Are resources a better fit than money for KSP2?

[Pthigrivi]

5 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

The KSP 2 devs said that they intend the game to play most similarly to science mode. If it requires metal, methalox to build/fuel rockets, then you could reach a fail state where you run out of those. Or, maybe there’s automatic resource collection on kerbin, but then the player would just be timewarping until their reserves are full. Either way, it’s either not a very rewarding gameplay loop or an outright fail state which I would be okay with, but many others, including the devs, are not.

This issue of whether or not the player can build unlimited rockets is a fundamental one. It is especially important when it comes to automation, because with no restrictions imposed the player could automate 1000 supply launches a day from KSC. It’s also an issue that the playerbase doesn’t really know how to solve, I think, as you still see some people saying that rocket parts and fuel should be unlimited on Kerbin. So I’m interested in brainstorming, for sure. Maybe it warrants its own thread.

Well you wouldn't be able to send out 1000 launches a day because the resource re-charge rate wouldn't allow it. You also wouldn't hit a fail state because even if you deplete your stock you can just time-warp ahead a few days and try again. I think this is good for a game thats encouraging players to go out and take risks and fail occasionally, or (heaven forbid) crash on the Mun and need a rescue mission. In my mind you'd start out with storage full and enough basic materials to run your first 5-8 missions or so, enough to get you reliably to orbit and build your first Munar/Minmar missions. The starting recharge rate could be scaled to generate enough fuel and metals to build an averagish Mun mission every 3 days or so. Thats pretty fast and wouldn't bog players down in constantly time-warping just to fill up the tanks, but its also tight enough that you wouldn't want to gobble up all of your raw materials in supply runs. Keep in mind also that supply runs have to deliver to a station or colony and that destination needs to have enough tank storage to accept it. If their tanks are full then a supply run is a waste. Now, you could ship metals with your supply run to build more tanks but at a certain point you're going to have enough to do what you need to do and just heaping it up is a waste of time. This would be the same as delivering fuel and metals that you mined off-world but because of the inherent efficiencies of shallow, airless gravity wells you'll be able to produce what you need that way faster and easier than from KSC. 

I think many players are used to games with tightly limited resources and their built-in anxiety is going to drive them to make the mistake of piling up way more fuel in LKO than they really need at first. I feel like pretty quickly though they're going to realize "Oh, I've got plenty here and Im bored. Let's actually build something and go to Duna." Key to encouraging this transition will be science I think, because if there's one thing that motivates players more than hoarding it's getting fancy new stuff, and the only way to unlock new tech will be to explore new places. 

[regex]

6 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

It is especially important when it comes to automation, because with no restrictions imposed the player could automate 1000 supply launches a day from KSC.

The "unlimited resources at Kerbin" rule was proposed under the assumptions that:

1. This would only be simple resources which would allow construction of simple, chemical rockets,
2. More specialized resources would be required for things like nuclear and other, more advanced, engines,
3. The player would have to leave Kerbin SOI to gather more specialized resources using colony architecture,
4. More specialized resources would not be unlimited on Kerbin,
5. Other constraints would be in place, such as storage capacity and launch pad capability, which limited how many resources could be used for a single launch,
6. Setting up a supply run required a "proof" flight from the player, it was not a "one click and done" affair,
7. Supply runs could not simply be duplicated, each and every automated route had to be "proofed".

Under those assumptions I don't think it would really matter if Kerbin had unlimited resources. If someone decided to set up 1000 proof flights to create routes across the system in order to fill their tanks instead of simply mining those simple resources faster locally, good on them! If you were operating under different assumptions, like setting up a supply run was just you clicking a button, then yeah, unlimited resources would seem like a big deal.

Edited August 10, 2023 by regex

[VlonaldKerman]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Well you wouldn't be able to send out 1000 launches a day because the resource re-charge rate wouldn't allow it.

I was saying that with no restrictions, you could send 1000 launches per day. Thus, the exotic resource gameplay loop necessitates constraints on your standard methalox launching vehicles. So we are in agreement.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

You also wouldn't hit a fail state because even if you deplete your stock you can just time-warp ahead a few days and try again.

