Crzyrndm

Gaining extra science is a massive benefit for the early game. I do agree that the cost:value dipped too low with 0.3, but the startup cost is intentionally high (a little too high, but anyway) because of the value placed on science in a career game. I don't believe that you should just be able to easily convert your excess funds into the highly valued science. PS If someone wants to convert 100% of their funds to anything, they're going to have problems. Startup or no startup.

Check the beta's tab in the game properties, it has a "previous stable release" branch (which if it is kept updated would be 0.24.2)

0.4 experimental release (either don't update or delete the *_alt.cfg file if you're only looking for balance) - Added 9 alternative contracts for feedback. Delete the *_alt.cfg file if you don't want to deal with them - 8 currency exchange alternatives (instead of exchanging one currency for another, reduced gains in one is rewarded with increased gains in another, eg. -5% funds income, +5% Science income) - Flight data recorder strategy - %Increase in launch costs, Flat income bonus on vessel recovery. The intention will be to have companies offer you cash in exchange for launching a vessel with a data recorder or something of the like. This strategy is very WIP and is only included for feedback. Using it will likely result in you recieving a large amount of money for doing nothing - AVC version checking support and miniAVC bundled I would suggest not using the flight data recorder strategy as it will currently trigger on every individual recovered part and the vessel doesn't have to do anything to be elegible. The intention is that it only works for command parts and will probably require the part to have reached space to trigger the reward. It will be a replacement for the essentially useless "Recovery Transponders" Strategy (which is capped at 100% returns) once I add some plugin support for it. Why include it now? Because I have no idea what sort of numbers to give it and feedback on the idea would be much appreciated.

Just me testing to see if my theory of clamp being a simple general time constant held up. There was always the possibility of it being a non-linear factor of some sort (which would result in a constant scaling factor giving noticeably different results). It doesn't apply to general PID because you don't normally use a general factor like that, or atleast I don't (because it's entirely redundant). On a side note, going to have to see about making the attitude hold less prone to sliding over time (the target getting slowly dragged towards the current heading while under SAS control only). The ability to tune the SAS response just makes it even more obvious...

Noted. Will add it whenever next time this is updated

Surprisingly, clamp appears to be a general time constant (I would have sworn it was going to be some form of anti-integral windup). That would make the response equation something like: PID_r = (Kp * e + Ki * SumOf(e) - Kd * e') / clamp. (EDIT: Confirming that all factors are linearly related or very close to it. 10:2:2:1 <==> 10k:2k:2k:1k). Decreasing clamp allows more violent responses, increasing it slows responses. Increasing it slightly is likely to be the easiest way of getting rid of the "speed wobbles" (haven't tested that yet, just hypothesising). Note for anyone using this with planes, a small amount of Ki on the pitch axis will resolve the nose drifting up/down after releasing the controls (there will be a small drift down but it will correct itself back to the original point after a while). Don't understand why stock settings have it completely zeroed. if(GUILayout.Button("Commit")) { if(pitch.proper() && roll.proper() && yaw.proper()) { CommitChanges(pitch.buildPIDclamp(), roll.buildPIDclamp(), yaw.buildPIDclamp()); [COLOR="#FF0000"]GUI.FocusControl("Commit"); // Remove focus from textbox which otherwise causes issues GUI.UnfocusWindow(); // Return focus to game[/COLOR] } } Adding these two lines to the commit button function would be a really great help. I found myself adding "wasd" characters very frequently after commiting a tweak since the text box remains focused.

Already worked that one out. My initial intention was to base the currency ratios off the contract rewards, but the contract rewards are so inconsistent that doing so was largely an exercise in futility. Needless to say, that bugs me to no end...

