New Recovery Feature - How Far?

[ComradeGoat]

I note we will soon need to recover our kerbonauts to reuse them. To be recovered, they must be "near" the KSC.

I'm wondering what counts as "near". I reckon anywhere on Kerbin should be fair game. It'll make interplanetary returns annoying if we have to get within a few hundred km of the KSC on each landing.

[longcat]

I'd hope anywhere on Kerbin would work. It's not like the Apollo astronauts splashed down off the coast of Florida.

[RocketPilot573]

I'm assuming it's anywhere on Kerbin, though I wouldn't mind if we had to bring them back to KSC because I already do that.

[satcharna]

Anywhere on Kerbin obviously shouldn't work. Imagine if an astronaut had landed in the Soviet Union, or a cosmonaut in the US. They'd be treated well enough, sure, but they'd still be prisoners for several years. Still, I should hope that we at least get a safezone of a few kilometres. Targeting the KSC isn't too hard, but accurate parachute landings can be difficult, and I'd rather not have to send out little planes to fetch them every time they land a few kilometres of course or worse, in the ocean.

[lammatt]

i dont think landed an US space craft in Iran/USSR/N.Korea/ is a good idea

so... in the same sense... i dont think landing at KSC 2 will be considered "near"

[lammatt]

you can always add some wheels under your command pod to drive you home anyways

[CaptRobau]

For the sake of simplicity, anywhere is on Kerbin is good enough when you get back from let's say Duna. When there's a career mode and a budget, you could have the proximity to KSC determine the reward.

[Frederf]

Perhaps a return trip has a duration? Assuming 60km/hr or something? It's a good question. It's difficult to believe KSP would require extraordinary skill on the user to return too exactly to KSC.

[IllicitMedic]

I'd think within 10-20km of the space center. That's an extremely easy target to hit.

[King Arthur]

While the people suggesting that "recovery" not apply globally have some merit, do we really want to bring in real-world-esque politics into a game that's mainly supposed to be about go-happy rocket science? I don't know about you, but I have enough of politics from the real world already, KSP is a place I can go to and do some science.

As for,

Anywhere on Kerbin obviously shouldn't work. Imagine if an astronaut had landed in the Soviet Union, or a cosmonaut in the US. They'd be treated well enough, sure, but they'd still be prisoners for several years. Still, I should hope that we at least get a safezone of a few kilometres. Targeting the KSC isn't too hard, but accurate parachute landings can be difficult, and I'd rather not have to send out little planes to fetch them every time they land a few kilometres of course or worse, in the ocean.

That is assuming there are multiple countries on Kerbin and assuming that some of those countries are antagonistic to each other, which again wheels back to the question of introducing politics into KSP. Also, take a step away from the Cold War-era and look at today's landscape: If a Russian Soyuz needed to make an emergency landing in US territory today, or heck even a Chinese Shenzhou, do you really believe we would treat the astronauts/cosmonauts inside as POWs?

There are plenty of venues to illustrate the Cold War strife regarding the space race or just political animosity, but I would just like to humbly put forth my 2 cents and suggest that KSP is neither the time nor the place for it. If a Kerbal successfully lands anywhere on Kerbin, he should be welcomed home with open arms.

[regex]

There are plenty of venues to illustrate the Cold War strife regarding the space race or just political animosity, but I would just like to humbly put forth my 2 cents and suggest that KSP is neither the time nor the place for it. If a Kerbal successfully lands anywhere on Kerbin, he should be welcomed home with open arms.

^ This right here. To add more challenge to bringing Kerbals back in career mode, make recovering a craft cost more the further it is from KSC (or something similar). No need for arbitrary politics.

[HavinAlmassi]

Anywhere on Kerbin obviously shouldn't work. Imagine if an astronaut had landed in the Soviet Union, or a cosmonaut in the US. They'd be treated well enough, sure, but they'd still be prisoners for several years. Still, I should hope that we at least get a safezone of a few kilometres. Targeting the KSC isn't too hard, but accurate parachute landings can be difficult, and I'd rather not have to send out little planes to fetch them every time they land a few kilometres of course or worse, in the ocean.

I used to try and recover my lost astronauts even when they landed far away on Kerbin, until one landed in the ocean. No matter how hard I've tried, I have yet to be able to build a working boat, or a plane that can land on water and making the little guys swim to shore takes hours. even at 4x timewarp.

[satcharna]

My example clearly doesn't apply today. I thought I made that clear by using Soviet Union instead of Roskosmos. Still, just say North Korea instead, then.

While I agree that politics aren't a necessity for Kerbal, I still stand by that a space programme is unlikely without competition between nations. During the Cold War, the greatest progress in space technologies were made, and there was a lot of competition for First Nation To Do This, which died with the cold war. Today, the vast majority of launches are for commercial satellites. The Kerbal programme of sending people to Eeloo simply wouldn't exist without competing nations, they'd be content with landing unmanned probes instead.

[Superfluous J]

I thought it would be cool to be able to set up a target zone where say your recovery ship could go to be ready to get your Kerbals. If you were able to splashdown near that location that you set (say, before launch, or it took "real" time to move them around the planet) then you got your guy back. If not, they drowned or starved or whatnot.

that way you could splashdown anywhere, so long as you said you would.

[MockKnizzle]

While I agree that politics aren't a necessity for Kerbal, I still stand by that a space programme is unlikely without competition between nations. During the Cold War, the greatest progress in space technologies were made, and there was a lot of competition for First Nation To Do This, which died with the cold war. Today, the vast majority of launches are for commercial satellites. The Kerbal programme of sending people to Eeloo simply wouldn't exist without competing nations, they'd be content with landing unmanned probes instead.

