Mods to replace money with resources?

[etmoonshade]

Edit: I tweaked the title a bit to make things more clear now that I've had some time to ponder it.

I'm looking for an experience something like your standard 4x space game - you collect resources X, Y, and Z, and build your rockets with those instead of just paying for it with cash.

Obvious mods that'll have to be included:

- Extraplanetary Launchpads for the building, since it already does part of this.

- Resource exploitation (e.g. Kethane, Karbonite, etc.) to collect said resources (although I guess there's something in stock now too? It's been ages since I've played without mods...)

- Probably Kerbal Construction Time to get a similar experience from the launchpad and to help with part reuse.

 

The trick is, I'm missing the fourth ingredient - something to disable buying rockets with money, but allow purchase of resources with money. It almost feels like this would be an ideal extension of EL, but I suspect it's NOT a quick hack that could be applied on top of it.

Any thoughts?

Edited June 15, 2016 by etmoonshade
Edited thread title

[Streetwind]

You could probably use USI Kolonization System with its Extraplanetary Launchpads integration. IIRC, the resource cost of building a rocket with that depends on its mass, not on its cost. So you could write a MM patch that makes the relevant USI modules available from the start. Then you create your own launchpad and assembly infrastructure somewhere on the KSC grounds via those modules, and build all your spacecraft there.

In order to disable building rockets with money, you could use MM patches to increase the price of most common parts to absurd levels. Then it would no longer be feasible to use the VAB or SPH. The problem, of course, is that part recovery will make you huge amounts of cash. I don't know how to deal with this - but you might be able to create a modded strategy for the Administration building that reduces recovery yields to 0% or the like.

As for buying resources with money: you'd just go to the VAB and put a pre-filled resource tank onto the pad or runway (these tanks obviously wouldn't have increased cost). Then you'd use a surface vehicle or pumping network (KIS/KAS) to transfer the resources to your assembly infrastructure.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Streetwind

[etmoonshade]

MKS/OKS extends the resource chain a bit too much for my tastes, but it'd definitely work in general - and you're correct in pointing out the nice integration with EL.

I agree that setting parts to cost absurd amounts would be weird - also, it doesn't fit in with the integration of resources into the VAB (if it's even possible, of course.) With that said, I'm pretty sure I could configure StageRecovery to set the recovery value to 0. Problem is, I don't think that'd do anything for stock recovery - maybe there's a hidden switch that modifies recovery value by a percentage (that could be set to 0, of course.)

A couple of good ideas all around, though. Makes me wish I had more programming talent to implement it.