Career mode: Recovery cost based on distance from KSC

[allmhuran]

I don't remember seeing this one come up before.

I propose that recovering a vessel should have some cost in career mode, and that the cost of recovery should depend on the distance of the recovered vessel from KSC, with a zero-cost radius very close to KSC.

This would provide a reward for those who have mastered SSTO spaceplanes that can land in one piece, and to some extent those who master atmospheric re-entries of non SSTO pods. The player is encouraged (but not forced) to take on a challenge and learn a skill - always a good thing.

It's also important that very close to KSC there is no cost of recovery, otherwise refueling vehicles for aircraft and spaceplanes would have an associated cost that they shouldn't really have.

I can also imagine that water recoveries could come with some additional premium.

Now, in my ideal world the game would take this one step further. Advanced warning: There's no mechanic like this in KSP yet... but there could be. In my ideal world, you could also choose to perform the recovery manually. That is to say, get a rover or an aircraft, head off to the craft you want to recover, pick it up (might require new crane style parts, but claws and docking ports *might* suffice), and bring it back to KSC. It's not hard to imagine that the game could keep track of how far you traveled to perform the recovery and how much it cost.

From that point forward, if your manual recovery was cheaper than the auto recovery, it should use the manual recovery cost when performing future auto-recoveries. This cost would, of course, *not* include the cost of the recovery craft itself, since that can be reused.

In case this is confusing, an example!

1) I land a pod 80km away from KSC. Let's just say the cost of auto-recovery is $1 per km, so from this position it is $80.

2) Instead of using auto-recovery, I build a craft to perform the recovery. The craft costs me $300 to construct, but further calculations will ignore this cost, since the craft is obviously reusable if it returns to KSC!

3) I recover the pod and bring it back to KSC. The cost of this (in fuel) turns out to be $30.

4) From this point forward, the game should perform any auto recoveries up to 80km away based on the cost of my manual recovery.

5) I now land a craft 40km away. Instead of costing me $40 for auto recovery, it costs me $15.

5) If I land a craft more than 80km away the original auto recovery cost factor of $1 per km should be used, since I've yet to "prove to the game" that I can manually recover from more than 80km away.

Edited June 1, 2014 by allmhuran

[Joonatan1998]

What if someone puts rover wheels on their pod?

[Kasuha]

I don't think SSTO/"true reusable" spaceplanes need any boosts. Assuming planned approach to budget and money, they're overpowered more than enough. If we want to introduce realism to SSTO spaceplane "industry", we should ask for payments for thorough technical inspection before each successive launch.

Apart of that it's not a bad idea. As long as it is implemented in a way that doesn't prefer one rocket type over another I have no problems with it.

[Eric S]

It has been suggested before, though I don't remember what the response was, if any.

The devs seem to be either indecisive or have changed their minds on whether recovery will be affected by distance from KSC in regards to recycling parts (which isn't what you're talking about).

[allmhuran]

What if someone puts rover wheels on their pod?

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. If you're saying "what if they land a pod which is itself a rover and can drive itself back to KSC" then yippee for them, free recovery.

[allmhuran]

Apart of that it's not a bad idea. As long as it is implemented in a way that doesn't prefer one rocket type over another I have no problems with it.

Hm. I think a spacecraft that get get into orbit and back all in one piece is harder to build and fly than a rocket that stages its way up and parachutes its way down. But if you can get your regular old command pod to land near KSC (again - something that's difficult to do) then you would get the same benefit under the model.

I'm also still not sure I really understand what "overpowered" means when people use it with respect to KSP. That's a term for multiplayer PvP games where the "balance" of different units is important for fair games.

[Joonatan1998]

"

4) From this point forward, the game should perform any auto recoveries up to 80km away based on the cost of my manual recovery. Recovery by driving the pod to the centre would be free, so any recovery from the same distance after it would be free too?

"

Edited June 1, 2014 by Joonatan1998

[allmhuran]

"Recovery with rover would be free free, so any recoveries after driving the pod to the centre and recovering it would be free too?

Not according to what I've proposed in the OP. You didn't build a craft to go and collect the pod, you drove the pod itself home because that particular pod was capable of doing so. In other words, that "flight" ended at zero distance from KSC, that's why it got a free recovery. So while that particular recovery would indeed be free, your future auto-recoveries would not be based on that unless they all end up zero distance from KSC... in which case they're free anyway.

If you mean you built a rover to go collect the pod, then sure, make it free. If someone is willing to drive 100km in a rover to go and collect their pod, more power to them.

[Kasuha]

Hm. I think a spacecraft that get get into orbit and back all in one piece is harder to build and fly than a rocket that stages its way up and parachutes its way down. But if you can get your regular old command pod to land near KSC (again - something that's difficult to do) then you would get the same benefit under the model.

