[1.12.x] Bureaucracy - Monthly Budgets, Reimagined (1.6.1 - 16/03/2023 (Final release))

[vardicd]

@severedsolo  Here's a question for you, I don't know that it's a bug, but maybe an oversight? or maybe it's working as intended, and I'm just thinking about it wrong. When you start a new game, and you have no rep, no budget coming in, Bureaucracy says your current expenses exceed your income. your construction and research departments get no funding. 0's on those lines, and if you let the month tick over, you end up in the red, basically bankrupt. but despite that, your researchers will still process data and give you science, and the unpaid construction guys will still start working on upgrades to buildings. That feels... wrong to me? Shouldn't they go on strike and say, nope, no data and no constructions for you! Or is this just a KSP/mod limitation and not something that can be modeled in game?  

[severedsolo]

13 hours ago, vardicd said:

Shouldn't they go on strike and say, nope, no data and no constructions for you! Or is this just a KSP/mod limitation and not something that can be modeled in game?  

They should.... the budget should be 0 when that happens meaning no progress should be made.

[vardicd]

2 hours ago, severedsolo said:

They should.... the budget should be 0 when that happens meaning no progress should be made.

Ah, I see, even if your construction/research budget is showing as 0 funds, as long as you have a positive bank balance, your construction/research departments will drain funds from your bank balance, but I didn't see anywhere, where that was explained, so I misunderstood. I had assumed those departments were funded from the incoming balance, not the banked funds available for rocket construction. Since the incoming fund balance was negative, and the budget was showing 0 funds allocated, I expected those departments to do nothing. It seems instead that {functionally} the incoming balance is deposited into the bank balance, and then the construction/research departments take their monthly funding from the bank balance at the end of the cycle at the same time the money is deposited, so as long as you have a positive balance they assume they'll be funded at the end of the month and actually do work through the month. I did not expect it to function this way.

Edited February 1, 2020 by vardicd

[vardicd]

@severedsolo And further strangeness, just loaded my save game after testing some things in a sandbox, and the Bureaucracy button is no show. I did get trickle science so it seems to still be working but I can't access the interface. Log, save, and screenshot below. if i remember correctly, I typed 'Bureaucracy button disappeared' in the console log when i realized there was a problem. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8kflbx3m0t4a7mq/Player-B button vanished.log?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/to21d11slyu7ioy/AAC-A_UN9pYWO1vubzs4KxXca?dl=0

Edited February 1, 2020 by vardicd

[severedsolo]

17 hours ago, vardicd said:

It seems instead that {functionally} the incoming balance is deposited into the bank balance, and then the construction/research departments take their monthly funding from the bank balance at the end of the cycle at the same time the money is deposited, so as long as you have a positive balance they assume they'll be funded at the end of the month and actually do work through the month. I did not expect it to function this way.

Unintended Feature!  - ha, that's kind of funny. The budget is definitely supposed to use your bank balance as a buffer, but only for the maintenance costs.

Re the toolbar disappearing - I guess it's getting stuck somewhere after loading a sandbox save (I'm probably destroying an Event too completely or something) - will investigate.

[vardicd]

3 hours ago, severedsolo said:

Unintended Feature!  - ha, that's kind of funny. The budget is definitely supposed to use your bank balance as a buffer, but only for the maintenance costs.

Re the toolbar disappearing - I guess it's getting stuck somewhere after loading a sandbox save (I'm probably destroying an Event too completely or something) - will investigate.

Understood, and the funding thing isn't really that big of a deal, It was just behavior that didn't match what I was expecting in my own head after playing with it and reading the wiki, so I thought I'd ask for clarification. I only figured it out because I intentionally bankrupted my space program once just to see what happens. In all my other games since I started using Bureaucracy I haven't even accidentally bankrupted myself, so it's not something that ever came up before.

With the missing toolbar thing It's hard to say, I had it happen once before, and I think I reported it, but hadn't saved the logs, or anything, then couldn't repeat it. It's an intermittent thing. It doesn't happen every time you switch from a sandbox to career, so that's why as soon as it happened this time, I sent everything to you. It's only a minor annoyance anyway, when it does happen. thankfully the mod doesn't actually stop working, so it doesn't break the save game state or anything, and restarting KSP restores the interface.

Also I had a thought last night, I started a number of new saves to test a couple of Roverdude's and LGG's mods to see if I wanted to add them to my main save, and during the tests I had a few random events fire, and by the time I migrated back to my main save, It occurred to me, that if you were doing more than one save at a time, it might be nice to have some way to see what random event effects are active, at any given time, other than the chance of fire tracker, I haven't noticed any way to see am i getting a science bonus in this save, or penalty, or extra funding, or was I getting sued, are these effect permanent, have they worn off?

I'm not sure how such a thing could be implemented, or if it's even worth it, especially if event bonuses or penalties only last a month, or a few budget cycles, but the wiki doesn't seem explain event effect longevity, and I haven't found anywhere in game that explains that either, but I thought I'd mention it, see what you thought.

