Earning Funds

[Scarecrow71]

I guess I have to ask explicitly; I think the question here itself got buried and missed in the other 2 places I mentioned this.

Is there a way to earn funds in KSP besides contracts?

I know that there are World's Firsts, but I cannot seem to find an extensive/exhaustive list of the ones that exist and the amount they provide.  I know there are Administration Strategies, but they don't seem to actually earn enough to make them worthwhile.  I know I could alter the settings to increase the funds multiplier, or I could use the Cheat Menu to just give myself a lot of funds; both of these, to me, are cheating and I can't bring myself to do either of those.

Why the question?  I'm trying to do the No Contract Challenge, and I've stalled.  I am sitting at 84000ish funds, and I've got several buildings to level 2.  Unfortunately, I need to get R&D to level 2 so I can collect surface samples AND to spend the science I have.  And the last mission I did included:

• EVA in LKO
• EVA in High Kerbin Orbit
• EVA in High Minmus Orbit
• EVA in Low Minmus Orbit
• EVA on the surface of Minmus
• Plant a flag on Minmus
• Rendezvous and docking in Low Minmus Orbit

And although I did all of those, my last mission was a complete wash.  That is, the amount I apparently earned barely offset the cost of the rocket I sent up there.  This means that I have stalled out in earning funds, which will make this current career save nearly pointless...unless I can figure out some way to generate funds.

I don't want to cheat, so using mods that are basically win-buttons aren't the way to go.  I know there is at least 1 mod out there that creates several different types of things you can mine and sell for profit, and I would be ok with those (I need to learn ISRU anyhow, and having to actually work to get to Mun and mine and come back to sell I don't see as cheating as you have to work to do it).  But are there any other ways to generate funds?  Again, I ask about an exhaustive list of World's Firsts; I would rather start with those and see if I can pick them up.

Thanks in advance!

[18Watt]

3 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I know there are Administration Strategies, but they don't seem to actually earn enough to make them worthwhile.

The sooner you use administrative strategies, the sooner and faster they pay off.  It’s a very powerful tool, which sadly is overlooked or ignored by a lot of players.

The game should require players to visit the Admin building before allowing access to any of the other buildings.

Edit- I just took a look at the No Contract Challenge.  If I were doing that challenge, one of my top priorities would be upgrading the Admin building.  

Edited December 6, 2021 by 18Watt

[Scarecrow71]

Well, I may have to start over then.  If i can't earn funds in any way right now, I'm dead in the water. 

[Superfluous J]

There's a pretty good list here, on the 2nd post of the No Contract Career Challenge thread. I don't know if it's exhaustive but it's at the very least, very very good.

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/170930-the-no-contract-career-challenge/&do=findComment&comment=3296281

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Superfluous J
Actually added the link

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

There's a pretty good list here, on the 2nd post of the No Contract Career Challenge thread. I don't know if it's exhaustive but it's at the very least, very very good.

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/170930-the-no-contract-career-challenge/&do=findComment&comment=3296281

 

I don't think it is accurate.  If it was, I wouldn't be so low on funds.  I've done almost everything for Kerbin and Minmus, and I'm at 85000 funds.  I tried a Mun landing today, and I lost half the funds upon return to Kerbin, dropping me to 47000.

Again, I'm gonna hit Duna next and see if I can generate funds.  I might have to use an admin strategy, and I may have to think about condensing missions more than I have.  No biggie, really; the best thing about KSP is the replayability factor.  

[Blaarkies]

10 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

and I've got several buildings to level 2. 

Not exactly methods of income, but saving money might help solve your situation:

• You can save some money by upgrading only the VAB or SPH (not both). You can easily build and launch rockets from the SPH (I prefer the editor camera in SPH), and also only upgrade the Runway or Launchpad (not both). Once you reach Jool you could then consider upgrading the other building
• SSTOs are probably too far up the tech tree, but falcon style re-usable launchers can really cut down on the price to orbit. Normally, they are not worth the effort (having to panic between 2 craft at the same time is not fun), but if you launch from the Desert launch pad towards the KSC, you can get the booster on a trajectory to hit the KSC while having the payload about 400m/s away from a circularized orbit. This gives you plenty of time to worry about only a single craft at a time
  • Launch and aim for an Ap of 100km, that also intersects the bigger KSC area
  • Once the rocket is above 60km (or whenever you feel the atmosphere is thin enough), decouple the payload
  • Do corrections on the booster to aim almost at the Island runway (refine this with practice)
  • Only then do you switch over to the payload. It should be still going up and at +-80km already. Do the circularization burn (maybe point 5-10° down ). You will have like 2 minutes before the booster hits the atmosphere. Once the payload has a Pe of +70km, switch back to the booster
  • Aim the booster retrograde, the engines should survive the heat because it is not moving at orbital velocities yet
  • Good designs could "glide" a bit to get closer to the KSC, but just landing on the continent already gives you a +90% refund
  • Use parachutes and whatever you can to make it easier. Aim at radial out  with the Navbal in Surface mode, this will aim perfectly upwards for easy landing burns

Edited December 7, 2021 by Blaarkies

[jimmymcgoochie]

Build some really small, really cheap probes and throw them at Eve and Duna- at Eve you can try to aerobrake, though it’ll be a whole lot hotter than re-entry at Kerbin gets, while at Duna the atmosphere is much thinner so less heating but also less braking. In both cases you can try to get flyby, orbit, suborbital and entered atmosphere payouts as well as the possibility of buzzing their moons (Ike is much easier for this than Gilly) for more payouts.

