Abusable Contract Mechanics

[Nemoricus]

Sorry, Nemoricus, but no. Your concept violates the golden rule of game design: you do not take control away from the player. Whenever you have a dilemma of game design wherein players favor grind over variety, the answer is not to force variety, it is to incentivize variety. Taking the option away by making the player suffer an inferior system is never a good idea, especially not if said system hinges upon a random number generator (which the contract system currently does).

A better solution to this entire problem of contract spam is to give players more incentive to actually run missions that don't involve contract spam. Which forces us to ask the essential question: why are players spamming those contracts? The answer is simple: they're easy, they pay well, and they're basically impossible to fail. The takeaway from this is that the alternatives are too difficult, don't pay nearly well enough, and/or are very easy to fail. My go-to example at this point of bad contracts are the aerial/visual surveys. Their payout is atrociously bad for what they ask you to do, their precision requirements are excessive, their engineering requirements are excessive, and ultimately they take far too long to complete. Adjustments are badly in need for this variety of contract, for as it stands, they just take up space on the mission control contract list to tempt players who haven't tried them yet and don't yet realize that they're horrible.

First, by its nature, career mode imposes constraints on what the player may do. They can't use whatever parts they want, they have to unlock them first. They can't build whatever spacecraft they want, they need to able to afford it. And even if they can afford it, they may need to upgrade buildings to be able to launch it. For that matter, even sandbox mode imposes constraints on the player, because they have to use the parts that are available, with the stats they are given. So, I don't see limiting the player's options as inherently a problem.

Second, I disagree that this limits player control. Under the time-based system, the player has an option to leave a science probe in orbit. They can choose to take and use all of the science contracts they get. But, there's a trade-off. There's up-keep to having that probe, it takes up a slot that could be used for another mission, and so on. You can choose to get some easy, more or less certain income, or forgo the probe and perform another, potentially more lucrative mission.

That the RNG is an issue is a fair point. So, I'll revise my proposal. Instead of having the number of contracts offered in a certain time period be limited in number, the number you can accept is limited by the level of your mission control center. I still think that that declining missions should have some cost, even if it's a small one, so that players have to make a choice about whether to try and get a better contract or go with a less-than-perfect one they have right now.

To reduce the role that the whims of the RNG play, contracts are offered in categories, including type and location. So, if you decline a Kerbin part test contract, you get another Kerbin part test contract back. Likewise with Mun survey, Minmus satellite, and so on. This should keep a broad enough variety of contracts open that there's no need to keep hunting for the particular sort of contract you want.

Let me also put the problem with orbital science contracts into a single sentence: They are pay-once missions with the potential for arbitrarily large payoffs.

Now, let's compare them to the aerial survey missions with increased payouts.

1. An aerial survey mission has to reach a particular location. If it's not in that location, it needs to be moved there. An orbital science mission just needs to be in orbit, and with the right parameters can be used to get high and low altitude orbital science. If it's not at the right altitude, a brief bit of time acceleration can get it into the right place.

2. An aerial survey mission has to expend fuel to reach its locations. If you want to keep using the same craft for surveys, you need to refuel it. This costs funds. An orbital science probe, on the other hand, costs exactly 0 funds to use over and over again. Assuming it doesn't intersect any atmospheres or SOI boundaries, it will remain in the exact same orbit indefinitely.

3. Flying craft to new locations is interesting. Grinding for funds with the same orbital science mission is boring. Here the advantage is to the survey missions, since they have you do new things.

Now, you can offset the advantages the orbital science missions have by increasing the payouts aerial survey missions have. But...how much higher do they need to be? What is the appropriate increase over zero-effort, zero-cost missions?

While the payouts for survey missions should be increased, there also shouldn't be zero-effort, zero-cost contracts. The only way I can see to balance them is to make them too trivial to bother with, and that's not a good option, either (see Note 1). I'd much rather that there be some costs involved, so that you can weigh the pros and cons of doing one over the other.

Note 1: There are other zero-effort, zero-cost contracts already in the game. They're the "Test parts while landed at Kerbin" contracts. You get a 100% refund for recovering vessels on the launchpad, so they cost nothing. Similarly, it takes no particular effort to run a part test. However, the payouts are so low that most people simply don't bother with them. They do have some use in a "Drag yourself back from bankruptcy" role, though.

