Remove part testing contracts?

[arkie87]

Yup.

Personally, I find the "rescue a Kerbal" contracts both unrealistic (where's his spaceship?) and dull (they're all in the same stable, circular, equatorial orbits). Kerbal rescue contracts present zero challenge to anyone who is comfortable with orbital rendezvous.

I've skipped all of the rescue missions after doing the first few; they don't provide any science, I have no need for more √, and there are plenty of Kerbonaut candidates waiting on the ground. For me, they're about as exciting as driving to work. But I don't want them pulled from the game; many people do like them, and they provide a useful easy introduction to orbital rendezvous.

Now if they tweaked them up a bit, then they might get interesting for me. What I'd like to see are "rescue the out-of-fuel spacecraft before it crashes into Kerbin", with the targets coming in from all sorts of directions and speeds. Think about the challenge of snagging an out of control spacecraft coming in at crazy high velocity while returning from Duna or somesuch. Some could be Kerbals on EVA, some could be spacecraft with docking ports, some could be spacecraft without docking ports (extra fun if you don't have the Klaw yet), some could be atmosphere-grazing satellites in decaying orbits, etc.

The contract system will work best if they include the widest possible variety of contracts, with a wide range of difficulty levels. Something for everybody, and everyone gets to focus on whichever bit of gameplay is most fun to them. That's the Kerbal way.

I agree very much. Rescuing is boring after you do it once or twice. If they were in inclined orbits, around other planets or the Mun, or even on the surface of another planet or the Mun, that would be cool. I rarely have a reason to do a targeted landing, but rescuing a kerbal on an alien world would give me one. Its a great idea to rescue kerbals on sub-orbital trajectories as well, but i suspect many kerbals will die in the process :-)