First Contract Contracts

[BlackAdder128]

I've been having some fun with First Contract, and Kerbal so far has been a fantastic program, but I have to admit hoping that the contracts themselves would take another direction.

Specifically, I had hoped to have contracts dominated by commerical contracts such as I remember from long-ago project space station: please place this satellite module into high or low orbit. I had envisioned space tourism and other commercial concerns playing a strong role in contracts in addition to the base government-initiated budget for achieving orbit and so forth.

Basically, I had imagined that as one's reputation rose, a variety of parts such as communications satellites, scientific experiements, space telescopes, or non-crew passengers, etc. would need to be taken farther for greater rewards.

The "please test my part" missions, in contrast, are a clever idea that sensibly tend towards low rewards and fit a commercial theme. However, I have two problems with them. First, the reward for those missions must be low to be plausible, and so making them profitable must sometimes involve making bizarre frankenstein rocket designs to accomodate a set of them. Second, they really ought not to be so repeatable: how many separatron tests would they really be willing to pay for? Third, since the only visible high-revenue sources are for exploration missions, it feeds back into the theme that all aerospace funding is government-sourced exploration. It's not that this is implausible, but my personal dream is that ambitious aerospace will become a self-perpetuating commercial venture.

So, to sum up, this is my shout out. Are there plans to make commercial funding lines based primarily on bringing satellites and such to the reaches of space and leaving them there (perhaps servicing them once in a while)? If not, is there demand for that kind of contract in the form of a mod?

(PS. Please let me know if it's already in there and I just haven't played enough!!!)

[Mister Spock]

The devs have said that they intend to expand the types of contracts, but they haven't given us much more detail than that. Maybe someone knows more than me.

I agree with most of your thoughts on this. One thought about testing contracts: from the perspective of a relative newb like me, the test contracts are great. They often give me a look at a part I'm not familiar with, or one I'd never try. Examples include some of the tiny engines, engine clusters, and a pricy liquid-fool booster. Actually, from a newb perspective, most of the contracts are useful. The rescue-Kerbil contract helped teach me how to do an orbital rendez-vous, for example.

But yeah, I think we'd all like to see a larger variety of contracts, like contracts to use a space plane to get a big payload somewhere, or to fly a tycoon to Duna, or to build a space station somewhere, or a colony, or whatever.

[TimePeriod]

Mission XXX

Locate Kraken.

*375.000 years later*

[BlackAdder128]

The devs have said that they intend to expand the types of contracts, but they haven't given us much more detail than that. Maybe someone knows more than me.

I agree with most of your thoughts on this. One thought about testing contracts: from the perspective of a relative newb like me, the test contracts are great. They often give me a look at a part I'm not familiar with, or one I'd never try. Examples include some of the tiny engines, engine clusters, and a pricy liquid-fool booster. Actually, from a newb perspective, most of the contracts are useful. The rescue-Kerbil contract helped teach me how to do an orbital rendez-vous, for example.

But yeah, I think we'd all like to see a larger variety of contracts, like contracts to use a space plane to get a big payload somewhere, or to fly a tycoon to Duna, or to build a space station somewhere, or a colony, or whatever.

I suppose I didn't think about the value of test parts making you try new things, since finding uses for what my science mission just unlocked was generally sufficient motivaiton for me. But for me, many of the part contracts were simply irritating from a completionist perspective, because having a contract to fire a solid rocket booster at 14km available compelled me to accept it. Then I had to arrange two stages below the booster in order to meet the height and speed requirement for the stage. After that I fired off a useless separator to meet another contract, followed by a parachute which now met its height and flying requirements, which then needed to be cut, and so forth. I realized I was building Rube Goldberg machines to get petty cash that barely paid for the rocket, and it sort of irked me.

On the other hand, the thought of building space infrastructure like a satellite network somehow or repairing telescopes seems grander to me for some reason.

[Pecan]

Mods that add equipment such as SCANSat (mapping satellites), and CactEye (new, space telescopes) and others tend to incorporate their own contracts for exactly this sort of thing. Meanwhile, the devs have only told us that this is just the first round of contracts and the whole career mode is still being expanded.