In real world, the challenge in building (partially) reusable spacecraft is not in design but in maintenance. There's zero maintenance in KSP, you refuel and go again. And since I have built a few, I respectfully disagree that building them in KSP is significantly harder than building "standard" rockets.

If reusable planes come with financial advantage, people will make one and stick with it for long time, trying to milk as much money as possible from it instead of improving their designs with every launch. I don't think that's how the game is meant to be played.

I'm also still not sure I really understand what "overpowered" means when people use it with respect to KSP. That's a term for multiplayer PvP games where the "balance" of different units is important for fair games.

You didn't seem to have problems understanding that concept when the talk was about Kerbodyne engines.

[allmhuran]

since I have built a few, I respectfully disagree that building them in KSP is significantly harder than building "standard" rockets.

The conclusion "they are not harder" does not follow from the premise "I have built some".

You didn't seem to have problems understanding that concept when the talk was about Kerbodyne engines.

You seem to have interpreted my post there as saying "things need to be balanced against each other", ie, the "overpowered/underpowered" discussion. But the post is all about why that doesn't really make sense, and that other game mechanics are better suited to do a similar job.

[Kasuha]

The conclusion "they are not harder" does not follow from the premise "I have built some".

You seem to have interpreted my post there as saying "things need to be balanced against each other", ie, the "overpowered/underpowered" discussion. But the post is all about why that doesn't really make sense, and that other game mechanics are better suited to do a similar job.

You appear to be responding to the less important parts of my posts and avoiding things that I consider real issues. I'm more interested in your opinon on these:

If we want to introduce realism to SSTO spaceplane "industry", we should ask for payments for thorough technical inspection before each successive launch.

If reusable planes come with financial advantage, people will make one and stick with it for long time, trying to milk as much money as possible from it instead of improving their designs with every launch. I don't think that's how the game is meant to be played.

[allmhuran]

You appear to be responding to the less important parts of my posts and avoiding things that I consider real issues.

Sorry, I don't know which parts you think are more important.

I know many disagree, but I don't think "realism" is important. I think "sensible" is important. That is to say, game mechanics should make sense in order to make them intuitive, they shouldn't require too much fiddling around by the player, etc.

On your specific points:

If we want to introduce realism to SSTO spaceplane "industry", we should ask for payments for thorough technical inspection before each successive launch.

I don't think cost for technical inspection is likely to be added. I don't work in the aerospace industry so I'm not sure what the relative cost of pre-flight (non construction) cost is for rockets vs aircraft. I suppose rockets have a high cost associated with keeping their fuels at such low temperature as the ship is readied for launch.

Perhaps the easiest way to implement some kind of "inspection cost" would be to make all launches cost some small non zero amount, or perhaps all recoveries. The reason why I don't really like that idea, though, is that it means support vehicles (fuel trucks, crew transfer rovers, etc) would have an operating cost that they shouldn't really have (yeh, you have to pay for the fuel in a fuel truck, but recovering and then relaunching the fuel truck in order to fill it up shouldn't cost more than the cost of the fuel). I understand where you're coming from, but without "auto refuel on the runway" or something like that it could be difficult, I think, for the game to appropriately differentiate between "vehicles that should have an inspection cost" and "vehicles that should not have an inspection cost at launch".

If reusable planes come with financial advantage, people will make one and stick with it for long time, trying to milk as much money as possible from it instead of improving their designs with every launch

I don't really have a problem with this. For those who do like realism it would seem to be appropriate. As I said, I'm not a big fan of realism for the sake of realism, but I think there are other mechanics that already balance this out.

First of all, as you unlock new parts you're probably going to want to build new craft that incorporate them. Certainly the case for science parts, but probably the case for other parts as well, since the higher tier parts are generally better in some way than the lower tier parts.

Secondly, an SSTOL craft that is good at one job is probably not the best for another job. If you intend to reuse the one craft for Kerbin orbit launches, Munar launches and Duna launches then it has to be built such that it can get a payload to Duna, which means it is over-engineered (ie, more expensive and less efficient) for getting a payload to LKO.

What we might end up seeing is reusable craft that specialize in a particular task. For example, once someone is half way up the tech tree they may end up with a reusable spaceplane that they use for launching satellites to LKO. Not that, once half way up the tree, you'd really need to launch to LKO for any science-gathering reason in the current state of the game, but then that just goes back to point 1. And I think that would be fine. It's sensible to reuse a proven design for a common task, it's "realistic" to do so, keeping realism fans happy, and there's not a huge amount of "fun" to be had building fresh designs over and over for tasks that have become simple due to your tech level and experience. Might as well push out further, which would best be accomplished with a different design, negating the concern.

Edited June 1, 2014 by allmhuran

[Javster]

What if someone puts rover wheels on their pod?

Then they endure a long drive back to KSC. But if they ever add re-entry heating it should discourage you.