Need help with a comet contract

[Jeb x Valentina]

Hello kerbonauts. Recently, my space program has been doing... bad. I unecessarily upgraded mission control max level, and then instantly regretted it and accepted a bail-out grant strategy... twice. Not to mention I've lately been accepting loads of contacts that take a while to complete (i.e Eve missions and stations) and then, I launched a mun station that had to be fully built on launch... and I EVA attatched a Mag. boom, resulting in the contract being spoiled, and the crew requiring rescue. Not to mention the station was in an orbit too high to get any new situations w the boom... 

I know this all may seem out of context, but the point is my reputation is plumetting, and I accepted a comet sample contract, despite only having done 1 kerbol rendezvous, which ended in disaster... And it was just an ASTEROID and an unmanned probe, and now I'm meant to send a kerbal to a comet? I wish I could just cancel the contract, but I don't want to just throw the advance to the garbage bin and lose reputation. So, if anyone has any tips, please give them to me.

[Vanamonde]

Make it an uncrewed mission? Smaller and less expensive. 

[Kerb24]

45 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Make it an uncrewed mission? Smaller and less expensive. 

Sample returns can only be done by kerbals, unless you get the mod Minor Planet Sampling. If playing in stock, then the only way to complete the contract is to send a kerbal.

For tips on doing the mission, wait until the comet gets as close to Kerbin as possible, then mess around with creating maneuver nodes and see what gets you closest to the target. Then preform the rendezvous like normal. If the comet does not get close to Kerbin: Wait until it's near another planet AND a transfer window to said planet is occurring soon, then create a maneuver like one you would use to visit the aforementioned planet.

And also bring as much Delta-V as possible.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Kerb24

[Vanamonde]

Oops. That's right. 

[king of nowhere]

16 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

Hello kerbonauts. Recently, my space program has been doing... bad. I unecessarily upgraded mission control max level, and then instantly regretted it and accepted a bail-out grant strategy... twice. Not to mention I've lately been accepting loads of contacts that take a while to complete (i.e Eve missions and stations) and then, I launched a mun station that had to be fully built on launch... and I EVA attatched a Mag. boom, resulting in the contract being spoiled, and the crew requiring rescue. Not to mention the station was in an orbit too high to get any new situations w the boom... 

I know this all may seem out of context, but the point is my reputation is plumetting, and I accepted a comet sample contract, despite only having done 1 kerbol rendezvous, which ended in disaster... And it was just an ASTEROID and an unmanned probe, and now I'm meant to send a kerbal to a comet? I wish I could just cancel the contract, but I don't want to just throw the advance to the garbage bin and lose reputation. So, if anyone has any tips, please give them to me.

intercept the comet near apoapsis, it will be slower and easier to catch.

pack a lot of deltaV - if you want to go safe because you're unpracticed, put in an ion engine and 10 km/s of deltaV. of course, to use that far from the sun, you will also need an rtg... which you may not have. and patience, a lot of patience.

I would tell you to not try a rendez-vous like you would do in a normal circular orbit, but instead just to point straight at the comet when it's at rendez-vous - that is, go in an elliptic orbit similar to the comet, then make some corrections. but i am afraid your skill may be insufficient for that. still, one has to start somewhere.

 

by the way, i understand you want to play a no reload career, but when a station explodes because you did some eva construction on it, that's an obvious bug, you can allow yourself to reload

[Spricigo]

7 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

when a station explodes because you did some eva construction on it, that's an obvious bug

Well..there is quite a difference between "the station go boom" and "the station got a mag  boom*" 

The issue there is that if you attach anything  to a vessel it loses it's "fully assembled at launch" status and therefore  cannot fulfill the requirements to the contract.

Personally I think that  if the station was assembled  at launch time enough to fulfill the contract and it didn't lose any necessary part to do so at any time then it should be still a valid vessel for it and, since the game its not as good as the player to keep track of  that, is fair to use AltF12ernative methods to convince the game the game to give that check mark. Anyways, If someone prefer to go for what the game says is also fair since is their game to decide.

