how would you like research to work in ksp2?

[Pthigrivi]

On 5/15/2021 at 5:02 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

I like how KCT has a cost per month for administration, as the program grows admin costs/time could grow as well disincentivizing large time warps for non mission purposes. Personally I think labs should be a requirement for completing the research more so than acting as a speed boost for research but I don't see why both methods can't be used. Also, to counter a player temporarily trimming down their whole admin to timewarp through a stockpile of science perhaps reputation could also fade over time. Overall I think there just has to be a system in place where timewarping has a trade off to once again make time valuable possibly even so much as in the late game players are incentivized to sending labs out to remove the time required to retrieve the sample all the way back at kerbin.

I imagine things like this as well as other factors could be given sliders so that some people have more time to work with for a more care free experience and others who want a challenge may be fighting the ever approaching bankruptcy from admin costs by running very mission dense schedules, running many missions simultaneously. To allow such a thing though would require some kind of mission tracker/agenda like KAC where players might also be able to write notes to themselves to keep track of individual mission goals and steps.

A while back I came up with what I think is a decent mechanic that could encourage players to 'beat the clock' without being punitive or creating big problems when players want to time-warp through long transfers. Nate has talked about these 'Boom events' which include big discoveries and first landings and things. One really simple and scalable way to make time important would be to have goal-dates attached to some of these boom events, and offer bonus rewards if they were met. So something like "Land a Kerbal on Duna by day 150, Year 2" and then you'd get 20% higher rewards or a free tech unlock. If you missed the date there would still be big rewards just for completing the goal, but it might push players to get out there faster and see what they could do with less. It creates a challenge without punishing players too much for taking their time if thats what they prefer.

The key I think to all this is to stick to the core experiences of the game as much as possible--building creative vessels and mission profiles to accomplish more and more complex goals that require navigating space and juggling resources. If a given system feeds into that and makes it more interesting, great! If its just creating unrelated management baggage then maybe it doesn't fit. Thats why Im always a little leery of overly complicated funding and research schemes. Players should be thinking "okay how do I get to this specific landing zone and bring a sample back to my colony" rather than "how do I game this economic mechanic to please xyz investor."

Edited May 16, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[Roostergod]

I think it might be worth exploring having different types of science points, to incentivize different types of gameplay. For example have techs that need specifically science from colonies, science from orbital experiments, ground science, etc. This way you dont unlock the whole tech tree just doing flybys or timewarping while your labs generate science.