Strategies should be important

[regex]

Strategies are wholely unappealing right now because of the high setup costs; by the time you have those sorts of resources lying around, they're no longer interesting.  Alternatively, you unlock the tech tree and then install Research Rights Sell-Out at 100% and forget about strategies.  Either way, they're pretty much a useless mechanic.

I suggest instead that strategies have a single level of commitment (75%, maybe?) and you either have it active or not.  They're already pretty punishing on penalties so I'm not sure why we have setup costs in the first place.  If the worry is that the player will constantly switch strategies to exploit them have exit costs, where premature removal of the strategy imposes a major penalty, or you have to perform a certain number of contracts under the strategy in order to remove its effects, things like that.

Another way to utilize strategies is to inform the contract system, allowing players to weight the generator to guide their space program.  For instance, we could have three strategies that provide weighting to related contract types, like this:

Spoiler

Science-Oriented Program

•     ARM // Asteroid Recovery Contracts
•     Grand // Grand Tour Contracts
•     Satellite // Satellite Deployment Contracts
•     Science // Science Contracts
•     Survey // Survey Contracts

Commercial-Oriented Program

•     Base // Outpost Construction Contracts
•     ISRU // In Situ Resource Extraction Contracts
•     Station // Station Construction Contracts
•     Test // Part Test Contracts
•     Tour // Tourism Contracts

Government-Oriented Program

•     Flag // Flag Plant Contracts
•     Grand // Grand Tour Contracts
•     Recovery // Rescue and Recovery Contracts
•     Satellite // Satellite Deployment Contracts
•     Survey // Survey Contracts

This is much more direct guidance than simply taking contract after contract after contract in order to weight the system where you want it.  You could even further refine this by having strategies that direct the location of contracts, such as "Minmus Project", "Inner Planets Project", or "Joolian Initiative".  If you want to take it even further you could have strategies that exclusively focus your space program towards a certain contract type, turning the game into a "Rescue Rangers" or "Extraplanetary Colonization" scenario or something.

The point being that the Admin building is pretty much useless except for one strategy which is used late game.  Things like Leadership Initiative should cost nothing to set up and should only allow 100% commitment, and should be usable from the start of career mode; that's when you need it the most, not when you're pretty much done with the tech tree and have sent probes pretty much everywhere.  Most of the other strategies could use similar treatment. and we could use more strategies to guide the direction of the game.

Give us the tools to direct a space program.

[JedTech]

I agree. Strategies are never worth it.  I look at them once each version and then don't bother to look at them again. Their cost is just too high. To make this fun for players, players need to feel like their space program is benefiting from the strategy. I would use them once in a while if their setup costs were removed and other effects remained the same. But I would prefer they rethink the whole concept.

[RocketSquid]

I agree, strategies aren't all that useful right now, and are even less so if you have mods like CTT or ETT.

[Alshain]

What are strategies?

 

EDIT: Oh right, those things in the admin building I never use.  Sorry, mind went blank there for a moment.  I agree (obviously) they are so useless I forgot they were there.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Alshain

[egoego]

I use strategies from time to time, mostly the one that gives you more science. The setup costs are pretty high, but removing them and the penalty would make them way to powerfull.

Using them to control what kind of contracts you get sounds like a good idea, though.

9 hours ago, regex said:

You could even further refine this by having strategies that direct the location of contracts, such as "Minmus Project", "Inner Planets Project", or "Joolian Initiative".  If you want to take it even further you could have strategies that exclusively focus your space program towards a certain contract type, turning the game into a "Rescue Rangers" or "Extraplanetary Colonization" scenario or something.

This sounds a bit like the missions described in this post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/128832-trying-to-tie-the-loose-ends-of-career/

[Kaos]

When strategies were included, I used them sometimes. But they turned out to be either overpowered or useless for my games, so I decided not to use them until the system is more balanced or reworked. I did not try them since then. Your suggestion would make them worth trying again and likely more balanced.

[regex]

6 hours ago, egoego said:

I use strategies from time to time, mostly the one that gives you more science. The setup costs are pretty high, but removing them and the penalty would make them way to powerfull.

Then they should be rebalanced to work with exit costs under this proposal.

Quote

This sounds a bit like the missions described in this post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/128832-trying-to-tie-the-loose-ends-of-career/

vOv  It also sounds a lot like the Strategia mod that's in development.

There are tons of suggestions and mods out there.  How does this suggestion sound?

[tater]

While I might adjust the categories, I agree with the concept. Still, it fails to address the underlying problem with career, or the fact that the contracts it uses to populate the "mission control" center are still mostly lousy---of course you are likely right to assume that we're stuck with those problems, and a solution "within the system" is more likely to actually be considered.

[regex]

22 minutes ago, tater said:

While I might adjust the categories, I agree with the concept.

"For instance" means "as an example".  I wouldn't necessarily want to play with those categories either.

