Administration and Nuclear Negotiations

[richfiles]

So, At work I was thinking about how I've gone into the Administration building ONCE since 1.0.x was launched, and I basically just looked around and went "meh".

Then I thought about New Horizons. New Horizons, has of course, made big news lately with the success of it's primary goal, to get quality photos and scientific measurements of Pluto. Being that far out, New Horizons required an RTG power source. Nine years ago, when New Horizons was launched, this was actually a very big issue. It's a huge deal when you want to launch radioactive materials into space. If a launch disaster happens, you risk spreading radioactive materials over an area that sits near a population center.

There was a story told by the some of the people who were "pitching" the New Horizons launch. They wanted to talk the governor of the state of Florida to okay the nuclear launch, and actually had suggested flying the recently minted Florida themed state quarter, as a publicity move. This actually happened, and a number of the quarters were used for center of mass balancing. Furthermore, they needed to demonstrate that the RTGs wouldn't break up and release radioactive material all over Florida if there was a launch disaster.

The point of this, is that it took a bit of politics and sweet talking and proving the survivability of the RTGs to get this to happen at all.

So what if... What if there were Administration requirements for launching nuclear parts, like the LV-N Nerv and the PB-NUK Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. There could be different paths to make it possible, and if you fail to choose a path, you're not permitted to launch nuclear parts. A few thoughts I had are as follows:

Spend money: Your PR guys wine and dine the politicians, lobby their causes, and fund their campaigns. You convince them that the Kerbal love for all things space is an endeavor that must advance, for the betterment of all Kerbal kind. Maybe you gotta beat those Kruskies to the Mun in this decade, and do silly things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard***. You spend quite a bit of money up front, but once you have a politician in your pocket, you're golden. They'll back you, cause you helped get them elected or re-elected. You can launch and launch and launch... Until you have an accident. If a nuclear accident occurs on the surface or in the atmosphere, you loose reputation, and are docked funds for cleanup. Your politicians turn their back on you, and you have to cajole them again to get them to back you once more. Each accident ups the cost of getting a politician in your pocket. Politics, amirite?

Spend money and science: You do a little bit of the same as before, but with one change. Instead of luring politicians with the royal treatment, you focus of the sell, touring the politicians, as well as the press, through the R&D center, showing how resilient your latest nuclear technology is. You spend extra science on reinforcing the RTG and NERV cores, so they remain intact in the event of an accident, and can be recovered (this can be implied, of course. No need to actually alter part physics) safely. There isn't a large initial investment... You're just inviting the press and politicians to tour the R&D facilities. A little money for the catering and the KSC swag bag, and it costs you a little science, cause you're disrupting your engineer's precious research time, but it's worth it! The added safety measures slightly increases the cost of RTGs and NERVs in the VAB, and it actually costs a small amount of science to launch them, but there is no additional penalty if a nuclear device is destroyed in the atmosphere, or on the surface of Kerbin. If a vessel loss normally results in a loss of reputation, that loss is actually reduced by the news of your technology succeeding in containing all traces of nuclear materials.

Spend Reputation: "Politics and the civilian public can all go sit on a lit booster! We're going to space, and we'll bully our way there if we must! We push the right agendas, talk to the right people... Or the wrong ones, if need be... One way or another, we are go for launch! We don't care about no little green hippies with signs protesting our launch. Better step away from the launch exhaust plume, cause it's not stopping' for you!" You loose a small amount of reputation every time you launch a nuclear device, but you gain more reputation completing contracts successfully, because no one else presumably could have achieved what the KSC can... Cause they don't have the guts! Alternately, in the case of a nuclear accident, you loose significant amounts of reputation, more than any other scenario. The upside, is you keep that glorious science and funds to yourself. You greedy nut!

So? Any thoughts? Is this something people think would actually be a cool addition to the Administration? A need to get authorization for nuclear device launches? I could also totally see some manner of fine for activating a NERV in the lower atmosphere, as well. Not like it has a use there anyway. I guess the New Horizon's story inspired this idea. Apollo was a lot like the first one, with touches of the second one. It was mostly politics and a push of strong nationalism that launched the Apollo to the Moon, but NASA had already lost an RTG over the indian Ocean in 1964, and the SNAP 27 RTG that would have been onboard the LEM to power moon based experiments had been designed to be able to survive reentry intact. When Apollo 13 had it's accident, and the LEM served as the lifeboat to make the return to Earth, the unintended consequence, was that a SNAP 27 RTG made it's way into the South Pacific ocean. In that scenario, science succeeded in a further catastrophe.

As another side note... While thinking of the NERV's low atmospheric thrust, reminds me of engines in general. What do people think of efficiency tiers for the engines? When you first unlock an engine, it's ISP and thrust are not maxed out, but every successful launch and recovery, plus a small amount of science spent, grants boosts to performance, up to the maximum. Considering the fact that it's relatively easy to spam science early on, I think it'd be a great way to boost the usefulness of collecting science, and spread out the inevitable max science. It also provides a reason for part testing. Engine test contracts could include selecting the number of points of science you wish to spend on your "research". The more points you spend, the faster you develop a more efficient engine. This could also be applied to a number of other parts. Researching a reaction wheel would bump up it's torque. Maybe testing probe cores would unlock SAS functions. Some contracts could be dependent on not only launching and successfully recovering a vessel containing a particular part, but then subsequently testing said part "on kerbin", so emulate the concept of testing a "flown" part on the ground. This type of contract could grant larger efficiency boosts, or even max a part out. Of course, the option to have part efficiency scale in this manner could be ticked off in the difficulty/settings options, same as any other major functionality.

Thoughts?

