Thought #4411572 OR 'R&D' actually R&D

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

So, here's an absurdity to ponder...  Mind you, I ponder this lightly, so don't take my use of language as anything critical.

But imagine that you're a developer in the Kerbal Universe.  You watch Jeb take a boosterup, collect a report that the sky in space is black, and come back down.

Jeb hands you the report, you get science points, suddenly you can make landing gear.

 

O_o?  "How does commenting on the sky being black a landing gear make?"

 

This is the conundrum of R&D in Kerbal Space Program.  You launch your craft, get sciency stuff to make points by running it in certain situations, and come back down, and unlock a tech node... A tech node that in no way relates to any of the 'science' you just collected.

 

What if we modified things to make you work for your tech unlocks in a manner that makes sense?

 

Consider the following concept: 

Instead of unlocking tech nodes in the tech tree by throwing hastily assembled science points at it, you progress through the tech tree by utilizing parts in the node you wish to unlock.  I can think of a few different ways to approach this off the top of my head, but the way that I think would be both fun, and make sense is something I'm going to call 'Prototyping'.

 

In the concept of prototyping, the science you earn to unlock a tech node normally is of no consequence.  What we can 'do' with science points can be thought about later.

Instead, the act of unlocking a tech node is akin to beginning research on a project.  Using cash funds, you open a tech node for 'research prototyping'.  At this point, parts are unlocked for use, but their monetary cost to place on your rocket is greatly inflated.

This phase, called the 'prototyping phase', lasts until you complete research of the parts.  To complete the research of the parts, you must build vehicles that use these parts and perform missions with them.  What we define as 'missions' can be left open for discussion later in this thread (if anyone decides to comment), but as you build vehicles to use these parts and accrue points, you are actually actively creating vehicle prototypes and test beds for your tech node, putting your activities more in line with testing and prototyping phases for equipment in real life.  When you acquire enough points (as a default, the amount of points equal to the number of science points needed to unlock the node in a normal game), the tech node comes out of prototyping, and becomes fully unlocked, allowing you access to further downstream nodes.

 

In this manner, the act of R&D is less building a compact instrument probe so you can fly it on a grand tour and unlock half the tech tree in one mission.  The act of R&D is you actually using the parts and 'researching' them by using them.  You are not required to use all the parts in a tech node (some parts are useless, or useless very quickly), but the more parts you utilize, the faster you can complete the prototyping in that node.

 

 

As an example, assuming you could create checks for parts like say, a ladder, and that it gets 'climbed on' at least once in a mission....   In order to unlock I believe it is 'space exploration' tech node, the node is first 'opened for R&D' using funds.  At this point, the ladder part applicable is unlocked for use, but costs something like ten times more to utilize.  In order to unlock the node for 'normal' use, the ladder must be put on a ship, said ship must be launched, and the ladder used.  The more exotic the location, the more points accrued by using the ladder.  But here's the catch... You cannot transmit R&D points back like you could science.  You have to recover the part being tested IN-TACT! to acquire the points.  (Engineers have to look at it, yes?)

So in this manner, you balance the risk and reward of prototyping.  The further you go from the space center, the more 'research' you accrue for the part per sortie.  But the further you go, the more difficult your recovery becomes by the nature of ensuring that it can survive the return trip.  So, early game, on-pad testing nets you enough to get you going, but as tech nodes get better, the point requirement goes up, the more bold your testing operations have to become.  You get maybe a 1 for 1 value for testing an engine on the pad, but you get maybe 3 to 1 in orbit, 5 to 1 on the mun, and so on...  But in testing on the mun, you have to get the part BACK from the mun.  You find a balance for what you can do for tests and where.

 

In effect, operating this way makes prototype vehicles using lots of new parts really expensive, but at the same time, very lucrative for testing...  Assuming you can recover them in one piece.  Parts generate points only if they're used ('used' depending on what they actually do.  For example, structure parts just need to work in flight for X amount of time under thrust, rocket motors need to fire), the parts produce ONE point per MISSION, multiplied by the highest exotic location multiplier of the SoI/Biome it was at least used once in.  And of course, the parts only generate said points if they are recovered on kerbin.  (So, again, the engineers can look at them.)

EX: A rocket motor used in on the pad, in flight, in orbit, and in the Mun's SOI would only count the Mun's SoI multiplier... and only count it if it was fired in that SoI.  Otherwise it would fall back to the Kerbin orbit SoI if it was fired there, or further.

 

Further, this has the effect of making players TRY to keep their prototypes recoverable at all costs.  Not only do you need those points, but the vehicle's stupid expensive, and you'd be very upset to be unable to recover it and recoup the huge cost markup.

