The third solution is helpful for a number of reasons: Players can simply run one mission and the same supplies will arrive each time, meaning that if they want to, they can launch a massive ship with enough material for a whole year and leave the route alone. Even without sending a massive supply run from the get-go, as you either increase the size or number of your supply missions, your colonies will get more and more productive over time. Also, this system does incentivize clever thinking as you will want to deliver the biggest payload possible, meaning gravity assists are essential for the biggest missions. And lastly, with the advent of interstellar engines, players can begin using their power to launch missions outside of traditional transfer windows, powering their way to the destination, which gives a new boost in productivity and also gives an excuse to use future tech in the now tamed Kerbol system. 

 

What do you think?