Funding bug in career mode?

[Mjarf]

Not entirely sure where to put this, so feel free to move it if it's in the wrong category.

I tried my luck at career mode today, I set up a new save with medium difficulty with all the funding sliders and such set to 100%. My problem if I can call it that is that I seem to get ridiculously high payment for even trivial contracts. I've completed four of the easiest starter contracts and I'm already up to 300k funds, that doesn't seem very balanced to me?

[bewing]

Well, in  Mission Control (when you are looking at/accepting contracts) it tells you exactly how much money you will get for accepting the contract, and exactly how much you will get for completing each sub-objective of the contract, and exactly how much you will receive for final contract completion.

So there are several questions for you:
If you look through that list of contracts, do the payouts seem unusually high?
Do the actual payouts exactly match the numbers specified in the contract when you took it?

 

You also need to understand that the most expensive thing in the game is upgrading your facilities. Wait until you try to upgrade your R&D facility from level 2 to level 3 before you complain that the contracts pay out too much money.

The second most expensive thing is replacing dead kerbals, and hiring new kerbals as your space program expands -- each one you hire is more expensive than the one before.

And if you really do end up thinking the payouts are too high, then restart a career on Hard mode or a customized version of that. Maybe you're just really good at the game.

 

Edited October 17, 2018 by bewing

[Mjarf]

The total payout for each contract was around 10k, so that would require nearly 30 contracts. Maybe it's from the milestone bonuses, still seems a bit high though? I am quite experienced with KSP, but at this rate I might as well play science mode again. I guess could try an tweak the funding slider and see what happens.

[Zhetaan]

14 hours ago, Mjarf said:

[T]hat doesn't seem very balanced to me?

It's balanced, but the balance is skewed to favour ease over difficulty.  Consider, for example, that with the default science sliders and stock tech tree, it's possible to complete the entire tech tree without leaving the Kerbin-Mun-Minmus system.  When you add the sheer magnitude of science multipliers and other opportunities available in the solar system, it's enough to question why anyone bothers with science at all at places such as Duna and Jool.  Part of that, I think, is a remnant of the days when only Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus had biomes, but it's also the case that the devs have had many opportunities to further change the science point balance and chose not to do so.

If you've spent some time in Science mode, then as you say, you've got experience with KSP.  That means you're good enough at flying different kinds of rockets (and without instant availability of the most capable rocket parts) that you don't have to worry so much about crashing and burning, and can easily afford to turn the funding slider down to 30% or lower because you won't have to pay for many mistakes.  Depending on how you feel about the MPL and research, you can probably afford to turn down the science sliders to 20% or 10%, and force yourself to go out-system.

[Mjarf]

I have played the game nearly 1000 hours according to Steam so I have been around the block a few times hehe. That's why I'm trying career mode again, to get a new challenge, I guess I could adjust the difficulty a bit, or maybe play around with the fancy new mission builder. It would be fun to try and replicate the Apollo 13 incident and see how I manage.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

You'll have to crank up the difficulty if you want to pinch pennies in Career.

The default settings will have you rolling in funds by the mid-early game. Which isn't really an issue if you like to do a lot of expensive side projects like me, or you aren't grinding missions out that hard.

[Mjarf]

I see, I guess I have overestimated the difficulty of Career mode then, I'll have to try a new save at max difficult and see what happens. Thanks for all the input.

[radonek]

Just you wait until you see price tag on top tier facility upgrades. I tried it several times, but always ended in boring grind.