To those who think part test contracts should be removed... Please read.

[cantab]

No testing of jet engines landed on the Mun.

Just think of it as the Kerbals asking, "Are we sure the Mun doesn't have any air?"

And I'll restate what I said before .24 came out: I'd like to see test parts with uncertain parameters, like an engine where you don't know the thrust for certain. That could make things really fun - are you going to rely on it for your test ship and risk a mishap, or just carry it as payload and thus use a heavier and more costly craft? And maybe a "super test" would force the former by requiring the test engine be the only engine on the ship.

[G'th]

I found the test contracts to be less frustrating when I looked at them more as puzzles to do when your bored rather than as a necessary part of your space program. With certain mods (IE, DMagic, Station Science, and Fine Print), it becomes even easier to treat test contracts like that.

[Nathair]

Who cares if testing parts at "x speed at x height" is realistic, this is KSP, a GAME which is supposed to be FUN.

Speaking for myself, I find more "realism" means more fun. That sentiment is behind the immensely popularity of mods like Deadly Reentry, FAR, Remotetech, RSS etc.

I'm not saying that they should get rid of part test contracts, but simply make them more open and fun, because right now part test contracts feel like a grind.

I'm clearly missing something here. If you don't want to do a test then don't do it. Just ignore it or hit decline, there's absolutely no penalty. Career mode is optional, each individual test contract is optional, if you don't want to "grind" then can't you just opt out or ignore the whole thing?

[Javster]

It might be realistic, but if isn't fun, it shouldn't be part of the game. Not that I have a strong opinion on it.

[Whirligig Girl]

This is really what's going on; you're being presented with a puzzle to solve. The neat thing about contracts is that you can combine these puzzles and try to complete several at a time. I also agree that part filtering is needed to avoid situations where you might be asked to test launch clamps on the Mun. Although the devs seem to be of a mind that these should be expected, I feel it's kind of lazy game design.

Your brilliant response to ansaman's annoying blue text makes me want to give you rep, but I need to spread the rep around first. You WILL be getting rep for this, I promise.

[Whirligig Girl]

But why not? Different environment, different stresses, different effects. Just because it's not testing the part's practical applications doesn't mean it's not testing something. That said, I agree with Wanderfound. I'd like more diverse contracts, I'd love to see ground exploration contracts you can do with rovers, or little hoppy things. Personally, I prefer adding contracts while doing stuff I was thinking of doing anyway, and then doing the odd crazy flight to make some extra funds.

... but I can give you rep for your response.

[Whirligig Girl]

Fairly Odd Parents, Timmy turner.

YES HE GOT IT! That is correct!

[Renegrade]

One thing I wanted to add here is this: The testing of jet engines in a vacuum is obviously ridiculous... However, if it were changed to be a test of the engine in an oxygenated atmosphere *after* being in space, that would make more sense, as that's fairly typical for a space plane...

KSP is kinda abstracted from normal aerospace stuff. I definitely think the .. retentive nature of the existing contracts should be shuffled off to a realism-oriented mod, and the tests abstracted to the science situation/biome classifications. (ie, "flying high/kerbin's upper atmosphere", not 22,000m to 22,002m)

Y'know, for consistency...and fun.

*cough* and science rewards removed from part tests entirely. Unless the science tree cost was increased tremendously..

(E.g. no operating nuclear engine or solar sails within the atmosphere, they could mailfunctioning).

NTRs work fine in the atmosphere, by the way. The initial tests of NASA's NERVA occurred at ground level, some of which were even in open air. NTR emissions are cleaner than say, a car's, and less radioactive than say, a coal plant's. The exhaust is just hot hydrogen. (very hot; do not touch)

[Monger]

I know it is not really comparable to hardware tests, but still: I am testing software at work for almost a decade now, and the craziest tests often revealed the most interesting information. Maybe this is something which many KSP players consider to be too unrealistic, and therefore are not willing to accept this kind of mission design. I think it is perfectly reasonable to test jet engines in space, or docking clamps while floating, or parachutes at very high velocity and a very thin atmosphere. Testing under extreme conditions tells you more about the behaviour of a system than testing it under normal circumstances.

