A case for adding money to KSP2

[StopIteration]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:48 AM, Ryaja said:

maybe even on Kerbin for basic resources

I'm not sure about multiplayer, but I do agree that having money in the game to buy basic resources on Kerbin makes a lot of sense and would enhance the game.  I think that whether on Kerbin or not, building things should cost resources.  However, if you are on Kerbin, any (or at least almost any) resources that you are missing will automatically be bought using money when you build a craft.

If there is no money, then I would have to assume that building things on Kerbin is free, which I think would actually somewhat undermine colonies (where you would need resources to build things).

I do not think that you should be able to sell resources though, only buy them.  Late game resources should be prohibitively expensive to buy on Kerbin, incentivizing you to go to space to mine them.

---

As far as multiplayer is concerned, if there is trading in the game (which I'm not sure there should be) I do agree money would have advantages over resources for it.  With money, you could set up, for example, a gas station which other players could visit to refuel at, which might be fun.  It doesn't make sense to trade resources in such a case, since the visiting craft wouldn't have any.

Edited January 19, 2023 by StopIteration

[Pthigrivi]

3 hours ago, StopIteration said:

If there is no money, then I would have to assume that building things on Kerbin is free, which I think would actually somewhat undermine colonies (where you would need resources to build things).

Well the other solution would be that resources are produced and stored at KSC over time just like a colony would, like a fuel depot. That way part costs would be consistent throughout the game. 

[StopIteration]

Just now, Pthigrivi said:

Well the other solution would be that resources are produced and stored at KSC over time just like a colony would, like a fuel depot. That way part costs would be consistent throughout the game. 

So do you mean like Kerbin would have a passive +X metal/year, +Y methane/year, etc by default without building any infrastructure?  How should X and Y be chosen?

I think it would make more sense if you just had +Z money/year (or +Z money for completing contracts) and then you could buy the resources that you need on Kerbin.  Part costs would still be consistent, it's just that on Kerbin you get to substitute money for missing resources.

[Pthigrivi]

21 minutes ago, StopIteration said:

So do you mean like Kerbin would have a passive +X metal/year, +Y methane/year, etc by default without building any infrastructure?  How should X and Y be chosen?

I think it would make more sense if you just had +Z money/year (or +Z money for completing contracts) and then you could buy the resources that you need on Kerbin.  Part costs would still be consistent, it's just that on Kerbin you get to substitute money for missing resources.

Im not sure, it's just an idea. But yeah if you had a kind of resource depot/fuel farm that produced resources over time you could skip the conversion step. Resources are resources everywhere and there's no real need for a whole other contract system. Over time as you build more and more self-sufficient colonies money means less and less anyway, so just skip it. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[StopIteration]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Over time as you build more and more self-sufficient colonies money means less and less anyway

Well yes, my idea is that money would get increasingly meaningless in the late game (except maybe in multiplayer) as the focus moves to the colonies.  The point  though is to provide that progression from a fledgling space program to self-sufficient colonies.

Money would do basically two things.  It would give you an incentive to build self-sufficient colonies so you don't need to worry about money any more, and it would also add nuance to technological progression.  You can research and use RTGs, probably pretty early on.  But radioisotopes are expensive, so it's much more economical to stick with solar panels on all your craft until you're able to set up a mining operation on Eve or wherever.

Edited January 19, 2023 by StopIteration

[Pthigrivi]

3 hours ago, StopIteration said:

Well yes, my idea is that money would get increasingly meaningless in the late game (except maybe in multiplayer) as the focus moves to the colonies.  The point  though is to provide that progression from a fledgling space program to self-sufficient colonies.

Money would do basically two things.  It would give you an incentive to build self-sufficient colonies so you don't need to worry about money any more, and it would also add nuance to technological progression.  You can research and use RTGs, probably pretty early on.  But radioisotopes are expensive, so it's much more economical to stick with solar panels on all your craft until you're able to set up a mining operation on Eve or wherever.