 

Concept, discuss.

[wasml]

I think you implied that the R&D points would only apply towards the node the part was from (I don't see it explicitly stated in a quick re-read) but that would make sense - would also allow a more balanced/even opening of the tech where you could work on multiple nodes at once. I can see a couple edge cases that might be a bit strange like testing the Twin Boar engine/fuel tank in orbit around Minmus would get you more points than using it for it's intended purpose as a first stage booster. Letting the idea settle in - wouldn't it make the most sense to give the most points for operating a part in its intended environment/ for it's intended use? Of course this might make unlocking the tree too easy - not sure how you would balance that.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

6 hours ago, wasml said:

I think you implied that the R&D points would only apply towards the node the part was from (I don't see it explicitly stated in a quick re-read) but that would make sense - would also allow a more balanced/even opening of the tech where you could work on multiple nodes at once. I can see a couple edge cases that might be a bit strange like testing the Twin Boar engine/fuel tank in orbit around Minmus would get you more points than using it for it's intended purpose as a first stage booster. Letting the idea settle in - wouldn't it make the most sense to give the most points for operating a part in its intended environment/ for it's intended use? Of course this might make unlocking the tree too easy - not sure how you would balance that.

 

It would make more sense to operate a part in its intended environ, yes, but then you have to go through every part in every mod and define an intended location state for said part.  Unless there's a hook or flag already in place we can piggy-back off of, that's a tall order of organizing the community.  Or writing a config file base along the same lines as the engine configs for Real Fuels...  All at once.

 

I'm certain that if this kind of thing got taken up, you want to make it open and flexible first.

[Zoidos]

I really like the idea. I was thinking about something along those lines.

I imagined something like this: You have a basic node at the beginning and need to unlock other nodes by performing certain actions with certain parts at specific situations. The tech tree is not visible, you just unlock stuff along the way.

As you also mentioned, first you could only build prototypes, which are a lot more expensive, but also less reliable and have worse stats (battery with less EC, parachute that creates less drag, etc.). There could also be malfunctions (similar to the mod Kerbalism or dangit!) and the more you use a part and in the more situations, you would gather tech points for each part which then you can use to upgrade reliability and performance (similar to another brilliant mod: Kerbal Research and Development).

Further unlocks could have requirements like landing a craft on Kerbin using at least x amount of radial chutes and thus unlocking the prototype for the next biggest chute. So in a way that a new part is unlocked by the need for it (as it would happen in RL).

Later in the tech tree there could be more complex requirements. For example, that in order to unlock a node, you first need to land on a certain body and retrieve a certain material that only exists there (An extension of this would be a mod where you require materials which have to be harvested on other bodies or refined in space to even build rockets using certain parts; This would also give more reason to build and maintain outposts and space stations, though not sure whether the game engine makes this possible at all).

So pretty similar to what you had in mind in fact.

Anyway, since I don't even know how to read logs, I won't likely create such a mod anytime soon... 

[OHara]

The repetitive aspects of science-collecting, and non-obviousness of what earns science-points, caused me to forget to even try to get science, but I still wanted to gradually work through the tech tree.   I wanted something like suggested method of technology-tree advancement so much that I tried to implement it with pencil-and-paper.   

I simplified somewhat:
1) Prototype parts are those in recently-unlocked nodes, those nodes needing sufficient Usage before the suppliers are able to produce parts on the following nodes.
2) Anything in the KSP reward system counts as Usage of parts. Each Science-point whether returned or transmitted, each Reputation-point, and each thousand Kerbal-Funds, counts as Usage-point to be shared between the TechTree-nodes of the parts involved in earning that reward (including launching).
3) Once a node gets Usage equal to the science-points that unlock it in the game, I allow myslef to cheat-open its following nodes.

If KSP or a mod did the accounting, of course, many of the finer points above could be incorporated.   Although some of the details, like a new scoring system for where each part is used, would have people like me forget to jump through those hoops just like I forget now to bring a thermometor and goo on an ore-scouting trip. 

For people who appreciate realism, this does mimic how science and technology interact in the real world.   Years ago I worked for a company that made a cutting-edge (at the time) medical imager, whose diagnostic use was not yet clear.  At low volume it cost a lot to make, so the price was high and profits low, and it was hard to justify efforts to improve it, but enough people published scientific papers that its usefulness became clear.  The science (medical diagnosis) has nothing at all to do with the technology to make the imager, but use of the technology to generate the science showed all of us that this technology was worth advancing.  Ten years later the follow-on product costs the same but works much much better and does much much more.