Besides this, I think it is fun. It makes me rethink my designs. I guess every KSP players with a little experience tends to repeat the same designs over and over again. Career mode forces you to break out of your routine. If you need your routine, don't accept contracts you don't like, or avoid career mode altogether.

[WafflesToo]

I have this sure-fire method for dealing with part-testing contracts that I don't really want to do...

I don't accept them.

[merendel]

parachute, below 2300m at more than 1200m/s. (not impossible, just.....messy)

Lol ya I've had one along those lines. you prety much need to go way up and crash dive into the atmo from interplanetary return speeds or higher while thrusting all the way down. Dont plan on recovering any of that ship, your either going to miss time it and plow earth or you'll get it right and the ship will rip apart when the chute deploys causeing you to plow earth.

[Wanderfound]

Lol ya I've had one along those lines. you prety much need to go way up and crash dive into the atmo from interplanetary return speeds or higher while thrusting all the way down. Dont plan on recovering any of that ship, your either going to miss time it and plow earth or you'll get it right and the ship will rip apart when the chute deploys causeing you to plow earth.

Atmospheric jet aircraft + an action group used to detach the parachute immediately after deployment.

The ones that give me trouble are the high and slow ones; it's hard to fly a plane to 30,000m at subsonic speeds.

[merendel]

Atmospheric jet aircraft + an action group used to detach the parachute immediately after deployment.

The ones that give me trouble are the high and slow ones; it's hard to fly a plane to 30,000m at subsonic speeds.

I've never had much luck geting a craft up to that speed that low an altitude short of shinanigans involving mainsails and infinite fuel cheat. Airbreathers its just not happening. For high and slow however I find a rocket on a strait up accent works best. Just burn strait up till your AP is a bit above the desired altitude and cut engiens. Give it a bit of gas as needed to maintain speed if you drop below the requirement before you get there due to drag. if you go strait up your going to come back down near KSC anyway for a high recovery rate.

[Wanderfound]

I've never had much luck geting a craft up to that speed that low an altitude short of shinanigans involving mainsails and infinite fuel cheat. Airbreathers its just not happening.

Climb and dive, levelling out at the appropriate altitude, with a fairly low-drag design. Pure air-breathers can crack 2,000m/s at altitude, and you can hang onto that speed for a fair time when you come back down.

But yeah, there are complications however you do it. All part of the fun.

[Mister Kerman]

When I order food in a restaurant, I only order what I want. This is a good rule of thumb for picking contracts in KSP.

If you accidentally pick an impossible contract it's all your fault. I've done it before too, you just have to think outside the box for those ones; which is good for the brain.

[khyron42]

I approached the whole situation as "this company/group has someone putting out part test contracts. The impossible ones are because the guy writing the contracts is incompetent, and typoed it." Oh, and "yes, the company's contract writer is Grade-A crazy stupid for asking for this, but they're also paying stupid high funds for the job, so launch it the second your signature dries, before they realize their mistake."

[boxman]

I dont think they should be removed.. I think they just need some serious tweaking which was to be expected with randomly generated contracts.

There is one thing we really need though and that is difficulty setting for the contracts. Right now it seems way too easy to earn money/funding.

I wish it was possible to actually screw up and go bankrupt.

[Mistake Not…]

I've been having great fun combining the part testing contracts with the larger-scale ones from the Fine Print mod. I've also scaled costs up by a factor of four - which has the nice effect where I need to combine (appropriate) testing contracts with others to help pay for everything, otherwise I can't afford much of anything. I'm sending a rover to the Mün? Let's see if I can get paid for lugging any prototype parts along with me...

It's a nice puzzle seeing which testing contracts will fit in with the other missions I have going on. Right now, I have a resupply craft heading to my (Fine Print suggested) Minmus orbital station - laden with new scientific instrumentation and ... a ridiculously huge Kerbodyne KR-2L Advanced Engine. I'm getting paid handsomely for the latter, which is pretty much the only reason the mission can go there at all...

[Brofessional]

There just needs to be a greater variety of contracts.

Testing parts isn't very interesting, but they make up at least half of the available contracts.

[Linear]

Oh no some guy who does it in real life is protecting the correct nature pof its implementation in the game. Wait...