[Technical Ben]

For the "spam advance" problem, a limited number of advance contracts could be set (or funds total, like a "loan").

[Wanderfound]

That thing can fly at mach 5 with FAR? I'm quite surprised by that - the wing design should have pretty crazy stress on it from those speeds.

That's from ye olde FAR, too, before the tweakable wing strength was introduced. It could also do this:

It's a lot to do with altitude; sea level aerobatics are much more dangerous than high altitude. And, of course, G spikes are more dangerous than gradually-applied forces. But these days, if you wind up the wing strength, you can get away with even low altitude extreme sillyness:

FAR's reputation for difficultÅ· was always somewhat exaggerated, and it is much less difficult now that you aren't obliged to use lightweight glider wings.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Wanderfound

[Anquietas314]

That's from ye olde FAR, too, before the tweakable wing strength was introduced.

Ah, I see; you can make the wings absurdly strong. That explains it

[Wanderfound]

Ah, I see; you can make the wings absurdly strong. That explains it

At the cost of extreme weight.

The mass of stock wings is that of a lightweight glider; previous versions of FAR gave them a corresponding fragility (but you could still pull high-G stunts if you were careful about how and where you did it).

In current FAR, the wings default to fighter-strength (and much heavier than stock), but can be wound back down to ye olde glider weight and fragility if desired.

[Greep]

Well personally I just never accept a new contract if I have anything in space. So I guess I've only taken advantage of the multiple satellite exploit, which honestly isn't that bad. I've had multiple sat contracts to the same planet system, but not to the same mun/planet yet, so it meant packing more dV.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this is viable for ksp, but this is how I would solve most of the exploits: Add a timestamp to every taken contract when it is taken, and a timestamp to every ship component to when it was launched from kerbin, and a timestamp to every kerbal on their last launch from kerbin, and do not allow completion of contracts with kerbals or spacecraft with components that occur before the contract timestamp. Sort of like how the satellite contracts say they are handled (whether or not they actually are handled in that manner, which it seems not from the sounds of the OP). E.g., so you can dock with a space station for refueling, you just can't take anything else with you.

Unfortunately, it seems like that could get counterintuitive and lead to "why is my mission failing" if they accidentally bring something from a space station. So I'm not sure that particular solution would work.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Greep

[Anquietas314]

Anyways, I'm not sure if this is viable for ksp, but this is how I would solve most of the exploits: Add a timestamp to every taken contract when it is taken, and a timestamp to every ship component to when it was launched from kerbin, and a timestamp to every kerbal on their last launch from kerbin, and do not allow completion of contracts with kerbals or spacecraft with components that occur before the contract timestamp.

This is already mostly how it works. The bug is that the contracts simply don't check if the "satellite" you use to complete them is the one that was launched after accepting the contract.

[CaptainKipard]

WanderingKid if you want the devs to pay attention you need to keep the first post updated with a summary of the discussion.

[Kesa]

• Method two: (Needs Confirmation, looks viable) Have Sat in orbit on difficult to reach body (say, Moho). Launch new satellite from Kerbin. Move Moho satellite to new orbit.

I did not check, but I think the stabilize control prat prevents doing this. However, a similar abuse is possible for other contract (I just accidentally made one, switching from my mun lander (landed) to the KSC, to the tracking station then to a probe designed to land on test a part landed at the Mun. The company did not wait for the probe to land to pay me)

[Anquietas314]

I did not check, but I think the stabilize control prat prevents doing this.

From my own experience, the stabilize thing doesn't seem to give a damn what you're flying, or even that you're really "stable" at all.

[tater]

[FIXED]Plant a Flag on X. (X being a foreign body)Abuse: It requires a Kerbal there with EVA ability, that's it. Contract is randomly accessible just via contract cancellation spam.

Solution in place: After the first Plant a Flag Mission on a body, all additional Plant a Flag missions will not recur until there are no Kerbals on said body.

Plant flag missions should be limited to one per biome.

Return science from orbit/landed:

Abuse: Does not require new science.

• Method one: Satellite with temperature gauge and single solar panel.
  
• Method two: Stayputnik on a Mk1 with battery spam/solar panel can spam crew reports.
  
