You highest paying contract?

[NeoAcario]

Ok folks, let's see them! Show us the contract that has paid you the most cash!

Here's a pic of mine!

EDIT: Default NORMAL Difficulty

3,631,204 cash up front and 11,146,143 upon completion.... along with 248 Science and 6,966 rep!

And some people say cash is a limiting factor!!

~Steve

Edited November 10, 2014 by NeoAcario

[Geschosskopf]

3,631,204 cash up front and 11,146,143 upon completion.... along with 248 Science and 6,966 rep!

And no strategies modifying those amounts. Prertty nice. Did you get it via Alt-F12? "Hit me, dealer, and make it hard" .

My real question is, how did you get rid of all the miserable 1-star contracts? In my career, I have not quite as much money ($16.9M) and a rep of about 980. Yet I never get 3-star contracts, just 1- and 2-stars. Unless I go to Alt-F12 and ask for something hard.

[NeoAcario]

And no strategies modifying those amounts. Prertty nice. Did you get it via Alt-F12? "Hit me, dealer, and make it hard" .

My real question is, how did you get rid of all the miserable 1-star contracts? In my career, I have not quite as much money ($16.9M) and a rep of about 980. Yet I never get 3-star contracts, just 1- and 2-stars. Unless I go to Alt-F12 and ask for something hard.

No... I have never used alt-f12 to try and get harder missions. And the 1-2 star missions... I just hadn't picked up a new set yet.

~Steve

[Geschosskopf]

No... I have never used alt-f12 to try and get harder missions. And the 1-2 star missions... I just hadn't picked up a new set yet.

Hmm. Something is very different in our games. My list always shows at least 4 or 5 pathetic 1-star contracts. Usually it shows about 8 when I first go to Mission Control so I go down the list rejecting them out of hand. This will get rid of about 1/2 of them but the other half keeps respawning instantly. As soon as I reject one, another one appears in its place, often with only the flag changing.

[Aethon]

I'm getting this too. I heard there was a bug that doesn't give contracts for parts that aren't unlocked ( paid for ) so I unlocked all the parts ( my stock tech tree is complete ) but this has had no affect so far ( after only a few hrs gametime ). For a while now I've had only 1 star contracts. Fortunately I have a ton of cash from previous missions. My rep is 992 so that's not the issue, and raising rep is like swimming through hardening cement.

Can anyone explain what's happening to us ?

Edited November 10, 2014 by Aethon

[r_rolo1]

Well, ATM I don't have any crazy contract of 11 million to show, but TBH I think this is even worse because it is easy to get done ( BTW I got this exact contract in this career 2 times ( this is the first ), only differing in the test altitude ):

Given that I could make some whackjobian SRB assembly for 30k ( includes the engine to test ) that can go suborbital ( aka straight up ) that is 100% recoverable, this is really money for nothing ...

P.S Also notice the launch clamp contract on the Mun ... :/

Edited November 10, 2014 by r_rolo1

[Aethon]

Hmm. "All I get is rocks" -Charlie Brown.

I've also had all my contracts wiped a couple time. All archived and currently active contracts have been removed. Why this happens is still undetermined.

If I'm in map view and focused on a ship in say, Minmus orbit, and I want to switch to a ship in Kerbins' SOI, sometimes the 'Set as target' 'Switch to' window won't come up. Repeated clicking will force the switch but then the space center button doesn't work. My only option then is Alt f4. When I restart KSP, the contracts are wiped.

Sorry if this sound rushed. Heading to work. Can supply more detail later.

[NeoAcario]

Hmm. Something is very different in our games. My list always shows at least 4 or 5 pathetic 1-star contracts. Usually it shows about 8 when I first go to Mission Control so I go down the list rejecting them out of hand. This will get rid of about 1/2 of them but the other half keeps respawning instantly. As soon as I reject one, another one appears in its place, often with only the flag changing.

Yeah.. same. It seems that the 2 star missions of testing equipment at a certain location don't respawn until I do a mission. But the 4-6 missions to get science from an orbit or to plant a flag... they keep shuffling locations when I cancel them. I just got really lucky with that 11+4m mission to test the largest engine in Jool orbit. I'm actually approaching location now.

