[1.8.x] Monthly Budgets 5.0.1 (22/12/2019) - UP FOR ADOPTION

[severedsolo]

1 hour ago, Gordon Dry said:

Just a reminder to move the configs into a PluginData folder so that MM is not going through everything again just because a line inside the config was changed ...

Ah bugger I always forget about that. Will be done for next release cheers.

[severedsolo]

Monthly Budgets 4.1.1 Released

• Contract Interceptor will now always pay out at least 1 reputation if rewards>0
• Moved DefaultSettings to PluginData
• Correctly marked AVC file so CKAN will pick it up

[Starwaster]

I still see contracts where I'm getting funds instead of rep. It's happening on tourist contracts that have sub-parameters and I'm thinking that the contract interceptor needs to check for those and walk through those and convert them as well. And they might be nested more than one deep too.

[sulu244]

Forgive me if I'm being blind, but for the life of me I can't find where to configure the payment period. I think I found the line in the default config, but then I can't find the config in my actual save game folder... I can see the configs for Remote Tech, etc, but nothing for monthly budgets.

Edited March 18, 2018 by sulu244

[Starwaster]

2 hours ago, sulu244 said:

Forgive me if I'm being blind, but for the life of me I can't find where to configure the payment period. I think I found the line in the default config, but then I can't find the config in my actual save game folder... I can see the configs for Remote Tech, etc, but nothing for monthly budgets.

In the game, click on the Monthly Budgets icon (looks like a calculator) and in the window that comes up, click on Settings. 

[sulu244]

I'm fully aware of the settings menu. In it I have 4 fields, Budget Multiplier, Unassigned Kerbal Wages, Assigned Kerbal Wages, and monthly cost per active vessel. I remember there being a budget cycle box, but its not there now. There's also the box for Reputation Decay when I turn that on.

Edited March 18, 2018 by sulu244

[Starwaster]

2 hours ago, sulu244 said:

I'm fully aware of the settings menu. In it I have 4 fields, Budget Multiplier, Unassigned Kerbal Wages, Assigned Kerbal Wages, and monthly cost per active vessel. I remember there being a budget cycle box, but its not there now. There's also the box for Reputation Decay when I turn that on.

Uhm it's gone. It was in the settings menu but that got moved and I guess that particular setting was lost in the transfer. @severedsolo?

(yeah that was redundant... that's just me being shocked)

(As a workaround, edit your persistence file and look for FriendlyInterval in the BudgetScenario SCENARIO node - that's the number of days between budgets)

Edited March 18, 2018 by Starwaster

[sulu244]

Thanks for the help. Yeah, I was hunting all over for the setting, cause I knew I had set it before, but nope, nowhere to be found...

[severedsolo]

12 hours ago, Starwaster said:

I still see contracts where I'm getting funds instead of rep. It's happening on tourist contracts that have sub-parameters and I'm thinking that the contract interceptor needs to check for those and walk through those and convert them as well. And they might be nested more than one deep too.

I actually decided to not change Tourism contracts, because I thought it would be weird that tourists would not pay. I suppose it depends on your point of view, you could argue that they are paying "the government" and that gets reflected in your later budgets.

As I'm looking at the contracts file though, is it just me or is the base rep on a tourism contract ridiculously high?

5 hours ago, sulu244 said:

I remember there being a budget cycle box, but its not there now

 

3 hours ago, Starwaster said:

Uhm it's gone. It was in the settings menu but that got moved and I guess that particular setting was lost in the transfer.

Fixed for next release.

Ugh, everytime I open the file for this mod I'm reminded by how badly written it is, because I didn't know what I was doing when i first wrote it. I want to localise it too, so I probably need to do a full re-write at some point.

Edited March 18, 2018 by severedsolo

[Starwaster]

11 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

As I'm looking at the contracts file though, is it just me or is the base rep on a tourism contract ridiculously high?

Depends on how cheap the player can get them into orbit for. If you really do want to be collecting the funds directly from them then it makes sense to compare those funds to the cost of the rocket.

On the other hand I play scaled up systems so it costs a lot more for me to get them up there so the amount they're paying in doesn't seem extreme to me. I just took a contract to take four Kerbals around the Mun (10x Kerbol so almost scaled up to full sized RSS) and they're probably just barely covering the cost of a Mun shot. 

