0.24 Some feedback about contracts and funds

[Azunai]

First off, i'm not a kerbal veteran, i got ~96hours on playtime and i'm only playing vanilla without a single mod so please consider this while reading my personal experience.

After a long break on 0.22 i started to play the new career mode again, funds? awesome! contract? even more awesome!

But

It feels like funds don't matter at all, you get so much that you don't even have to care building efficient rockets or recovering parts

Contracts:

Improvements:

* They grant way to much science in average, i nearly got the full tech tree unlocked after 2 mun missions...

* All those contracts about testing parts while your rocket is "Landed, On Kerbal" are senseless at the moment. There is no condition to even launch the rocket, you can just put them on a plain vessel go to launch pad and activate it - Contract fulfilled.

* Every vessel you put on the launch pad without actually launching it will grant reputation on recover without losing funds

* Experimental parts you get by a contract are highlighted blue (good!) but those you already have unlocked are not, i'd like to see them highlighted too so you don't have to check all the parts name over and over again to make sure you picked the right one

Suggestions:

* Some contracts about deploying satellites or rovers in space would be a great variation

* Supply transports to existing space-stations including docking eg. "bring xxx fuel to space-station alpha / bring William Kerbal to space station beta"

* Collect space debris to clear Kerbals orbit?

* Build and test rovers on kerbal?

What do you guys think about 0.24?

Edits:

I forgot to mention it but what Trollsama talks about in this thread is so true

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87299-Suggestion-Better-Layout-for-funds-in-VAB-SPH

Edited July 21, 2014 by Azunai

[Sky_walker]

Improvements:

* They grant way to much science in average, i nearly got the full tech tree unlocked after 2 mun missions...

* All those contracts about testing parts while your rocket is "Landed, On Kerbal" are senseless at the moment. There is no condition to even launch the rocket, you can just put them on a plain vessel go to launch pad and activate it - Contract fulfilled.

* Every vessel you put on the launch pad without actually launching it will grant reputation on recover without losing funds

* Experimental parts you get by a contract are highlighted blue (good!) but those you already have unlocked are not, i'd like to see them highlighted too so you don't have to check all the parts name over and over again to make sure you picked the right one

* Totally agreed. It used to be bad before contracts, but now? It's a joke - not only tech tree requires little bit less science to research everything (why?!) but also contracts give you additional science that wasn't there before.

* Agreed. Though IMHO there are highest priorities than that (eg. the one above)

* Yep. Another obvious bug / problem.

* Yes, please!

Suggestions:

* Some contracts about deploying satellites or rovers in space would be a great variation

* Supply transports to existing space-stations including docking eg. "bring xxx fuel to space-station alpha / bring William Kerbal to space station beta"

* Collect space debris to clear Kerbals orbit?

* Build and test rovers on kerbal?

* Some people speculated it'll hit the release - sadly it didn't :/

* Would need to have a check if you're running out of fuel / got an empty station with crew capacity. But: yes, please.

* Perhaps as a high-end contract. Something to use Klaw with

* Yea.... that would require some objective... eg. move from KSC to the shore, or something alike.

[KerbMav]

Instead of starting a new thread I will take a seat in yours. Most of these you already mentioned anyway.

- There is already a mod adding new contracts, the creator of the mod managed to exclude/reroll/reuse certain random conditions, so: Whenever a test contract generation produces landed for Kerbin it should be rerolled/omitted.

- To lessen the strain on immersion regarding Kerbals to be rescued from orbit that the player never shot up there, maybe these contracts should only start to appear when the player has labeled/renamed a craft as being a space station and only around bodies that are orbited by one. They should also be much less frequently.

- Reputation for safely returning a kerbonaut should follow the same logic/bonus-factor as science does when it comes to where a vessel has been returned from.

- Make asteroids crash/blow up upon impact, (enable DRE to burn them up), assign them a return/recover value for funds, science and reputation as incentive to bring them down to the surface in one piece.

