early game rescue missions are way too easy for too much gold.

[lammatt]

(dont know about the latter ones, but) the early ones are way too easy for way too much gold, they are mostly equatorial and pretty close to kerbin; making them very easy

when other contracts are giving no more than a couple thousands,

these rescues are giving 10+ thousand in total each.

[No one]

What contracts are you comparing them to? I currently am being offered contracts with similar rewards for things as easy as "get science from space near Kerbin".

I would say that rescue missions are some of the hardest (Though not as hard as some of the testing parts missions) in that they require you to essentially dock, even if it is in equatorial LKO, whereas things like "get science" or "plant a flag" are much easier.

Edited July 19, 2014 by No one

[lammatt]

What contracts are you comparing them to? I currently am being offered contracts with similar rewards for things as easy as "get science from space near Kerbin".

I would say that rescue missions are some of the hardest (Though not as hard as some of the testing parts missions) in that they require you to essentially dock, even if it is in equatorial LKO, whereas things like "get science" or "plant a flag" are much easier.

i have only unlocked the first 4 nodes...(1st tier 5science and 3 2nd tier 15science)

and i am finding the testing mission for the long SRB on escape trajectory pretty hard, since i havent even unlocked struts...

and this mission is paying less than saving a random kerman at 110km 0deg inclination

-----------------

now i have to sidetrack a bit and launch a ship to mun for some science before i can economically and safely complete that escape trajectory test for the SRB....

Edited July 19, 2014 by lammatt

[Roastduck]

now i have to sidetrack a bit and launch a ship to mun for some science before i can economically and safely complete that escape trajectory test for the SRB....

you can still collect science in all the old ways. You are not restricted to the science awarded by completing contracts.

[No one]

i have only unlocked the first 4 nodes...(1st tier 5science and 3 2nd tier 15science)

Later on other missions surpass them.

I think it's a very good idea for rescue missions to be amazing early-game, because they force you to learn how to rendezvous, a valuable skill later on, and one you would probably not otherwise have learned. The devs probably intentionally designed it that way.

[Frank327]

Those early missions were actually more difficult for me than the moon landings. Then again I never did much with docking.

But yeah, munar/interplanetary missions carry enough cost/reward for these missions to not be unbalanced.

[Ker-boom]

It may be well earning, but for people who have not played it a lot it is very difficult. Also - I LOVE the rescue mission, it is so much fun. Such an excellent idea.

[Monger]

Low orbit rendez-vous are much harder than, let's say, rendez-vous with one of the moons, or on some high orbit. Obviously there are a few balancing issues yet, but on the other hand you can easily afford to miss or just postpone a contract. A full year for most of them is really, really long. This is nothing that needs to be fixed immediately.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Monger

[Kerbart]

(dont know about the latter ones, but) the early ones are way too easy for way too much gold, they are mostly equatorial and pretty close to kerbin; making them very easy

when other contracts are giving no more than a couple thousands,

these rescues are giving 10+ thousand in total each.

Think starting players. Having to get within 30m of a class A object will be a major achievement for them and very hard at first. And then they have to RCS the Kerbal to the cockpit. Yes, it's easy if you have a couple of hundred docking maneuvers under your belt. Not so much when you're just starting out.

[technion]

You quickly realise there is 0 science that can be gained from these rescue missions, and have to deal with going for the gold, or going for better science elsewhere.

[lammatt]

Think starting players. Having to get within 30m of a class A object will be a major achievement for them and very hard at first. And then they have to RCS the Kerbal to the cockpit. Yes, it's easy if you have a couple of hundred docking maneuvers under your belt. Not so much when you're just starting out.

it is...indeed...

but only when that said class A object isnt always at that almost the same low elevation and 0 deg inclination almost cyclic orbit.

i mean... they should make the orbit of that kerman in the rescue mission more diverse...at least not always equatiorial, some significant inclination or eccentricity would be nice.

[Kerbart]

You quickly realise there is 0 science that can be gained from these rescue missions, and have to deal with going for the gold, or going for better science elsewhere.

Only when you combine it with zero other missions. And who'd do that? On my latest rescue mission I tested four or five parts resulting in a pile of science. If anything, it's way to easy to collect science on any mission and I suspect that they'll rebalance it either with a patch or in the next version. I've done maybe a dozen or two of science experiments and I've already unlocked most of the science tree. No more grinding, but unlocking science is not really a challenge right now.

