[BETA] [1.8.x] Bureaucracy - Monthly Budgets, Reimagined (Release Candidate - 22/01/2020)

[severedsolo]

Bureaucracy has now been released!

 

(screenshots in spoiler)

 

Spoiler

Monthly Budgets was my very first C# mod, and frankly it shows. It's badly coded, it breaks if you try and change anything at all and there's so many if statements that it sounds like a steam train ("Ff, Ff, Ff, Ff")

So this started as a simple rewrite of Monthly Budgets to make it, not terrible to maintain, and morphed into alot more, because I had ideas coming. After a months worth of planning, another months worth of coding (plus a computer wipe that lost half the code!), and a lengthy testing period I'm finally ready to share the (nearly) finished version.

Read The Manual!

The short version is: Plan ahead. Everything takes time, and if you don't plan ahead, you will end up dead spending a frustrating couple of months while you get to where you need to be.

Features:

Overview

• A monthly budget is allocated based on your space programs Reputation. Kerbals need to be paid, and Facilities have a maintenance cost.
• Once costs have been paid, whatever is left is split between 3 departments, “Program Budget”, “Facilities/Construction” and “Research”
• “Program Budget” department is basically your rocket building money. Facility Upgrades are handled by the construction department, and the Research Department analyse science that has been returned.
• Contract funding is replaced with Reputation which feeds into the budget that is allocated to you every month.
• Kerbals who die on mission will have a negative effect on your reputation. Too many deaths may also cause Kerbals to quit your space program (see Wiki for more details).

Facilities/Construction

• You no longer need to have the available funds on hand to upgrade a building. Instead, the upgrade is passed to the Construction Department who will need to be adequately funded to build the upgrade (see wiki for more info)
• If there isn’t enough money to cover the Facility Maintenance costs, a facility can be “closed” (functionality reduced/see wiki for more details).
• Most facilities now have 5 upgrade levels (provided via a CustomBarnKit configuration file) (see wiki)

Research

• When science data is returned to the Space Centre, you will not get the science given to you straight away. First it must be analysed by the Research Department (see wiki).

Crew

• Crew now have a basic “morale” system. Annoy your kerbals too much, and they will quit (see wiki).
• New recruits must be trained. You will not be able to use new recruits for one budget cycle while they go through training.

Events

• Random events will occasionally happen that may effect your space programs funding, science output or put a kerbal back into training.

Notes specifically for existing Monthly Budgets Users:

• "Taxpayers cover costs" is now just the way it works. Maintenance costs will always be deducted from budget where possible (because it doesn't make much sense that "this month we'll cover your costs, but next month you'll have to" just doesn't make sense.
• Big Project Funding is gone - the reasons for this have been rendered obsolete now Bureaucracy handles building upgrades
• Most of the original options are still there, but may have been rendered obsolete by the changes. Don't assume that the options that used to work for you still will (for example: I used to keep "Hard Mode" on - now it destroys me).

Configuration/Settings: See Wiki

Recommended/Dependent Mods:

Module Manager, and Flight Tracker are required dependencies, Custom Barn Kit is Highly recommended (you may find it is unbalanced if not). All are bundled in the download zip (as allowed by the licenses where required). I'd also recommend Exploration Plus for your exploration contracts

License: MIT

Download: https://github.com/severedsolo/Bureaucracy/releases

Source: https://github.com/severedsolo/Bureaucracy

Still To Do/Known Issues

• Toolbar icon is missing right now
• "Research" Tab will show the maximum possible output of your Research Department.
• UI is a bit fussy about Budget Allocation - sometimes you'll try to come out and it will moan "Allocations don't add up to 100%" even when you didn't change anything. For now just change them back, will be fixed before release.

Special Mentions/Thanks

Big thanks to @Beetlecat @theonegalen and the guys on Discord for listening to me rabbit on about this for the last couple of months.

Icon by Freepik at www.flaticon.com

Edited January 25, 2020 by severedsolo

[SudAntares]

I've never tried mods like this, and maybe it will too hard for me, but will probably give a try.

Anyway, great work!

[Kwebib]

Dang it. I finally got all my mods set up for a career game in 1.8, after not playing KSP in over a year, and now I need this mod too!

[Kwebib]

What are your ideas, if any, of how this will play with Kerbal Construction Time? Haven't been able to try this out yet, but I glanced at the defaultSettings.cfg and there is a "ShowKCTWarning = True" line.