22 minutes ago, tater said:

Still, it fails to address the underlying problem with career, or the fact that the contracts it uses to populate the "mission control" center are still mostly lousy---of course you are likely right to assume that we're stuck with those problems, and a solution "within the system" is more likely to actually be considered.

There's no way we're going to get a full reconception of career; too late for that.  Might as well try to make it palatable as a play option.

[tater]

Yeah, as I said you're right, sadly, as much as we might dream of a decent career system

I proposed something fairly similar, but instead of pigeon-holing them into X categories, perhaps a set of sliders that balance each program as to what % of contracts they see from each category?

I lumped them based on broad contract type: Science, commercial, passenger, exploitation (resources).

So you could set passenger to 0 and not see any VIP/Tourist/Rescue contracts. Set commercial to 25%, then you'd see 25% placing satellites or building stations, and 75% to science and see that % of survey, etc, contracts. 

Maybe another would need to be there for grand tours---they are fairly pointless from a science standpoint, it's more bragging rights than anything else.

I wonder if funding could be removed as a reward (or seriously reduced) from milestones, etc, then have the contracts pay everything up front (they can still hit rep/funds if you fail). So you get a contract to do science around Jool, and you are put in a position where (unless you do something else to have excess cash) you have to build it within budget. Then, if you took contracts for other worlds it might end up a money-maker if you could combine missions into one craft. Say you do a Duna flyby to take science around Duna otw to Jool, and you also take a Laythe contract as well. 3 budgets, 1 craft.

 

[regex]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Maybe another would need to be there for grand tours---they are fairly pointless from a science standpoint, it's more bragging rights than anything else.

Those are probably my favorite contracts, they really cleave to what I think KSP is all about... 

3 minutes ago, tater said:

I wonder if funding could be removed as a reward (or seriously reduced) from milestones, etc, then have the contracts pay everything up front (they can still hit rep/funds if you fail). So you get a contract to do science around Jool, and you are put in a position where (unless you do something else to have excess cash) you have to build it within budget. Then, if you took contracts for other worlds it might end up a money-maker if you could combine missions into one craft. Say you do a Duna flyby to take science around Duna otw to Jool, and you also take a Laythe contract as well. 3 budgets, 1 craft.

That might work fairly well but it still doesn't address the problem of actually directing a space program, it just reshuffles around the side quests.

[tater]

True, but you would then be directing your program into certain sets of mission types rather than just certain mission types on a slider.

In your system, would the player have to then take all the contracts? If not, while it might eliminate some of the contracts the player doesn't like, it's not really "directing a space program" any more than sliders, or the current clickfest (it's WAY better than the clickfest, but I mean in terms of "direction"). I feel your pain, really  . I'm the choir you are preaching to. The idea of the target world also being there is way closer to the goal, however. Love that idea.

It's unfortunate that we have to try and get them to do something "within the system" to fix such a fundamental issue of gameplay, though.

Edited January 27, 2016 by tater

[regex]

No, the idea is to tailor contracts the way the player wants to play the game.  Some people like doing rescues, some people like doing rescues early on, some people hate rescues, etc...  There should be a way to tailor the game from the beginning to the way you want to play it.  I don't find this "cheaty" at all since you still need to complete contracts, it's just that they now conform to things you actually want to do in the game.  Strategies would be a relatively easy (in terms of what's already in the game, not speaking to the programming time) method to introduce contract tailoring and weighting, and would be less tedious than doing contract after contract after contract to weight the system.

Not only that but things like Leadership Initiative should be a clear choice from the beginning of career; it should mess up any chance at using contracts but should make World's First achievements powerful enough to drive the space program.  Look at Leadership Initiative: 100% commitment costs you 250,000 funds, 500 science, and 100 rep, plus the cost of upgrading the admin building so you can get one strategy at 100%.  Why?  I don't want to use that strategy by the time I have those resources just lying around and if I save up resources from early World's Firsts to buy that I'm shooting myself in the foot trying to get later World's Firsts.  If I commit at the lowest level it still costs me 25,000 funds, 50 science, and 10 rep, all for, what, a paltry 1.075 multiplier to World's First rewards?  No, that's not worth my time, I'll save the money for a Tracking Station upgrade or some other similarly overpriced upgrade.

Insofar as current strategies being overpowered when removing their initial costs I understand that, and there should be a clear benefit and penalty to taking a strategy.  It should be an interesting choice that makes one thing easier and another harder.  Current strategies try to do that, but they also have ridiculous initial overhead, so they're simply not in the equation as far as I'm concerned; there is little to no benefit and take way too long to see a return from.

Good sandbox games provide tools for the player to tailor their gameplay.  Career mode fails at being a sandbox in the same way it fails at being a guided tour through a career.  It doesn't know what it wants to be but refining the tools it already has can make it better at being a decent sandbox, which benefits far more players than trying to make it a guided tour.

