Solutions for Spaceplane vs Rocket recovery refunds

[Random Tank]

So lots of people have been discussing about the money refunded from recovering spaceplanes and rockets that could be implemented in .24 or later, and the balance between the rewards; here's my suggestion:

For Planes (and SSTO's and Rovers and etc): The door to the SPH is open; whenever you land a Plane or Spaceplane (or anything that can get in there) on the runway, you can drive (powered landing gear would have to be implemented, which they want to do anyway) it into the SPH and immediately be taken to the ship creator; except slightly adjusted. Upon entering, the plane will appear in the editor in the exact state that it was on the moment it drove through the door; if say that an engine had been blown off, or its fuel tanks are empty, it will appear with these problems in the editor. There will also be no save or load button, only a store ship button; the amount of money available to spend will be displayed in a corner, and there will also be a 'Refuel all tanks' button somewhere.

Costings! Any original part you delete will award you 50% of its value (you've ripped it off a used aircraft, it's not exactly 100% new...); any new part you add will cost full price, but if you remove a new part it will give a full refund (as you didn't really add it..). The refuel button will do just as it says a charge for the amount of fuel (as in any fuel; RCS, Xenon Etc)it had to refuel (if a tank was 50% full it's not going to charge you for a full tank, just half); you can then use tweakables to empty tanks and it will refund you the amount you empty. When finished, you can choose to store the plane in the hangars, or launch it straight away (like a normal launch). If stored in the hangers, you can launch or edit at a later date via clicking on the Runway on the KSC and going to a 'Hangar' page.

Of course there will be a speed limit of ~20 m/s on entry to the SPH to stop people saving crashing planes by flying it in the hanger; any faster than the limit and it will treat the hangar entrance as solid (BOOM!); there will also be a small cost for 'Maintenance' on a Plane every time it enters the hangar (it will warn you of this, if can't afford it, it will auto store the craft); this will be a flat cost for a normal flight, but will then increase every time a vessel has endured Re-Entry (paying for every time a plane lands is a bit harsh, not mention difficult to track; plus, if you landed too hard, something will have broken and you will have to repair it!)

For Rockets: As they can't really travel to the SPH, they will be recovered like normal; where the parts of the craft that are on the surface of Kerbin are destroyed and all crew and science are given back at the KSC; also every part recovered will give 80-90% of its value back (they can't really be re-used, but museums and companies would pay for the used parts for attraction/study), but of course the craft is lost.

When creating Rockets or Planes, you are technically making a design or blueprint, not the actual rocket (hence duplicates); so a design will have a certain cost (parts + fuel) and will only be taken when the flight is put on the pad. But that's just my two sense...

Anyone else got any ideas? Improvements? Questions? Compliments? Cake?

Edited March 26, 2014 by Random Tank

[Red Iron Crown]

There is enough overlap among spaceplanes, rovers and rockets that I think the recovery rules should be identical for them.

Any reason why you feel rockets can't be reused? That is exactly what SpaceX is planning.

[Random Tank]

The point is that some want to reuse their SSTO's (as in, the exact same ship), so having a hanger storage system would allow them too; also, having to pay to rebuild the entire SSTO every time when it may only need a refuel is kinda annoying, and breaking the point of their reuse-ability.

I'm not against re-using SRB's and other parts when able, i already stick Parachutes on my SRB's for re-use (even though they despawn ), I just couldn't think of a decent way you could Re-use, rather than just getting 90% value back for a perfectly fine SRB that just needs fuel. Any suggestions?

[Red Iron Crown]

Well, I guess that fuel costs should be separated from fuel tank costs, so that refueling costs are easier to understand and predict.

There's no reason an SSTO should be treated any differently than any other recoverable craft or stage. There will likely never be a real life SSTO that just refuels and takes off again; even reusable spacecraft need testing and recertifying before reuse. I would suggest that some nominal percentage of any craft's cost be paid upon recovery/landing to represent refurbishment, else we can choose to discard the craft. If we want a simpler system, just set that percentage to zero. The SSTO would then be free to have a new payload installed, buy more fuel, and take off. The rocket would be free to have a new payload installed, buy more fuel, and launch. Easy, fair, and handles those cases where SSTOs and conventional rockets overlap.

By SSTO, I assume we mean spaceplane, as vertical launch rockets can be SSTOs as well.

[Jouni]

There are a lot of SSTOs and other fully reusable ships that are no planes and can't really go to the hangar.

A few examples:

[Random Tank]

By SSTO I was meaning Spaceplanes (and planes I suppose) as it was quicker to write... Sorry for misguiding you. Shouldn't be too difficult to add some wheels to those SSTO's, it gives them much more flexibility anyway. But recovering them would still give you 90% value of the craft, which is pretty good, I was just trying to come up with an idea to please all parties.

Yeah, I totally agree that fuel and parts cost should be separate, especially if you don't want full tanks on a craft, because it will save you money.

I would suggest that some nominal percentage of any craft's cost be paid upon recovery/landing to represent refurbishment

Yeah, I suggested that in my first post in-case you missed it, though I think the 'repair' costs should increase every time a craft goes through re-entry (or aero-braking of course) due to heat damage on the ceramic coating.