[severedsolo]

2 minutes ago, Kwebib said:

What are your ideas, if any, of how this will play with Kerbal Construction Time? Haven't been able to try this out yet, but I glanced at the defaultSettings.cfg and there is a "ShowKCTWarning = True" line.

With me, you can guarantee my mods will play nicely with KCT where possible, it's my favourite mod and I won't play without it. Actually, I'd recommend playing with KCT.

That line is for building upgrades. Bureaucracy and KCT both try to take ownership of the "Upgrade" button on Facilities (buildings) - that warning is just to tell you to turn it off in one or the other.

Edited January 13, 2020 by severedsolo

[Sabrewulf]

I'm playing/testing your mod and i have suggestions. Adjust budget for each department is painful, i do not want to loss money with over-budget.

• Instead allocate percentage we would allocate a fixed amount per budget.
• Administration building level should give penalties for allocation wasting money due poor administration, as example:
  • lvl 1= -25%, lvl 2 = -17%, lvl 3 = -10%, lvl 4 = -6%, lvl 5 = -1%
• Would be nice see in budget tab math "gross budget X, reputation Y = multiplayer A". It For know what's happening
• Would be nice too a public/private option, with public being the actual and private being based in "total science points converted (as curve)" justified by rights sell.
• Rep funds multiplier would be a curve instead a straight ascendant line.
• Astronaut would have a "morale" tab and morale be based in stupidity, also paid vacation for raise morale. I think it will be painful to code, so no pressure.
• Settings need gross budget adjust for who want to change the "TimeBetweenBudgetsDaystime" without unbalance.

Construction:

• Instead choose upgrade individually "stock" we would allocate for each building and it auto-upgrade when reach the value.

Research:

• Research budget would be allocate per science point instead money while visualize the science/budget.

Edited January 14, 2020 by Sabrewulf

[theonegalen]

 

On 1/13/2020 at 12:52 PM, Kwebib said:

What are your ideas, if any, of how this will play with Kerbal Construction Time? Haven't been able to try this out yet, but I glanced at the defaultSettings.cfg and there is a "ShowKCTWarning = True" line.

The other possible interaction with KCT has to do with the science unlocks. Remember, KCT can make nodes take time to unlock, and when you add the processing / Research time from Bureaucracy, you can have a very long lag time between completing a mission and getting science points and having useful new parts.

@severedsolo, were there any specific KSP difficulty settings you designed Bureaucracy to work with? Especially regarding funds and repuatation rewards and penalties / costs.

Edited January 14, 2020 by theonegalen

[vardicd]

I will be watching the development of this mod with great interest. If I wasn't already in the middle of a game I'd try it out, but I'm afraid swapping monthly budgets out for this might... break stuff.

[severedsolo]

10 hours ago, theonegalen said:

, were there any specific KSP difficulty settings you designed Bureaucracy to work with? Especially regarding funds and repuatation rewards and penalties / costs.

I've balanced assuming default settings, the only thing I felt like needed a tweak were the exploration contracts (and maybe Tourism contracts - but I haven't looked properly at those yet), hence why I'm going to be re-releasing exploration plus

 

4 hours ago, vardicd said:

I will be watching the development of this mod with great interest. If I wasn't already in the middle of a game I'd try it out, but I'm afraid swapping monthly budgets out for this might... break stuff.

Yeah, I'd definitely recommend a new game for this.

Edited January 15, 2020 by severedsolo

[severedsolo]

On 1/14/2020 at 7:49 AM, Sabrewulf said:

Settings need gross budget adjust for who want to change the "TimeBetweenBudgetsDaystime" without unbalance.

Implementing this now, as promised in the Monthly Budgets thread.

On 1/14/2020 at 7:49 AM, Sabrewulf said:

Astronaut would have a "morale" tab and morale be based in stupidity, also paid vacation for raise morale. I think it will be painful to code, so no pressure.

They already have morale and it's already based on their stupidity, you can see it in the Astronaut Complex - the paid leave is a great idea, just need to figure out how to implement it and mesh with the UI.