[BlackAdder128]

Mods that add equipment such as SCANSat (mapping satellites), and CactEye (new, space telescopes) and others tend to incorporate their own contracts for exactly this sort of thing. Meanwhile, the devs have only told us that this is just the first round of contracts and the whole career mode is still being expanded.

It's a fair point that contracts are still being expanded, but that can mean many things. Discussing now in which direction they should be expanded feels like a positive thing. Thakns for pointing out some mod examples: I'm still behind the curve on mods.

[Apollyon]

Specifically, I had hoped to have contracts dominated by commerical contracts such as I remember from long-ago project space station: please place this satellite module into high or low orbit. I had envisioned space tourism and other commercial concerns playing a strong role in contracts in addition to the base government-initiated budget for achieving orbit and so forth.

Basically, I had imagined that as one's reputation rose, a variety of parts such as communications satellites, scientific experiements, space telescopes, or non-crew passengers, etc. would need to be taken farther for greater rewards.

The "please test my part" missions, in contrast, are a clever idea that sensibly tend towards low rewards and fit a commercial theme. However, I have two problems with them. First, the reward for those missions must be low to be plausible, and so making them profitable must sometimes involve making bizarre frankenstein rocket designs to accomodate a set of them. Second, they really ought not to be so repeatable: how many separatron tests would they really be willing to pay for? Third, since the only visible high-revenue sources are for exploration missions, it feeds back into the theme that all aerospace funding is government-sourced exploration. It's not that this is implausible, but my personal dream is that ambitious aerospace will become a self-perpetuating commercial venture.

So, to sum up, this is my shout out. Are there plans to make commercial funding lines based primarily on bringing satellites and such to the reaches of space and leaving them there (perhaps servicing them once in a while)? If not, is there demand for that kind of contract in the form of a mod?

(PS. Please let me know if it's already in there and I just haven't played enough!!!)

So much this!!!

I think Squad should play Project: Space Station (Rowes or Maxmaps, if your reading this please consider checking out that game) It was so much fun and what got me into space travel and KSP reminded me of it. It had the space tycoon end of the game DOWN and I was hoping KSP would be more like it, but it hasn't quite met up to that level (yet).

Btw: Project: Space Station requires an emulator because it ran on the old Commodore 64s/128s.

[Holyvision]

Try the mission controller extended mod here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43645-Mission-Controller-2-Preview-Version-2-%28KSP-24-2%29%28More-Contracts-and-Parts%29

It adds exactly the contracts the OP is talking/wishing about -- and some cool parts to go with it. Over time a lot of this will likely be added into the stock game -- but for now -- malkuth is doing an amazing job with this mod for us!

[BlackAdder128]

Try the mission controller extended mod here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43645-Mission-Controller-2-Preview-Version-2-%28KSP-24-2%29%28More-Contracts-and-Parts%29

It adds exactly the contracts the OP is talking/wishing about -- and some cool parts to go with it. Over time a lot of this will likely be added into the stock game -- but for now -- malkuth is doing an amazing job with this mod for us!

Thanks for the pointer. I've tried out the mission controller mod, though not that version. My big turn-off was that it didn't fit well with my "revert to VAB" trial-and-error style: with every revert I simply lost the cost of rocket. With Kerbal Engineer or mechjeb, it seems possible to do precision engineering and get things right hte first time, but I haven't gotten into the habit of relying on those tools yet. In addition, I must have gotten a flaky install (I did use a plugin manager that seemed to work for other plugins), because I had some other GUI and related issues with the mod.

[nadreck]

I would love space station, moon base, and asteroid relocating contracts!

[Lysergic]

Been playing with Fine Print. Currently on a contract to build a 5 Kerbal station around Minimus. The mod has it's quirks, but it allows me to just ignore part testing contracts and do the fun ones that it adds .

[Javster]

Mission XXX

Locate Kraken.

*375.000 years later*

Danny edition:

Locate Kraken

5 seconds

DONE!

- - - Updated - - -

Been playing with Fine Print. Currently on a contract to build a 5 Kerbal station around Minimus. The mod has it's quirks, but it allows me to just ignore part testing contracts and do the fun ones that it adds .

I actually removed that one, it got a bit invasive