 

As for OP's  troubles, you can always use a  different save to test things and make sure it can work when you try it in your "serious" save.  If you consider unlikely to complete the contract and make a profit then let it expire (or go ahead and cancel it if you need that contract slot open immediately), otherwise you are just prolonging the problem.

Also, don't rely on bailout grants. Strategies as a whole are not that useful to begin with  but this one is quite bad.  Instead keep some open space for cash grabbing contracts (don't be afraid to decline other contracts because the penalty, its quite low and you can set it to 0 in the difficult settings, although be careful with declining too many contracts that you may want to do later since over time it will make the game less likely to offer similar contracts). Alternatively setup a  science farm (a bunch of labs) on Minmus and trade  science for funds instead (patent licensing gives much better rates than research  rights sell-out)  If you still feel like to trade some reputation  for money setup a fundraising campaign instead of bailout grants for better rates.

*This thing:

Spoiler

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Magnetometer_Boom

 

[Jeb x Valentina]

On 11/6/2023 at 7:54 AM, king of nowhere said:

intercept the comet near apoapsis, it will be slower and easier to catch.

[...]

I would tell you to not try a rendez-vous like you would do in a normal circular orbit, but instead just to point straight at the comet when it's at rendez-vous - that is, go in an elliptic orbit similar to the comet, then make some corrections. but i am afraid your skill may be insufficient for that. still, one has to start somewhere.

16 hours ago, Spricigo said:

As for OP's  troubles, you can always use a  different save to test things and make sure it can work when you try it in your "serious" save.  If you consider unlikely to complete the contract and make a profit then let it expire (or go ahead and cancel it if you need that contract slot open immediately), otherwise you are just prolonging the problem.

Also, don't rely on bailout grants. Strategies as a whole are not that useful to begin with  but this one is quite bad.  Instead keep some open space for cash grabbing contracts (don't be afraid to decline other contracts because the penalty, its quite low and you can set it to 0 in the difficult settings, although be careful with declining too many contracts that you may want to do later since over time it will make the game less likely to offer similar contracts). Alternatively setup a  science farm (a bunch of labs) on Minmus and trade  science for funds instead (patent licensing gives much better rates than research  rights sell-out)  If you still feel like to trade some reputation  for money setup a fundraising campaign instead of bailout grants for better rates.

Thx

Also, yes, the station didn't explode, it just didn't meet contrct requirements @king of nowhere

 

On 11/5/2023 at 3:34 PM, Vanamonde said:

Make it an uncrewed mission? Smaller and less expensive. 

I'd love to, but can't because I need a scientist. Either way, you just inspired me to use the command seat

 

On 11/6/2023 at 7:54 AM, king of nowhere said:

pack a lot of deltaV - if you want to go safe because you're unpracticed, put in an ion engine and 10 km/s of deltaV. of course, to use that far from the sun, you will also need an rtg... which you may not have. and patience, a lot of patience.

Don't have any of the 2

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

Don't have any of the 2

well, the best way to get money, science and reputation all together is to get a tourist contract to land on mun or minmus, put science instruments on it, land on a new biome. you get money and reputation from the contract, enough to pay the spaceship and more, and you also get science from the new biome.

[Spricigo]

12 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

well, the best way to get money, science and reputation all together is to get a tourist contract to land on mun or minmus ...

That is definitively one way to go about it. However, as I see it, what makes that strategy worthwhile is not the kind of contract you take (other kinds of contract could work as well) but the fact those are contracts to where you are going to anyway.

Also, I personally don't like to bring  tourist that far (too much increased complexity for my liking).  Low Kerbin orbit is Ok,  fly by Mun/Minmus I'd consider and Mun/Minmus orbit is already pushing it. On the other hand I really enjoy to do rescue and  launch satellite mission.  I never had the urge to figure out if that  gives me more funds/mission or funds/time because that is what gives me more fun/time.  (and that's the metric that matters to me.) 