[AtomicTech]

On 12/6/2021 at 1:53 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

Is there a way to earn funds in KSP besides contracts?

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

This is grinding 

Without contracts, well mining is an option, make monoprop and recover. 
But you are not far enough in the tech tree to use this. 
 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Recoverable boosters might help you. If you’re not interested in a “cheaty” mod like StageRecovery, modifying your launch profile to aim mostly up with your first stage and then circularising with the second stage fast enough that you can switch back to the first stage and land it (propulsively, via parachutes or even by sticking wings on it and gliding to the surface) can get a decent chunk of your launch costs back each time; even more if you can also recover the second stage from orbit.

[GuessingEveryDay]

8 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Recoverable boosters might help you. If you’re not interested in a “cheaty” mod like StageRecovery, modifying your launch profile to aim mostly up with your first stage and then circularising with the second stage fast enough that you can switch back to the first stage and land it (propulsively, via parachutes or even by sticking wings on it and gliding to the surface) can get a decent chunk of your launch costs back each time; even more if you can also recover the second stage from orbit.

FMRS is very helpful for this. It takes a while to get used to, but once its mastered, you can recover 6 boosters at the same time.

[TheFlyingKerman]

22 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Recoverable boosters might help you. If you’re not interested in a “cheaty” mod like StageRecovery, modifying your launch profile to aim mostly up with your first stage and then circularising with the second stage fast enough that you can switch back to the first stage and land it (propulsively, via parachutes or even by sticking wings on it and gliding to the surface) can get a decent chunk of your launch costs back each time; even more if you can also recover the second stage from orbit.

There is no need to be so complicated. SSTO rockets are feasible in stock KSP, even with Lv1 R&D parts.

These are lifters I use for my no career game.

Edited December 11, 2021 by TheFlyingKerman

[Blaarkies]

1 hour ago, TheFlyingKerman said:

There is no need to be so complicated. SSTO rockets are feasible in stock KSP, even with Lv1 R&D parts.

These are lifters I use for my no career game.

Do you re-enter those from orbit, or are they 2-stage rockets? 

I have tried an SSTO rocket easy enough, but the big engines burn on re-entry without good trickery. I had to leave a heatshield ontop to nose-dive for re-entry, or use some robotics to move the heatshield around

Edited December 11, 2021 by Blaarkies

[TheFlyingKerman]

These are single stage, up to circularizing the payload. Then the rocket does a retro burn after one or more orbits to return to KSC.

I haven't used really big engines, only the Reliant and Skipper (also tried Twin Boar, but that design lost out to a trio of Skippers, mainly due to the 65000 funds part entry cost). I don't have engines blowing up (there are red bars), probably because I use fully movable tailfins deployed as wings during re-entry (although my intention is that of a controlled gliding flight).

[Scarecrow71]

I think the point of why I posted in the first place has gotten lost here.  In the career game that this question arose from, I'm at a point where I am out of ways to earn funds.  As in, all rockets I create eat into the dwindling supply of funds I have, and I have found zero ways to earn additional funds.  The only solid answer that was given was to throw a bunch of cheap satellites at Eve and/or Duna, which I have to try yet.  But beyond that, telling me to create a reusable rocket/SSTO doesn't actually go towards the real situation here:  how do I EARN funds?

[18Watt]

As far as earning money, your options are limited, and spelled out fairly clearly in the second post of the challenge.  Beyond that, using strategies in the Admin building and saving on launch costs are the other things you can do.

Building low-cost rockets is going to be critical, at least for your first 4 launches.  Getting as much out of each launch as you can will also help.  Here’s what my first 4 launches looked like:

• Orbit Kerbin and return.  I managed to recover the booster, saved a little money there.
• Fly-by Mun and return.  Launch cost under $16K.
• Land on Minmus and return.  Biome hopping.  Launch cost under $30K.  If I hadn’t biome-hopped on Minmus, could have also landed on Mun.
• Land on Mun and return.  Launch cost about $30K (I think), and I recovered the booster.

All of that is difficult to do because you don’t have SAS to help you out- the basic probe core doesn’t even have prograde hold. And even doing that, I’m not 100% convinced I’ll make it.  I need to go to Duna next.  I have enough funds to upgrade either R&D or the VAB, but not both.  So I gotta get to Duna with either a 30-part limit, or with fairly basic rocket parts.

 

[Scarecrow71]

I'm not hindered by parts or weight; I've got the VAB and launchpad upgraded.  And I've already done what you've outlined in the first four launches (although I think it took me 5).  I need to go interplanetary, but I'm fairly sure I'll be at or above the remaining funds I have left for said rocket.  I will have to look through the craft I built in the Kerpollo Challenge and see if anything there is cheap enough.  If not, I might have to start over.

[18Watt]

I also activated the Leadership Initiative at 25% prior to my third launch (Minmus landing).  After my 4th launch (Mun landing) the strategy has already paid for itself, and is already profitable.

Right now I’m sending a Scientist with every launch, to reset and collect the experiments.  Once my tech tree is mostly filled out I’m thinking my launch costs will drop dramatically by just sending probes.

Also, I’m sure you noticed that while you get funds for reaching a CB, you get a lot more for returning to Kerbin from there.  So basically every launch should ideally go to a new CB or situation, and also return to Kerbin.  Except the first launch, I was really only able to just orbit Kerbin on my first launch.

For funds planning, I’m trying to hold off on building upgrades until I really need them.  Upgrading the VAB is about $225K I think.  That’s a lot of money, especially when my launches have all cost $30K or less- that’s 7 launches..  Just gotta work around the 30-part limit.