Yes, I addressed this in my post. The “fail state” occurs if there is no automatic methalox/metals generation at KSC.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

I think this is good for a game thats encouraging players to go out and take risks and fail occasionally, or (heaven forbid) crash on the Mun and need a rescue mission. In my mind you'd start out with storage full and enough basic materials to run your first 5-8 missions or so, enough to get you reliably to orbit and build your first Munar/Minmar missions. The starting recharge rate could be scaled to generate enough fuel and metals to build an averagish Mun mission every 3 days or so. Thats pretty fast and wouldn't bog players down in constantly time-warping just to fill up the tanks, but its also tight enough that you wouldn't want to gobble up all of your raw materials in supply runs.

I have to say refilling your reserves by timewarping before missions does not sound like rewarding gameplay. And why wouldn’t you gobble materials in supply runs? Without life support, there is no urgency to rescue missions, etc., and mission timing is usually irrelevant. Therefore, you can just timewarp enough to resupply whatever you’re resupplying, and take a short break from constant supply runs to launch another mission. This strategy will work until you have either large colonies that aren’t self-sufficient and need supplies from KSC, or until you have several colonies in several places.

Remember: the goal of the simple (not exotic) supply system is to constrain the number of launches you can conduct at any one time. But, if time is not a factor, then why have the system at all? This argues for unlimited methalox/metals, but limited exotics which have to be mined for mid-late game engines.

1 hour ago, regex said:

If someone decided to set up 1000 proof flights to create routes across the system in order to fill their tanks instead of simply mining those simple resources faster locally, good on them! If you were operating under different assumptions, like setting up a supply run was just you clicking a button, then yeah, unlimited resources would seem like a big deal.

I don’t mean 1000 different routes- I mean 1000 rockets on the same route. Here’s an example that I think illustrates the essential conundrum:

 

I’m constructing a new colony on the Mun. It needs ore and fuel to construct itself. The “efficient” solution would be to mine stuff on the Mun and build the colony from that stuff. That way, we avoid lugging stuff through Kerbins gravity well!

However, what if I have infinite methalox and metal at the KSC? Then I don’t care about being “efficient” because in this case “efficient” means FUEL EFFICIENT but I have INFINITE FUEL! All I have to do is fly one supply mission to the Mun, fly back to KSC, (I can spend tons of stages and only get back with the crew because of unlimited metal), and set it to repeat that mission 1000 times to fully supply the colony with the metal it needs to construct.

And just like that, I’ve bypassed an essential engineering challenge of deep space colonization, because I have infinite fuel at the KSC. In principle, this strategy could extend to anywhere, even other solar systems.

If we don’t care that I can do this, and we don’t care about making ISRU important other than wrt. exotic resources, than this is fine. But, if we care about metal to build colonies, etc, then resources at the KSC have to be FINITE.

Making them generate over time is not in principle finite, because the player can use infinite timewarp when there is no life support! You could say that the methalox regen rate is such that you could not continuously supply several colonies. Then, ISRU would be important again, at least once a colony is fully up and running, in order to not eat up supply bandwidth. But this is not overall a satisfying solution.

So to summarize:

- Effectively unlimited fuel/rocket parts = core engineering challenge of colonization bypassed, as long as there are no consequences of timewarping for arbitrary amounts of time.

- Limiting fuel by making it regenerate with limited storage capacity is not a good solution because it can be overcome by tediously timewarping in the early game, and would probably be a useless or tedious restriction in the mid-late game because at that point it will probably be relatively trivial to mine resources ISRU, so the system is unnecessary and tedious.

- Requiring players to mine/produce fuel and metal introduces a fail state where the player runs out of fuel and metal and can’t produce any more. 

- This issue arrises because we are basically trying to implement a funds system for the early game without using funds because having funds creates a restrictive and unrewarding gameplay loop.

[regex]

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

- Effectively unlimited fuel/rocket parts = core engineering challenge of colonization bypassed, as long as there are no consequences of timewarping for arbitrary amounts of time.

If you're willing to wait for literally years in-game for the resources to arrive where they need to be instead of mining them locally much faster then yes, you've bypassed the core engineering challenge. Congratulations on your time-warping skills.