Balancing science and funds as a whole will most likely take place at a later time, I guess. At the moment it would probably create problems to progress in the game if higher contracts started to come in to early, without the player having access to the needed tech level.

[Azunai]

* Would need to have a check if you're running out of fuel / got an empty station with crew capacity. But: yes, please.

Well just like the Kerbal rescue missions the game could just put a prebuilt empty station into orbit

[KerbMav]

Well just like the Kerbal rescue missions the game could just put a prebuilt empty station into orbit

A Jool of no.

[Azunai]

Why not? it could just vanish when the contract is done or get a consecutive one like "go fly to the mun with it" etc

[klgraham1013]

Why not? it could just vanish when the contract is done or get a consecutive one like "go fly to the mun with it" etc

I don't really want things appearing and disappearing in my game. I run the space program. I put things in space.

[Sky_walker]

Well just like the Kerbal rescue missions the game could just put a prebuilt empty station into orbit

No free stations, please

BTW: It'd be good if "rescue kerbal" missions would actually check if player ever accomplished docking on the orbit. Cause if I'm not mistaken - I had this mission available even before I managed to send any ship on a stable orbit (all I did were sounding rockets reaching ~80km).

[Stargate525]

No free stations, please

BTW: It'd be good if "rescue kerbal" missions would actually check if player ever accomplished docking on the orbit. Cause if I'm not mistaken - I had this mission available even before I managed to send any ship on a stable orbit (all I did were sounding rockets reaching ~80km).

I have kinda of wondered WHO is sending those Kerbals up there, and if they are, WHY can't they get their astronauts back themselves?

[Sky_walker]

Koscosmos is. And now we at KASA must save them....

[Kerbart]

I have kinda of wondered WHO is sending those Kerbals up there, and if they are, WHY can't they get their astronauts back themselves?

The contract text suggests that it's the result of an eksplosive kind of mishap. Ironically of course in a game about orbital mechanics where most players know that an explosion would always result in a suborbital trajectory (unless you have some kind of circularization burn).

[Kerbart]

I agree that there's hardly any need to "do science" in career mode as contracts deliver it in bundles. Solutions?

• Less science yields through contracts
  
• Science missions that have more variety in biomes and what needs to be scienced. We now have "run test" as an option on parts; why not have a "run science" option on science parts that tie in with contracts? "Measure temperature while landed at the desert" or "Measure air pressure while flying between 1000m and 5000m over Kerbin Highlands" something along those lines.
  
• Science unlocks the boxes in the tree. The parts have to be unlocked with separate missions/contracts.
  

[darpavader]

I agree that there's hardly any need to "do science" in career mode as contracts deliver it in bundles. Solutions?

• Less science yields through contracts
  
• Science missions that have more variety in biomes and what needs to be scienced. We now have "run test" as an option on parts; why not have a "run science" option on science parts that tie in with contracts? "Measure temperature while landed at the desert" or "Measure air pressure while flying between 1000m and 5000m over Kerbin Highlands" something along those lines.
  
• Science unlocks the boxes in the tree. The parts have to be unlocked with separate missions/contracts.
  

Sounds like you're suggesting a fix.

[tjwhale]

I know that's a rather negative title and I think Kerbal is really good and I'm really enjoying it.

However I think the new contracts system follows the wrong paradigm, for example.

"Test Rockomax BACC Solid Fuel Booster on a sub-orbital trajectory over kerbin"

Altitude 78k to 83k.

This is exactly what I don't want to be doing when playing the game, this is classic hoop-jumping assessment philosophy, you end up designing all of your missions just to do these silly contracts losing sight of any bigger picture.

When Kennedy said "We choose to go to the moon" in 1962 he didn't say "but only if you use a stack decoupler between an altitude of 10 and 30km". Why?

Because he trusted his engineers to figure out all the details and do the mission themselves.

This is what IMO contracts should be all about, they should be about being given an abstract and high level task to do however you want. Want to use 10 or no decouplers? Fine. Solid or liquid boosters? No one cares. Just get it done, on budget, on time.