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by severedsolo

[severedsolo]

Bureaucracy Beta 2 (0.2) now available

• Add Autobalance costs option - will attempt to automatically balance your Maintenance/Wage/Launch costs if the budget period is not set to default - can be turned off in the cfg.
• Facility Upgrades can now be cancelled by clicking the upgrade button for a third time.
• Improvements to save upgrade pipeline (will automatically resave defaultSettings.cfg if it's not up to date)
• Maximum science output is now shown on UI
• Fix Allocation Error UI having too much empty space at the bottom of the window

Edited January 15, 2020 by severedsolo

[Kwebib]

I was gonna ask about the KSP difficulty settings as well. On a related note, what KCT difficulty settings do you use? Personally, I like using the "Upgrade Free" preset where the building upgrades are what affect build rates and such (I don't care for the upgrade point system). I also increase the overall multiplier.

[severedsolo]

1 minute ago, Kwebib said:

On a related note, what KCT difficulty settings do you use?

Almost default, but I turn Facility Upgrade and Research times off, and Reconditioning on (nothing to do with Bureaucracy, I just find the grind of the upgrades annoying with KCT).

Edited January 15, 2020 by severedsolo

[vardicd]

@severedsolo feature request, if i may and forgive me if it's already in here and i missed it, would be nice if kerbals cost a flat rate to hire. It's always seemed silly to me that the more you have the more costly it is to hire more [as in stock]. Seems like increasing budget costs for keeping them on the payroll is enough, not cranking up the hiring costs as each is hired as well.

Edited January 16, 2020 by vardicd

[severedsolo]

2 minutes ago, vardicd said:

@severedsolo feature request, if i may and forgive me if it's already in here and i missed it, would be nice if kerbals cost a flat rate to hire. It's always seemed silly to me that the more you have the more costly it is to hire more [as in stock]. Seems like increasing budget costs for keeping them on the payroll is enough, not cranking up the hiring costs as each is hired as well.

Oh, its not documented, but that is actually one of the things the CBK config provides. Kerbals have a flat rate of 60k to hire (you didn't miss it, I forgot to mention it)

Edited January 16, 2020 by severedsolo

[vardicd]

28 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Oh, its not documented, but that is actually one of the things the CBK config provides. Kerbals have a flat rate of 60k to hire

Oh I didn't realize that, cool

I do have one other question, I just started a new save and am trying out this mod for it. the wiki says:

• KSP Directory/GameData/Bureaucracy/defaultSettings.cfg
• KSP Directory/saves/your save folder/BureaucracySettings.cfg

The first are default settings that will be applied to all new games. The second are save specific settings.

I've manually edited my save specific folder now to lower the maintenance cost of some of the buildings and kerbal wages to be more in line with the customn setup i liked in my monthly budget uses, however, as soon as i reload my game the changes seem to reset, they return to the default settings. do i need to also change the default file, or is there some other step i need to take other than editing and saving the file? {or could it be that the default is incorrectly over writing save specific settings? Don't know if this is working correctly on you end?} Not sure If i'm just doing something wrong but I've tried to change the settings several times and keep getting the same results.

EDIT: Ironically, the dead kerbal rep penalty setting stays changed. I lowered that setting so dead kerbals were bad, but not as bad. that setting stays changed, all others reset. 

EDIT2: I just tried changing the default settings file and the save specific file at the same time and reloading the game to see if it will stick. the default file remained changed when i exited and looked at it, however the save specific file had reset to the old defaults, except the dead kerbal rep value, which remained at the lower setting I'd selected.

Edited January 16, 2020 by vardicd

[severedsolo]

16 minutes ago, vardicd said:

Oh I didn't realize that, cool

I do have one other question, I just started a new save and am trying out this mod for it. the wiki says:

• KSP Directory/GameData/Bureaucracy/defaultSettings.cfg
• KSP Directory/saves/your save folder/BureaucracySettings.cfg

The first are default settings that will be applied to all new games. The second are save specific settings.

I've manually edited my save specific folder now to lower the maintenance cost of some of the buildings and kerbal wages to be more in line with the customn setup i liked in my monthly budget uses, however, as soon as i reload my game the changes seem to reset, they return to the default settings. do i need to also change the default file, or is there some other step i need to take other than editing and saving the file? {or could it be that the default is incorrectly over writing save specific settings? Don't know if this is working correctly on you end?} Not sure If i'm just doing something wrong but I've tried to change the settings several times and keep getting the same results.

EDIT: Ironically, the dead kerbal rep penalty setting stays changed. I lowered that setting so dead kerbals were bad, but not as bad. that setting stays changed, all others reset. 

EDIT2: I just tried changing the default settings file and the save specific file at the same time and reloading the game to see if it will stick. the default file remained changed when i exited and looked at it, however the save specific file had reset to the old defaults, except the dead kerbal rep value, which remained at the lower setting I'd selected.