 

[Jeb x Valentina]

On 11/7/2023 at 6:41 PM, king of nowhere said:

well, the best way to get money, science and reputation all together is to get a tourist contract to land on mun or minmus, put science instruments on it, land on a new biome. you get money and reputation from the contract, enough to pay the spaceship and more, and you also get science from the new biome.

On 11/8/2023 at 8:33 AM, Spricigo said:

That is definitively one way to go about it. However, as I see it, what makes that strategy worthwhile is not the kind of contract you take (other kinds of contract could work as well) but the fact those are contracts to where you are going to anyway.

Also, I personally don't like to bring  tourist that far (too much increased complexity for my liking).  Low Kerbin orbit is Ok,  fly by Mun/Minmus I'd consider and Mun/Minmus orbit is already pushing it. On the other hand I really enjoy to do rescue and  launch satellite mission.  I never had the urge to figure out if that  gives me more funds/mission or funds/time because that is what gives me more fun/time.  (and that's the metric that matters to me.) 

I don't like it either. Especially after I left Bill in Low Mun Orbit... He has been there... for over a year now. I also almost lost Jeb once, and left a tourist stranded in Orbit after a Mun flyby for a quite a while (it took "some" gravity asssists to get back)

 

Anyways, for some context here is the comet contract (and the comet's orbit), along with my other contracts and Progression

 

[king of nowhere]

10 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

Anyways, for some context here is the comet contract (and the comet's orbit), along with my other contracts and Progression

 

 

 

Ok, I am confident I could meet the comet at apoapsis starting from LKO with no more than 5 km/s, probably a fair bit less. Could be as little as 3 km/s, depending on the inclination.

however, it's very difficult to describe how, especially to someone who probably does not know the technical details.

which brings us to the crux of the issue. I do not mean to be rude, but - as by your own admission you have occasional troubles even with regular mun missions - this is probably above your skill level. still, I'll try to describe the technique. You should leave Kerbin on the red ellipse.

From LKO make a big prograde burn to raise solar apoapsis. You need to go very high, higher than the comet apoapsis - but fortunately, the farthest you go from the sun, the cheaper it is to raise orbit. It takes 2 km/s to raise orbit from kerbin to jool, I estimate roughly 3 km/s to get the high apoapsis needed for this maneuver (note that I did eyeball it here, the actual apoapsis may be higher or lower than that). You want to intercept the comet at apoapsis, so you will need to raise your apoapsis enough that you will pass right on the comet apoapsis when the comet is passing there. it will be a high speed intercept, but again, far from the sun costs are much lower. I estimate 1 to 2 km/s for it. You will also need a plane change somewhere, if it's far from the sun it will be cheaper.

Once you are on the comet, you can make a slight tweak on your orbit to get a kerbin intercept, and from there you aerobrake.

Yes, it is difficult, but it is the only way to intercept that comet in a reasonable time at a reasonable cost. To make an easier rendez-vous you need over 10 km/s, which requires ion.

 

[king of nowhere]

16 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

Anyways, for some context here is the comet contract (and the comet's orbit), along with my other contracts and Progression

 

 

 

actually, thinking of it a bit more, the comet does not have that high of an apoapsis, intercept speed on the previously suggested trajectory may well be over 3 km/s.

the one below is probably better, though harder to get an intercept this way

 

 also realized another issue you may have, though

On 11/5/2023 at 10:15 PM, Jeb x Valentina said:

 Not to mention I've lately been accepting loads of contacts that take a while to complete (i.e Eve missions and stations)

I know this all may seem out of context, but the point is my reputation is plumetting

it seems you already have plenty of missions that will pay off in a year, and your issue is that you want reputation right now. but a comet contract is slow. this trajectory won't give you a comet rendez-vous before 4 years, and you may have to wait another apoapsis before returning to kerbin if the alignments are not right - we're talking 10 more years, easily.

the previously suggested trajectory will get you to the comet in 3 years, with excellent chances to get back to kerbin in 3 more years, even then it's 6 years in total. if you're worried about your reputation and you want a quick fix for that, to the point that you are not willing to wait a few missions to arrive to eve, a mission that will pay off in 6 or 15 years is not a solution. If you want fast fixes for reputation, I am afraid ferrying tourists around the moons of kerbin is the only way to go. once you take interplanetary missions, it's going to take years in any case.