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

- Limiting fuel by making it regenerate with limited storage capacity is not a good solution because it can be overcome by tediously timewarping in the early game, and would probably be a useless or tedious restriction in the mid-late game because at that point it will probably be relatively trivial to mine resources ISRU, so the system is unnecessary and tedious.

Yes, which is why I don't see an issue with making early game resources unlimited. It completely sidelines the tediousness of that sort of gameplay.

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

- Requiring players to mine/produce fuel and metal introduces a fail state where the player runs out of fuel and metal and can’t produce any more.

Are the resource deposits finite? Because if they're not we haven't solved anything here by requiring early game mining, aside from maybe showing players how to do it. You just set up a couple routes and timewarp, BAM, resource tanks filled back up, nothing gained over just letting the player have unlimited resources except forcing them to set up those routes and timewarp.

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

- This issue arrises because we are basically trying to implement a funds system for the early game without using funds because having funds creates a restrictive and unrewarding gameplay loop.

We don't need to set up a funds system of any kind, what we need are other limitations such as available storage which limits the complexity of any given launch and launchpad/VAB constraints which limit size.

Why do we need a failure state at all?

1 hour ago, VlonaldKerman said:

I don’t mean 1000 different routes- I mean 1000 rockets on the same route.

I don't assume this is possible, I assume one route for one rocket and that rocket runs on a schedule determined by transfer windows. If you want multiple rockets, you set up multiple routes and each route requires a "proofing run", another limitation on the gameplay.

E: Another limitation that could be implemented on routes would be a command point scheme where each route (or ship on a route) requires a certain number of points (maybe determined by route length or ship size) which are generated by colonies (and KSC only having a limited number itself). Then you would need to play a balancing act between moving simple resources and exotic resources around, making generating local simple resources much more appealing than shipping them from KSC.

Edited August 10, 2023 by regex

[Pthigrivi]

4 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

I have to say refilling your reserves by timewarping before missions does not sound like rewarding gameplay. And why wouldn’t you gobble materials in supply runs? Without life support, there is no urgency to rescue missions, etc., and mission timing is usually irrelevant. Therefore, you can just timewarp enough to resupply whatever you’re resupplying, and take a short break from constant supply runs to launch another mission. This strategy will work until you have either large colonies that aren’t self-sufficient and need supplies from KSC, or until you have several colonies in several places.

I mean out of the gate we're making all kinds of assumptions that may not be correct. I was just describing a scheme that could work. As to timewarping to generate resources thats why I suggested starting with the tanks full and recharging at the scale of a Mun mission. Thats so by the time you flew to the Mun and back you'd already have the resources back to fly again or mount a mission to Minmus or send a probe to Duna or whatever. You're not idily timewarping to fill up tanks, the tanks were filled as you flew your previous mission. You only run into issues if you overtax your production by sending a resupply faster than once every 3 days, and thats not likely to be something you worry about until after you've established and start growing a colony or two. 
 

4 hours ago, VlonaldKerman said:

However, what if I have infinite methalox and metal at the KSC? Then I don’t care about being “efficient” because in this case “efficient” means FUEL EFFICIENT but I have INFINITE FUEL! All I have to do is fly one supply mission to the Mun, fly back to KSC, (I can spend tons of stages and only get back with the crew because of unlimited metal), and set it to repeat that mission 1000 times to fully supply the colony with the metal it needs to construct.

Right, but as Regex points out mined fuel on the Mun or Minmus is also infinite, its just that the rate and efficiency of transport is higher so what you might do with 10 resupply missions from KSC you could do with only 2 or 3 from one of the moons. That means you're both being more efficient about your science spending and more efficient with your own time as a player, which is maybe the most critical resource in the game. If a player just personally hates mining and doesn't mind wasting a bit more time and science they can do that, but given the inherent advantages I don't think most players will.

The other thing I don't think we know is exactly how the discovery and unlock process will work with 'exotic resources' (anything you don't start the game with I guess). I think we know you'll have to discover and mine a certain amount of say He3-rich ore before you can unlock processors, but once thats unlocked can you also add He3 production at KSC? 

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[Ryaja]

I don't see why it has to be either or, money could just act as a universal trading resource between persons.

