Politics in KSP?

[NASAFanboy]

Hello, I am here to ask you of your opinion of adding budgets, politics, and nations into KSP, in order to provide an extremely realistic feeling of having a space agency. Now, some may be asking, "What do you mean?". I'm going to explain.

How Politics in KSP Could Work Out

Here it is. You're the top director of a space agency. Now, how will politics factor in? For example, lets say PlayerA is starting a new game in career mode. After he/she makes his profile, he will have a option of countries to work for. These countries will be listed, and will have different tech-trees to accomadate different cultures, different attitudes, and different ways for these nations to slowly advance to the stars and beyond.

For example, Country A may be advanced in manned spaceflight, but very lacking in spaceplanes and probes, while Country B has a barely moving space program, but gives you probes and planes from the start of the tech tree, in the first few research science tiers. After selecting a country, the player is given the parts and the first tier. Now they'll launch and do their stuff. Easy, right? Not exactly.

Politics and Budgeting

A successful flight (In terms of science recieved and wheter the Kerbals survived) means more funds, higher approval ratings from the press, better PR, and less chance of you recieveing a bad quarterly review from the leader of said country. For example, ket's say Player A goes to the Mun and back later in his career. Once he successfully recovers his ship, he will recieve a GUI explaining the impacts of the mission on the country and goverment, and will be given messages such as...

Example: "Due to the success of Munshot-5, the President of the United Proviences would like to thank you for your services. The success of the mission has also prompted the United Provincal Parliament to authorize an further 500000 in funding for your agency. The 78 science earned from this mission has greatly pleased our scientists, and you are now permitted to go ahead with your Duna Exploration programmme."

Example: "After the accident of Munshot-5 that has killed the astronauts Bill, Bob, and Jeb, the United Provincal Parliament has not authorized any further spending and ha ordered an cut of 5000 from your budget."

So, I'm just wondering. Maybe Politics would only be factored in at a certain level of difficullty (Lets say there are three levels. Easy, Normal, Hard. Politics are in Normal and Hard.)?

[99TheCreator]

No. I control my space program, anyone who tries to mess with it gets an all expense paid flight straight into being a new crater on the Mun.

[wasmic]

No, the way I see this game is: Kerbals like love exploring space, and therefore send 95 % of their global GDP into the space program. And 15 % of the population.

[ZedNova]

Budget cuts i supposed, like maybe if you kill too many kerbals.

[sanoj688]

I like the game mechanics that it would offer, because then there is a bigger challenge (and reason, motivation) to do missions safely!

Although if it could be toggled like a game option, that would be even better to accomodate for people who don't want it, or when I don't want it a particular game.

[The Fleet Master]

Me and Camulus777 and me have been working on something like a Budget System, Check on this off and on to see how it goes http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56970-Kerbal-Powers-Board-Game

[Don Quixote]

I like the idea a lot. It would be great to have some responses to the player's actions, positive or negative. To take the idea even further, it would be great if there was competition - i.e. a simulated space race. However, these things are something for (much) later updates. Right now, I think that KSP needs improvements on existing features rather than having new ones added.

[BostLabs]

In a word... No.

This would not be fun for me in a game. I see enough of this in the News.

[M5000]

Moved to the suggestions forum c:

[Geschosskopf]

NO. If we allow politics, next thing that will happen is that the Kerbals working at KSC will unionize, demand more pay for less work, 20 or 30 paid holidays per year, and much more safety in the workplace, which will force me to actually start paying the employee health plans and pensions I currently avoid simply by making sure they all die before they can use them.

But fortunately, I don't have to worry about any of this. The only Kerbals on Kerbin are the 2 or 3 dozen who work at KSC, all of whom are my personal slaves .

[Scrogdog]

I like it. Sounds somewhat like BARIS.

Not for sandbox though, just career.

[Bynnar]

Why not have a middle ground where the player can choose whether they are a public or private entity (IE a government agency or a private corporation)? If you choose an agency, you are at the mercy of public opinion. The more you succeed, the more money may be appropriated for you, but if you fail you might have your budget slashed. Of course private entities might get less investors if they can't produce results, but for simplicity's sake lets say they have a more stable budget.

[fatfluffycat]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I don't want my space program to end up like NASA because of stupid politicians...

[Specialist290]

I could see a place for a simplified "Public Approval" mechanic that could affect your space program's available resources, but beyond that, I don't think politics meshes well with the way the game is set up. I personally like the fact that I'm free to make my own choices without too much external oversight tangling up my options, and I hope that that same general philosophy carries over to the fully-developed Career Mode.

[Algiark]

Replace 'Kerbal' in 'Kerbal Space Program' with 'Human' and you'll see why international politics doesn't suit the game.

[DaveofDefeat]

Only if it lets me give every politician a one way trip to kerbol.

[DisarmingBaton5]

BARIS all over again

[0x7be]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I don't want my space program to end up like NASA because of stupid politicians...

IRL we have smart cosmonauts and stupid politicians.

In KSP we already have stupid cosmonauts... maybe Kerbal politicians are smart?

[Zamaszysty]

NO no no no ... KSP is about exploration, efficiency and understanding of physics.

If You want to play some political game go ahead, but this is an exploration focused game and will always be, but politics ... WHY?

Go play this here:

http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/index.html

Or make a mod that will be played by You and everybody who prefer running an agency instead of true exploration

[Hunne]

no politics please...

a budget of some sort might be an idea for career mode...or maybe a timer which shows how long it will take to get the next batch of booster rockets...

this could be accelerated by recovering empty boosters, or how about public display flights, e.g. land at a specific location, have your craft light up during reentry over a city (if there ever will be some), have a space craft in orbit for a specific period of time (space lab etc.), assign astronauts to research something (stupidity would be a factor here^^) etc. etc.