~Steve

[herbal space program]

My best contract ever was that same engine mission in Munar orbit, but it was only for like 950,000

[bdito]

And no strategies modifying those amounts. Prertty nice. Did you get it via Alt-F12? "Hit me, dealer, and make it hard" .

My real question is, how did you get rid of all the miserable 1-star contracts? In my career, I have not quite as much money ($16.9M) and a rep of about 980. Yet I never get 3-star contracts, just 1- and 2-stars. Unless I go to Alt-F12 and ask for something hard.

We're only seeing his Active mission list, not the available list. So there could be plenty of 1 star missions that he simply hasn't accepted.

OP, mine was for ~1.2 million. It was the same as yours except it was for the Mun instead of Jool. It was the easiest $1 million I ever made.

[SkyRender]

Any mission involving the NASA parts is going to pay out absurdly well, because of their high price (which appears to be the main factor in deciding how valuable a contract's pay-out is). The only real problem is, you only ever get one contract for any given NASA part per save.

As for those of you who can't seem to get rid of 1-star contracts, the trick is to actually complete some of your outstanding 2- and 3-star contracts. If you only ever go for high-value contracts and reject all the low-value ones, you're only ever going to find the list populated with low-value ones in the long run. This is because there are hard limits on how many active contracts you can have of a particular star rating. If your active contracts are all 2- and 3-star, the game can't generate any more potential 2- and 3-star missions and so you get nothing but 1-stars.

[NeoAcario]

Any mission involving the NASA parts is going to pay out absurdly well, because of their high price (which appears to be the main factor in deciding how valuable a contract's pay-out is). The only real problem is, you only ever get one contract for any given NASA part per save.

As for those of you who can't seem to get rid of 1-star contracts, the trick is to actually complete some of your outstanding 2- and 3-star contracts. If you only ever go for high-value contracts and reject all the low-value ones, you're only ever going to find the list populated with low-value ones in the long run. This is because there are hard limits on how many active contracts you can have of a particular star rating. If your active contracts are all 2- and 3-star, the game can't generate any more potential 2- and 3-star missions and so you get nothing but 1-stars.

This, exactly this. I'm completing all of my 2-3 star missions as fast as I can... and once I do, they get repopulated like clockwork. When I'm bored and waiting for a transfer... I just crank out a few Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus science / flag 1-star missions.

~Steve

[r_rolo1]

Any mission involving the NASA parts is going to pay out absurdly well, because of their high price (which appears to be the main factor in deciding how valuable a contract's pay-out is). The only real problem is, you only ever get one contract for any given NASA part per save.

This is false. I've got a lot of contracts on repeated NASA parts in the same save ( in fact the code seems to love the KR-1x2 ,as it appears quite often in my saves ). In fact if you read my previous post in page #1 you'll see me mentioning that I've gotten the same contract on the same part twice with only different test heights ...

[Slam_Jones]

Eh, forget those crazy specific contracts. I put a Kerbal on Laythe, and now I can get 300,000 creds literally whenever I want. Much easier.

[SRV Ron]

Well, ATM I don't have any crazy contract of 11 million to show, but TBH I think this is even worse because it is easy to get done ( BTW I got this exact contract in this career 2 times ( this is the first ), only differing in the test altitude ):

http://i.imgur.com/q8RbPye.png

Given that I could make some whackjobian SRB assembly for 30k ( includes the engine to test ) that can go suborbital ( aka straight up ) that is 100% recoverable, this is really money for nothing ...

P.S Also notice the launch clamp contract on the Mun ... :/

This is where Sandbox can be used for testing the puzzle of such a contract. A Wackjob design is unnecessary.

The trick in testing that rocket booster is attaching radical engines to it to use the fuel carried aboard to reach the desired sub orbital altitude. The test is then performed and the entire rocket parachuted into the ocean next to the launch pad. I kept a small reserve of fuel to slow descent at the last seconds to ensure recovery of the entire test rocket.

I had one to send that booster into Kerbal escape. SRBs were used for the launch to cut cost. It is possible to keep a small fuel reserve to reverse course for recovery.

This was designed to test both a Poodle and hydraulic decouplers on an escape trajectory.