[Skorj]

Perhaps a bit of an aside, but I see people worrying about the possibility of a failure state.  This is a game.  Failure states are expected.  Without a failure state, you have some sort of interactive visual novel, or idle game, not a game in the usual sense.  A failure state is a feature, not a bug.  And unless you're deliberately playing some sort of hardcore or ironman challenge, you can just load an earlier save if there's a big problem.

 

[Skorj]

On 8/7/2023 at 10:25 PM, Pthigrivi said:

There's a difference here though in what you're describing. What you don't normally see in games is a part or gamepiece suddenly changing its resource cost midway through the progression. You don't normally have a house cost 10 wood and then later that exact same house costs 12 metal and 15 stone. You might have an upgraded version of a house that cost different resources, but you'd expect better stats for the time and energy that went into producing novel resources.  If the Swivel engine costs X at the beginning of the game it should cost X throughout the game. If later you're spending Y + Z you'd expect be getting a fancy nuclear engine with noticeably different performance. I've never played a game in which when I start everything costs gold, but then half-way through the game suddenly says "just kidding!" and starts charging me a bunch of hard to procure resources for the exact same parts. You've spent the early, onboarding stage of the game miseducating players about the nature of the game to follow. You've also greatly increased the transition difficulty between launching from Kerbin and setting up off-world colonies when you should be making that transition as seamless as possible.

Not sure where you were getting that idea from my posts.  The launch cost for a basic rocket should be the same amount of funds, metals (or whatever material) and fuel regardless of where you launch it from.  In the early game, metals and fuels would be unlimited, but funds would be tight.  So you need all three for consistency but only funds matter.  Mid-game, you're maybe launching from Duna.  The funds cost of the rocket is now trivial because you have lots of funds, not because the cost changed.  The metals and fuel costs now matter a lot, because you need to somehow get them on Duna, not because the amounts changed.  I hope that's clear.  So the focus of gameplay naturally changes from "I need cheap launches from KSP" to "I need ISRU". 

And later still you need lots of metal and fuel, so the gameplay evolves to "I need a colony that makes these resources at a scale where I no longer care about them."  In the late game, none of the resources for basic rockets are scarce at all, you've finished that part of the game.  Now it's all about whatever resource powers near-future tech, with exploration to find it and perhaps unique challenges in extracting it.  And for the end game you need that, not just as simple ISRU, but as an automation/colony challenge to make vast amounts of it for the interstellar ship.

On 8/7/2023 at 10:25 PM, Pthigrivi said:

Okay a couple of things, and this may just be a difference in theory about what makes a game 'good'. I don't think largely linear, rote, grind-for-reward gameplay is good, though yes many, many current games rely on gnawing at players' reward/dopamine response exactly in this way. Thats what's so important about game balance and allowing room for creative solutions. Stardew Valley is in some ways just a cutesy-bootsie farming game, but the specific balance between different crops is incredibly well tuned to ensure that its not the "MAKE BLUEBERRIES" game. In my mind good games aren't about grinding through bottlenecks. It's about creating a dynamic set of strategic forks and potential synergies. Strategic forks are moments in gameplay where players have a choice: "I can pursue this path and get X or I could pursue another path and get Y."  Hold this in your mind as distinct from "I can pursue this path and get X or I can pursue another path and get 10X". That latter methodology is fine in doses, but it doesn't give players real agency or true creative licence because as you point out all players will trend toward 10X.

OK, I'm utterly baffled by where the "grinding" comment came from.  I assume you've ever played Factorio or some game in the genre it created, so you know it not about grinding.  You simply can't progress the game that way, you have to embrace the new mechanics.  And as you do the resource you worry about shifts over time.

Yes, I totally a agree that "X or Y" can be more fun than "X or 10X", but that's much more dev work.  Forgive me if I suggest that's not a useful direction, all things considered.  (As a point of reference "451 games" (a kind of immersive sim) are all about "X or Y" to pass every challenge, and while I find them immensely fun they're so expensive to develop that only a few have ever been made.)  That being said, Factorio is a whole lot of fun and it barely has any "X or Y" elements at all (coal liquefaction, and belts-or-bots are the only ones that comes to mind, and the game was a success before those).  There's an amazing amount of player agency and choices to make in how you solve the problem, rather than which problem do you solve.