***Yes, I totally snagged that great parody quote from the epic EVA grand tour video. WOW, that was epic!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129500-Video-Wednesday-Minds-Blown

Edited August 14, 2015 by richfiles

[oglommi]

Some interesting ideas. Don't really like the effiency tiers for the engines idea. Maybe unlock engines with great vacuum ISP later on the three. But I don't really fancy building huge rockets with rubbish ISP just to get a tiny probe in orbit.

[mythbusters844]

This is a sound idea and I absolutely love it, and sounds very fun. This belongs in add-on requests though, as anything fun has so far not been added to the game under the assertion that it is "out of scope", and those that have are either incredibly boring or broken.

[Sharpy]

A simplified version could be that these parts, besides money, cost rep points to purchase.

[More Boosters]

I like to think Kerbals don't mind radiation as it makes them glow a healthy green.

[mattinoz]

There should be a zero tier for the admin building.

zero being just doesn't exist then if you never go in it wouldn't be a blight on the landscape.

[Grumman]

As another side note... While thinking of the NERV's low atmospheric thrust, reminds me of engines in general. What do people think of efficiency tiers for the engines? When you first unlock an engine, it's ISP and thrust are not maxed out, but every successful launch and recovery, plus a small amount of science spent, grants boosts to performance, up to the maximum. Considering the fact that it's relatively easy to spam science early on, I think it'd be a great way to boost the usefulness of collecting science, and spread out the inevitable max science. It also provides a reason for part testing. Engine test contracts could include selecting the number of points of science you wish to spend on your "research". The more points you spend, the faster you develop a more efficient engine. This could also be applied to a number of other parts. Researching a reaction wheel would bump up it's torque. Maybe testing probe cores would unlock SAS functions. Some contracts could be dependent on not only launching and successfully recovering a vessel containing a particular part, but then subsequently testing said part "on kerbin", so emulate the concept of testing a "flown" part on the ground. This type of contract could grant larger efficiency boosts, or even max a part out. Of course, the option to have part efficiency scale in this manner could be ticked off in the difficulty/settings options, same as any other major functionality.

I would be in favour of unlocking increased reliability above the specifications (say 100% Impact Tolerance, Maximum Temperature and Breakdown Speed for experimental parts, and a per-part random 100-130% Impact Tolerance, Maximum Temperature and Breakdown Speed for parts that have actually been unlocked by the tech tree.) but your idea does not sound fun.

A simplified version could be that these parts, besides money, cost rep points to purchase.

This, on the other hand, seems like an interesting idea. By spending reputation to buy nuclear devices and then having it refunded on recovery, you'd get a nice little approximation of the nuclear worries. Fly it back to the KSC and recover it there? Get your reputation refunded. Land it in Northern Kerbistan? Some reputation loss. Crack one open on the nearest mountain? Significant reputation loss.

[richfiles]

I think my idea with the engine power, etc, would only deal in the top 20-10% of the hardware's efficiency range. I also think it'd be something where it just mimics the basic concept of engine development and part testing. NASA had a LOT of engine tests done, and my concept is just an attempt to put a reason for all those engine tests we do in the contracts, and maybe flesh those out a bit. I figure no low tier engine would take more than 2-5 flights or tests to max out. I think a logarithmic curve would be fair too. First use of an engine is at 80% total efficiency, but on successful test and recovery (say, with a contract test), it's been boosted up to 88%. I'm not suggesting that it drag out, nor that it provide a huge penalty. Just a touch of a penalty to show that it's new tech, with kinks to work out, and to justify the existence of those early contracts. Testing an engine on the launch pad... This is a thing we ALREADY do in the early game... I say, justify it!

I like the idea of the spending reputation. I do cover an aggressive version of that. I could envision a Money + Reputation variant, similar to yours, where you spend extra money on PR efforts, loose a small bit of rep when you launch, recover it with a successful landing, and loose even more rep with a disaster.

And whoever moved this discussion... Thanks... I spent about 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out if there was a feature request section... My 3 AM brain had too few available "processor cycles" left to function... I was too full of C object classes to comprehend concepts like "can I go up one more level in this forum's hierarchy?". LOL On a side note... I think I'm getting closer to understanding C well enough to interface to my navball! Woot! Anyway, I have to say that I feel this firmly belongs in the scope of a feature request. I'd like to request more ideas on how to make that Administration building worth the pool that was built near it. I mean, right now, Admin seems as useless as real life middle management! So... yeah... I'd love to see some different ideas worked out. It's not the first time I've read comments about how useless Admin has been to them.

[Wjolcz]

I like the idea. Some sort of limiting the number of nuclear parts and negotiating your way to permit the launch of more doesn't sound bad!

[tater]

Maybe kerbals are less stupid than most human beings, so this isn't a problem.u

[Yukon0009]

This seems like a really good idea, but then again Kerbals ca't be harmed by NERVAS, even standing under the nozzle...

[Stoney3K]

Some interesting ideas. Don't really like the effiency tiers for the engines idea. Maybe unlock engines with great vacuum ISP later on the three. But I don't really fancy building huge rockets with rubbish ISP just to get a tiny probe in orbit.

I don't agree totally - engines would need to be powerful enough on the starting tier to be of any use (like hurling a 1-man pod with some science and service equipment into LKO) and can be more powerful further down the road. That would be more on par with real engines which go through several iterations of development and improvement -- with each consecutive launch and recovery, your Isp would be a bit more generous, fuel usage would go down a bit, and your reliability on the engine improves because it's been tested in the field.

The notion of having an "experience rating" for each engine type is not that far-fetched. The LV-T30 would eventually unlock the LV-T45 for free if you clock enough mileage on it, because it gives the R&D guys enough data to develop engine gimbaling without adding extra science.