Edited November 10, 2014 by SRV Ron

[r_rolo1]

When I said whackjob I didn't meant a monster rocket ... I meant literally a whackjob ( Aka something done by a crazy person ). If you read my text you'll see that I used 30k including the engine, so nothing too bad. IIRC I used some structural girders and 16 BACC, a thing that I consider to be not as bad to put 10t in suborbital ( it might had been slightly OP and probably 12 BACC could had done the job, but I couldn't care less since I did this in between a somewhat tense Mun landing with a ship that didn't had solar panels ( hard level can be hard at times ) ). As I recovered the ship whole, I actually spent very little cash anyway ...

[Random Tank]

Pales in comparison, but it's still a pretty tasty sum. Taken from 0.24, before difficulty:

[NeoAcario]

Pales in comparison, but it's still a pretty tasty sum. Taken from 0.24, before difficulty:

http://i.imgur.com/27wkNot.jpg

I still don't have all of the other planets explored. I'm wondering if Eeloo will give the best reward for testing that rocket. Oh, and I have difficulty at normal... so that's not the reason it's so high.

~Steve

[NeoAcario]

Tell me what's wrong with this picture:

Yup.. the quest broke. I had to Alt+F12 to complete it by 'cheating' it. I have no idea why it wouldn't work. I'm sitting at the perfect altitude, orbit, etc... but it doesn't agree for some reason.

Oh well. I don't think this should count as cheating when the quest itself broke

~Steve

[Aethon]

As for those of you who can't seem to get rid of 1-star contracts, the trick is to actually complete some of your outstanding 2- and 3-star contracts. If you only ever go for high-value contracts and reject all the low-value ones, you're only ever going to find the list populated with low-value ones in the long run. This is because there are hard limits on how many active contracts you can have of a particular star rating. If your active contracts are all 2- and 3-star, the game can't generate any more potential 2- and 3-star missions and so you get nothing but 1-stars.

Not true for me. I spammed sci around Mun, Minmus. All one star contracts. The only contracts that come back up are the same 1 to 2 star stuff.

[NeoAcario]

Not true for me. I spammed sci around Mun, Minmus. All one star contracts. The only contracts that come back up are the same 1 to 2 star stuff.

Where are you at in overall progress? Have you already visited other planets? All of them? How deep is your tech tree? Are you using a modded tech tree? Is it bugged? There's a lot of variables here that determines what missions you're offered.

~Steve

[Aethon]

( my stock tech tree is complete )

FYI: I'm at Earth day 7, yet to reach a decent IP transfer window so havent gone IP. Only mods I have that affect the tech tree are Procedural fairings and ScanSat. Is what bugged.

But none of this matters. I've had high dollar contracts, but something happens to wipe out all active contracts and the archive of completed contracts. After that I get 2 or 3 explore nearby planet contracts ( taken, but waiting on transfer windows ) and then only 1 or 2 star contracts.

It's all in my previous posts.

[Yakky]

[edit... big necro... apologies!]

I don't have a screen shot, but I once I got a contract to redirect a Class E asteroid into orbit around Gilly.  It was worth several million funds IIRC, on Hard Mode to boot where the payouts are all cut significantly.  I accepted it because I love the challenge (and payout!) of really hard contracts... would much rather stew over how to achieve something clever then sit around grinding out a bunch of tedious cheap contracts.

Anyway, I found a Class E asteroid that was incoming on a reasonably close trajectory to Kerbin, and I steered it into a double-flyby of Kerbin and the Mun that essentially reversed its direction relative to Kerbin.  This caused it to slow down considerably relative to the Sun after it left the Kerbin SOI, which dropped it into an orbit near Eve.  From there it was just some minor course correction work (and a few orbits waiting for a sufficiently good encounter).  But the double flyby saved me several hundred delta-V, which matters a lot when you are trying to drive a Class E asteroid around.  I think the total delta-V I actually spent in the form of rocket fuel was under 100.

Screen grab of my double flyby reversal maneuver that made it all come together.

After that contract, I had enough funds to unlock the rest of the space center upgrades and do pretty much anything, so I declared the game "won" and stopped playing for awhile.

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Yakky
whoops! sorry for the necro!