[lammatt]

Only when you combine it with zero other missions. And who'd do that? On my latest rescue mission I tested four or five parts resulting in a pile of science. If anything, it's way to easy to collect science on any mission and I suspect that they'll rebalance it either with a patch or in the next version. I've done maybe a dozen or two of science experiments and I've already unlocked most of the science tree. No more grinding, but unlocking science is not really a challenge right now.

true.

my last rescue is done together with a test of the 2.5m decouple on escape trajectory and a test of the landing wheels on escape trajectory and a test of the mid-length SRB on escape trajectory.

[Jade Falcon]

As a new player to the game (only put in 70 hours so far) I find the rescue missions insanely hard. Mainly because I suck at rendezvous and despite watching Scott Manley do it 5 times I still can't do it. Having said that I find getting to the Mun and landing really straightforward and I've made a lot of cash doing those missions but I won't go near a rescue mission because I'm not ready.

[morph113]

Too much gold? Seems like someone where plays a bit too much fantasy rpg's

[lammatt]

Too much gold? Seems like someone where plays a bit too much fantasy rpg's

seems like you are trying to sound cool. but no. just no.

[PDCWolf]

I dont mind the first 3 or 4 being easy as a simple rendezvous, the real question would be: do they get harder with time?

I'm at a 1kk funds and around 900 rep and I'm still getting "test my srb on water pls" missions along with companies asking to explore Duna and Ike. I've completed 38 contracts (in like 18 flights) and most of them were "go water/space/stupidlyoverdoneRNGaltitude-speed and test my part" and I though they would kinda get harder with time (Fix our orbiting telescope, place a sat here or there, dock with this ship and save its crew, stuff related to precision landing, short time rendezvous, etc), but it seems that such things are not happening, which is a huge letdown.

To be clear, I don't mind "easy" missions as long as they get harder on the way, which doesn't seem to be happening at all and I think I have made enough progress for that to happen.

[morph113]

seems like you are trying to sound cool. but no. just no.

Wow easy there, I didn't mean it in a rude way or anything. Was just pointing it out.

[Arran]

As a new player to the game (only put in 70 hours so far) I find the rescue missions insanely hard. Mainly because I suck at rendezvous and despite watching Scott Manley do it 5 times I still can't do it. Having said that I find getting to the Mun and landing really straightforward and I've made a lot of cash doing those missions but I won't go near a rescue mission because I'm not ready.

Believe me when i say, before you can do it, its borderline impossible hard, once you figure out how to do it, its becomes so easy, you wonder yourself how the hell you had such a hard time with it.. (well at least that how I felt when i finally mastered it)

In short its basicly, (this it NOT the most efficient way, but the easiest one to comprehent for a new player) Orbit about 100-150 above or below the Target, at Ap, and keep Pe at the orbit of the target, you get then an Orbit of about (for example 150pe and 300 ap) while the Kerbal orbits at 150km.

You select the Kerbal as target, then plan a manouvre node to intercept the Kerbal.

This ofc means some dragging and tweaking the node, and maybe even it will take several orbits before you getting close (-10km distance) when you are having an node planned that brings you as close you can possible can, after executing it, the you start to make an retro burn (your orbit speed is prolly now stating Target speed) thus you need to or switch to Orbital mode, or visually turn into Retroburn position (latest is preferable) and retro burn till the target speed is 0 or very close to 0..

Then you aim your rocket towards the kerbal(or whatever you want to rendesvouv with) and burn towards it, and again turn to the Retro marker when your closing in more to stop when you getting very close, or start to move away again from the target, remember this has to be done on the TargetSpeed mode of the navball.

Rince and repeat till you really close (less at 100 meters) and final part you get close by using RCS..

It is possible to get really close to the object without RCS but this will need alot of quick burns turning forward and parrallel turns to the target.

Again this IS not the most efficient way, but its the way i basicly did it the first time, and went on from this procedure to alot more efficient and quicker rendezvous to a point i nowerdays can rendezvous directly from launch into the point i catch up dock and all right from launch.

But you have to master the basics first, and i think the way i described it, for a new player its the easiest way to learn the basics.

[lammatt]

Believe me when i say, before you can do it, its borderline impossible hard, once you figure out how to do it, its becomes so easy, you wonder yourself how the hell you had such a hard time with it.. (well at least that how I felt when i finally mastered it)

In short its basicly, (this it NOT the most efficient way, but the easiest one to comprehent for a new player) Orbit about 100-150 above or below the Target, at Ap, and keep Pe at the orbit of the target, you get then an Orbit of about (for example 150pe and 300 ap) while the Kerbal orbits at 150km.

You select the Kerbal as target, then plan a manouvre node to intercept the Kerbal.