It’s definitely workable. We had long debates months ago about this. Your two points are good, and exactly why I think a KSC resource depo works because it accomplishes both tasks while eliminating a redundant resource. In that paradigm the depo would produce basic resources at low rates and low storage caps initially, but it could be upgraded using science to produce more quickly and store more and produce more and more exotic materials. So players would be posed with a choice: do I spend my science on better tech and more efficient vehicles? Or more production and BIGGER vehicles? Or do I invest in colony tech and live off the land? Because the resource cost for an RTG would include rare radioactive materials its ‘cost’ is already included. Rather than create a whole system of contracts and sources and sinks for a redundant currency you use KSC to teach new players how colonies will function right from the get go, all while avoiding critical failure states that come from running out of money. Instead you’d never truly run out of resources to mount new missions, you’d just lose time as you approached the next launch window. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[Ryaja]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Over time as you build more and more self-sufficient colonies money means less and less anyway, so just skip it. 

This would also go for any early game resource, but money could also be very useful for hiring Kerbals and would add extra insensitive for exploration and colony building.

[Pthigrivi]

14 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

This would also go for any early game resource, but money could also be very useful for hiring Kerbals and would add extra insensitive for exploration and colony building.

It sounds like these will be what the ‘boom event’ rewards are all about—a more handcrafted set of goals than the semi-random contracts. They’re kind of cutting out money as a middleman to produce more direct rewards. 
 

I think both systems could work, but I personally adhere to an Occam’s razor philosophy of game design; all things being equal the simplest system is the best system. If you can accomplish all of your incentive goals with 1 abstract resource there’s no need to have 3. Adding more will only create more administrative busywork that distracts from core gameplay. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[Ryaja]

Just now, Pthigrivi said:

It sounds like these will be what the ‘boom event’ rewards are all about—a more handcrafted set of goals than the semi-random contracts. They’re kind of cutting out the middleman to produce more direct rewards. 
 

I think both systems could work, but I personally adhere to an Occam’s razor philosophy of game design; all things being equal the simplest system is the best system. If you can accomplish all of your incentive goals with 1 abstract resource there’s no need to have 3. Adding more will only create more administrative busywork that distracts from core gameplay. 

Yes, think of money of grouping together resources instead of being a new one, making the game simpler and easier at first because you just need that one resource until you build colonies.

[Pthigrivi]

2 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

Yes, think of money of grouping together resources instead of being a new one, making the game simpler and easier at first because you just need that one resource until you build colonies.

Except you have to use that resource to pay for other resources like metals and fuel, injecting market rates and conversions right from the beginning. You can just skip that step entirely, start with resource tanks full, players buy their few missions without worry, and only start to think about resource costs on their 3rd or 4th launch. And in any case, critically, there’s no failure state because the resources just replenish. Each resource you add—especially one with a zillion conversion rates like money—dramatically increases total game complexity. 

[Ryaja]

10 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Except you have to use that resource to pay for other resources like metals and fuel, injecting market rates and conversions right from the beginning. You can just skip that step entirely, start with resource tanks full, players buy their few missions without worry, and only start to think about resource costs on their 3rd or 4th launch. And in any case, critically, there’s no failure state because the resources just replenish. Each resource you add—especially one with a zillion conversion rates like money—dramatically increases total game complexity. 

Unless the computer automatically does the conversion rates then it will remove a lot of complexity, also just having resources appear from thin air seems strange, but with money you could assign a monthly payment for it.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, Ryaja said:

Unless the computer automatically does the conversion rates then it will remove a lot of complexity, also just having resources appear from thin air seems strange, but with money you could assign a monthly payment for it.

Its just a factory and storage, same as colonies, which is important because the logic stays the same throughout the game, rather than introducing players to one system only for it to barely matter down the road. You could have monthly payments, but you don’t want players to time warp to infinimoney. Thats why having a resource storage cap is important, again, just like colonies will have. 
 

I think people are so used to and dependent on money in the real world they find difficulty imagining a world without it. Its just an arbitrary mechanism for assigning value. If you have access to the actual resources and you aren’t negotiating prices with vendors there’s no need for it to exist. You need money so you can buy groceries. If you could just walk into the grocery store and walk out with food you’d never need to worry about it. Thats what focusing on resources does. It cuts out the need for transaction. To stretch the analogy this game is about the art of farming, cooking and eating, not the art of buying, selling, and accounting. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[StopIteration]

7 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

the depo would produce basic resources at low rates and low storage caps initially, but it could be upgraded using science to produce more quickly and store more and produce more and more exotic materials

 

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Each resource you add—especially one with a zillion conversion rates like money—dramatically increases total game complexity

You need to have different rates at which resources are added to the depo with your suggestion, just as you would need to have different resource costs with money.  For money these prices would be fixed (I'm certainly not suggesting simulating an economy), but you propose that the rates at which resources are added would change with upgrades.  I'm not totally opposed to the idea, I do think both could work, but in and of itself, it's not really any simpler.  Though if the source of money is contracts or similar, which it probably would need to be, it might be more complicated if such a system would not otherwise exist.  Still I think it's worth it.

