Part storage for later use

[magnemoe]

If you use extraplanetary launchpads you can make serious money building landers with lots of expensive parts on Mun and landing them on kerbin for recovery, 100 RTG or something.

[DocMoriarty]

My bet is that every vessel recovered will be refunded with like 80% of its value. Period.

Long ago i propesed a vehicle storage already, but not only for refunding/saving funds but also to save vessels for later reuse or of historic value (for example first kerballed Mun lander). So instead of launching ever new vehicles you can choose to relaunch a stored one and only have to pay for refuelling it.

Edited March 21, 2014 by DocMoriarty

[jalapen0]

So a museum....that would be cool.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

I've had a good think about this and come up with some idea's.

That can be solved, though. Just have any parts that leave the rendering range on a collision course with the planet, and not going too fast, automatically recover.

This is good idea but really you would also need to check they had a parachute deployed and do a simple calculation of parachutes to mass of the object to determine if it would land safely. Maybe take off 20-60% for the unguided landing (it might take some dents

Used decouplers are worth nothing or 10%.

Here is where it gets complicated, how do we tell the difference between a landed space-plane and parts left over from a big crash? My idea would be for the game to check how many parts the new ship is now in. A full space-plane that lost no parts would be worth 96% of its original cost. Say it cost 20,000 it is recovered for 19,200. If it loses just one part or splits in two (it doesn't matter) each part is now worth 96 / 2 = 48%, so the recovered cost is 9,600 (assuming no parts are destroyed). if the ship breaks into 4 parts it would be worth 96 / 4 = 4,800. This may seem harsh if you just lose a tail piece on landing but the point it to tell if there is damage not how much damage. Very hard landings of coarse would destroy parts and split the ship into many many parts resulting in very little recovered. Say the ship breaks into 10 parts and 6k's worth of parts are destroyed. 96/10 =9.6% per part and 14,000 point are on the ground so 1344 is recovered.

As long as dropped boosters are auto recovered as above or destroyed the landed craft will still be counted as one part to the game as it is the only crafted names that on the ground.

This set up is to encourage adding parachutes to used boosters (like the space shuttles boosters). It encourages space planes (as they are the present goal in real world space engineering to reduce costs). It penalizes crash landings and wrecks because otherwise a perfect landing is the same as a horrible crash where no parts are destroyed. And lastly it shouldn't be too hard on the computer as Rickenbacker's idea doesn't add much to the computation "weight" because the parts are removed.

This may seem harsh to the rocket enthusiasts but remember this, space-planes usually have a much lower weight to cargo ratio. if 100% was recovered then they would always be better but at a 5% cost its not so simple. With a 1ton cargo the 20,000k planes costs 800 per run but a rocket might get that up for only 4000 assume 80% is recovered at 60% cost and the cost comes to 2080. Tweak the numbers a bit and a good rocket designer could get a payload up for less than a bad space-plane maker costs.

If you want to recover parts not money then have a cost for refurbishment instead of money lost per part. So 96% means it costs 4% of a ships price to recover all the parts or 40% of a dropped parachuted part. Storing parts of recovering money doesn't really affect these ideas but I think I would prefer them to be "restocked" into a warehouse.

[Wahgineer]

I agree with the whole 'number of parachutes*drag<=mass of parts=recovery' thing. What I don't understand is how some want to penalize either rockets or space planes. Each one has it's place: Space planes are reusable, but can't carry as much as some rockets before the cost out weighs the benefits. Rockets are not nearly as reusable, but that is countered by the fact that they can carry massive amounts of cargo. I think that at some point, we should have a stored ships thing: basically, when you store a pre-launched ship, it turns into a sub assembly; identical craft with the same name would basically get stored under the same sub assembly with a multiplier next to it (e.x.: Aeris 3a * 12). This would allow us to drag ships that we had already used back into service, in order to save costs. Depending on what conditions the vehicle has faced determines the refurbishment price (ex: plane below mach 1=0.5%, plane above mach 1=1%, plane above 10k=2%, plane above 20k=3%, plane in space=15% (since it had to re-enter)).

