Satellite contract exploits; Recovery?

[Skorpychan]

All these contracts for 'put a new satellite around X body in Y orbit'. Do I have to leave it there?

I mean, I can hit multiple contracts with one satellite by moving it around after completion, so what stops me from moving the probe to be recovered on Kerbin?

Would it compare to a bare-bones probe without fuel to get back or chutes for recovery?

Edited January 12, 2015 by Skorpychan

[DeMatt]

Your own sense of fair play. Just as it is your decision to make one satellite to fulfill multiple "orbit a satellite here" contracts.

[eddiew]

I've had a single satellite that moved between 3 different contracts, then came home. Small 1.25 tank, smallest engine you can muster; get it to orbit in the back of a spaceplane and the satellite's 3000 delta-v will do anything you need with 100% recovery at the end. Free money

While there may be issues of 'fair play' there's also the problem that every ship I leave in orbit slows down my loading time between scenes, so I'll invariably blow up ConSats within a few game days whether or not I can bring them back. I've been blaming solar storms

[merendel]

Theres nothing stoping you although my experience has been unless the difficulty slider has been set to "Ultra Grindy" theres not much point bringing them down for recovery. Idealy a sat for these missions is going to be prety cheep and probably not worth the time spent to deorbit it for a fairly small amount of funds compaired to the payout of the mission.

[DeMatt]

While there may be issues of 'fair play'

My point, such as it is, was that as this is a single-player game, he can feel free to do anything that he feels is 'fair', 'legitimate', 'realistic', 'immersive', etc. etc. I consider "one satellite -> multiple contracts" to be 'unrealistic', so I don't do it; other people disagree, so they do.

there's also the problem that every ship I leave in orbit slows down my loading time between scenes, so I'll invariably blow up ConSats within a few game days whether or not I can bring them back. I've been blaming solar storms

I blow up contract satellites, too, but I've been telling myself that it's the company taking over control and tracking, so I don't have to do it.

[Skorpychan]

Fair play is un-kerbal-y. They'll forget it's up there after a while anyway, and they keep wanting more and more up there.

A spaceplane will definitely be on the cards when I figure them out. My success with planes so far has been a flight out to collect a contract for a crew report under a certain altitude.

Damn thing went into vertical spins for some reason; tumbling end over end whenever I pointed up too far, or slowed down too much. Ended up using emergency chutes to get it down in one piece.

I'd have had to use them anyway; hadn't discovered the wheel, so the 'landing gear' was a set of girders.

[RainDreamer]

Think about it as the companies buying time on your satellites. They want a satellite up there, just for a little while, in that specific orbit. Once that is achieved, and they got whatever data they want, you can then reuse that satellite for other companies needing satellite time on different orbits. They are not buying a whole satellite there.

[thadisjones]

Hey, if they wanted it up there longer, they would have said that in the contract, right?

I usually just terminate the cheaper sats, and narrate that control has been turned over to whoever paid for the damn thing.