And I promise, I'm not actively trying to find bugs or break your mod. 

[vardicd]

I just loaded an f9 save after a plane crash, and got a random event fire? should that happen?

[Friznit]

Random edge case.  If I load a Sandbox save then quit to main menu and load a career save, the Bureaucracy icon disappears and I can start upgrading buildings normally, though the random events still fire.  It's a bit odd.

[vardicd]

6 hours ago, Friznit said:

Random edge case.  If I load a Sandbox save then quit to main menu and load a career save, the Bureaucracy icon disappears and I can start upgrading buildings normally, though the random events still fire.  It's a bit odd.

Yeah I've had this happen a couple of times and reported it, but it seems erratic, doesn't happen for me every time, so it's been a bit hard to pin down, restarting KSP clears it and returns everything to normal.

 

[vardicd]

Anyone using Bureaucracy and Kerbal Foundries at the same time in their installs? I just picked up Kerbal Foundries yesterday, and noticed today, just a bit ago, I had the R+D facility being upgraded to Level 4 and when it completed, it failed to actually go up a level, it's still at Level 3. Me adding Kerbal Foundries is the only thing I've changed since my last building upgrade, so it's currently my prime suspect, considering since I installed it, all the part textures in the R+D and VAB/SPH seem like they've gotten darker, but look okay in flight, I've asked in that page if anyone else sees that or if it's possible I've installed something wrong. I'm going to do some more tests tomorrow after I get some sleep {testing while exhausted is not a good idea}, see if i can verify, and repeat the incident reliably.

Thought I'd ask here, if anyone else is using Kerbal Foundries and Bureaucracy, and not having issues, It might help rule it out as the cause, especially if i can't repeat it tomorrow. It might have just been a one off, KSP glitch.

[vardicd]

After testing today, I can not reproduce the failure to upgrade on new saves, so I'm going to call it a one off KSP glitch, unless I can get it to happen again later.

[Malcolm]

On 25.01.2020 at 17:39, severedsolo said:

 

• Big Project Funding is gone - the reasons for this have been rendered obsolete now Bureaucracy handles building upgrades

 

Sorry, maybe they already wrote about this, but I have a question about this statement. At default settings, the maximum monthly budget will be around 2,000,000. Some mods for CTT have very expensive parts. For example, those in the screenshot.
Without Big Project Funding, it would be impossible to make a machine with such details!The rest is a very interesting continuation of the ideas of Monthly Budgets. Thanks for your work!

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Malcolm

[vardicd]

5 hours ago, Malcolm said:

 Some mods for CTT have very expensive parts.

 

That's a interesting thought, something I hadn't considered.

PSA for everyone: As far as I can tell, Mod is still fully operational with the 1.9 update today.

Edited February 13, 2020 by vardicd

[severedsolo]

18 hours ago, Malcolm said:

Sorry, maybe they already wrote about this, but I have a question about this statement. At default settings, the maximum monthly budget will be around 2,000,000. Some mods for CTT have very expensive parts. For example, those in the screenshot.
Without Big Project Funding, it would be impossible to make a machine with such details!The rest is a very interesting continuation of the ideas of Monthly Budgets. Thanks for your work!

  Hide contents

 

 

 

I mean sure, 25 million is a perfectly reasonable cost for a part .... (I'm joking, I get why that part is so expensive)

I'll... see what I can do about the BPF, certainly I don't want to break other mods if I can help it. I need to sit down and actually get the Kerbalism support working first though.

[Malcolm]

3 hours ago, severedsolo said:

I mean sure, 25 million is a perfectly reasonable cost for a part .... (I'm joking, I get why that part is so expensive)

I'll... see what I can do about the BPF, certainly I don't want to break other mods if I can help it. I need to sit down and actually get the Kerbalism support working first though.

Could it be possible to introduce mechanics similar to building improvements? If you order a ship’s construction more expensive than the player’s account, the construction will go on as the money arrives.
I don’t know if this is possible.
Or maybe allow the player to take a loan for such a large construction.

[severedsolo]

18 hours ago, Malcolm said:

Could it be possible to introduce mechanics similar to building improvements? If you order a ship’s construction more expensive than the player’s account, the construction will go on as the money arrives.

Maybe, but that would break compatibility with KCT which I'm not keen to do. If I were to do this, I'd make Bureaucracy give way to KCT if it's installed.

I kinda like the loan idea though.

[Beetlecat]

I'm about to drop Bureaucracy into JNSQ which features a 12-hour day for Kerbin. Anything Funny I should look out for? I'll most likely cut the standard "monthly" interval down, due to the comparable gain in hours per-day. Does Bureaucracy count by hours, or is there an actual in-game "day" it ticks by?

