why are some contract rewards so unbalanced?

[lammatt]

like the aerospike landed on any body,

this yields a crazy amount of money for its difficulty.

an aerospike is of the mass of a feather, getting it anywhere is easy regardless.

(some may argue there's no attachment node on its bottom. but hey, you just put it on the uppermost stage upside down and it's good to go. and if you dont like to work with a reversed navball, you just attach an upright command pod right beneath and control from there)

but some other testing mission which i consider harder (at least some thought has to be put into) are paying way less

like every one of the part testing in kerbin atmosphere: you have to match the testing speed requirement (of cos testing with a plane makes this a lot easier than with a rocket tho', sticking a 4x SSE cluster on a plane without look funny isnt the easiest thing nevertheless)

and the testing of the 3.75m parts; mass and size matters

i am feeling they have to tweak the rewards calculation.

make it less dependent on how far the part is down the techtree, and make it dependent on the part mass. really, the mass and size are the only limiting factor anyways to decide how much fuel (aka launch cost) is needed anyways.

Edited August 1, 2014 by lammatt

[Vanamonde]

Because it's the first draft of the contracts system. They will keep adjusting it, just like they've been doing with science.

[Legal2k]

I like the one i have: Test TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancer on the MUN. Hell yeah!

[impyre]

aerospike is most definitely not the weight of a feather. It is much heavier than some of its simpler counterparts. The lv-909 is almost always preferable on 1.25m landers when atmosphere isn't involved (assuming it has enough thrust). Of course, it all depends on mission parameters.

[MarvinKitFox]

Unbalanced:

Test a kerbodyne big engine in orbit.

reward 945000. 9 hunnerd forry five THOUSAND!!!

The engine costs about 25000 to buy, and i got a 98% refund after landing.

[Sirrobert]

What does Aerospike have to do with navballs? Navball is effected by your command parts, not by engines

[Kerbart]

What does Aerospike have to do with navballs? Navball is effected by your command parts, not by engines

In reference to this part:

you just put it on the uppermost stage upside down and it's good to go.

If you want to operate your craft while using the upside-down Aerospike the velocity vectors will "act weird" as positive thrust will result in deceleration, etc.

[Technical Ben]

I'm assuming they don't stage that engine until the test, and even then only for a second or two... unless they plan to dig in on the mun?

[Sirrobert]

In reference to this part:

If you want to operate your craft while using the upside-down Aerospike the velocity vectors will "act weird" as positive thrust will result in deceleration, etc.

That's how people do it?

When I had to test the single Kerbyne engine in orbit, I just put it upside down on a probe and lifted it up. No need to actually use it

[Claw]

The developers also wanted to ensure that people had plenty of access to money the first time around. It's better to error on the side of people having too much money than not enough. So the high end of some of the randomly generated payouts can get a bit high.

~Claw

[Alistone]

For some of those odd atmospheric testing ones, especially the solid rocket boosters, I do them with used/empty engines. What matters is where you press the space bar to "stage it". But you can use it before then by manually activating it or by using an action group. Then it isn't just empty mass your dragging into the atmosphere. Similarly I put "cut parachute" on an action group and tested some parachutes during ascent to meet their speed/altitude criteria. This was mirrored well by activating empty/used SRBs during freefall to achieve fast enough low altitude speeds for those contracts.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89050-Activating-empty-used-SRBs-via-staging-successfuly-completes-contracts

Edited August 1, 2014 by Alistone