Uh, I changed that yesterday, its possible I broke something, I'll look at it tonight. Does it work if you click the load settings button in the ui after changing the file with the game running?

[vardicd]

Uh, @severedsolo your budgets mod may not play nice with Kerbin Environmental Institute? I don't think that's supposed to look like that, but maybe that's just because the mod instantly does all science at the KSC? 

Just now, severedsolo said:

Uh, I changed that yesterday, its possible I broke something, I'll look at it tonight. Does it work if you click the load settings button in the ui after changing the file with the game running?

I still get the same results. I even tried editing the files with KSP closed. changes don't seem to stick, or reflect in game.

[severedsolo]

1 minute ago, vardicd said:

I still get the same results. I even tried editing the files with KSP closed. changes don't seem to stick, or reflect in game.

Cool, I obviously broke it then. Will fix it up tonight.

re the science thing: that's a known issue, it's just a visual bug. If too many experiments are being processed at once, the window tries to cram them all in. I haven't figured out how to get the scroll list working yet

[vardicd]

4 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Cool, I obviously broke it then. Will fix it up tonight.

re the science thing: that's a known issue, it's just a visual bug. If too many experiments are being processed at once, the window tries to cram them all in. I haven't figured out how to get the scroll list working yet

Update, the settings changes apparently will stick, as long as you do it with KSP shut off, but require a full budget cycle to be reflected in game. 

I changed my settings while KSP was shut down, loaded my save, budget widow showed old settings, ran the game forward and at the 30 day mark when budget magic happened, my costs appeared to be deducted in accordance with the default values {I lost funding to the tune of 40,000}, but the next budget cycle is showing values equal to the settings I changed. {costs of a mere 22,000} and the save specific config now reflects the values that i set.

[severedsolo]

Just now, vardicd said:

Update, the settings changes apparently will stick, as long as you do it with KSP shut off, but require a full budget cycle to be reflected in game. 

Oh, I thought I'd fixed that before release... That tells me where I need to look at least, cheers

[vardicd]

2 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Oh, I thought I'd fixed that before release... That tells me where I need to look at least, cheers

Also just tested starting a new save, even with the default values in the main mod folder set for my custom values, a brand new save loads with the default values. does not inherit the changed settings from the mod's default config till after the first month budget change.

[severedsolo]

Just now, vardicd said:

Also just tested starting a new save, even with the default values in the main mod folder set for my custom values, a brand new save loads with the default values. does not inherit the changed settings from the mod's default config till after the first month budget change.

Just to double check (this should sort itself by default) in the settings files, does the version show as 0.2 or 1.0? (it should be 0.2). I think the upgrade pipeline may not be working properly (that's what I changed yesterday)

[vardicd]

1 minute ago, severedsolo said:

Just to double check (this should sort itself by default) in the settings files, does the version show as 0.2 or 1.0? (it should be 0.2). I think the upgrade pipeline may not be working properly (that's what I changed yesterday)

Version = 0.2 this is what it shows at the top of the settings file, in both default and save specific.

Also I made a mistake in my reporting. I assumed that the new save i started would reflect the changed values after the first month's budget cycle. It does not. The values in a new game remain at the old default values unless you exit KSP and manually edit the save specific file to custom values. then it takes one in game month to reflect the changes.

Also appears to break if you do nothing and run the game through a budget cycle. I did nothing, spent no money, for one month to see if the settings would change. I got a message about budget, my costs should have been in the 40,000 range per default settings, my available balance remained at my starting value of 10,000. Mod does not appear to actually do anything, if you don't spend money.

[vardicd]

@severedsolo You might want to check the code that controls random events as well, I have twice now had a random event fire after adding a vessel to the KCT build, as I'm leaving the editor scene. both occurred in the first 30 day budget window. I did not mess with the frequency of events in the config file.

Also after more testing, getting any custom settings to stick in the save specific file seems to happen completely randomly. sometimes the changes will stick if the save specific file is edited when KSP is shut down, sometimes it does not. I can't seem to find a way to reliably get results with it. 

Side question, is there a way to see a kerbal's current morale? If i lose a kerbal and my crew gets a morale strike, can i see that? also if i lose a kerbal and a morale strike occurs, and i hire new kerbals before the 6 month period ends, do they inherit the morale strike from 'hearing about it' while in training, or do they start fresh with no morale strikes?

Edited January 16, 2020 by vardicd