Increase $ value of contracts

[DavidHunter]

Having played through the First Contract mode of 0.24.2, I am finding that by doing various part testing contracts and e.g. rescue someone on EVA, etc... I have barely left Kerbin orbit and have almost researched the whole tech tree, but I now can't afford to build anything particularly big, e.g. a rocket with enough lift to get me to e.g. Duna.

That is to say my space program is going broke.

The financial reward for testing x part at y location is far less than what it costs to build and launch a spacecraft capable of meeting the part test requirements...

...can the $ value of contracts please be increased?

TIA

[Wanderfound]

Quick and easy ways to accumulate vast amounts of √:

* Stick a satellite in orbit with a probe core, a battery, a couple of solar panels, a thermometer and a radio. Whenever a "transmit science from orbit" contract comes up, switch to the satellite and send in a temperature scan.

* Stick a satellite in orbit that consists of a dozen or so cheap "escape pods": probe core, one man capsule, battery, parachute, RCS fuel and thrusters. Whenever a "rescue a Kerbal" contract comes up, detach a pod and send it to get him. You only need a tiny amount of ÃŽâ€V to rendezvous and deorbit.

* Leave a Kerbal sitting in a permanent base on the Mun. Whenever a "plant flag" contract comes up, get him to walk outside and add to his forest of flags.

[Tex_NL]

* Mk 1 Lander Can with a few legs suspended by a launchclamp. Whenever you get a "test part landed on Kerbin" mission stick the required part on top. Drop the lander on the launchpad (landed) and test the part. Recover the whole load for 100% refund.

[Alt] + [F12] for debug menu.

Hold [Alt] for about 5 seconds.

Add/remove as much science, reputation and funds as desired.

Edited August 10, 2014 by Tex_NL

[Sirrobert]

You must be doing something very ineffcient than, because I have 4 million funds, and my upcoming mission to Duna is probably going to cost something like half a million.

A single Kerbodyne part in orbit already pays 800k

[Wanderfound]

* Mk 1 Lander Can with a few legs suspended by a launchclamp. Whenever you get a "test part landed on Kerbin" mission stick the required part on top. Drop the lander on the launchpad (landed) and test the part. Recover the whole load for 100% refund.

You don't even need to go that fancy. My standard "test while landed" rig is nothing but a couple of girders and a Stayputnik.

[DavidHunter]

All wonderful ideas. Thanks folks.

I have just been waiting for a bunch of contracts to turn up and do a heap of them in one big mission, e.g. I'll build and launch a spacecraft capable of doing all of the following in one mission (and perhaps that is the cause of my ridiculously-high mission costs!):

-Test X part during initial ascent

-Do X science in LKO

-Test X part in LKO

-Do X science in Minmus orbit.

-Test X part in Minmus orbt.

-Plant flag on Minmus, do science on Minmus, test a part on Minmus. etc

You get the idea.

I have, though, developed a standard EVA rescue vehicle. But yeah, certainly launching one spacecraft with multiple detachable re-entry capsules would be far better than what I'm currently doing.

But yeah, thanks again.

[Algiark]

Spend some time in the sandbox first, and get the hang of Kerbin SOI using only 2,5m parts.

That, or use Kerbal Engineer or Mechjeb to make your rocket designs more efficient.

[DavidHunter]

Early in the game, before I got beyond the first docking ports in the tech tree, I built a spacecraft designed to land on both Ike and Duna (and do "

"...). It's got something like 12km/s dV and is currently in ELKO awaiting the right phase angle. That certainly cost a lot to build at the time... D:

[Wanderfound]

Spend some time in the sandbox first, and get the hang of Kerbin SOI using only 2,5m parts.

That, or use Kerbal Engineer or Mechjeb to make your rocket designs more efficient.

...and try to get the hang of SSTOs and accurate landing. It doesn't matter how much your ship costs if it's single stage and lands on the launchpad.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Also, who said you need to use rockets while testing parts in flight at Kerbin? Clue's in the name - flight. Flying.

I'm saying use a plane - more often that not, they're cheaper than the equivalent rocket, can reach the test parameters easier than a rocket (trying to get a certain height and speed while travelling vertically is a lot harder than travelling horizontally), doesn't stage and lose items (and money) to debris unloading, and can be landed on the runway for 100% refund. Using a rocket to do that would mean either an ungodly amount of chutes or jettisoning the majority of your funds away and letting them crash or be deleted.

