Vehicles recovered on Kerbin available as a one-use subassembly

[Winter Man]

Thought it might come in handy once money and contracts are introduced. Vehicle sections recovered on Kerbin could be made available as a sub-assembly (maybe under a new tab for 'Recovered Stages' or something) with only a small 'refurbishment' cost of about a tenth of their value. It'd make building spaceplanes and reusable lower stages actually worth the effort, monetarily speaking.

edit: Maybe a slight knock to max. engine temps to simulate wear and tear and part lifespan? Quite possible with tweakables.

[OTehNoes]

A cool idea I guess, though as a way to make it easier to implement, how about you just get like, 75% of their value back if you recover them in full condition, less depending on their state of wear? It'd all work out the same anyway!

[Winter Man]

Well, it wouldn't. You'd be able to spend that cash on other stuff. Maybe both would be good? Get an option to sell for scrap value or reuse?

[OTehNoes]

Well how about for every one item you recover, you get a 75% off thing on that given object, implying that it has been recovered and refurbed.

[Winter Man]

That'd be harder to implement, and quite a bit less realistic. It'd cost more to refurb the parts like that, they'd either need to be cash or an uneditable lump.

[Gavin McStine]

Perhaps different parts would have different costs for referbishing it. For example an engine might just need a tune up, but a fuel tank will need more fuel, which might be the higher cost over the metal tank.

[Spenzor]

While I'm all for making reusable spacecraft... reusable, I'm not sure how effective this method would be. I think a simpler solution might be to give the player a discount on the next launch containing that object (either complete vehicle or subassembly). This would give players an incentive to make a reusable system of launchers for various payload sizes, rather than making a bespoke rocket for everything they launch.

There's another issue, though - most dropped lower stages (currently the most commonly reused rocket part, if I remember correctly) never actually touch down in KSP - they drop out of physics draw range before they touch down and are lost.

[Taki117]

The issue with recovering spent boosters is that the game deletes anything not being controlled below 22km and > 2.5km from the controlled object. I believe someone is working on a workaround, but I don't know how it would work.

[Winter Man]

The issue with recovering spent boosters is that the game deletes anything not being controlled below 22km and > 2.5km from the controlled object. I believe someone is working on a workaround, but I don't know how it would work.

That's not so much of an issue. If you're not dropping boosters left right and centre you'll only really be losing your first stage. If you make orbit with your second and separate your orbiter, you can then land the second stage (if you remembered to stick a probe core on it!). Not being able to recover your massive first stage (unless you SSTO, like a madman) and a whole ton of spent boosters would stop it being overpowered.

edit: I mean, you could say anything that gets deleted was on a ballistic path to its own destruction, so maybe every one that gets deleted in Kerbin's atmosphere returns a small (smaller than if you were to land it) percentage of the scrap value if it's over the ocean where it won't be completely destroyed.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Winter Man

[NFUN]

Hey, I occasionally like to put parachutes with smiley faces on all of my boosters, even if they just get deleted anyways.

EDIT: Just realized I'm necromancing this thread, but since contracts (or their framework) are coming out soon I've decided I wanted to bring back the thread the entire time. I don't believe I saw any recent suggestions about reusable parts this well developed.

Edited May 8, 2014 by NFUN