As far as complexity for a new player is concerned, as Ryaja said, the resource cost would be almost completely transparent to the player, as you'd never have to buy the resources manually (you wouldn't even be able to).  When you go to build the craft, it'd just tell you what the cost is for the resources you don't have, and so all you'd need to think about in the early game is a single resource.  Whereas with a slow dribble of resources, there'd be one bottleneck resource after the next that you're running out of.  I guess that could give rise to interesting engineering challenges, but more likely I'd just timewarp until I had the resources I wanted rather than trying to make use of what I had on hand.  Storage caps don't really change that so much, it just limits the size of the craft you can launch.

I don't love the way that contracts are implemented in KSP 1, but they do have the nice property of working almost the same no matter how much you timewarp.  I think that's a good thing for the early game.  You could have contracts that give resources rather than money, but that would definitely add complexity.

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

there’s no failure state

Personally, I don't care if there's a failure state, but there are certainly some easy ways to make it so you can get out of a failure state.  For example, if the player is out of funds, give occasional lucrative contracts to test parts, where the parts are provided.  The player needs to suffer the indignity of launching some sounding rockets maybe, but they wouldn't need to restart.

Edited January 20, 2023 by StopIteration

[StopIteration]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

To stretch the analogy this game is about the art of farming, cooking and eating, not the art of buying, selling, and accounting. 

Well, I'd say it's not a farming game, it's an engineering game.  And to stretch analogies further, engineering is a little bit like accounting except your costs are more abstract.  But sometimes they are actual literal costs. 

[Pthigrivi]

7 hours ago, StopIteration said:

You need to have different rates at which resources are added to the depo with your suggestion, just as you would need to have different resource costs with money.  For money these prices would be fixed (I'm certainly not suggesting simulating an economy), but you propose that the rates at which resources are added would change with upgrades.  I'm not totally opposed to the idea, I do think both could work, but in and of itself, it's not really any simpler.  Though if the source of money is contracts or similar, which it probably would need to be, it might be more complicated if such a system would not otherwise exist.  Still I think it's worth it. 

I think you're right the complexity difference at KSC is trivial. What makes it different is we'll be delving into resource production and storage with colonies anyway, so unlike money it's not actually an added system. If anything that process of generating and resources and making rockets from it is the game, and to carry that logic at KSC as well just gives players a smoother learning curve as they approach colonies. 

And I think this is just a philosophical difference in the way we see KSP2. Id be happy to dispense with contracts basically in their entirety. I think you keep the milestone goals and maybe add some in around starting and growing colonies and stations and discovering new resources, but they can all be passive. There's no need for advances or penalties, the goals are just there for players to grab and the rewards are things like boosted populations, maybe science boosts, special or free tech unlocks, etc, so the rewards are more direct. Rather than the game churning out a questlog of randomized, unfocused tasks for money you just build a solid resource and science gathering grand puzzle and let players navigate it and build as they like. I think KSP2 should be less like Skyrim in which you're gathering up quests and executing them, and more like Factorio in which you have resources scattered around, tight mechanics that govern the way they're moved around and processed, and let players play. Stripping out the need for money means players aren't dependent on fulfilling an external laundry list to keep the wheels moving. They can go where the like, build where they like, and the only restrictions are the limits of physics and chemistry needed to harvest, build, and explore.

 

7 hours ago, StopIteration said:

Well, I'd say it's not a farming game, it's an engineering game.  And to stretch analogies further, engineering is a little bit like accounting except your costs are more abstract.  But sometimes they are actual literal costs. 