You also talk about player choices that skip some steps, and while that can be fun for expert play, a lot of that doesn't have to be designed in.  Expert players will find all sorts of skips you never designed in.  But I don't think you should make content that, on a first playthrough, many players will skip (other than easter-egg type stuff), because again that's an expensive approach.  Limited dev resources are usually better spent making content that all players will see.  Of course, KSP does have replay value, so it wouldn't be a waste, but to me any sort of (designed-in) "alternate path" stuff should be added after the game is finished.  It makes good DLC/expansion content, after all.

But there is some "X or Y" in this approach and even a bit of "skip" choices, in that at each transition point between "how do I produce enough Resource A" and "how do I produce enough Resource B", there are interesting choices to make.  E.g., as you start making a colony on Minmus, do you try to bootstrap that with lots of launched from Kerbin, or lean into colony ISRU and have it mostly build itself, or as an expert player decide "you know, I bet a colony on Gilly is a better long-term bet, and almost as easy" and skip Minmus altogether,

On 8/10/2023 at 3:32 AM, VlonaldKerman said:

This issue of whether or not the player can build unlimited rockets is a fundamental one. It is especially important when it comes to automation, because with no restrictions imposed the player could automate 1000 supply launches a day from KSC. It’s also an issue that the playerbase doesn’t really know how to solve, I think, as you still see some people saying that rocket parts and fuel should be unlimited on Kerbin. So I’m interested in brainstorming, for sure. Maybe it warrants its own thread.

There's no real problem with rocket parts and fuel being unlimited on Kerbin, any more than inexhaustible ore patches are necessarily a problem with automation games.  You don't need to limit them on Kerbin, you just need something that makes launching resources from Kerbin at scale impractical.  For the mid-game, when you're e.g. trying to build a colony on Duna, I would go with simply he funds cost.  Lets assume you need really substantial amounts of metals (or whatever the construction resource is) to build and expand the colony.  While the funds cost launching individual rockets might be a non-issue at this point in the game, the cost to launch 1000 is a different matter (or as Pthigrivi suggests, time could be the bottleneck.)

As soon as you add automation to a game, the challenge becomes about scale, because the gameplay is about producing unlimited resources.  Just because you have some unlimited source on Kerbin doesn't trivialize the game, but is rather the start of the chain.  For building on Duna, you could try to launch everything from Kerbin, but as long as that doesn't scale well that's fine.  As long as launching from e.g. a Minmus colony is a much easier approach, it's fine.  Assuming here that a Minums colony would become much more efficient toolchain for launches to Duna than KSC launches, which wouldn't be very hard to design in.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Skorj

[Periple]

If funds are involved, I think they ought to be involved only in the early game when everything starts at KSC. The solution there should be really simple: parts cost resources, and resources cost funds. There could be a button that auto-buys the resources you need for a launch to avoid extra clicking but the relationship should be transparent.

Then later on when you start producing your own resources funds will fade out of the picture. There will even be an intermediate phase where you can produce some resources in your colonies but will have to buy and fly in others from Kerbin.

I think this would be a pretty intuitive transition from early to mid-game and would produce interesting economic, logistical, and technical challenges!

[Infinite Aerospace]

10 hours ago, Periple said:

If funds are involved, I think they ought to be involved only in the early game when everything starts at KSC. The solution there should be really simple: parts cost resources, and resources cost funds. There could be a button that auto-buys the resources you need for a launch to avoid extra clicking but the relationship should be transparent.

Then later on when you start producing your own resources funds will fade out of the picture. There will even be an intermediate phase where you can produce some resources in your colonies but will have to buy and fly in others from Kerbin.

I think this would be a pretty intuitive transition from early to mid-game and would produce interesting economic, logistical, and technical challenges!

When we transition from LEO to Cislunar space for example and start making use of the resources on the Moon and near Earth asteroids, you get rid of one factor, resource scarcity. But in order to have this new frontier become and economic zone, you need to (and we will) attach a 'monetary' value to those commodities, realistically anyway.

 

You *could* technically trade one commodity for another, but that then essentially defeats the point of currency and it means that resource acquisition becomes the most essential goal.