You can always change the balance via. a mod... Outsourced R&D and it's insane returns aren't the only issue with strategies. Conversion from funds gives insane results, conversion to funds gives terrible results. Reputation <-> Science equivalencies are also not very well considered since the less reputation your program has, the more of it you get (and the 8:1 conversion ratio for reputation to funds is completely worthless leaving science as your only alternative). Even if you don't like my numbers, the .cfg is there and very easy to edit. TLDR Why whine when you can fix

For my strategies mod, I've added a small section of extra text displaying the amount of income of each type relative to the total income (eg. 1k funds -> 800 funds + 500 rep). It all works in a useable manner, so I'm just trying to resolve some of the more minor issues it has. The first of those is that after switching contracts or changing commitment level, the appearance of the text is slightly delayed. This results in a noticeable flicker, especially when dragging the commitment slider. I'm currently using the OnGUI() event to trigger the display call and from what I can tell that is the correct event, but that begs the question of what causes the delay. http://youtu.be/9JHnhF78qj0 The second is a very minor coding gripe. To check that the effect is a currency conversion (the only type I want to apply it to), what I'm currently doing is checking that the description of the single effect spans two lines of text (currency operation and value operation are both a single line per effect). The effect name ("CurrencyConverter") isn't available for some reason. Any ideas on how I can make a more robust test for the effect type would be much appreciated.

0.3 Released No balance changes this time, just a little extra information added to the GUI for the strategies which exchange currencies (aiming to improve understanding of the scaling and the returns you get from each strategy). This functionality is entirely independent of the balance changes (will work with stock or any other mod which alters the strategies if the .cfg is removed)

v0.2 uploaded Changelog - Changed Currency exchange model to increase value of low level commitment. Efficiency now decreases with increasing commitment (increasing commitment will still always result in increased output) - Increased buy in factor for Appreciation Campaign and Outsourced Research Strategies - Removed slider from Recovery Transponders strategy, effect is now constant +5% launch costs with a constant 100% recovery factor. It may not be the most intuitive thing in the world, but the commitment decay model works significantly better for both early and mid game operations from my experience testing today.

Diminishing returns over time (and other non-stock alike additions) would require custom functionality which I just don't have the time to implement right now. That is assuming the framework is open enough to allow such improvements among other things. EDIT The "Explore Eve" contract arrives quite early in the career mode (because logic right...) and has a funds reward of approx 650k if all objectives are completed (+~160 science, +~800 rep). 100% commitment Stock "Outsourced R&D" would give ~22k science for those funds (28:1 conversion ratio) 100% commitment "Outsourced R&D" would give ~1k science for those funds (625:1 conversion ratio) on the current release of this mod 100% commitment "Outsourced R&D" would give ~350 science for those funds (1667:1 conversion ratio) on my testing version which is using the decaying returns curve shown above (and requires 1M funds to activate in the first place, up on 200k from current release) 20% commitment "Outsourced R&D" would give ~100 science for those funds (1150:1 conversion ratio) on my testing version (compared with ~30 in the released version thanks to aforementioned screwup with information) So my question is: Which of these sounds about right? (For reference, most contracts with science rewards are giving 15-30 each at this point)

Point of discussion related to that: Should strategies impact on the cash advance you get on contracts at all? Being able to accept a large number of contracts and use that to generate science/rep doesn't seem like the most sensible inclusion (especially with most contracts having enourmous completion times so the likelyhood of failure is very low). Noted. I think the solution there is going to be spiking the buyin cost significantly (200k for full commitment really is too low now I think about it) plus a few other minor changes (such as the possible removal of cashing in on the advance). The idea of inverting the conversion ratio is certainly an interesting one and does make sense somewhat (basic market demand/supply), however it may be difficult to make that intuitive. Perhaps a constant rate is a better idea. EDIT A demonstration of how the output efficiency changes with each of the proposed/utilised conversion styles. Thoughts? Now that I'm looking at the right information (Looking only at conversion factors doesn't really give a very good picture in hindsight) a negative slope of about 30-40% strikes me as very attractive. The tradeoff between gains and efficiency means it isn't always better to increase your commitment (@30% falloff: 0->10% = +9.7% income, 45->55% = +7%, 90->100% = +4.3%)

Currently they seem quite restricted, however the level of exploration of what can be achieved is so far limited to the 8 stock examples plus a few extra little bits and pieces so it is rather difficult to tell how expandable the system may be.