Edited January 27, 2016 by regex

[Kerbart]

I think it's an excellent idea. My fear with the current proposal that the system "learns" what kind of contracts you like is that my contract preference changes over time. Part tests are great in early career. And not because of the cheaty “let me not complete this contract that gives me access to part x” but because the handful of science points you get out of it really makes a difference in early career mode. Then at one point I'd love to focus on rescue missions as I'll need extra crew and I'm flying ships in transit to Mun/Minmus anyway, etc.

Strategies would be a great way to facilitate this. The building is there, I doubt it gets much use in its current function (I don't use it) and it would replace hit-or-miss "learning" (where the only "hit" would be a KSP-style retrograde full impact) with something that is a lot more reliable and adaptable.

[Francois424]

That would be awesome to do.  Personally I would love having lots of contracts pop for the same places at once.  As  @5thHorseman  said in another post, maybe as transfer windows appear so does the contracts.
It's annoying that currently I cannot just pick "Explore Laythe-Vall-Tylo-Bop-Pol-Jool" all at once.  Why not just make a "Jool-5" contract ?  I would Loooove to have that.

Your Ideas are really good tho, I'd probably go all science mode (minus the asteroids).

 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Francois424

[mattinoz]

22 hours ago, Alshain said:

What are strategies?

 

EDIT: Oh right, those things in the admin building I never use.  Sorry, mind went blank there for a moment.  I agree (obviously) they are so useless I forgot they were there.

Surely you use the pool on hot days, otherwise it has no use at.

If only there was a zero tier that made the building go away and just left the pool for R&R.

Still making them more important might help too.

[Finox]

I agree with the thread consensus, I never use more than one strategy and even then usually just the strategy to convert science to money.   Even then I'm mostly using it as a handicap so I don't tech up too fast, something I could also accomplish by customizing the difficulty.   The problem is that most strategies don't do much to affect the way you play, they just allow you to get tech faster or have more money at a give time.   The exception is the "Recovery Transponder Fitting" strategy, I've always thought that one was the most interesting, unfortunately I'm not great with SSTO's so its never been something I could try.      More strategies like that one would help make the admin building more useful, also if the setup costs scaled with your "level" in the game, thus making strategies cheaper the earlier you set them up.

[Bloody_looser]

I agree with that. Strategies should, well, be strategies. Currently they are completely useless - setup cost is ridiculous, payoff insignificant; sell X for Y isn't even a strategy. Usually I completely ignore them.

[Blaarkies]

For the admin building, Imagine having an extra column in the strategies list, called "Re-branding"(?)

So in that list is a few contract strategies to choose from, directing you towards rescue missions, planetary landings, station construction, etc. (with stupid flavor text like advertising the company as "Orbital Search&Rescue", "Aldrin & Sons", "Weyland-Yutani Corporation", anything relating to the current strategy.

So let's say you choose to be The Rescue company, then you will find more rescue contracts obviously, but you will lose reputation if you if you have not had a rescue contract in the previous 400days.

There always needs to be some downside to every strategy(maybe even more than plain rep loss). How can this be made better?

[regex]

6 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

So let's say you choose to be The Rescue company, then you will find more rescue contracts obviously, but you will lose reputation if you if you have not had a rescue contract in the previous 400days.

Well, no, the idea would be that you only get rescue contracts, or you only get a subset of contract types, or maybe even a strategy where you never get a certain type of contract (for instance, removing part testing contracts would make me very happy).  I'd much prefer that sort of weighting myself since a good half of the contract types that exist pose little, if any, interest to me.  Then add exit costs or conditions, things like you can't switch off that strategy for a certain amount of time or until you pay a certain amount of funding.  Or maybe nothing at all, depending on how each is to be balanced and what the perceived benefit actually is.

6 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

There always needs to be some downside to every strategy(maybe even more than plain rep loss). How can this be made better?

It can't.  Strategies should present interesting options to the player.  If you get something good you should also have to deal with something bad.  Leadership Initiative is a perfect example of that (aside from the ridiculous setup costs) since you reduce contract returns at roughly the rate that you gain World's First rewards.  At maximum buy-in you have to actually get out and do something new to make money, you can't just crap out a satellite and make 200K.

[Andem]

Yes. I didn't even realize there were strategies for the first three months.

[Kuansenhama]

I +1 This. Just removing or greatly reducing the setup costs or making the conversion rates a little bit better is all I ask, but being able to specialize your space program based upon what you like to do would be nice. I never use strategies until (Like the OP said Research Rights Sell out 100% in the endgame.)

[AbacusWizard]

I don't even bother with the Research Rights Sell Out--by the time I've unlocked the whole tech tree, I usually have so much money from contracts (and enough orbital infrastructure to easily earn lots more) that I don't need the extra cash... and besides, I like to think of science points as my score.