Upcoming budgeting => fall of landing capsules, age of parachute spamming?

[RidingTheFlow]

Was reading some latest devnotes, and things with budgets seem to progress quite well.

One thing did strike my mind though - it appears it will be largely pointless & wasteful to detach this single landing capsule from returning interplanetary ship. Much better would be just put some landing legs on it and spam more parachutes to land & recover all the part (more considering big cost of nuclear engines).

Seems to me it really will need some stock re-entry difficulties to balance out, and there are none ATM. What do you think?

[LordFjord]

I think that squad is pretty much aware of possible issues of the budget system.

We don't know yet how it will exactly work.

I doubt that classic rockets where almost all parts except the payload is destroyed will NOT be a viable option, nor do I think that it will massively favor SSTO designs.

We'll see how things turn out, if its not enjoyable/fun, then squad either adapts or it will get fixed by mods. So in the end, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Skorpychan]

I don't think it's going to affect my system much; most of my space program is reusable cruise stages and fuel tanks. Nothing except the lifters is destroyed.

[KerbMav]

I think we will see a rennaissance of space stations to redock your ship, refuel it and send it off again; as well as an increase in modular build ships that can be upgraded as the tech level increases and modified for different mission objectives.

[RidingTheFlow]

Well, for myself I would just slap parachutes & legs on ship, land it, collect the parts, ready to re-launch - why bother with supplying station with fuel & spending time on docking & rendezvous?

The issue is that with current stock re-entry its way to easy to get pretty massive/unaerodynamic designs back to the ground - and economics have to be balanced for stock. If you make financing generous, so "classic" discarded rockets won't be issue - then it will make you earn too much profit if you switch to such returnable turnaround. If you make financing tight, so it will force to parachute everything back, this kind of even worse.

[Bishop149]

I think we will see a rennaissance of space stations to redock your ship, refuel it and send it off again; as well as an increase in modular build ships that can be upgraded as the tech level increases and modified for different mission objectives.

Exactly, this is pretty much what I've started to do already, I have interplanetary sages dock with large transfer stations to refuel and then send up new modules / crew to attach / populate them often via SSTO launch systems.

[Jouni]

Many people already make transfer stages, landers, interplanetary ships, and other orbital stuff reusable, because it's a fun challenge. Eve obviously requires multi-stage landers, and Tylo is easier with them, but otherwise reusability isn't too hard or inefficient, if you can handle rendezvous and docking.

Landing large ships can be quite hard, as anyone who has tried to return from Eve can testify. Large ships usually don't survive splashing down in a sea, and the bigger the ship, the more level ground it requires. Landing struts don't work too well past certain size, forcing you to cushion the impact with engines. Unfortunately, some engines aren't so good in atmospheric powered landings.

[cantab]

Indeed. Why would you try and land the whole thing when you can just park it in orbit for later refuelling and replacement of the capsule.

[Liowen]

For me this is a non issues as most of my rockets could be made salvageable by deleting a decoupler, and maybe adding 2 more chutes. For my Mun and Minmus dockable stations I only bring them back to lessen the clutter that is in orbit when I am done with a mission. Another option would be to have a station that you interplanetary missions can dock with, refuel, use a science lab to clean and reset experiments, and recrew as needed. My one concern is if done this way is that after it is done and I recover the vessel that say has been to Jool and all its moons do I get the orbit and landed on science on the one craft, or just the last one I do? I may have to make a lander and go to Minmus and Mun and see what it is like in the current version.

[corvustech]

I've already started designing long mission starships that deploy disposable cheap probes and a smaller docked space plane or shuttle and carry extra crew in anticipation of the need to 'go green'.

[Tortoise]

The budget system won't affect my space program much. Depending on if there's and atmosphere or not, I usually land with 2 chutes

[Umlüx]

i never land my interplanetary ships/stages, i leave them in orbit to refuel/reuse them.

or push them into a munar graveyard orbit (some day i'll make a museum there)

[Godot]

Well, I hope that parts that get separated, but survive the fall to Kerbin in one piece (due to having enough parachutes strapped to them) can get salvaged / turned to money ...

as this already now (for RPG purposes) is my standard practice with all stages that get separated before reaching orbit (as well as for those parts that get separated during reentry).

It is also the way like it was done IRL with the Shuttle Booster Rockets

[nholzric]

I think that squad is pretty much aware of possible issues of the budget system.

We don't know yet how it will exactly work.

I doubt that classic rockets where almost all parts except the payload is destroyed will NOT be a viable option, nor do I think that it will massively favor SSTO designs.

We'll see how things turn out, if its not enjoyable/fun, then squad either adapts or it will get fixed by mods. So in the end, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

This!

I do wonder about contracts though. Is a contract attached to the root command module? Which might mean to receive credit for everything accomplished on a mission the module has to land and be recovered. Or would a contract be attached to a Kerbal such that an interplanetary mission could dock at a space station and the Kerbal can return home on a shuttle. I'm sure there a other options but in the end I expect contracts to be as much of a factor in what physically returns to Kerbin and is recovered as budget considerations.

[RidingTheFlow]

I thought about it more and one possibility I see that "landed part recycling" not returning full costs, just some percentage. Or adding extra charge just for ship re-build/part refurbishing. This will both still have advantage on landing as much as possible, but "permanent" ships & stations will give the very best cost saving.

[Dkmdlb]

By the time it comes to perform re-entry, there shouldn't be very many parts left on the rocket, anyway, right? I can't imagine it would be cheaper to build a lifter twice as large as necessary simply so that you can carry a few extra parts back from Dres.

[RidingTheFlow]

Why a few extra parts will require lifter twice as large? Main weight on interplanetary ship are engines & fuel. I never had issues bringing the whole nuclear-powered craft back to Kerbin, aerobraking it and landing - its just single quick step, instead of aerobraking, circularizing, rendezvous with space station and docking, and then same again to ferry to/from station (I _can_ do it, but it just feels like unnecessary waste of time).