If we had 30 days in stock, that's 180 game-hours. 30 days in JNSQ would be 360, etc.     (such round numbers.... ba-dum tssss)

Edited February 14, 2020 by Beetlecat

[captainradish]

3 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

I'm about to drop Bureaucracy into JNSQ which features a 12-hour day for Kerbin. Anything Funny I should look out for? I'll most likely cut the standard "monthly" interval down, due to the comparable gain in hours per-day. Does Bureaucracy count by hours, or is there an actual in-game "day" it ticks by?

If we had 30 days in stock, that's 180 game-hours. 30 days in JNSQ would be 360, etc.     (such round numbers.... ba-dum tssss)

I'm running Beyond Home which has (as far as I can tell) a slower day. What I've discovered with that is I have my monthly endings at somewhere around 45 days or so rather than 30. This mod doesn't seem to count days but some other measurement. It does make my campaign quite a bit longer than I'm used to.

[vardicd]

11 hours ago, severedsolo said:

I kinda like the loan idea though.

I do too, honestly I almost suggested that during beta testing, but decided not too, as i couldn't figure out any real reason to include it. I also don't play with mods with insane part costs. 

[captainradish]

BTW, this mod is an awesome successor to Monthly Budget. About the only thing I wish was included is a "science generator" like what MB had, although I never used it because it inexplicably decreased my reputation pretty dramatically.

That being said, it's not a terribly big deal whatsoever as science is not hard to find. This mod DOES make my early career quite long as I have to wait for a fair bit of time for my science to unlock. Also, any science record keeping, such as [x] Science! or ScienceAlert has a bit of an issue if the science its looking for is still in the queue. I initially thought there was some kind of odd problem as it kept telling me I hadn't gotten a science project I was 100% sure I had. Not a problem for you to fix, of course, just an oddity you may want to make a note of.

Edited February 15, 2020 by captainradish

[severedsolo]

7 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

I'm about to drop Bureaucracy into JNSQ which features a 12-hour day for Kerbin. Anything Funny I should look out for? I'll most likely cut the standard "monthly" interval down, due to the comparable gain in hours per-day. Does Bureaucracy count by hours, or is there an actual in-game "day" it ticks by?

If we had 30 days in stock, that's 180 game-hours. 30 days in JNSQ would be 360, etc.     (such round numbers.... ba-dum tssss)

A day in Bureaucracy is a day on your homeworld. Doesn't matter what that is - Bureaucracy reads the planets solarDayLength.

You probably want to use Kronometer though, so the display is correct too.

2 hours ago, captainradish said:

Also, any science record keeping, such as [x] Science! or ScienceAlert has a bit of an issue if the science its looking for is still in the queue. I initially thought there was some kind of odd problem as it kept telling me I hadn't gotten a science project I was 100% sure I had.

That's odd... if those mods are doing their job correctly then that shouldn't happen.

Bureaucracy doesn't actually interfere with the science system at all. It's all smoke and mirrors. It lets the experiment run, and the science credit, and then takes the science away before you notice. In theory the game should register the science as being properly ran.

[Zorg]

47 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

In theory the game should register the science as being properly ran.

Science alert is working properly as far as I can tell in my game.

[Friznit]

7 hours ago, severedsolo said:

A day in Bureaucracy is a day on your homeworld. Doesn't matter what that is - Bureaucracy reads the planets solarDayLength.

You probably want to use Kronometer though, so the display is correct too.

That's odd... if those mods are doing their job correctly then that shouldn't happen.

Bureaucracy doesn't actually interfere with the science system at all. It's all smoke and mirrors. It lets the experiment run, and the science credit, and then takes the science away before you notice. In theory the game should register the science as being properly ran.

Kronometer is built into JNSQ already.  Dropping Bureaucracy into a JNSQ install works fine with no mucking around required.  I'm really enjoying the extra...er....bureaucracy in my career game. 

[captainradish]

8 hours ago, Zorg said:

Science alert is working properly as far as I can tell in my game.

OK, it is in my game too...after a little bit. It doesn't appear to reflect what science I picked up on, say, the previous launch. It's a little odd, but whatever.

EDIT: OK, it appears to be some kind of odd issue with ScienceAlert and how it reacts with DMModuleScienceAnimateGeneric. Basically, if I set ScienceAlert fire certain sciences they don't animate correctly and even though the game says I have the experiment I actually do not. If I fire them manually they DO work. Weird. So basically, it doesn't appear to be an issue with Bureaucracy at all.

Edited February 15, 2020 by captainradish

[vardicd]

7 hours ago, captainradish said:

OK, it is in my game too...after a little bit. It doesn't appear to reflect what science I picked up on, say, the previous launch. It's a little odd, but whatever.

EDIT: OK, it appears to be some kind of odd issue with ScienceAlert and how it reacts with DMModuleScienceAnimateGeneric. Basically, if I set ScienceAlert fire certain sciences they don't animate correctly and even though the game says I have the experiment I actually do not. If I fire them manually they DO work. Weird. So basically, it doesn't appear to be an issue with Bureaucracy at all.

Yeah science alert has known issues with the DMagice science mods using that they've discussed it in the science alert thread and the dmagic science threads.