StateFunding - 0.1.0

[iamchairs]

I posted a thread a couple weeks ago with the idea to have a StateFunding mod. Well it's been a pain and I've spent 95% of the time just working with the archaic GUI system but I've got something useable.

StateFunding 0.1.0

The mod introduces a new way to generate revenue besides doing contracts. You can choose between the USK and the USSK governments with their own risk/rewards. This introduces 2 new metrics, Public Opinion (PO) and State Confidence (SC).

Public Opinion

Having more Kerbals in active flights and science labs in orbit or on other planets will increase your public opinion. Kerbal death decreases public opinion.

State Confidence

Having more satellites in orbit of any celestial body and landed mining drills increases state confidence. Crashing vessels decreases state confidence.

With enough time you will eventually have enough satellites and kerbals to be making enough to rely solely on state funding for cash. And you still put in the work to get it. Of course you can continue to do contracts on the side.

Performance Reviews

Every Kerbal year you will receive a performance review. Your achievements and failures will be added up and you will get paid. It's possible you f-up so badly you get fined. But just don't do that.

Known Issues

* Multiple StateFunding app launchers buttons start showing up at the Space Center.

* If you view a past review from the StateFunding app launcher menu and close the window a NullReferencePointer Exception is thrown. Still trying to track it down.

Planned Improvements

* Natural decay of PO/SC.

* Instead of just counting satellites, calculate the coverage around a planet. If the planet/moon is completely covered there shouldn't be additional funding for redundant coverage.

* In addition to satellite coverage, require surveying equipment to count as a surveillance satellite.

* Detect stranded Kerbals.

* Government Contracts.

* Relocate Space Center depending on the Govt. you choose.

Source / Download

Source on GitHub: https://github.com/iamchairs/StateFunding

Mod on Curse: http://kerbal.curseforge.com/ksp-mods/234837-statefunding

Mod on Kerbal Stuff: https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/1069/State%20Funding

[Yukon0009]

Oh, this looks cool!

[kmMango]

KSP: Now With 50% More Bureaucracy!

[FreeThinker]

Public Opinion

Having more Kerbals in active flights and science labs in orbit or on other planets will increase your public opinion. Kerbal death decreases public opinion.

State Confidence

Having more satellites in orbit of any celestial body and landed mining drills increases state confidence. Crashing vessels decreases state confidence.

Seems you got everything in reverse.

- Goverments strive for knowledge and control therefore they are interested to have Science Labs and dishes/antennas in orbit, scans performed, experiments conducted, and soil sample collected and returned

- Public want Cool RocketPunk expansion meaning: spectacular rocket lauches, Kerbals in orbit and on moons/alien planets, flags planted, pictures takes, crew reports, space walks, tourism, permannet space stations/bases

This means initially most income comes from Goverment (like it historavly always was and is) and gradualy when commercial intrests take over (like it is now slowly starting) you recieve money from the public

To know what the public would approve, ask an 8 year old about space and what he would like. He would probably tell you about spectacular rocket laches, astronouts in zerro gravity, spacewalks and going to the mun or mars and jump around. He would not be so excited about advanced scientific experiments and communications, soil samples and other boring activities.

The goverment and the public are fundementally different actors. The Goverment are burocrasts that want you to be efficient and effective. The public want to be entertained and inspired. The trick is doing both well. NASA is an example of a Space Agency that currently mainly pleases the burocrats. Only during the Apolo mission, they got a lot of intrest from the public. But the public is where the Big money comes from so although the goverment is a relatively reliable source of income you can't do anything spectacular unless the public wants it. The problem with the public is that they get bored fast, for example you can't repeat the same mission to the moon, instead you should quickly build a permanent base and regulary switch kerbals. Everybody want to go to space. Although it will have little science value, the public just loves stories about astronauts on the mun. So the more kerbals go to the mun and return safely, the more you will be appreciated by the public and therefore rewarded.

Edited August 11, 2015 by FreeThinker

[ultrasquid]

Isn't this kind of redundant with the existing Reputation system? It's not exactly the same, being divided between Gov't and public perception, but it does seem to already be covered.

