Contract deadlines?

[Hyomoto]

Depending on how you frame them, a lot of these things read like Kerbal jokes.

A corporation puts out a contract to save one of it's more unfortunate employees in orbit around Kerbin from certain death. It's not known how long he will survive, but a combination of boredom and solar radiation will probably do him in. It's decided an interested party is needed within five days or it will, simply put, be too late. Quickly, and with great resolve, Jebidiah Kerman agrees that he will lead the rescue mission. Some time later, checking the calendar an employee at this corporation realizes they haven't heard anything about the results of this mission. Digging into it they discover, five years later, that the contract in question was never actually completed and the budget for it was spent largely on 'snacks'. Questioning Jebidiah about his failure to complete the contract he simply said, "I just couldn't find the time." Later it would be discovered roughly three thousand flights came well within five kilometers of the hapless Kerbal, several of which built permanent stations in orbit, to which a second questioning received only a, "That sounds good now, but at the time I would have needed more boosters."

[Levelord]

I haven't kept track on contract deadlines because they are very forgiving that there's not really much rush to get them done.

[tater]

You have to accept within 5 days, but having done so, you have 10 YEARS to rescue him as I recall. The deadlines are not meaningful right now.

[Epthelyn]

Yes, it's about 10 years. If you launched a rocket to save a Kerbal every time they passed, you would have to fail ~150,000 times before running out of time

120km orbit = 34 mins per orbit

[ravensoul6@hotmail.com]

Coporate Kerman: We are in a hurry to get this contract signed, we only have three days so we are offering a large sum of cash up front to any takers. Look the guys upstairs are breathing down my neck to get this done, can you help me out?

Gene Kerman: What kind of deadline are we looking at for running the tests?

Corporate Kerman: Oh, ya know, just whenever you get to it.

Gene Kerman: ...uh-huh, let me run this past the head honcho and I'll..

Corporate Kerman: Hey! I'm on a time line here! I don't have time for you to run this past two dozen department heads, I need an answer by the day after tomorrow!

Gene Kerman: right... I tell you what, we'll take on the contract but the boss isn't going to be pushed around on deadlines.

Corporate Kerman: Oh thats fine we're in no hurry.

[Norpo]

Yeah, i've always found the contracts give you a LOT of time to do them, there's really no way i've found you can really fail them unless you accidentally leave the game on 100000x timewarp for 10 minutes, but I suppose it's easy to forget about them; especially during inter-planetary travel. Still, 10 years to rescue a kerbal is a LOT of time, especially considering it's only in kerbin orbit and it's normally in a fairly low orbit, making it a relatively easy mission, if you've already rendezvoused with something before.

Still, the deadlines are very long, I wouldn't mind a difficulty slider that shortens them (Unless there is one, and I just missed it)

Associate from contractor: "Billy-Bobfred Kerman is in orbit! Oh no! If he stays there too long, the kraken might eat him! We have to rescue him! It's urgent!"

Gene Kerman: "Define urgent."

Associate from contractor: "Oh, about 10 years, we're in a MAJOR hurry! Maybe get around to it after that Eeloo probe you just launched a few hours ago comes home."

Really, time doesn't mean much time doesn't mean too much, aside from launch windows, unless you use a mod like Kerbal Construction Time, or a life support mod.I hope that changes sometime, but i'd prefer it to be an elegant solution that doesn't require too much maintenance, otherwise i'd probably just find a mod to disable it Or, hopefully, in a best-case scenario, it'd be a difficulty toggle. (Do you want the VAB to insta-build rockets, or to zoom time forward by an amount depending on the complexity of the rocket on launch?)

Kerbal construction time (the mod) does this, but with the whole inventory system/start construction system and upgrades system, it's a little too complex for me, when I just want to get the rocket out the door and launch it as soon as I press the button labeled "Launch".A large part of the game for me is just building stuff and launching it fly, I don't want to have to click 10 buttons to see it fly, I don't want to add it to a queue of "waiting to be built", I want to hit launch, then see it on the launchpad. But because of this, no passage of time is made, and thus I can actually just send a dozen rescue missions within a day of eachother, no matter how bad the previous 11 failed.

[xub313]

I agree with Norpo. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason the contracts have such long deadlines is because the devs realized that a time limit would be kinda pointless.

I do find it funny that I can launch a whole Duna mission and still have time to pick up JoeShmo Kerman in orbit four years later.

[Vallius]

It's so true! Lets make those deadlines more urgent, at least for near-Kerbin work. While a week to complete a test contract isn't a big deal, it would mean you can't mess around forever without getting it done. Also, the test-part contracts should really only give you a finite number of loners (but then I guess that's what the advance funds are for).