[severedsolo]

37 minutes ago, Starwaster said:

Depends on how cheap the player can get them into orbit for. If you really do want to be collecting the funds directly from them then it makes sense to compare those funds to the cost of the rocket.

It does, but from a MB point of view, that's a freaking good contract. The base fare is 13k, and the base rep is 20 rep. Obviously you never see that because multipliers, but thats still really good.

I was considering converting the rep to funds because like I said, I feel like tourists would pay cash, but if I take the usual conversion rate I use (10000 funds = 1 rep) that ups the base fare to 213k. Which probably means you were right all along, and I should remove the tourists funding and give another rep point instead.

Edit: Oh I know why it's so high. The fare is paid on each leg, the base rep is paid on completion of everything.

Edited March 18, 2018 by severedsolo

[Starwaster]

4 hours ago, severedsolo said:

It does, but from a MB point of view, that's a freaking good contract. The base fare is 13k, and the base rep is 20 rep. Obviously you never see that because multipliers, but thats still really good.

I was considering converting the rep to funds because like I said, I feel like tourists would pay cash, but if I take the usual conversion rate I use (10000 funds = 1 rep) that ups the base fare to 213k. Which probably means you were right all along, and I should remove the tourists funding and give another rep point instead.

Edit: Oh I know why it's so high. The fare is paid on each leg, the base rep is paid on completion of everything.

Now you've got me wondering though... I'm trying  a hacked version of your latest code where the tourist funds are converted to rep and now I'm wondering... just where DID those funds go? Did some politician pocket them?!??

(really screwed it up at first because I didn't realize that param.AllParameters was actually pointing right back at the contract's .AllParameters and kept getting stack overloads... lol - I was while looping it and trying to walk through every parameter's parameter.... but it doesnt work that way!)

[severedsolo]

Monthly Budgets 4.2 Released!

• 1.4.2 Recompile
• Contract Interceptor will now intercept all parameter rewards too (even those from Contract Configurator) - tourism contracts are still excluded.
• Fixed Progression paying 1/3 more rep than it's supposed to.
• Fixed Budget Interval being missing from the settings.

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by severedsolo

[vardicd]

It seems as if the current version of monthly budgets deducts rep from you even if that setting is disabled, has anyone else experienced this, or just me>?

[severedsolo]

18 minutes ago, vardicd said:

It seems as if the current version of monthly budgets deducts rep from you even if that setting is disabled, has anyone else experienced this, or just me>?

Nothing obvious in the code jumping out at me. Can you go into your persistence, find the BudgetSettings scenario module and copy/paste it for me please.

Edit: sorry I need BudgetScenario not BudgetSettings

Edited April 17, 2018 by severedsolo

[vardicd]

11 hours ago, severedsolo said:

Nothing obvious in the code jumping out at me. Can you go into your persistence, find the BudgetSettings scenario module and copy/paste it for me please.

Edit: sorry I need BudgetScenario not BudgetSettings

  name = BudgetScenario
  scene = 7, 8, 5
  LastBudgetUpdate = 0
  EmergencyFund = 0
  EmergencyFundPercent = 10
  EmergencyFundingEnabled = True
  MasterSwitch = True
  HardMode = False
  ContractInterceptor = True
  CoverCosts = True
  StopTimeWarp = True
  RepDecay = 10
  Multiplier = 2227
  FriendlyInterval = 30
  AvailableWages = 500
  AssignedWages = 1000
  VesselCost = 50
  FirstRun = False
  RnD = 10
  JokeSeen = False

https://imgur.com/eWynACl In game pic of my settings.

[severedsolo]

Just now, vardicd said:

  CoverCosts = True

There's your problem. If the taxpayers are covering the costs, it will be taken out of the budget.

[vardicd]

Just now, severedsolo said:

There's your problem. If the taxpayers are covering the costs, it will be taken out of the budget.

ah didn't realize that, thought with the rep decay option turned off, it wouldn't matter. Did that change in one of the most recent updates? I played with that option turned on in the previous version of KSP, and I swear I never noticed rep decay in that version? or am I just crazy?

[severedsolo]

Just now, vardicd said:

ah didn't realize that, thought with the rep decay option turned off, it wouldn't matter. Did that change in one of the most recent updates? I played with that option turned on in the previous version of KSP, and I swear I never noticed rep decay in that version? or am I just crazy?