Nice ships there Jouni, they look good

[Capt. Hunt]

I would suggest, for simplicity's sake, that this should just be tied into the normal recovery function, rather then requiring you to bring the entire ship into the hanger. After all, the Space shuttle is reusable, but it needs to be towed, it can't do it under it's own power. Also, rather then bringing up the whole craft and requiring us to refurbish it ourselves, I suggest that we just get a scaling refund on all recovered parts, with a higher refund for craft landed on or around KSC then those ditched or crash landed elsewhere on Kerbin, topping out at maybe 80-90%, to reflect the cost of refurbishment. Some parts, like used engine bells or sepatrons, might even be flagged as non-refundable.

[Red Iron Crown]

One outcome I'd like to avoid is any recovery penalty making it significantly cheaper to avoid recovery altogether and service the craft with wheeled tankers. Not that it's not awesome that people could do that, I just don't think it should be so advantageous that it's almost necessary.

I'm starting to think that maybe it's better to stick to the lego-like construction metaphor and have all the parts recovered available without any cost penalty for reuse. Recover a craft, it shows up in the VAB/SPH where you can return parts to your inventory but not refund them for cash. Those parts would be available for use in other craft. Or, instead of taking the craft apart, you could choose to install another payload and reuse as is, or modify the craft and reuse. So far, parts have been infinitely durable and reliable, so why have them lose value at all?

I realize that this is not particularly realistic, but it does make for interesting gameplay as your part inventory grows, permitting larger or multiple craft.

[MKI]

One outcome I'd like to avoid is any recovery penalty making it significantly cheaper to avoid recovery altogether and service the craft with wheeled tankers. Not that it's not awesome that people could do that, I just don't think it should be so advantageous that it's almost necessary.

I'm starting to think that maybe it's better to stick to the lego-like construction metaphor and have all the parts recovered available without any cost penalty for reuse. Recover a craft, it shows up in the VAB/SPH where you can return parts to your inventory but not refund them for cash. Those parts would be available for use in other craft. Or, instead of taking the craft apart, you could choose to install another payload and reuse as is, or modify the craft and reuse. So far, parts have been infinitely durable and reliable, so why have them lose value at all?

I realize that this is not particularly realistic, but it does make for interesting gameplay as your part inventory grows, permitting larger or multiple craft.

This simple, makes sense, seems fun too

What if the Ship can't land in the hanger? like a VTOL SSTO? You would literally have to either drive it back in, fly it into the hanger(sounds tough!) or tow it back in, either way it doesn't make much sense.

What about reusable rockets? Such as the SpaceX Grasshopper System? So Command pods couldn't become reusable?

Lots of questions and problems with the space hanger idea. Hell what if your ship just can't turn well? You can't get back into the hanger so no reward? I think its just to restrictive on gameplay.

[Jouni]

Landing the ship at KSC (or maybe within a few kilometers of it) should be enough for full recovery compensation. That would motivate you to learn precise atmospheric landings, without making routine missions too tedious.

[Random Tank]

Yeah, that's a good idea Jouni, it would also solve the problem with non-plane SSTOs as you wouldn't lose money on just recovering them vs the hangar idea. It would also fix the problem if you couldn't make it to the hangar, but had landed (hard) at KSC.

I'm starting to think that maybe it's better to stick to the lego-like construction metaphor and have all the parts recovered available without any cost penalty for reuse

The only problem with this that it will eventually make money pointless as you have all the tech and a stockpile of parts; just make sure every/most parts of a ship land on Kerbin (using the suggested idea that if a piece of debris has enough chutes to slow it to safe speeds, it will be auto recovered or not despawn) you'll never really need to buy new parts, just fuel; plus it will make SSTO kinda pointless as they'll just be more expensive than rockets (useful SSTO parts like RAPIERS are expensive currently), but you make a good point... Maybe my idea isn't the best.

[Kasuha]

I definitely think the money system should be set up so people are not stressed about dumping stages during liftoff and letting them disappear in atmosphere.

[Red Iron Crown]

The only problem with this that it will eventually make money pointless as you have all the tech and a stockpile of parts; just make sure every/most parts of a ship land on Kerbin (using the suggested idea that if a piece of debris has enough chutes to slow it to safe speeds, it will be auto recovered or not despawn) you'll never really need to buy new parts, just fuel; plus it will make SSTO kinda pointless as they'll just be more expensive than rockets (useful SSTO parts like RAPIERS are expensive currently), but you make a good point... Maybe my idea isn't the best.

I think any halfways serious space program is going to have at least some parts that aren't recoverable. Space stations, satellites, discarded lander stages, rovers, things that suffer unplanned disassembly, etc. Plus, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if money becomes less of a concern in the late game.

I think SSTO spaceplanes could be made cost effective by having fuel be expensive enough; as I understand it the use of wings and jet engines reduces liquid fuel consumption and consumes no oxidizer at all. They'd be more expensive up front, taking several flights to recover the cost difference through fuel savings, but I think that's a fair mechanic. I agree that rapiers and turbojets are a bit overpriced, but I think the current prices are just placeholders that will be rebalanced when economics are introduced.

I definitely think the money system should be set up so people are not stressed about dumping stages during liftoff and letting them disappear in atmosphere.

Definitely. Liftoff is one of the most exciting and dramatic parts of spaceflight, it would be bad if we had to interrupt it to pilot discarded stages down safely. Maybe just a check to see if a discarded stage has appropriate equipment for recovery, if it does it goes back to inventory without user intervention.