I have FAR and a nice plane (B9 and SP+) with a cargo bay. It's so easy to take a part up to the required height, stay horizontal while I adjust the speed and then I can stay like that for however long I like while I test the part. Can it fit in the cargo bay? If yes, great news! If not, I just attach it to a decoupler on the bottom of the craft or something and, thanks to FAR, it still flies like a dream. Is the part a parachute? Again, attach it to a decoupler, stage the chute then decouple it. It's possible in stock too, but a bit more CoM/CoL balancing would be needed. But having a reliable testbed aircraft that you can just put whatever you want on and know it can perform for you makes part testing a whole lot more fun

Quick and easy ways to accumulate vast amounts of √:

* Stick a satellite in orbit with a probe core, a battery, a couple of solar panels, a thermometer and a radio. Whenever a "transmit science from orbit" contract comes up, switch to the satellite and send in a temperature scan.

* Stick a satellite in orbit that consists of a dozen or so cheap "escape pods": probe core, one man capsule, battery, parachute, RCS fuel and thrusters. Whenever a "rescue a Kerbal" contract comes up, detach a pod and send it to get him. You only need a tiny amount of ÃŽâ€V to rendezvous and deorbit.

* Leave a Kerbal sitting in a permanent base on the Mun. Whenever a "plant flag" contract comes up, get him to walk outside and add to his forest of flags.

All very good ideas. While they might be gaming the system a bit, they're excellent for keeping funds high. My orbital Rescue Station

cost about 100,000 to launch and each pod has enough dV to rdv, and deorbit so I land intact on the runway for again, 100% refund. Much cheaper in the long run than sending up a 30,000 rocket that just recovers the command pod and chute every time a contract comes up. You'd need to do 3 or 4 rescue missions before it becomes profitable, but as it has 8 pods, that's no problem.

Also, Jeb was my first guy to explore the Mun. Once I realised I didn't have enough fuel to return back, he became my Offical Munar Flag Planter. Does an agency want to see their flag on the surface of the Mun? For a mere 20,000 or so, Jeb will hop out of the pod and go plant a flag for you

[Tex_NL]

In my experience the most cost effective way to do rescue missions is an SSTO spaceplane. Netto cost after 100% recovery on the runway is √1000 at max.

[Wanderfound]

In my experience the most cost effective way to do rescue missions is an SSTO spaceplane. Netto cost after 100% recovery on the runway is √1000 at max.

Yeah, that's how I do it. All my spaceplanes have a probe core stashed on 'em somewhere so they can be flown as unmanned drones.

My issue is more "how do I get rid of all this cash?". So, whenever it gets too excessive, I start prototyping spaceplanes. You can burn through the funds pretty quick when you destroy a dozen √200,000 planes while sorting out problems (another reason for the probe cores...).

[Laie]

The financial reward for testing x part at y location is far less than what it costs to build and launch a spacecraft capable of meeting the part test requirements...

Granted: some tests are outright impossible, others are expensive to do (like, heavy part on the surface of the Mun). So decline these. As for the others, wait until you can group them. No need to send up a rocket and test exactly one single part.

Rescuing Kerbals is bread-and butter. Science from orbit is the magic purse.

That said, "Plant a Flag" should probably pay better. 180k for Eve is a one-way ticket at best. Or are we supposed to not even pretend we're serious?

[Wanderfound]

Granted: some tests are outright impossible, others are expensive to do (like, heavy part on the surface of the Mun). So decline these.

The low-paying test contracts often come with very tasty science rewards.

[Sirrobert]

Granted: some tests are outright impossible, others are expensive to do (like, heavy part on the surface of the Mun). So decline these. As for the others, wait until you can group them. No need to send up a rocket and test exactly one single part.

Rescuing Kerbals is bread-and butter. Science from orbit is the magic purse.

That said, "Plant a Flag" should probably pay better. 180k for Eve is a one-way ticket at best. Or are we supposed to not even pretend we're serious?

Flag plant contracts are more for those scenarios where having permanent precence on a body can give you money

[pa1983]

Well rigth now one gets to much money doing missions and also to little sciense doing a full DUNA or Mun contract in my book. Howl thing is unbalanced. I have like 4 millions now I think and Im still working on unloc king the new tech tree, have not been playing much at all the last year. I built mostly SSTO's back in 0.18-0.22 but in sandbox you can make tons of money even with a crappy rocket built in less then 5 minutes.