It's always been like that.

Also:

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by severedsolo

[vardicd]

1 minute ago, severedsolo said:

It's always been like that.

Thank you very much for your time, and for the help with my problem. I just now reloaded my old KSP version and checked it, and what ever version of monthly budgets I was using in that game must have had a bug, or something because I let it run for about 20 budget cycles, as I wanted to see if my rep was decreasing and I just never noticed it before, and found that my rep never decreased. I checked the persistence file and the older version created 2 separate budget areas budgetscenario, and budgetsettings, and under that second one I found this:

BudgetSettings
  {
   autoPersistance = True
   newGameOnly = False
   masterSwitch = True
   HardMode = False
   DecayEnabled = False      <---Rep decay is disabled
   ContractInterceptor = True         and
   coverCosts = True          <---- Shows cover costs true
   stopTimewarp = False
   RepDecay = 10
   Multiplier = 990
   friendlyInterval = 30
   availableWages = 1000
   assignedWages = 1750
   vesselCost = 2044

It seems that for whatever reason, in the older version of the mod I was using, using the cover costs option was bugged and didn't auto decay rep, if it was supposed too. Which would be why I was confused about it. I have already adjusted settings in my current version of the game so I don't have to worry about rep decay. Thanks again for your time.

{Just to be clear, I don't want my explanation above to be construed as complaining. I only posted my findings as an explanation of my expectations and understanding of how this mod worked and why I was confused.}

[severedsolo]

@vardicd - sounds like something went wrong when I changed the settings over. I did try and mitigate it, but I guess it didn't work.

[vardicd]

Just now, severedsolo said:

@vardicd - sounds like something went wrong when I changed the settings over. I did try and mitigate it, but I guess it didn't work.

Hey, it's no worries. Now that I understand what's happening, I'm perfectly happy. I just didn't understand . The mod had a new interface from the last version I used, and it wasn't behaving in the way I expected and was familiar with, so I asked questions.

32 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

It's always been like that.

Also:

 

Well, color me a little embarrassed. we've done this whole dance before a little over a year ago. Seems I once used a version that did eat the rep, then updated somewhere along the line and got a version with a bugged rep decay and never realized it, got used to it not being there, and when I updated to the newest version it came back to working as intended, and forgot that'd already had this conversation with you. Sorry for being a repeat offender here.  Thank you very much for your help, and your patience.

[vardicd]

deleted

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by vardicd

[vardicd]

@severedsolo With further testing it seems the continued rep loss only occurs if funds are diverted to R+D. I started a new test game, started with 100 rep and allowed the game to run for multiple budget cycles with no changes to the base stats, and lost no rep. I then put in to direct 20% of funds to R+D, and after a single cycle my rep dropped to 80, from the original 100. I changed the percentage of funds back to 0% diverted to R+D and for the next several budget cycles I lost no rep. I repeated this experiment several further times, and each time I diverted funds to R+D, I started losing funds. I'm not sure if the amount lost is relative to the percentage of funds diverted. at 20%, I lost 20 percent of my total rep. when I set my funds diverted to 5% my rep dropped from 80 to 76. I don't know if that's a 5% drop or not, but it definitely seems that using the R+D function causes rep loss, despite what ever other settings are used. {EDIT: I just found my calculator and yes an 80 to 76 drop is 5% of the starting amount.}

EDIT: Ignore this, I just realized this is also a function not a bug, I missed the line in the explanation where this is EXPLAINED> I'm a blind idiot. Very Sorry.

Edited April 18, 2018 by vardicd

[severedsolo]

Heads up - updates and support are going to be slow for the forseeable future:

A moment of silence please. My venerable old desktop has finally died. The indications are that it's a critical hardware failure (I'm suspecting motherboard, but it might be the CPU too - it's definitely something critical anyway). Sadly this machine is a second generation i5 so the chances of getting a replacement component are next to zero. Which means I need to build a new PC, but don't have the money right now (and likely won't until September). RIP old friend, you've been a very faithful companion.

For users of my mods: this means that updates are going to be a bit sparse going forward until I can scrape the money together to replace it.

I have a machine I can use as a backup, but it's my wifes main computer, which means I probably won't be able to get on it that much (she's a writer). My other alternative is a very slow netbook that definitely won't play KSP.