Career mode Game Over!

[Monkeh]

I've been reading all the threads about 0.22 and it's tech tree and how it will all be handled, including the cost of building your rockets and there's some great suggestions and ideas coming in from all over the place. There's one question that hasn't been asked yet, afaik.

The question I was wondering about is if there will be a 'Game Over' at any point in the finished career mode? Can your space program run out of money and have to shut down? Should it be possible to go bankrupt and have to start over again? I don't think this has been asked or answered anywhere and it's kind of important to answer all the other questions about how it should be structured imho.

If Squad don't want to force players into starting again then keeping your program running with donations or getting funding from simply accepting a mission will have to happen.

If Squad want to make it a bit tougher then running out of resources could be a real threat and a massive challenge. Or a minor possibility and no real threat unless you mess up again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

So what do you think? Should there be the possibility of totally running out of everything and having no option but to start again or should your space program be protected by government and repeatedly handed funds despite numerous catastrophic failures?

[Zutha]

I thought there were two modes:

1. Career

2. Sandbox

There should be a game over for Career in my opinion if you fail. Sandbox is for doing whatever you want, Career should be about doing whatever you want with the possibility of losing

[Monkeh]

Yeah, I feel the same, a failing space program should be able to do just that and wither away into a bankrupt ball of shame. But then again, making players start over all the time might be against this policy of helping new players to enjoy the game.

It's a tricky one to be fair.

[Depth]

Going to space is dangerous, polluting, expensive and the fuel could be spent elsewhere. If your program is not showing fruits, who in their right mind would fund it?

[Monkeh]

Going to space is dangerous, polluting, expensive and the fuel could be spent elsewhere. If your program is not showing fruits, who in their right mind would fund it?

Pretty sure the main reason America went to the Moon was because they wanted to beat Russia to it and prove they were the real superpow-blah-blah-blah world dominating blah-blah-blah-best in the-blah-blah. (Source: First pages of this document here: http://docsteach.org/activities/13380/print )

Then again, maybe JFK and Nixon weren't exactly in their right minds anyway.

[Superfluous J]

I like the way SimCity did it (in 2000. I don't know how 3000 and the rest worked). Allow you to go bankrupt but give you every single chance possible to fix it. Warn you up down and sideways and then warn you again. Give you loans and advisers.

And then when you STILL screw up, yeah, you tanked it and have to restart.

[boomerdog2000]

Loans might work long as you have to pay them back with interest, although I'm not sure how interest would work.

I've seen a few games give you a time limit, I.E. in debt for 3 (days, weeks, months, whatever) = game over.

Or debt past a certain level = game over.

[DoctorCruz]

I want to see contracts if possible in career mode. A way to earn money by taking a celebrity Kerbal into orbit, or building conducting research for some corporation. I think that would add a lot more playability one the actual currency is introduced.

[DChurchill]

Yeah, I feel the same, a failing space program should be able to do just that and wither away into a bankrupt ball of shame. But then again, making players start over all the time might be against this policy of helping new players to enjoy the game.

It's a tricky one to be fair.

Well, lots of games have failure as an option. I liken career mode to something like Sim City or Civilization. I don't think you have to guarantee success. That being said, I hope that there's no "game over" for a successful space program. It would be nice that, as the fruit of your success, you in effect end up with a fully unlocked game like sandbox, but with the ability go keep gathering science like Civilization has "future tech" that keeps going and adding to your score.

[Monkeh]

Ok so does the collapse of one space program mean your next starts from scratch completely. I mean no saved ships or sub assemblies? Nada.

Or do we envisage the same guys getting up off the floor and starting again with the same set of plans and so keeping your saved ships and sub assemblies?

[pa1983]

I dont see why you could not save and load ships from both a shared folder and a folder connected to the particular save. Shared crafts already exists but you cant save to the shared folder from what I know atm.

And yes a Failure mode should exist. Go bankrupt and its over.