Moreover if there were a hard mode where money was tight then you would have to be very careful, and maybe turn down contracts because you calculate they can't be done for a profit.

Right now it feels like WOW, just grind for coins.

Here are some examples of the type of mission I am talking about.

1) Get above x altitude (which is already in the game which is cool)

2) Orbit Kerbin

3) Place this object in a specific orbit, say circular, 100km, 23 degrees inclination (there should be loads of these which you would want to build a standard platform to do)

[also on that note how about a design fee? Every time you design a new ship you pay a fee proportional to the number of components used so you want to do some calculations and then build a standard platform and use it for a long time and then, if it proves not powerful enough or you think you have a good cheaper alternative, then you redesign a new ship]

4) land a kerbal on (wherever) and return them safely

5) send a probe to (wherever)

6) Capture an asteroid.

Also the amount of money you are paid for a particular mission could go down over time, so at the beginning you can make a monster to lift a few kilos but in the end you have to calculate very carefully exactly how much dv you will need.

It would be great to use a couple of lifts from a cheap, standard platform and assemble in orbit and find that was cheaper than designing a monster from scratch.

I want to feel like a senior engineer planning a mission when I play this game, not like a junior engineer who does legwork all day, if I want to do that I'll just get a job.

I feel a worrying amount of time has gone into this system and it's not very good game design. In fact (and this is a larger issue) I think Kerbal is an amazing simulator and not a great game. Why are the astronauts measured in stupidity? What does that mean? That's a joke in the place of a meaningful gameplay mechanic.

That's rather my complaint about a lot of the "gamey" aspects, there's too many jokes and not enough of an attempt to make a challenging and engaging experience.

I'd be very interested to know what others think, thank you.

[Caelib]

I pretty much agree with all of this, but I still think the game is a lot of fun and the changes are great. I think the abundance of Funds is partially due to play-style. For a player that DOES use the "Revert" options, funds will be in excess. Remove the "Revert" options and I think your idea of "excess funds" may change:

Exposed Gameplay difficulty options to the Alt+F12 Debug Toolbar.

That is from the .24 patch notes.

[Cerberus738]

Just gonna throw my 2 cents in here!! I love the new contract system! yes it needs refinement but for a first pass?! it's fantastic! i've used parts i've never touched before because i had to run a test with them. trying to plan a launch to complete as many contracts as possible in one go - keep the speed and altitude in check as you launch a probe to the mun with a rescue ship for some poor kerbal that skimming his toes through the atmosphere. Pop off a parachute on your way up. Test a landing gear on your way back down. There's tonnes to do... let alone all my own missions i have planned. I can see if you're just playing to farm money it might not be fun.... so stop farming money!

[Azunai]

just to clarify, so far i did not "revert" a failed launch cause my rocket had not enough fuel or exloded during start

and still so much funds, eg the mission to test an atomic engine in mun orbit, the whole ship costs like ~40k? and you get rewarded with 500k!

[Kerb Johnson]

Instead of the "gather any science and transmit or recover from orbit" that we're all keeping a thermostat satellite for, add a mission specific science experiment that generates science specific to the contract. You could even expand on this so that you have:

1 - A single "do experiment" contract item. Take this to the destination, use it and transmit or return.

2 - A "put on station" item that requires a satellite or space station mount and to be left in orbit for x amount of time.

Just my quick feedback.

[Franklin]

not that i have an opinion one way or another, but i love that when science was released everyone complained it was too much of a grind to visit every planet and biome for a spoonful of science. so now that science is easier to come by with contracts everyone complains that it's too easy and the tree's getting completed too fast. squad's probably wondering what the hell we even want.

[Franklin]

but yeah, science before was too grindy, while now i've seen a few 1-star, dead simple contracts that reward upwards of 50 science, which is a sweet grab. some balancing is in order i'm sure.

[JimmyAgent007]

Kerbals in orbit should be from ships/stations you left up there yourself. You move on to other missions. But maybe they went out for a space walk and cant get back. So you go rescue them and either bring them down or put them back on the ship/station they are supposed to be on.