HES GETTING PAID. Seriously, after even half a dozen of these things I want to delete my save and throw the hypothetical thing out the window. When such a high percentage of contracts are these boring, unnecessarily difficult and sometimes even impossible part tests, I just can't see why its interesting.

The only thing that would have saved this aspect of the update if there were a lot of new parts. I know people like roleplay, but seriously there is no actual enjoyment from thinking 'yeah I'm glad I did that test, this part is horrible/awesome'.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I like part testing contracts though.. Kinda wish I had more of them.. I don't care about realism or whether they make sense, I just think it's fun to do them.. plz don't get rid of them, Squad..

[biohazard15]

I don't know why someone want to remove test contracts. They're actually make you think about your design, especially with realism mods (FAR\NEAR\DRE). One orbital testing? Sure, it's easy. Now accept five of these contracts and complete them in one launch. And you may wish to add some mod contracts as well. For example. my last contract flight:

- Enter 83 km LKO, test CactEye solar panels

- Decouple small SRB-based probe (two science gathering contracts that need to be done from Sun orbit). Send it to the escape trajectory (note that aforementioned solar panels were on this probe)

- Transfer main vessel to the 90km Mun orbit, do a LV-1 test there

- Decouple SCANSat satellite (ion drive-based), leave it for the time being

- Decouple small lander probe (gather science from the surface of the Mun contract), leave it for the time being

- Maneuver main vessel to 90kmx20km orbit with 20 degrees inclination, start a long-duration (35 days) DMagic contract

- Switch to lander, land it, complete its contract

- Switch to SCANSat, maneuver it to 250x250 km polar orbit, start scanning

- Switch to solar probe, complete its contract

[TimePeriod]

Oh, so now the game becomes a challenge and you don't like that?

Too bad! If you don't like the challenge, don't do it and don't complain about it.

[Xavven]

I really feel the need to respond to all the posters saying, "nobody is forcing you to take part test contracts. Ignore them or go play sandbox!" That's not the point. Those of us who dislike the testing contracts probably actually *don't* accept them. I for one have enough funds from exploration contracts to not have to do any part tests at all. The point is that we want KSP to be all it can be -- a fun game with an interesting and challenging career mode. When people offer constructive criticism, they are potentially helping the game. The, "don't like it, don't play it!" attitude IMO is actually NOT constructive, neither to the game nor to the discussion.

It's like a restaurant patron telling the waiter, "this soup is a bit too salty" and the waiter saying, "well, that's how the soup comes and I like it that way. Don't like it? ORDER SOMETHING ELSE!"

Anyway... The OP has a good point about stringent test parameters. I think that argument holds water for any part in and around Kerbin. However, while some parts have a logical explanation outside of Kerbin and Kerbin orbit, others don't. For example, while I can understand a "test this gravioili meter on Eve" contract because someone wants to see if it measures Eve's gravity correctly under 4 atmospheres of pressure, I can't rationalize testing a stack separator in Gilly orbit. Isn't it just as valid to test the stack separator in Kerbin orbit? Microgravity is microgravity... What's so special about having to be in Gilly orbit to test this thing?

[Dispatcher]

I think that given the fact that this is Squad's first iteration of Contracts in the game, that it has done a good job of it. Some contracts seem very reasonable and straightforward, and should not change. Many are not as straightforward in their implementation, but are possible to do. Of course, some may seem impossible while others really are impossible. I think it would be fun to leave these rarities in the game as a humorous jest.

One concern that I do have with Contracts is that the mindset of most KSP players is to test parts in the context of a meaningful way. Thus testing jet engine(s) in space or on the Mun, for example, can seem counterintuitive. I had to rethink what was required of me to succeed in such a test, in order to progress.

There are what I consider to be bugs in the Contract system as well. For example, testing a landed part is the same as testing that same part upon launch. I think two kinds of tests are proper in this context. First, there should be part tests done at launch. The current "landed" part testing should not work at launch. This may be a Unity thing to address.

I also have recommendations for future iterations of Contracts. Adding biomes as contract filters (i.e. landing or taking off from thus and such a biome; and for the matter, during the day or at night or at dawn or dusk). These are just some ideas to go along with all of the others out there.