• Method three: Leave a Kerbal there and EVA/Crew report transmit with battery spam or solar panel
  

This is abusable, but also makes sense since there are no "continuous science" mechanisms. Having a manned presence is not unrealistic to continue to generate science, particularly WRT spacecraft design.

[Kesa]

A bunch of problems with contracts abuse can be solved with life support (so flag farming isn't that easy) and adding long term mission. Long term mission mechanisms already exists.

[Razor235]

I had a thought on the flag planting exploit. What if the contract could only be completed if you used the flag of the contracting group? AFAIK, you can't change flags mid-flight, so you'd have to launch a new mission.

[Tex_NL]

I had a thought on the flag planting exploit. What if the contract could only be completed if you used the flag of the contracting group? AFAIK, you can't change flags mid-flight, so you'd have to launch a new mission.

Absolutely. That's why this has already been suggested several times over the last few months.

[Bill Phil]

Or the devs could make the flag missions require a certain coordinate on the celestial body in question. And to make it easier to know coordinates in game a satellite mapping system could be implemented.

[Rasip]

I have a question. Is there a way, other than farming contracts, to make the 6.36mil needed to upgrade the R&D building on hard mode? Or to make money at all for that matter?

I do agree a few changes are needed to some of the contracts. For example the science from space could be return only. For the plant flag it could be plant in a biome.

As to the idea of making the satellite contracts long term, you do realize you only have 2 slots to start with and 7 after the first upgrade, right?

Edited December 27, 2014 by Rasip

[Spheniscine]

I'd argue that the science contracts are made obsolete by the survey missions and should be removed or rehauled. Survey missions do not require transmission or recovery, but serve a similar purpose and are much more interesting due to requiring a particular experiment type and a particular location.

As for abusing satellite and station contracts, Fine Print's developer (Arsonide) has it on record that he feels just taking away control of a vessel is too punishing, as you can't look at your handiwork later nor access any kerbals within. The solution should probably be to "mark" the vessel in the save file so that no other contracts would recognize it. To prevent accidentally marking a multi-part ship, or marking a station in Kerbin orbit when you mean to send it elsewhere, completion of the contracts should require a manual action of some sort (perhaps have a context menu action on probe cores and command pods that only appears when the requirements are fulfilled, similar to "Run Test").

Edited December 27, 2014 by Spheniscine

[Slam_Jones]

I don't completely mind spammable contracts, but only if they are given some kind of stipulation. For example,

Plant flag on X body could become Plant flag on X body at least Y distance from other flags. 5 km, 50km, 500km, whatever. So you can still repeat them, but it's not like just walking out your back door and plopping another one into the forest. EDIT: Thinking about it, though, it would be possible to just pull up a flag, then plant it again in the same spot. Hm...

Also, Transmit/retrieve science data from X could be Transmit/retrieve NEW science data from X. Basically, if it provides science, it counts. if you already did it and you get no science from it (repeated temp scans, crew reports, etc.) then it doesn't count.

Just my two cents

Edited December 27, 2014 by Slam_Jones

[Spheniscine]

Transmit/retrieve science data from X could be Transmit/retrieve NEW science data from X. Basically, if it provides science, it counts. if you already did it and you get no science from it (repeated temp scans, crew reports, etc.) then it doesn't count.

Just my two cents

The problem with that is that it is a non-renewable resource - as you collect more data (and not necessarily because of such a contract either), there is less data that would be eligible. As untapped sources of data dwindle, one would have to use guides/cheats/mods to find the last few biomes, and it is possible to have no more data available.

The flags one appear to be fixed, as in it won't be offered if the body is currently inhabited by at least one Kerbal.

[Slam_Jones]

The problem with that is that it is a non-renewable resource - as you collect more data (and not necessarily because of such a contract either), there is less data that would be eligible. As untapped sources of data dwindle, one would have to use guides/cheats/mods to find the last few biomes, and it is possible to have no more data available.

Well, yes. That would encourage folks to leave the Kerbin system and explore other planets. Collected all the possible science on the Mun? Well then "Science data from Mun" contracts should stop showing up. You'll actually need to go further to get that science.

And with contracts, it's all but impossible to run out of gatherable science. Just convert some funds or rep.

[Tex_NL]

The problem with that is that it is a non-renewable resource - as you collect more data (and not necessarily because of such a contract either), there is less data that would be eligible. As untapped sources of data dwindle, one would have to use guides/cheats/mods to find the last few biomes, and it is possible to have no more data available.