I wouldn't follow too closely just yet, balancing requires a bit of time to settle down (especially when there is no particular example to work off: Tried using the contracts to establish the funds:science:rep ratio, but it just increased confusion due to wild variations...). On the subject of expansion, have you thought about tiered (probably the wrong word here. Strategies only only available at certain levels of reputation), and long term reward strategies (high upfront cost with bonus income to the same currency. Maybe even the inverse if the logic of the time constraints can be worked out: Instant currency with long term penalties, would require a minimum active time/number of launches/something of the like).

All my minor mods are going into a single thread post-1.0 release. Please check my signature for the new thread (this one may be obsolete and not return) Stock strategies do not appear to have any sensible system behind their costs or modifiers. This creates illogical situations such as funds "value" being much greater than their true worth compared to science and reputation, and penalties exceeding bonuses under all but the most specific situations. Sane Strategies uses a simple logical framework to establish balance between the currency conversion strategies, and significantly changes the cost/reward balance across all stock strategies. 6 alternative "conversion" strategies are also included that exchange collection efficiency between currencies (instead of exchanging the currencies themselves). For example, you might get a 15% bonus on all funds earned from a mission, but your science returns are reduced by 20%. This can give some very different results than the stock style of strategies does so make sure you understand the difference and plan accordingly. Feedback is an essential part of development and all opinions are welcome. Current values can be viewed here (stock and modified values on seperate tabs) Downloads Kerbal Stuff - Curse License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Changelog: 0.42.1 * Fixed versioning file 0.42 * Resolved memory leak 0.4 release * An increase in the "value" of funds relative to the other currencies used to calculate conversion rates. * 6 new strategies that are similar to the originals but with noticeably different gameplay impact. Instead of trading one currency directly for another, you trade on collection efficiency. Increasing science collection efficiency at the cost of funds means the science you bring back is worth more, but funds rewards are reduced (bring back no science and you'll still get penalised, but there will be no reward. Plan carefully). * A review of startup capital required for each strategy to be more inline with the benefits associated with each option * Bundling of Mini-AVC and AVC support 0.4 experimental (don't update or delete the *_alt.cfg file if you're only looking for balance) Added 9 alternative contracts for feedback. Delete the *_alt.cfg file if you don't want to deal with them - 6 currency exchange alternatives (instead of exchanging one currency for another, reduced gains in one is rewarded with increased gains in another, eg. -5% funds income, +5% Science income) - Flight data recorder strategy - %Increase in launch costs, Flat income bonus on vessel recovery. The intention will be to have companies offer you cash in exchange for launching a vessel with a data recorder or something of the like. This strategy is very WIP and is only included for feedback. Using it will likely result in you recieving a large amount of money for doing nothing - AVC version checking support and miniAVC bundled 0.3 - Added total currency exchange display to currently selected strategy 0.2 - Changed Currency exchange model to increase value of low level commitment. Efficiency now decreases with increasing commitment (increasing commitment will still always result in increased output) - Increased buy in factor for Appreciation Campaign and Outsourced Research Strategies - Removed slider from Recovery Transponders strategy, effect is now constant +5% launch costs with a constant 100% recovery factor. Github Source This mod includes version checking using MiniAVC. If you opt-in, it will use the internet to check whether there is a new version available. Data is only read from the internet and no personal information is sent. For a more comprehensive version checking experience, please download the KSP-AVC Plugin.

5) The group tag line is used atleast partially for creating mutually exclusive strategies. I have not tested if all the tags have to match, or if there is any significance to the basic/misc wording. Squad have used the effect CurrencyOperation (notably different from conversion) for the contracts from the operations division which I did not see noted. 6) Divide and subtract operations are not really logical inclusions as it is only duplicating functionality (adding a negative value, multiplying by a value less than 1)

Or unlock rotation on the claw and align it post-grabbing