[Red Iron Crown]

Ideally, a recovery system wouldn't differentiate between spaceplanes and conventional rockets, especially as there's a gray area of overlap between them. Whatever formula is chosen should work for both types without modification.

In real life it's not clear that spaceplanes have a cost advantage over recoverable rockets, so I think making a special rule for spaceplanes to keep their costs down is not necessarily realistic.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

What I don't understand is how some want to penalize either rockets or space planes. Each one has it's place: Space planes are reusable, but can't carry as much as some rockets before the cost out weighs the benefits.

This is kind of what I was saying

Tweak the numbers a bit and a good rocket designer could get a payload up for less than a bad space-plane maker costs.

.

In terms of other people, I imagine the rocket only builders don't want to have rockets penalized by cost until they are unsustainable and the space plane builders that can return 100% of the parts they use but can only take 20% the payload of an equal cost rocket don't want to have their hard work and efficiency mean nothing. Its a hard balancing act but I do think that in the end space-planes should be a bit cheaper in order to make up for the fact it takes them 5 times as long to get the same payload into orbit. Space-planes for money efficiency, rockets for time efficiency and a place for all play styles in the game.

[Random Tank]

Space planes should have much higher set-up costs compared to a rocket (due to specialised and high tech parts) but low running costs (as it's just fuel and wear and tear repairs), but rockets will be the other way around (as you need new parts every time, but tech is much simpler to set up).

Also, I hope fuel has a cost too; if I drop my SRBs with chutes and recover them (like I already do in my slower orbit rockets), you should get 100% (or very near) for the value of the actual booster, but you would still have to pay to refuel it. This also means if you partially fill a fuel tank, it costs less as you are actually having buy less fuel to put in it.

I have a really good idea for recovery, cost, sale of parts and storage of a sort, but it probably put this post more off topic than it already is... Can I? I really wanna share it with you guys now... Or is there a better thread to post it in?

[magnemoe]

My bet is that every vessel recovered will be refunded with like 80% of its value. Period.

Long ago i propesed a vehicle storage already, but not only for refunding/saving funds but also to save vessels for later reuse or of historic value (for example first kerballed Mun lander). So instead of launching ever new vehicles you can choose to relaunch a stored one and only have to pay for refuelling it.

High chance for this, perhaps an bonus if you land on runway or ksp facility as it was an controlled landing, better if you get scrap value for scrap so don't loose parts then landing.

[Nemrav]

actually come to think of it, we probably will get a re-fund for recovering stuff as we already have it.... sort-of

In current career mode, when you come back with science and then in your landing, if a goo canister breaks off, so long as it doesn't explode, you can go to the tracking station and recover it despite being debris and you will get so much science from the experiment it performed. I now suspect that you will be able to do something like that only with money...

[cantab]

I don't think I understand your point. With SSTO's, you can recover the entire craft, and recoup the entire cost of the vessel. With rockets, you can only recover a small part of the vessel. How does being less recoverable benefit the rockets?

At present you can build an SSTO and use the same ship over and over relatively easily. You can't do the same for the lower stages of a multi-stage rocket, because they'll leave physics range of your upper stage and vanish, and even if you fix that they'll still land miles from KSC making bringing them back for reuse a lot of work.

Adding a game function to recover safely landed parts and allow their reuse (or else just give some money back) therefore doesn't benefit SSTOs because they can already be reused. But it does benefit multi-stage rockets.

2. Refunding at a reduced value does no longer simulate "real" storage.

Bob landed a pod softly in the bay. Bill sells it at a reduced value - and buys a new one for full price.

Even perfectly reusable parts would have to be bought back at full price. Everything the player does not manually park at KSC (like a spaceplane) would be sold at a loss, rebuying it no longer simulates having in storage.