[FreeThinker]

Isn't this kind of redundant with the existing Reputation system? It's not exactly the same, being divided between Gov't and public perception, but it does seem to already be covered.

Well the current system only rewards you for setting records and completing mission. It would also help if you would be rewarded for sustaining permanent bases and infrastructure. THis could be achieved by running some monitoring code which tracks equipment/kerbals time in/on orbit/muns. This wouls give insentive to create a real space economy instead of only achieving some quick mission objectives.

Also the goverment and public have different intrest and motivations. The public is like a 8 year old that wants to see cool stuf happening in space so perhaps that one day he too will be there. Goverment are mostly intrestied in control , which means they need to know what is out and if they can benefit from it. Goverments are more likely to send probes and droids which can perform research cheaply and efficient. The public however is not going to get exited about robots in space (except from a few nerds), they want astronouts doing all the stuff. The more exotic, the better.

Edited August 11, 2015 by FreeThinker

[MrHappyFace]

Dramatically backlit government kerbal

very nice.

[rasta013]

Like the idea but I would suggest revisiting the time frame for your rewards. Those of use who play with LS mods tend to have to micromanage time/missions and I know that frequently in my career games the first 3 years passes VERY VERY slowly. It's not until I get a full infrastructure up, preferably with closed LS systems, that I start looking at doing any kind of long range mission planning. Even then, once I start doing them, I still can't take my eye off regular mission planning and rerunning local stuff for my infrastructure. All this leads to me taking a very long time to finish a full kerbal year. As such, unless the rewards for the year are stupendously large (like million$) then it's not paying off for me at all. This type of issue is compounded if I've got extremely nerfed science/funding settings for that career.

Personally, I'd say you look at doing quarterly rewards. Monthly seems way to often and too easy to exploit. Every six months might work if the rewards are balanced out against the total income earned over that time as well as the rep/# of missions. Just my input but when you start looking at the average kerbal career, it's very rare I see extremely long timelines where yearly funding would make me want to run this mod.

[plague006]

Re: The packaging of the mod, Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll, Assembly-CSharp.dll, and UnityEngine.dll are all packed in with the mod. Shouldn't they be excluded?

[FreeThinker]

Re: The packaging of the mod, Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll, Assembly-CSharp.dll, and UnityEngine.dll are all packed in with the mod. Shouldn't they be excluded?

Indeed, they should be referenced only.

[FreeThinker]

Like the idea but I would suggest revisiting the time frame for your rewards. Those of use who play with LS mods tend to have to micromanage time/missions and I know that frequently in my career games the first 3 years passes VERY VERY slowly. It's not until I get a full infrastructure up, preferably with closed LS systems, that I start looking at doing any kind of long range mission planning. Even then, once I start doing them, I still can't take my eye off regular mission planning and rerunning local stuff for my infrastructure. All this leads to me taking a very long time to finish a full kerbal year. As such, unless the rewards for the year are stupendously large (like million$) then it's not paying off for me at all. This type of issue is compounded if I've got extremely nerfed science/funding settings for that career.

Personally, I'd say you look at doing quarterly rewards. Monthly seems way to often and too easy to exploit. Every six months might work if the rewards are balanced out against the total income earned over that time as well as the rep/# of missions. Just my input but when you start looking at the average kerbal career, it's very rare I see extremely long timelines where yearly funding would make me want to run this mod.

If I may make a suggestion: instead of yearly rewards, rewards should be continiously, meaning, the goverment and public will follow you where ever you go and will get exited or bored depending on your actions giving you rewards. For examply, you launching your rocket into orbit, the public get's excited by the show. You collect some research, and send it back home, the goverments approves you did something usefull with their funds. You land on the mun , go eva and do a report and the public gets wild. Doing multiple actions in succesion , will give give you bonus rewards with the public as they like to watch you live and get bored easily. The goverment on the other hand, the goverment are burocrats that want you to complete your mission as fast as possible, therefore you recieve bonusses the faster you finish a mission. This should give you some insentive to complete your missions fast.