Haha yes. To disentangle my messy analogy farming is resource harvesting, cooking is engineering, and eating is flying rockets to new places. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[poopslayer78]

On 1/3/2023 at 7:07 PM, Bej Kerman said:

What would being able to trade money do that trading raw resources couldn't do?

I could imagine currency being instantly transferable across distances while resources need to be physically hauled off in person.  I could imagine an Eve-online like system where you buy a bunch of hydrogen in a far away station and come to haul it away later.  There are of course issues with this too, like the seller blowing up the stockpile just to troll but you get the idea.

That being said, I think in KSP money would be nice convenience for multiplayer trades but I wouldn't consider it necessary.  When I play other co-op games with friends we tend to specialize in our roles and we don't really care or track if one person is getting more economic benefit than another.  In a competitive setting I wouldn't trust other players enough to trade in the first place.

[Kerbart]

On 1/19/2023 at 2:05 PM, StopIteration said:

I'm not sure about multiplayer, but I do agree that having money in the game to buy basic resources on Kerbin makes a lot of sense and would enhance the game.  I think that whether on Kerbin or not, building things should cost resources.  (...) If there is no money, then I would have to assume that building things on Kerbin is free, which I think would actually somewhat undermine colonies (where you would need resources to build things).

For a game to be interesting it needs to offer challenges. Challenges suggest reaching goals despite certain restraints. Some of those restraints are extremely natural in KSP — we can thank Kepler  and Newton for that — and others are more artificial in nature.

While currency is an intuitive choice as a restraint agent, there are also arguments to not use it.

• It's a game, not real life. Features added “because realism” do not automatically lead to better game play, and we should be careful not to ad features just because “it's more realistic”
• Money can be banked. Literally. While money encourages building efficient ships, it also encourages doing many grinding repetitive missions instead of big, bold missions in order to gather more money.
• As a sandbox game, a lot of enjoyment comes out of having the freedom to create whatever you want. Put money on the table and the intrinsic drive (and source of entertainment) disappeared and is replaced by a desire to get rewards It's well established science that external rewards are meager replacement for that inner drive. For IG a reduced drive to play the game is not good news.

So in short, saying “why does the game have no money, we need it” can be answered by “maybe you don’t need it, and the game will be more fun without it.”

 

[Cytauri]

I think resources are fine. Just my opinion but there are some more important things that we should suggest. 

[SolarAdmiral]

On 1/19/2023 at 3:16 PM, Pthigrivi said:

Well the other solution would be that resources are produced and stored at KSC over time just like a colony would, like a fuel depot. That way part costs would be consistent throughout the game. 

I agree with this. The devs are already building a whole resource system. Why make a whole second resource system using money when the same mining and transport system could be used on kerbin too?

 

What if the ksc creates a slow trickle of resources. Which can be bolstered by driving the same resource transport rovers and planes and ships you'd use on any other planet. This would also give us a reason to drive fly and sail all around kerbin. There could be basic metals all up and down the mountains to the west, oil across the sea, rarer resources in the distant desert or at the frozen poles.

 

And that way, a tank costs 50 iron to build anywhere. Rather than 50 iron anywhere but kerbin and 100 funds on kerbin. I think the point of using resources instead of funds is the kerbals have arrived at the point where they've devoted all their time and effort to exploring and expanding into space. Based on comments by the devs int he videos, going to other star systems will require the marshaling of all the resources of the species. You get to a point where money doesn't make sense anymore.

 

Maybe with a setting to have all kerbin resources tapped from the start for when you want to skip setting up those early routes.

Edited January 21, 2023 by SolarAdmiral

[darthgently]

35 minutes ago, SolarAdmiral said:

I agree with this. The devs are already building a whole resource system. Why make a whole second resource system using money when the same mining and transport system could be used on kerbin too?

 

What if the ksc creates a slow trickle of resources. Which can be bolstered by driving the same resource transport rovers and planes and ships you'd use on any other planet. This would also give us a reason to drive fly and sail all around kerbin. There could be basic metals all up and down the mountains to the west, oil across the sea, rarer resources in the distant desert or at the frozen poles.

 

And that way, a tank costs 50 iron to build anywhere. Rather than 50 iron anywhere but kerbin and 100 funds on kerbin. I think the point of using resources instead of funds is the kerbals have arrived at the point where they've devoted all their time and effort to exploring and expanding into space. Based on comments by the devs int he videos, going to other star systems will require the marshaling of all the resources of the species. You get to a point where money doesn't make sense anymore.

