Career mode Recovery costs

[Capt Snuggler]

So I was thinking about the way recovery cost/benefits should work in career mode (once Kredits have been implemented)

I think there should be a reward for landing/touching/splashing down within a certain range of KSC.

I will try to explain:

if you do an Apollo style mission and successfully return your CM (and other attached parts) unharmed within 50km of KSC you could recover/recycle 100% of the safely landed parts. the idea being the KSC ground crew run out there and drag it back to the VAB for refurb and refit.

however if touching down outside of the "free recovery zone" heavy equipment and more time is required. the recovery cost goes up the further away from KSC, to the point where it would cost more to recover/recycle a part than to buy another one. re-entry planning and good flying should be rewarded.

BUT recovery also gives science points so you must factor that in when deciding whether or not to leave a landed part to rust away in some far flung Kerbin desert/sea. it may cost more but its worth it if you need that science.

This would make SSTOs and all space planes more useful and worth the challenge of development.

this would also apply to tanks and boosters, so put chutes on your asparagus stages to maximize part recovery.

I think this would better reward clever design and mission planning.

what say you?

Edited December 16, 2013 by Capt Snuggler

[tobjv]

Great idea! I think it's been brought up in a similar format before but not sure. Still always fun to speak your mind about these ideas then let them rot away . No matter what though It will be troublesome to figure out exactly how much the cost per meter to recover the parts should cost. Go Go gadget trial and error!

[S4qFBxkFFg]

Agreed - I posted the following in similar topics recently:

There seems to be a suitable compromise to be found here - we could still have "automatic" recovery, by just pressing the button in the tracking station interface, but build in a delay and a monetary cost.

The time taken (and expense, for when that's relevant in the future) would depend on the size of the object recovered, and its location - a splashed-down booster a few km off the KSC coast might take a couple of hours and a moderate cost (representing a tug boat going out to tow it back). Or, recovering a heavy capsule plus its Kerbals from one of Kerbin's poles, or mountain tops might take several days and lots of cash (representing heavy-lift helicopters, mountaineering expeditions, and/or long range transport aircraft flights).

Perhaps further down the line, this could be fleshed out - you could see the tug boats leaving a dock in the Space Centre view, for example; or have pre-positioned recovery boats to get things back quicker.

I'm not suggesting the player should have to build the vehicles involved, you could maybe have stock boats, which are more like moving buildings from a developer's perspective, with tow lines for dragging large floating parts and cranes for lifting valuable smaller parts (i.e. capsules and their contents).

...

More recovery options, and there should be some sort of cost to pressing the recover button, depending on the location. My idea is that KSC would start off with a few recovery vehicles (no need for the player to actually design them) like a helicopter to pick up crew and a tug boat to recover spent stages from the sea.

There would be options to buy more recovery vehicles, like heavy-lift helicopters, or larger ships that can be pre-positioned at chosen splashdown points. If a recovery is out of range of all KSC vehicles, then the cost would be larger (think of this being equivalent to hiring another company to do it) and would depend on the location - recovery from up a mountain or from an ice cap being slower and much more expensive than from grassland. Of course, we should see any KSC vehicles doing their stuff in the game - without the player having to control them though.

If simulated recovery is too difficult, it's probably quite easy to make an equation that determines cost based on distance from KSC, with a difficulty multiplier depending on biome (e.g. x1 for grasslands, x10 for mountains).

[Majorjim!]

So I was thinking about the way recovery cost/benefits should work in career mode (once Kredits have been implemented)

I think there should be a reward for landing/touching/splashing down within a certain range of KSC.

I will try to explain:

if you do an Apollo style mission and successfully return your CM (and other attached parts) unharmed within 50km of KSC you could recover/recycle 100% of the safely landed parts. the idea being the KSC ground crew run out there and drag it back to the VAB for refurb and refit.

however if touching down outside of the "free recovery zone" heavy equipment and more time is required. the recovery cost goes up the further away from KSC, to the point where it would cost more to recover/recycle a part than to buy another one. re-entry planning and good flying should be rewarded.

BUT recovery also gives science points so you must factor that in when deciding whether or not to leave a landed part to rust away in some far flung Kerbin desert/sea. it may cost more but its worth it if you need that science.

This would make SSTOs and all space planes more useful and worth the challenge of development.

this would also apply to tanks and boosters, so put chutes on your asparagus stages to maximize part recovery.

I think this would better reward clever design and mission planning.

what say you?

[tetryds]

What about have the option to only rescue the crew when the ship recover cost is too high?

So, if you land on a mountain, as suggested above, the costs would be a lot higher, and it will not be worth to recover the ship.

But most of people do care about the kerbonaults, and i would deffinitelly rescue my crew, and they will also gain with the trip experience.

Distance from KSC, dificult multiplier AND the total landed ship weight should be taken into account.

So a small and light probe with lots of expensive equipment is a lot more worth to recover than a fuel tank on the middle of nowhere.

[Capt Snuggler]

Great! always good to know people agree.

If simulated recovery is too difficult, it's probably quite easy to make an equation that determines cost based on distance from KSC, with a difficulty multiplier depending on biome (e.g. x1 for grasslands, x10 for mountains).

I like this! adds just the right amount of complexity and could be mapped out visually with a map of Kerbin with a color gradient to show the recovery cost value.

maybe have purchasable landing strips to lower recovery cost in a particular area. (polar outposts?)

really think this would add allot to the game and encourage careful design and testing.

[Capt Snuggler]

What about have the option to only rescue the crew when the ship recover cost is too high?

So, if you land on a mountain, as suggested above, the costs would be a lot higher, and it will not be worth to recover the ship.

But most of people do care about the kerbonaults, and i would deffinitelly rescue my crew, and they will also gain with the trip experience.

I think an easy way to do that would be to EVA the crew and recover them separately.

i am unsure about crew recovery though. might go too far in to the realm of "not fun". maybe crew recovery should be free? or at least very cheap/capped rate. "kerbonault discount cab fare" .

[AngelLestat]

Yeah, this is what I would hope to see if some day squad implement an economic system.

After all, rocket design depends so much on this feature.

But yeah, Kerbonauts recover I guess needs to be free.

Also discount the damage parts.

[tetryds]

What about kerbonault recovery to be like "hire a cab".

So you pay a small symbolic ammount and recover all crew on the ship.

[peadar1987]

I think that's very Kerbal. Your crew land the ship half way around Kerbin? They have to pay for a taxi all the way back to KSC (the space program won't shell out!). You want that lab module back though, you're paying for it.

[zakkpaz]

sorry i didn't notice this thread until now and post a suggestion [url="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62033-Rotate-the-island-runway-add-multiple-runways-landing-sites-and-recovery-costs'>http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62033-Rotate-the-island-runway-add-multiple-runways-landing-sites-and-recovery-costs

TL;DR MOAR RUNWAYS