And how is this different from real life? No sane person will fund an expensive research expedition if the only data returned is already known.

I totally agree empty science returns should not be rewarded. Or at least be rewarded a lot less.

[Spheniscine]

And how is this different from real life? No sane person will fund an expensive research expedition if the only data returned is already known.

I totally agree empty science returns should not be rewarded. Or at least be rewarded a lot less.

My point is that we already have survey contracts, that do something similar, fits the theme of "expensive research expedition", and neither suffer from abusability nor non-renewability.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Spheniscine

[ghpstage]

In general I don't mind contracts such as science and parts tests to be repeatable, but allowing easy spammability and huge rewards is obviously silly

I don't know if its been suggested yet, but one way of reducing the spammability of science missions would be to alter the requirements.

Asking for specific types of science, would reduce it noticeably.

Asking for the data to be physically returned would prevent constant re-use.

Maybe put altitude ranges in too.

It would make the contracts take some actual effort, but still repeatable.

The ones that irk me most are the parts tests. The returns on these are highly variable, a lot involving being near, or even on the Mun, or escaping the planets SOI are rarely worth the cost, while orbital tests at Kerbin for the same part are worth huge amounts of both credits and science.

The second problem is that they allow unrestricted early access to parts, landing gear can easily be abused to build rocket powered science rovers to explore the KSC, while small engines can be used to send your probes even further.

My thoughts on solving this are,

Make the number of parts limited, and have them separated from your own stock parts in play, as in, you choose whether the parts you are added are the test parts or not (if you normally have access to them!).

Make the test parts a part of the contract itself, as potential bonuses, for every part you have left in the end increase the cash reward, if you recover the tested part then get an even bigger cash reward!

Give an option to refuse the bonus and keep the parts instead if you don't yet have access to them.

Allow any quantity limited parts you keep after contracts to be re-useable if recovered.

The idea being to reduce their outright abuseability and the incentive to keep it open, while still allowing for taking advantage of early acces to parts and introducing a real risk of failure.

Edited December 28, 2014 by ghpstage

[Spheniscine]

The ones that irk me most are the parts tests. The returns on these are highly variable, a lot involving being near, or even on the Mun, or escaping the planets SOI are rarely worth the cost, while orbital tests at Kerbin for the same part are worth huge amounts of both credits and science.

Hm yeah... the reward for part test missions seem to be highly variable and imbalanced. Generally:

"Flight" ones are not worth it - not only do they pay peanuts, they have both an altitude window and speed window, making designing and flying a rocket to reliably meet both windows difficult.

"Suborbital" ones often pay too much for something where the solution is often just "moar boosters"

"Orbital" ones tend to be about right, though it can be pretty variable

"Landed" ones pay peanuts, which is somewhat expected for testing a part that can be recovered immediately - the problem is that this applies even for "landed on the Mun".

"Splashed down" ones should probably pay just a little more so that the cost of the rocket is actually covered. Not sure if it suffers the same problem as landed for Eve and Laythe.

"Escape trajectory" ones tend to pay too little. Kerbin escape should cover the dV needed to do so; for other bodies, perhaps pay a little less than orbital since you don't need to spend dV circularizing.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Spheniscine

[spinomonkey]

1: Kerbin Contracts should be low science/high credit contracts

To encourage early launching without fear of your profits drying up. Good for new players.

2: Contracts should be less vague and provide a context.

While building dozens of satellites and colonizing the Mun is fun. Having 300 Kerbals essentially stranded on the Mun afterwards doesn't serve any purpose, nor does placing an otherwise pointless hunk of metal in space. There needs to be a greater context why we're doing these things. Otherwise it's just grindy.

3: Contracts should push players to explore (even if its just a flyby probe to Duna or Jool)

Much of the gameplay revolves around fairly local contracts. I can easily finish my tech tree before going beyond the Mun. Players should be encouraged to venture into the unknown earlier in the game. Even the missions themselves are simple in nature.

4: Contracts shouldn't respawn as quickly.

In fact, I'd prefer if there was a 'contract respawn' slider in the difficulty settings to limit how many contracts are coming in. It's part of the problem with abusing the contracts to 'fish out' the contracts you want.