 

Maybe with a setting to have all kerbin resources tapped from the start for when you want to skip setting up those early routes.

Why mine Kerbin when you can mine Mun and Minmus and elsewhere?  I'm applying the logic of Earth here.  Who wants all that in their backyard on the only planet completely suited to walking barefoot on a beach without a helmet?  Just a little friendly push back, not serious disagreement here

 

[SingABrightSong]

It occurs to me that the game intends to adequately reflect the considerations when designing and operating spacecraft in real life, and that one of the major considerations in real life aerospace does happen to be money. Expendable launch vehicles are expensive to operate and, even with the resources provided by a government, still have to justify resource allocation to the space program against other operations of the government. Even for a hypothetical high-technology civilization that doesn't use an abstract currency, every drop of RP-1 feeding a rocket engine is kerosene that could have run a combine harvester, a hurricane lantern, or an emergency heater, not to mention the steel. The problem isn't necessarily "Cost" per se, but cost as an extension of scarcity; in either case, real life spacecraft designs have recently been highly optimized towards cost-efficiency, and in particular re-usability, and the balancing of optimization goals is perhaps the major "puzzle" of any spacecraft design. In this sense, money forces a constraint on spacecraft design in the same way that life-support forces a constraint. 

[SolarAdmiral]

8 hours ago, darthgently said:

Why mine Kerbin when you can mine Mun and Minmus and elsewhere?  I'm applying the logic of Earth here.  Who wants all that in their backyard on the only planet completely suited to walking barefoot on a beach without a helmet?  Just a little friendly push back, not serious disagreement here

 

For sure. And that is a choice I'd expect the player to have. Make do with the little trickle of resources your get off the bat and skip right to moon mining. Or set up a few routes on kerbin to give you an early game boost so you can build out stuff even faster.

Imagine if the resources the ksc gives you at the start are roughly equivalent to the funding nasa had at its peak. Say you could build one saturn v apollo mission per one year or six months. Then you could choose to leave it at that level and play a budget restricted nasa. Or head out and strip mine all of kerbin to fuel a massive species wide drive to the stars.

[darthgently]

15 minutes ago, SolarAdmiral said:

For sure. And that is a choice I'd expect the player to have. Make do with the little trickle of resources your get off the bat and skip right to moon mining. Or set up a few routes on kerbin to give you an early game boost so you can build out stuff even faster.

Imagine if the resources the ksc gives you at the start are roughly equivalent to the funding nasa had at its peak. Say you could build one saturn v apollo mission per one year or six months. Then you could choose to leave it at that level and play a budget restricted nasa. Or head out and strip mine all of kerbin to fuel a massive species wide drive to the stars.

Once low gravity well ISRU is established the cost of fuel from Kerbin would likely be exorbitant.  A good strategy would be a single mine or 2 near KSC producing just enough to keep initial launches rolling with the sole target milestone being off planet fuel production

[SolarAdmiral]

22 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Once low gravity well ISRU is established the cost of fuel from Kerbin would likely be exorbitant.  A good strategy would be a single mine or 2 near KSC producing just enough to keep initial launches rolling with the sole target milestone being off planet fuel production

Agreed. But we don't know how much time and resources it will take to set up the moon bases to the point they're also mining. And maybe there's some stuff on kerbin you can't easily get on the moons. Or maybe there's some advanced products like electronics that can't be built off world until the colonies grow to a larger size. I'm personally hoping there's a higher teir of manufactured materials that have to be brought from kerbin for a bit until the colonies grow larger and get factories.

But yes I wouldn't expect the game to require you to set up more than a couple of mines on kerbin before moving out to the moons. The ksp devs seem to be wanting to balance a bit of challenge but not introduce a bunch of repetitive grind.

[Pthigrivi]

Personally I wouldn’t have ISRU on Kerbin. The point is consistency and easing new players into the idea of resource costs. Its also important that this process is relatively hassle-free early on. Id just have a resource depot building at KSC that can be upgraded with science to increase production rates, storage, and fancier materials. That way its a strategic choice to invest more on capabilities at KSC or in offworld ISRU. 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Pthigrivi