I dont see why you could not play for ever tough but that would basically bee sandbox but with the cost if running the crafts, fuel etc. But some might like that. To fund your own projects you have to doe some contracts to even if those contracts probably are similar to the once you already made before.

If your a new player and need som practise there is sandbox mode. Tough I dont see why people cant learn to play carer and not necessarily fail because there new.

[DevoidLight]

I was thinking about this earlier, and the idea I came up with was Emergency Funding. If your resources weren't enough to launch another mission to make more money, you could take this option, which would sell off/scrap all of your spacecraft, and your money would be set to just enough to launch a small mission to get yourself back on track. I thought that the cost of all your spacecraft would make this an absolute last resort option, and so you couldn't abuse it by buying another craft, taking funding, repeating a number of times, and then selling everything.

[pizzaoverhead]

The game's still a sandbox if there's no possibility of failure!

Ok so does the collapse of one space program mean your next starts from scratch completely. I mean no saved ships or sub assemblies? Nada.

I'd like to see the option of having the craft in orbit from previous careers, maybe even with associated missions.

• "The crew of this craft need to be ferried home after being left stranded by the collapse of their space program."
  
• "We've come into possession of a second-hand space station after the bankruptcy of a competitor. We need you to deliver replacement parts, supplies and crew to get it up and running again."
  
• "Repair, repurpose or deorbit this abandoned satellite."

[Drunken Hobo]

I was thinking about this earlier, and the idea I came up with was Emergency Funding. If your resources weren't enough to launch another mission to make more money, you could take this option, which would sell off/scrap all of your spacecraft, and your money would be set to just enough to launch a small mission to get yourself back on track. I thought that the cost of all your spacecraft would make this an absolute last resort option, and so you couldn't abuse it by buying another craft, taking funding, repeating a number of times, and then selling everything.

I much prefer this idea to a full "Game Over" which somewhat breaks immersion. Maybe even have it possible to sell researched items, so you fall back down the tech tree.

Is Kerbal Space Program going to be a private company or a government organisation? Or is it irrelevant?

[boomerdog2000]

Maybe we could have a few emergency funding mission to try and get the program back on track if it's going bankrupt but not an infinite number of them. A sort of "all right you've had funding problems, but if you can pull this off we'll give you a ton of money." It would have to be fairly difficult to warrant the return from debt.

Also it does seem like there should be a definite game over. Were our first cities, civilizations, theme parks, what-have-you, completely successful right off the bat in other games?

No, we screwed up, we probably screwed up a lot. But then when you did get it to work wasn't that feeling so much sweeter because of it?

[Nobody]

The game's still a sandbox if there's no possibility of failure!

I'd like to see the option of having the craft in orbit from previous careers, maybe even with associated missions.

• "The crew of this craft need to be ferried home after being left stranded by the collapse of their space program."
  
• "We've come into possession of a second-hand space station after the bankruptcy of a competitor. We need you to deliver replacement parts, supplies and crew to get it up and running again."
  
• "Repair, repurpose or deorbit this abandoned satellite."

I think this sounds like a great way of handling game over. Add onto this that recovering advanced tech could be reverse engineered(to speed progress) or made available for 1 time use shortcuts in the restart space agency.

Admittedly the recovery option would often depend on the developers adding a way to add parts(like parachutes) to a craft so it could be safely deorbited.

Several options to help you save your agency should be offered before you are forced to restart.

[frizzank]

Is there going to be a bank that you can barrow money from eventually? Would help when your just slightly negative and be more forgiving in the career mode.

[Drunken Hobo]

If you have a proper "Game Over" maybe have a really dark ending like Chrono Trigger, with an asteroid heading towards Kerbin that you could have stopped, had only your space program been successful.

It'd feel completely out of place in a game about crazy green men and their flying machines, but that'd be the point.

[FellipeC]

Besides lack of money, I think the space program could be canceled due lack of results or too many failures/deaths.