Edited August 11, 2015 by FreeThinker

[rasta013]

If I may make a suggestion: instead of yearly rewards, rewards should be continiously, meaning, the goverment and public will follow you where ever you go and will get exited or bored depending on your actions giving you rewards. For examply, you launching your rocket into orbit, the public get's excited by the show. You collect some research, and send it back home, the goverments approves you did something usefull with their funds. You land on the mun , go eva and do a report and the public gets wild. Doing multiple actions in succesion , will give give you bonus rewards with the public as they like to watch you live and get bored easily. The goverment on the other hand, the goverment are burocrats that want you to complete your mission as fast as possible, therefore you recieve bonusses the faster you finish a mission. This should give you some insentive to complete your missions fast.

Yeah not a bad idea either. I actually could envision a way to balance the rewards out nicely by a combination of the on-going mission rewards + time period rewards. This would allow smaller increments to assist all along the way of your program enhancing what you earn from contracts without giving you a bankroll that gets used up while at the same time rewarding long term mission goals with bigger rewards for a nice boost without going over the top. Almost a combination of the two ideas basically. The public rewards you immediately while you're in mission doing things and keeping them entertained. The bureaucrats on the other hand are wanting you the get your stuff done and look at total progress - satellites, stations, total # of missions, total research outputs etc. Kind of like most space programs are treated right now with regular reviews and awarded budgets. You could even tie both together by having a well entertained public push your bureaucrat reward higher through "public pressure" type bonuses or a bored public create penalties by not "speaking out" to defend you against the penny pinchers.

Depending on how far you're willing to go to push this mod as well as how far KSP will allow you to push it, this could turn into a very fun career enhancement.

[FreeThinker]

Indeed, goverment look at the cold hard facts, what did you achieve and how long did it require for you to achieve it? The public just want you to do exciting stuff like it's an adventure. Initialy they could be entertaned with some airplanes but this quickly get's odd. The want you do do more changing stuff, like putting a Kerbal in Space.

Note that technically, this mod is idealy combined with a simulated advisary. This allows for space races to orbit, the mun or duna. This will put the heat really on. The first nation on the mun win the glory of all Kerbalkind, the second a footnote in history. No time to screw around, you needs to get there ASAP.

I think there should be a difference between playing the USK or USSK. The Commies will have Big Goverment bonuses, while the USK will have the free Public Sector. It will therefore make it more rewarding to make moon walk (APOLLO) with USK while USSK will reward you more for building large research space station into orbit (MIR)

Edited August 11, 2015 by FreeThinker

[iamchairs]

@FreeThinker

I was thinking more along the lines of 1960s - 1990s space race. Government would be most concerned with results and getting surveillance satellites around celestial bodies. And the eventual govt. contracts would mostly be around “racing†to an achievement. Does that change your perspective at all? Maybe science labs and/or mining can boost PO and SC.

@ultrasquid

I thought about using reputation. But depending on the government you choose different actions have different affects and the one score wouldn’t cover that. Additionally, reputation is more like reputation in the free market with private contracts. I wouldn’t think private contracts should affect your PO/SC.

@rasta013

Fair point. The time it takes per mission later in the game is exponential. In my game I’m usually trying to do missions on other planets, which takes 1-2 years to get there. That’s 2 payout periods for the time it takes me to do a mission. Would it work quarterly if I only paid out 1/4th of what the yearly would be? Maybe the intervals change as time goes on. From year 0-5 it would be quarterly, after it would be yearly?

@plague006

I’ll make a note of that. I’m new to C# so feel free to rip my code apart

-----

Thanks for all the responses!

[FreeThinker]

@FreeThinker

I was thinking more along the lines of 1960s - 1990s space race. Government would be most concerned with results and getting surveillance satellites around celestial bodies. And the eventual govt. contracts would mostly be around “racing†to an achievement. Does that change your perspective at all? Maybe science labs and/or mining can boost PO and SC.

As I said, goverment want control, the public want entertainment. Although some Kerbals would be excited by science, most kerbals just want to see kerbonouts do cool stuff. Building a research space station would be kind of both. The public love to see rocket launches, docking, space walks and crew rotation. The goverment officials like to see some long term zero gravity experiments conducted. Edited August 11, 2015 by FreeThinker

[iamchairs]

Probably going to have an update sometime today or tomorrow. I'll make science a State Confidence improvement and see how that goes.