This ofc means some dragging and tweaking the node, and maybe even it will take several orbits before you getting close (-10km distance) when you are having an node planned that brings you as close you can possible can, after executing it, the you start to make an retro burn (your orbit speed is prolly now stating Target speed) thus you need to or switch to Orbital mode, or visually turn into Retroburn position (latest is preferable) and retro burn till the target speed is 0 or very close to 0..

Then you aim your rocket towards the kerbal(or whatever you want to rendesvouv with) and burn towards it, and again turn to the Retro marker when your closing in more to stop when you getting very close, or start to move away again from the target, remember this has to be done on the TargetSpeed mode of the navball.

Rince and repeat till you really close (less at 100 meters) and final part you get close by using RCS..

It is possible to get really close to the object without RCS but this will need alot of quick burns turning forward and parrallel turns to the target.

Again this IS not the most efficient way, but its the way i basicly did it the first time, and went on from this procedure to alot more efficient and quicker rendezvous to a point i nowerdays can rendezvous directly from launch into the point i catch up dock and all right from launch.

But you have to master the basics first, and i think the way i described it, for a new player its the easiest way to learn the basics.

for beginers who dont bother reading,

here's the TL;DR

Remember you learned the Kepler's laws in highschool? now, you know how to rendezvous.

[CreepyD]

I still remember when it clicked for me, it's just learning what the pro/retro markers on the navball are.

If you're 200m/s faster than the Kerbal your trying to dock with, simply burn towards the retro marker (circle with the x in it) and that will come down to 0/ms. Voila, you are moving exactly the same speed as the Kerbal.

Easy to refine things from there.

[DBT85]

As a new player to the game (only put in 70 hours so far) I find the rescue missions insanely hard. Mainly because I suck at rendezvous and despite watching Scott Manley do it 5 times I still can't do it. Having said that I find getting to the Mun and landing really straightforward and I've made a lot of cash doing those missions but I won't go near a rescue mission because I'm not ready.

I struggled with Rendezvous for a while before it clicked. Once it clicked is's easy.

I first off get my launch going and get an Ap that is close enough to the targets Ap. Then I circularize so that the other side is higher or lower, depending on where the target is in relation to me. If it's behind me then I have to go slower for it to catch up, that means part of my orbit being higher than the target as with more distance to travel, it'll catch up. If it's in front then I need to catch up, so have part of my orbit lower than the target so I can go around faster.

Somewhere in the middle of all that I get my AN and DN down to 0 with a small burn.

All that's left now is to orbit until such time as the encounter markers flip from your target being in front/behind to the other way. As soon as that happens, correct your orbit so that the encounter nodes get to about 2km or closer.

As an exercise, put something in Orbit with a docking port on it and keep sending ships up to dock with far too much fuel so that you can faff around. Don't forget some solar power lol.

Edited July 19, 2014 by DBT85

[metaphor]

I dont mind the first 3 or 4 being easy as a simple rendezvous, the real question would be: do they get harder with time?

I'm at a 1kk funds and around 900 rep and I'm still getting "test my srb on water pls" missions along with companies asking to explore Duna and Ike. I've completed 38 contracts (in like 18 flights) and most of them were "go water/space/stupidlyoverdoneRNGaltitude-speed and test my part" and I though they would kinda get harder with time (Fix our orbiting telescope, place a sat here or there, dock with this ship and save its crew, stuff related to precision landing, short time rendezvous, etc), but it seems that such things are not happening, which is a huge letdown.

To be clear, I don't mind "easy" missions as long as they get harder on the way, which doesn't seem to be happening at all and I think I have made enough progress for that to happen.

I've gone to all the planets, have 10 million funds in the bank, and the rescue missions I'm getting are still in low circular equatorial Kerbin orbit. There's plenty of ways to make the rescue missions have more variety (changing inclination, eccentricity, altitude, orbiting body, etc). But right now they all seem to be almost exactly the same, which is a shame. There's so much more they could do with that kind of contract.

[PDCWolf]

I've gone to all the planets, have 10 million funds in the bank, and the rescue missions I'm getting are still in low circular equatorial Kerbin orbit. There's plenty of ways to make the rescue missions have more variety (changing inclination, eccentricity, altitude, orbiting body, etc). But right now they all seem to be almost exactly the same, which is a shame. There's so much more they could do with that kind of contract.

well, can't say I didn't try to have hope on this one. Gotta wait for a mod to fix this as usual.

[Jade Falcon]

Thanks for the tips guys I have now successfully rescued Lemzon Kerman. I doubt I did it the correct way or the efficient way but I saved him and yeah I still think rendezvous is hard, damn hard. Picture is awful I know since I was on the night side of Kerbin and I haven't unlocked lights yet.