Refunding a part of the cost simulates the need to refurbish used parts. That, IIRC, is why the Space Shuttle ended up expensive to operate - sure, the parts were reusable, but only after a load of maintenance work.

In principle this could tie in nicely to part degradation, but I think a degradation mechanic would just be a nuisance and is better left out.

[LethalDose]

I wonder if they will separate out the costs of the fuel from the costs of the parts. This would be important because when you tweak the fuel and oxidizer volumes at launch,

as far as this goes...

At present you can build an SSTO and use the same ship over and over relatively easily. You can't do the same for the lower stages of a multi-stage rocket, because they'll leave physics range of your upper stage and vanish, and even if you fix that they'll still land miles from KSC making bringing them back for reuse a lot of work.

Adding a game function to recover safely landed parts and allow their reuse (or else just give some money back) therefore doesn't benefit SSTOs because they can already be reused. But it does benefit multi-stage rockets.

I qualitatively disagree with this. A lot. This can be done, but its near nonsensical. In short, if you recover the vehicle at the end of a mission as is intended ("intended" as evidenced by recovery being the method that returns science to the KSC), you get the recoverable bonus. What's presented as a counter argument a bizarre play-style that doesn't recover an SSTO at the end of mission and leaves them sitting on the tarmac until needed. The shuttle needed to be refurbished between missions, and it looked like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/SpaceShuttleGroundProcessingActual.jpg

SSTO should be refurbished between missions, too.

[cantab]

What's presented as a counter argument a bizarre play-style that doesn't recover an SSTO at the end of mission and leaves them sitting on the tarmac until needed.

At the moment, SSTO's can freely be recovered with no penalty. But given the following possible developments:

• Parts cost money. (Which is presumably going to happen).
  
• Using "Recover" does not give back the full amount you paid. (Plausible, especially as NO money back is I feel the "default" option.)
  
• Parts don't wear out or break. (Seems likely. They don't wear out now, and it's not been mentioned at all for future releases.)
  

Then to recover an SSTO, rather than parking it up to be used again, would be throwing money down the drain. The science can easily be obtained without needing to recover the whole SSTO, for example by undocking just the science parts and docking a new set.

Thus, SSTO's don't "need" any ability to get money back by recovering stuff. Multistage rockets, on the other hand, do benefit from getting money back by recovery. Without such money back, the "smug wind...of the SSTO master-race's sails" will be stronger than ever.

[Red Iron Crown]

At the moment, SSTO's can freely be recovered with no penalty. But given the following possible developments:

• Parts cost money. (Which is presumably going to happen).
  
• Using "Recover" does not give back the full amount you paid. (Plausible, especially as NO money back is I feel the "default" option.)
  
• Parts don't wear out or break. (Seems likely. They don't wear out now, and it's not been mentioned at all for future releases.)
  

Then to recover an SSTO, rather than parking it up to be used again, would be throwing money down the drain. The science can easily be obtained without needing to recover the whole SSTO, for example by undocking just the science parts and docking a new set.

Thus, SSTO's don't "need" any ability to get money back by recovering stuff. Multistage rockets, on the other hand, do benefit from getting money back by recovery. Without such money back, the "smug wind...of the SSTO master-race's sails" will be stronger than ever.

This ignores the refit cost of SSTOs, any economic model that doesn't include this is going to favor SSTOs for sure.

That, combined with SSTOs ability to use far less propellant to get into orbit with extreme air intaking, will make conventional rockets unable to compete economically.

Your second and third point are a bit contradictory, if landed SSTOs don't need refit, why should recovered rocket stages only recover a portion of their value, as they are not worn out or broken?

I really hope the economic model doesn't work that way. I don't want to be railroaded economically into using SSTOs for everything.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Red Iron Crown

[Javster]

Maybe you get:

1. A choice of whether you want to recover or not (with cost)

OR

2. A diminishing amount of money back depending on distance, land/water etc.