Edited November 10, 2023 by king of nowhere

[Jeb x Valentina]

8 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

actually, thinking of it a bit more, the comet does not have that high of an apoapsis, intercept speed on the previously suggested trajectory may well be over 3 km/s.

the one below is probably better, though harder to get an intercept this way

 

 also realized another issue you may have, though

it seems you already have plenty of missions that will pay off in a year, and your issue is that you want reputation right now. but a comet contract is slow. this trajectory won't give you a comet rendez-vous before 4 years, and you may have to wait another apoapsis before returning to kerbin if the alignments are not right - we're talking 10 more years, easily.

the previously suggested trajectory will get you to the comet in 3 years, with excellent chances to get back to kerbin in 3 more years, even then it's 6 years in total. if you're worried about your reputation and you want a quick fix for that, to the point that you are not willing to wait a few missions to arrive to eve, a mission that will pay off in 6 or 15 years is not a solution. If you want fast fixes for reputation, I am afraid ferrying tourists around the moons of kerbin is the only way to go. once you take interplanetary missions, it's going to take years in any case.

tysm... I rlly hope this works...

[Spricigo]

On 11/10/2023 at 12:28 PM, king of nowhere said:

I am afraid ferrying tourists around the moons of kerbin is the only way to go. once you take interplanetary missions, it's going to take years in any case.

First, sorry for the late replay (I'm not the regular I used to be  anymore)

Tourism is the most straight-forward and gives reliable reputation even if you don't go further than  Kerbin orbit.(reason why I came up with this gambiarra * (and some others)  ). However the entire point of this craft is to farm tourist mission before you go to Mun/Minmus  since tourist don't ask to go where you never went (and that is also the reason , for me,  this craft became obsolete). That did  work because I knew I would accept a bunch of contracts,  fill the craft, hop into orbit, return , recover and repeat. If you already landed in several other celestial bodies then you need either to sort the tourists or to carry then the entire trip even if they only ask for a part of it.  

Now, what I don't see working that well is doing just a couple of tourism contracts each trip because most accepted contracts are to do something else far from Kerbin. As I see, the key to make tourist worthwhile is increase tourist capacity while reducing cost and play time to do the mission. At this point that is not there anymore. If I wanted to prioritize reputation growth,  I'd rather setup Appreciation Campaign or/and Open Source Tech Program and do whatever missions I'm already doing. 

 

*image of the craft: 

Spoiler

 

 

[Jeb x Valentina]

On 11/19/2023 at 12:11 PM, Spricigo said:

First, sorry for the late replay (I'm not the regular I used to be  anymore)

Tourism is the most straight-forward and gives reliable reputation even if you don't go further than  Kerbin orbit.(reason why I came up with this gambiarra * (and some others)  ). However the entire point of this craft is to farm tourist mission before you go to Mun/Minmus  since tourist don't ask to go where you never went (and that is also the reason , for me,  this craft became obsolete). That did  work because I knew I would accept a bunch of contracts,  fill the craft, hop into orbit, return , recover and repeat. If you already landed in several other celestial bodies then you need either to sort the tourists or to carry then the entire trip even if they only ask for a part of it.  

Thx, but actually, I no longer do tourism because I don-t even get tourist contracts anymore for some reason

 

On 11/6/2023 at 7:54 AM, king of nowhere said:

intercept the comet near apoapsis, it will be slower and easier to catch.

pack a lot of deltaV - if you want to go safe because you're unpracticed, put in an ion engine and 10 km/s of deltaV. of course, to use that far from the sun, you will also need an rtg... which you may not have. and patience, a lot of patience.

Its no longer so far-fetched dude... PRAISE THE GRAVIOLI DETECTOR!

 

(BTW, the extra funds came from a SENTINEL contract, not the Eve one.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Jeb x Valentina