If anyone would like to PM there save folder it would really help with debugging!

[regex]

Looks pretty cool, but this:

You can choose between the USK and the USSK governments

gets a recompile from me. No big deal, unless you want to add config values for customizable government names. Would also be cool to add additional governments so we can play with a full range.

Also:

http://s16.postimg.org/9jq5w2hfp/Screen_Shot_2015_08_11_at_1_39_26_PM.png

This is one of the few instances where I would urge the use of KSP's native GUI styling because the red contrasts terribly. Alternatively, choose a lighter red.

[iamchairs]

That wouldn't be a difficult additional as is if you're ok with modifying a config file. Adding a GUI editor would take longer.

I can alleviate that a little. The GUI programming is absolutely the worst. I spend more time fidgeting with the GUI than writing logic.

- Edit -

Is there an easy way to add the KSP native GUI? Everything is abstracted to components so if it's as easy as adding a GUISkin I can do that in minutes.

Ex: https://github.com/iamchairs/StateFunding/blob/0.2.0/ViewComponents/ViewButton.cs

Edited August 11, 2015 by iamchairs

[Sampa]

This looks,interesting.

[MK3424]

This mod will make the game feel more like Race Into Space!

I like it!

[mockingking]

So what's the differences between USK and USSK?

[regex]

That wouldn't be a difficult additional as is if you're ok with modifying a config file. Adding a GUI editor would take longer.

Don't bother with the GUI, but if you're cool adding a config file (you really should for a mod like this) that would be excellent.

I can alleviate that a little. The GUI programming is absolutely the worst. I spend more time fidgeting with the GUI than writing logic.

Yeah, it's crap.

Is there an easy way to add the KSP native GUI? Everything is abstracted to components so if it's as easy as adding a GUISkin I can do that in minutes.

I think the KSP native GUI is hidden somewhere in HighLogic, maybe HighLogic.skin or something similar.

E: Here is how you do it.

[rasta013]

@rasta013

Fair point. The time it takes per mission later in the game is exponential. In my game I’m usually trying to do missions on other planets, which takes 1-2 years to get there. That’s 2 payout periods for the time it takes me to do a mission. Would it work quarterly if I only paid out 1/4th of what the yearly would be? Maybe the intervals change as time goes on. From year 0-5 it would be quarterly, after it would be yearly?

You would definitely want to cut the rewards back for a more frequent time frame. Scaling the interval also seems a good way to push the use of the mod further along by motivating people to run the longer term missions for higher payoffs. And definitely, within about 5 years I think all but the most hardcore science/funding nerfed games should have missions going to other planets by then. I know my general time frame is usually 1 probe launched toward either Duna or Eve within the first 12-18 months, a second usually launched by the time I get to the end of that and by year 3 I'm starting to look outwards for anything I do. If you're able to give flexible scaling then you could do like years 0-2 quarterly, years 3-5, semi-annually, years 5+ annually or some other scaled interval along those types of lines.

[iamchairs]

@regex & @rasta013

Next release will be a minor minor release with the requested features. With the (what I feel is a) positive response I got I wanted to rush out a version that makes my original release much more useable.

StateFunding Version 0.2.0

------------------------------

Incompatible with 0.1.0. Delete: saves/{your-save}/statefunding.conf

* Satellite Coverage

Add surveillance satellites to celestial bodies to increase State Confidence. The bigger the body, the more satellites are needed to provide full coverage.

* Science Station

Orbital and Planetary Science Labs increase State Confidence.

* Mining Rigs

Landed Mining Rigs on bodies (other than Kerbin) and astroids increase State Confidence.

* Kerbals

Having Kerbals on missions increases Public Opinion. Kerbal death and “Stranded†Kerbals will decrease Public Opinion.

~~

GitHub: https://github.com/iamchairs/StateFunding/pull/1

Curse: http://kerbal.curseforge.com/ksp-mods/234837-statefunding/files

Edited May 5, 2021 by Snark
Link to defunct website removed by moderator

[Doughy]

err...how do i install this lol. should it not be Gamedata/State Funding/all the crap? cause right now its just Gamedata/all the crap so should it all be tossed messily into gamedata, or does part of it go into saves like the above post suggests....?