kerbal-space-program
My understanding of KSP 0.24 (First Contract) is returning parts safely to Kerbin will result in profit. My question is, what percent of the part cost is returned? 100%?
Also, if I drop parts, say solid boosters, with chutes will I make the money back if I keep flying or do I need to switch to boosters to get the payment?
You're best bet is to err on the side of safety and use too many. The potential financial loss for chutes ($700 each for radial) is much less than the potential financial loss of your entire ship.
I'd love to be able to give you some simple formula like "Use 1 chute for ever x tons". But there is no simple formula. The complex formula can be calculated using the tool you've linked to.
That said, these are some excellent tips:
or i-beams
instead of lander legs
. Modular girders and i-beams have 6x higher impact tolerance (80m/s) than the strongest lander legs (12m/s). You can land a 1000 ton ship on Kerbin with a single chute if it can survive a 80m/s landing.Good luck.
Do not decouple the boosters while also igniting the next stage. Put the decouplers and the next engine(s) in separate stages. Decouple the boosters and don't ignite the next stage until they drifted away to a safe distance. Even when the boosters have a notable spin, the relative velocity between core and boosters will be quite low, so a collision will likely be harmless. When you use a design with fuel crossfeeding where stages are separated while others haven't burnt out yet, put thrust to 0% while decoupling, and back to 100% afterwards. This makes the launch a bit less fuel-effective, but a lot safer.
Place the decouplers as close as possible to the center of mass of the boosters to minimize rotation. The offset mode in the vehicle editor is very helpful for this, because it makes it very easy to adjust the mounting height of the boosters and the decouplers. Keep in mind that with a liquid fuel booster, the center of mass is usually further down because empty fuel tanks are quite light compared to the engine. But with solid fuel boosters, the center of mass stays in the middle.
Replace your standard radial decouplers with the TT-70 Decouplers (those which are mounted on a girder assembly). The extra distance between booster and core might prevent a collision. To increase the distance further, you can place girder segments between decouplers and boosters. But then you will definitely need additional struts between booster and core to prevent the boosters from bending inwards during launch.
Best Answer
Unfortunately not. At best, you receive 100% from surviving resources landing on the launchpad at the Kerbal Space Centre. The percentage will decrease rapidly as you get further away you get, down to a minimum of 10% at the exact opposite of the planet.
As for strapping parachutes to SRB's:
To reduce the amount of calculations the game has to preform, all objects over 2.5km from the active vessel are placed "On Rails"(physics is no longer calculated, object continues on last predicted trajectory). All "On Rails" objects that are too deep into an atmosphere are deleted immediately.
It's also worth noting that only objects attached to a command pod or a probe body will be recovered, the cheapest probe body in the game is three times more expensive than an SRB and you don't get much back from an SRB, because most of it's cost is in fuel.
There are techniques that would allow you to over come these problems, but the extra effort and costs required to achieve them are more than you recover from it.