Career Suggestion - Customizable Contract Weighing

[Magzimum]

How difficult would it be to add a slider to the 'active contract' pages where you can set the weight of that contract in the algorithm that determines which contracts come up next?

Reason to implement

A lot of us (me included) would like to somehow be able to influence a little what type of contracts come up.

For example:

• In early career, I will rescue a lot of Kerbals to get more crew. Later I want to do a lot of landings (planting flags and getting science), but the game keeps showing me rescue missions for a while longer.
• I may do one mission to get some science from within Kerbin's atmosphere, but those early-career missions are tedious and I would really want to do that only once. However, if you do one in early career, the game may flood the suggested contracts with these.

Of course, it would not be reasonable to be able to choose your own contracts - for me that would ruin the storyline of the career. But as a Space Program you can influence the media, for example by choosing to do press conferences and by press releases.

Storyline

The slider could be called "Mission Media Exposure". The more media exposure that your contract (and therefore the mission) gets, the more other companies will hear about it and try to hire your space program to do a similar contract. But if you slide it to zero (i.e. a secret mission) then it will not be counted at all. Perhaps we could even generate negative articles in the media, thereby reducing the chances of getting similar contracts, even if we complete them successfully.

I am not yet sure how this can be blended in with the "reputation", which is also linked to how your Space Program is viewed by outsiders. Suggestions are welcome.

Practical

Since players get no information about the contract weights, the visible slider on screen can just go from "negative media coverage", through "normal coverage" to "flood the media with articles", without showing any numbers. Practically that would mean that the slider goes from e.g. a value of -1 (or -0.5) to +2.

Assuming that there is a table/list of some sort buried in the game code that attaches weights to various types of contracts, it should be a simple multiplication. Then again, I am not much of an IT guy, so I may be wrong. *hides under his desk* 

Curious to hear what you all think of this.

[Blaarkies]

10 minutes ago, Magzimum said:

for me that would ruin the storyline of the career.

Nooo! That career overhaul guy will probably show up now and fill this thread with tales about how bad KSP career and science points are

[Magzimum]

Yes, let's focus on the suggestion please. This is about a little slider, and about the weighing factor of the contracts, NOT about the entire career system.

[Wjolcz]

11 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

Nooo! That career overhaul guy will probably show up now and fill this thread with tales about how bad KSP career and science points are

Yo, it's ya boi and the career is sooooo bad. Like super bad.

Not a bad idea, but I'd prefer some sort of mission designer where the destinations and objectives are set by the player. After all it's the player who should run (or ruin) their space program, not the other way around.

Edited February 11, 2017 by Veeltch

[KerikBalm]

I support methods to change contract generation.

Previously I've suggested a UI like what they have to review science reports. You click on the planet, and it generates contracts for that planet. Rather than sort science reports by type/situation/biome, you can click on tourism/base/exploration/relay/etc, and it generates those sort of contracts for that body.

Or... even less work, if you look at a save file, it has something like this:

Quote

        WEIGHTS
        {
            TourismContract = 20
            SurveyContract = 17
            StationContract = 49
            SatelliteContract = 88
            ISRUContract = 28
            ExplorationContract = 30
            BaseContract = 26
            ARMContract = 30
            RecoverAsset = 88
            PlantFlag = 54
            PartTest = 90
            GrandTour = 30
            CollectScience = 90
            Eeloo = 30
            Dres = 30
            Pol = 30
            Gilly = 30
            Tylo = 30
            Bop = 30
            Vall = 30
            Laythe = 30
            Jool = 30
            Ike = 42
            Duna = 28
            Eve = 30
            Moho = 30
            Minmus = 82
            Mun = 90
            Kerbin = 85
            Sun = 30

Just give use sliders to adjust those values ourselves.

When setting up a relay network, I may want a high SatelliteContract weight. Once its up... I don't want a high weight for that anymore... but they keep spawning - same problem with station and base contracts.

Also the station and base expansion contracts are often not what I want. I don't want to expand a base to hold another 20 kerbals... I may want to expand it to hold more fuel, or have an ISRU refinery, or a lab - those things do occasionally show up but most of the time its just a matter of slapping on more hitch-hiker cans which increase part count and don't really make the base/station any more useful.

I may not take some exploration contracts, and I certainly won't complete them, until the transfer windows arrive - but when the transfer windows get near, I wont have a high weight, and those contracts wont show up.

[Tex_NL]

The ability to adjust the contract weights is definitely a good idea. But changing it at leisure without any form of penalty would unbalance an already wonky career system.
Perhaps it could be linked to strategies in the Administration building. Purchasing a particular strategy with both& would increase the weights for certain contract types. The effect would not be instant since 'unwanted' types will also still have a high weight, but eventually they will sink over time when more desirable contracts will start to appear and those unwanted get ignored/declined.

Edited February 11, 2017 by Tex_NL

[Magzimum]

On 11-2-2017 at 11:25 AM, Tex_NL said:

The ability to adjust the contract weights is definitely a good idea. But changing it at leisure without any form of penalty would unbalance an already wonky career system.

Well, influencing the media costs money, I assume. A communications department of any company usually costs money (although if done right can generate cash too). Moving the slider anywhere other than the default setting could have a financial penalty?

On 11-2-2017 at 11:25 AM, Tex_NL said:

Perhaps it could be linked to strategies in the Administration building. Purchasing a particular strategy with both& would increase the weights for certain contract types. The effect would not be instant since 'unwanted' types will also still have a high weight, but eventually they will sink over time when more desirable contracts will start to appear and those unwanted get ignored/declined.

Linking it to the strategies makes it a long-term affair, whereas my idea was to link it to separate missions. It's fundamentally different, but I would support both.

[Wjolcz]

3 hours ago, Magzimum said:

Well, influencing the media costs money, I assume. A communications department of any company usually costs money (although if done right can generate cash too). Moving the slider anywhere other than the default setting could have a financial penalty?

Why would you want to have this extra "media" roleplay step in career? I think it's unnecessary. Career and strategies should be as simple as possible to avoid complications and limitations the current system has.

[Blaarkies]

48 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Why would you want to have this extra "media" roleplay step in career? I think it's unnecessary. Career and strategies should be as simple as possible to avoid complications and limitations the current system has.

Yeah the current system is bad, Viva la Revoluzione!! 

[Wjolcz]

16 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

Yeah the current system is bad, Viva la Revoluzione!! 

What revoluzione?

[sjwt]

3 hours ago, Veeltch said:

Why would you want to have this extra "media" roleplay step in career? I think it's unnecessary. Career and strategies should be as simple as possible to avoid complications and limitations the current system has.

 

2 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

Yeah the current system is bad, Viva la Revoluzione!! 

Guys, can we please keep this on topic, this is not the place for bagging out the current system, please keep that to a relevant thread.