You're still looking at things through a human cultural lens and expecting the game to conform to our own history. We already know that Kerbals have very different values when it comes to space exploration, so why is it necessary to ascribe human motivations to their space program? Maybe the prospect of discovering wondrous new extraterrestrial snacks is reason enough. Or, just maybe, Kerbals are actually a wiser species than us and see the inherent value in spaceflight for its own sake, whereas we humans only see politics or profits to be made.

[satcharna]

Spaceflight for spaceflight's sake is an awful reason. Spaceflight for scientific progress, extraplanetary resources and the security of the human species are good reasons. You're right though, Kerbal society doesn't have to correspond to our own, but at the same time, there are no reasons for why common sense shouldn't be the same, or more specifically, the average politician's lack of it. A minister would see no reason to go to space, because it isn't getting him reelected. Lowering taxes or improving healthcare is going to get him reelected, and there's no reason why this should be any different for the kerbals.

[NovaSilisko]

Anywhere on Kerbin from my experience.

[Shadoworgon]

Imagine if an astronaut had landed in the Soviet Union, or a cosmonaut in the US. They'd be treated well enough, sure, but they'd still be prisoners for several years.

Actually according to space law, foreign countries HAVE to return astronauts (if their was an emergency that caused them to land there) to their respected country.

and they have to help in all possible ways to prevent disasters in space

Space law (signed by a majority of the world) : http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/rescue.html

If they dont return them the UN would probably step in along with many other signers of space law (im guessing on this one )

Had to study this in my aerospace engineering class lol

So i think we could retrieve them from anywhere but like its mentioned should cost more, (since you have to re-pay the country they landed in for helping )

[satcharna]

Anywhere on Kerbin from my experience.

Oh. Well, that's a shame, the game really could use some additional difficulty and objectives.

[skyace65]

Anywhere on Kerbin obviously shouldn't work. Imagine if an astronaut had landed in the Soviet Union, or a cosmonaut in the US. They'd be treated well enough, sure, but they'd still be prisoners for several years. Still, I should hope that we at least get a safezone of a few kilometres. Targeting the KSC isn't too hard, but accurate parachute landings can be difficult, and I'd rather not have to send out little planes to fetch them every time they land a few kilometres of course or worse, in the ocean.

damn the Kermunists! going back to being serious, I would hope anyware on the ocean would be fair game for recovery. if you land on the far side of the planet than I would be okay with sending out planes, it would be annoying but I'd still be okay with it.

what I wish we had was a functioning aircraft carrier for landing/takeoff of space planes and ocean recovery. so if your close to the space center you get rescued almost instantly, but if your farther away you have to wait for the carrier to come and find you.

[King Arthur]

That's still trying to tie in human values to Kerbals, though. For all we know, Kerbals might value funding for their space program to be far more important than lower taxes or improved healthcare, leading to Kerbal politicians that push for higher space funding to get re-elected.

Though of course, I still stand by my original opinion that KSP is likely not the place for politics. So what if Kerbals are launching manned spaceships in a quest solely for the ultimate intergalactic KerbalSnax? It works for them and human politics has nothing to do with them.

EDIT: Original post I was replying to seems to be gone? Please disregard. o_O

Edited July 24, 2013 by King Arthur
Uhh, derp?

[IllicitMedic]

I thought it would be cool to be able to set up a target zone where say your recovery ship could go to be ready to get your Kerbals. If you were able to splashdown near that location that you set (say, before launch, or it took "real" time to move them around the planet) then you got your guy back. If not, they drowned or starved or whatnot.

that way you could splashdown anywhere, so long as you said you would.

This is the best idea I've heard yet.

I'd prefer a simpler/modified version though

1. Set target before launch, say a 10-20k area?

2. If land within this target your recovery is free.

3. If land outside target area, you pay based on distance from target?

[Lazro]

How about this:

Rescue of your astronauts takes time and money. As you progress in-game (better atmospheric engines as a pro, higher fuel costs as a con) these values increase and decrease as you are able to rescue them more quickly, and aircraft maintenance costs and fuel costs go up.

The time it takes could be equal to D/S+3600

Where D is equal to the distance from the nearest city (or before cities are implemented, the KSC) in meters

S is top recorded speed of an aircraft, in m/s

And +3600 (one hour) for aircraft preparation.

note: You do not have to actually design an aircraft, if no data was recorded for a top speed then the game would use presets, but slower than what you could achieve yourself. Rockets are not counted, due to high power and low endurance.

Costs would be related to the amount of fuel you need to make a round trip from your point of origin, added to the cost of the aircraft if you don't have it in a hangar somewhere already. I need to think about what that equation would be precisely, maybe the rocket equation would do for figuring out how much d/v and therefore fuel you would need. Costs within a certain distance from a city or the KSC would be free.

Also note that you would never have to actually fly the aircraft more than once. The rescue would be fully automatic on Kerbin unless you really wanted to fly it yourself.

[Kimberly]

Recovery is supposed to save money. The idea of the recovery mechanic is to recycle ships based on their distance to KSC, so you have an incentive to build reusable craft.

[CoriW]

Recovery is supposed to save money. The idea of the recovery mechanic is to recycle ships based on their distance to KSC, so you have an incentive to build reusable craft.

I very much agree with that idea, I've always liked the idea of reusable craft.