Selling and renting out facilities

[kcsaff]

One of the least compelling features of the contracts is how you put satellites and stations up for companies that don't care what happens to them after 10 seconds. My suggestion is that there could be two kinds of contracts: selling & renting out facilities.

For a sales contract, instead of launching a new facility to meet these contracts, a player just needs to select a facility that meets the requirements and assign it to the agency in exchange for one-time cash. After assigning the facility, the player no longer has control over it. After a period of time (5-10 years or so) the owner will self-destruct the facility or perhaps offer to sell it back to the player.

For a rental contract, the player can assign the facility to an agency for a recurring rate. There is no advance for rental contracts and they'll only appear if you already have a desired facility in place. Rental demand depends in part on completing high-profile missions so you can't just rent out a place and fast-forward 100 years for lots of money -- your tenant will move out if they don't trust that your program is active.

For balance, the more facilities owned by other agencies near a body reduce rental demand. So you have a choice between building contract facilities for one-time cash infusions or spending your own money to try to develop valuable real estate to draw rent.