Contracts atm are unbalanced, pays to well in some cases and contracts that are in teh scope of the real Moon landing and proposed Mars landing hardly gives any Science points except for what you can collect out side the mission parameters.

I make more money and science by just sending probe cores and some times kerbals by just having them sling shoot by Mun, Minmus or Duna and then fly back home again collecting science and testing parts on the way.

Making money is way to easy and contracts are way to boring and illogical.

[Red Iron Crown]

Some players complain that contracts give too much money, other players complain that it's too little. Sounds like the contract reward balance is pretty good for a first draft.

[Murph]

Some players complain that contracts give too much money, other players complain that it's too little. Sounds like the contract reward balance is pretty good for a first draft.

Yeah, they are about right for now. If you're smart about them, funds are not a problem. If you're not smart about them, funds will run out fairly quickly. That's a pretty reasonable balance for now. Since there's undoubtably going to be more types of contract before the game exits alpha, and changes to the range of parts and what they cost, it's relatively pointless trying to achieve a perfect balance right now (just as long as it's not badly broken, and it isn't).

[Rusty6899]

Early in the game, before I got beyond the first docking ports in the tech tree, I built a spacecraft designed to land on both Ike and Duna (and do "

"...). It's got something like 12km/s dV and is currently in ELKO awaiting the right phase angle. That certainly cost a lot to build at the time... D:

I did pretty much the same thing, but with two separate landers, one for each body, with each lander having enough delta-v to land, ascend, and return to Kerbin. I think that was probably more efficient than building a lander able to land on both in sequence. It meant that I didn't need to research docking ports first as well.

To be honest, I don't find any difficulty in staying within budget. I hadn't really thought of building satellites to get money from the "transmit data from x" contracts. It's definitely good that the game has found a use for long-term satellite usage though. Although they are maybe a little over-generous with the funds rewarded from them.

[Rusty6899]

Yeah, they are about right for now. If you're smart about them, funds are not a problem. If you're not smart about them, funds will run out fairly quickly. That's a pretty reasonable balance for now. Since there's undoubtably going to be more types of contract before the game exits alpha, and changes to the range of parts and what they cost, it's relatively pointless trying to achieve a perfect balance right now (just as long as it's not badly broken, and it isn't).

I think that playing without "revert to VAB/Launchpad" and the autosave function makes the game a lot more financially demanding. If you don't plan a big mission well, or if your rocket is unstable, then you can kiss √500,000 goodbye. It still doesn't provide a huge challenge, if you know what you're doing, but this could be easily overcome, by making contracts more difficult e.g. being given fewer attempts/less time to complete them.

[Ruedii]

You must have a serious budgeting issue if you can't manage a surplus.

A couple tricks: Place a space station in orbit of every planetoid or moon you have "explored" in order to retrieve science on demand. Believe it or not a trivial "cool video of an experiment" is a common thing NASA is paid to do, right up there with interviews on the Space Station. ("Perform interview" should probably should be added somehow in future versions. Might be a good way to require the higher-end antennas.) For a cool video they just have the astronauts repeat one of their favorite goof-off experiments like lighting a candle in space or playing with their food in Zero-G. The public really eats those up (pardon the pun.) The idea is that this sort of thing helps build public interest in space travel, hence improving their chances of getting to do real science.

[DavidHunter]

Whoops! Sorry folks, didn't get an email notification of all these responses.

Thanks to all for the advice. I have, indeed, implemented many of them over the last few days and am seeing my bank budget rise steadily.

Cheers!

[Wanderfound]

Some players complain that contracts give too much money, other players complain that it's too little. Sounds like the contract reward balance is pretty good for a first draft.

I think the forum opinion is actually running at about 90% "too much". But it's fun anyway; y'all did well. Thanks.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I think the forum opinion is actually running at about 90% "too much". But it's fun anyway; y'all did well. Thanks.

I also feel I could use about 90% less funds.

There's such a huge difference in the cost of failing several missions in a row and losing the craft vs. getting it right the first time and making a full recovery. I think there should be different difficulty settings to adjust funding. I'm thinking:

1.) Beginner - double the current funding

2.) Intermediate - same as current

3.) Veteran - half current funds

4.) Expert - 1/4th current funds

5.) Master - 1/8th current funds