[Killerdude8]

The test while landed at Kerbin missions are realistic, It's the fire a rocket motor at the space center to test it's ISP and thrust numbers(and what have you).

Does it make much sense to send a completely untested part to a far off world? No, Not at all. So test fire it at home and make sure it'll work.

[Azunai]

The test while landed at Kerbin missions are realistic, It's the fire a rocket motor at the space center to test it's ISP and thrust numbers(and what have you).

Does it make much sense to send a completely untested part to a far off world? No, Not at all. So test fire it at home and make sure it'll work.

in the text it says that those parts are already tested by the company and just need some "in usage" feedback.

also even if you feel its realistic, gameplaywise its just boring

[Gunso]

I like the new contract update

it gives me objective on what to do.

before science upgrade with just the sandbox, i dont even play this game that much before. Having all parts thrown at my face while i'm still a noob kinda puts me off. I start spending a lot of time on it when science came in and start doing stuffs to get science.

I'm sure squad can just add difficulty level in future update to reduce the income to those that say its too easy.

To squad, i would really appreciate it if you can add some more details to the contract like pic of the part to be tested and the spec like in the vehicle assembly part detail. At least i have a rough idea on what kind of engine i'm going to test and can choose multiple contract that fit with each other on just 1 launch.

And since the parts have its own categories, maybe in future update you guys can add modded parts automatically to the game too.

anyway thanks for the awesome update, i'm building weirder rockets nowadays to do multiple contracts at the same time to save money lol

[Xavven]

I think Squad did a great job for their first pass. It's really more about getting the code in place towards scope completion, not really doing fully blown content design. I do find myself designing much more varied craft to tackle these specific missions, though, and that's a lot of fun!

As far as criticism, for me it's mostly around realism and plausibility.

• Kerbalnaut rescue seems to have no context. How did s/he get up there?
  
• Proposed solution: Rescue missions should include a plausible but under-engineered craft that has crashed on a surface or ran out of fuel in orbit.
  
• Part testing made sense around Kerbin and I was really having a blast with it, but as soon as I started seeing, "test this stack separator in Eve orbit between 90,400m and 95,000m altitude" it just seemed far too contrived. What tjwhale said about the grindiness really resonates with me.
  
• Proposed solution: Sorry devs, but IMHO these need to be axe'd outside of Kerbin and maybe Mun.
  
• As Kerb Johnson said, the loophole of leaving a satellite and a probe around each body to instantly complete an infinite number of "transmit science" contracts needs to be fixed.
  
• Proposed solution: As Kerb Johnson proposed, we should have single-use, contract-specific science parts for recovery/transmit/leave-in-space-for-x-years.
  
• Repeat flag planting missions are easily exploited by leaving a Kerbal stranded on the surface to spend eternity planting new flags in exactly the same spot.
  
• Proposed solution: flag planting missions should be offered once per biome, possibly resetting every 10 Kerbal years each to keep the end-game going. This will be even better once there are biomes on all planets and moons.
  
• Other proposed contracts
  
• Satellite repair missions. Spawn a game-generated satellite that forgot to open its solar panels, or needs a monopropellant refuel, or needs its reaction wheel repaired, or needs its goo or science jr. to be reset with a mobile science lab, or needs to be boosted to a higher orbit because of orbital decay. Despawn the satellite when the player timewarps after mission success.
  
• As others have suggested, debris de-orbiting missions. These are surprisingly fun, actually. Latch on to it with a claw and make sure you have enough delta-v to crash it into the surface. The resulting explosion is pure bliss
  
• Contacts to launch something into the Sun or Jool (unmanned, of course.)
  
• As others have suggested, capture an asteroid into LKO. Seriously, this one should have been obvious.
  
• While we're on the subject, how about diverting a doomsday Class E asteroid on a collision course?
  
• Launch a satellite to Jool by X date to witness a comet impact event.
  
• Rendezvous with comets?