 

I suppose that all depends on how the whole make-up of the game is setup. I'd love to think it's setup in a manner where it's 'optional' as to which route to go down. Perhaps it could be broken up into several distinct 'types'.

 

A) Focused on launch, and transportation sorta services, imagine something along the lines of a United Launch Alliance.

 

B) An organisation that goes out and does the prospecting, resource extraction.

 

The reason that sorta thing is potentially important is because, in the real world for example Corporation X might mine a commodity, but then Corporation Y might be one contracted to transport, to move that around. In a system where it's resource OR money, how does Corporation Y make an income? So I honestly think there's an argument for a resource AND monetary system.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Infinite Aerospace

[Periple]

You’d have to simulate an interplanetary economy for that and I think that’s WAY out of scope for the game!

[Stephensan]

5 hours ago, Periple said:

You’d have to simulate an interplanetary economy for that and I think that’s WAY out of scope for the game!

WHAT  my 238 trillion dollar engine for interstellar is to much XD

[MarcAbaddon]

I think if you really want to develop that part of the game you'd need resources and money. With resources only there are basically two options:

• Resource availability is binary, you either have it or not
• Resources are quantified and you can have a different amont

If KSP 2 goes with the first option, then it will be really a simple progression mechanic. Go to Place X to get resource Y which will unlock parts Z. That's relatively simple but not super deep.

However, if you go with quantities there needs to be limitations that makes sure that you do not get an effectively infinite amount the moment you find it. If you look at games with have more complex economies like Anno (one of the early one suffices, no need to look at the complexity of 1800) those constraints usually one of the following: extraction speed or costs in term of other resources and/or money or exhaustible deposits. 

 

[Lyneira]

4 hours ago, MarcAbaddon said:

I think if you really want to develop that part of the game you'd need resources and money. With resources only there are basically two options:

• Resource availability is binary, you either have it or not
• Resources are quantified and you can have a different amont

If KSP 2 goes with the first option, then it will be really a simple progression mechanic. Go to Place X to get resource Y which will unlock parts Z. That's relatively simple but not super deep.

However, if you go with quantities there needs to be limitations that makes sure that you do not get an effectively infinite amount the moment you find it. If you look at games with have more complex economies like Anno (one of the early one suffices, no need to look at the complexity of 1800) those constraints usually one of the following: extraction speed or costs in term of other resources and/or money or exhaustible deposits. 

 

You make a good point, and I'd like to highlight some relevant things with how KSP2 currently stands because I worry that the resource game will boil down to the first option, binary resource availability.

We know the following things already:

• Resource extraction and delivery will be fully automatable.
• Time warp is available up to 100000x.
• There is currently only one mechanic that discourages gratuitous timewarping: The limited lifetime of RTGs and nuclear reactors. This can be worked around by using solar panels in locations with enough sunlight, or likely with automated deliveries of fresh nuclear fuel for reactors.

If resource deposits are infinite, balancing the game's progression by tweaking extraction speed kind of breaks down. Once a resource has been found and extraction and delivery set up, the player can simply timewarp an arbitrary amount to fill the need of any construction project rather than consider seeking out a more concentrated source of it and/or scaling up their operation. This is how it is in KSP1 with ore mining and refining into fuel. The player may still consider scaling up their resource extraction if they feel the convenience of less timewarp is worth it, but it will be difficult to integrate "scale up the extraction of this resource" as a challenge into the game progression.

Some ways to break binary resource availability:

• Making resource deposits finite - That may encourage players to be more careful with their resource use, but it's difficult to balance because what's effectively infinite for one person's ambitions may not be enough for another's. In order to accommodate most players, the designers could exponentially scale resource deposit size based on a "difficulty rating" of a world, similar to how resource deposits scale exponentially with distance from the starting point on Factorio maps.
• Add a running cost (including construction resources like metals) to colonies. Expanding one's infrastructure will necessitate scaling up operations and looking for new and more concentrated sources of a resource.
• Add mechanics that discourage gratuitous timewarp later in the game. This is at odds with the game's goal of interstellar travel though, which takes far longer than resource extraction and delivery happening inside a solar system.

Personally, I'd like to see an experience like this: You've found a small deposit of resource X, you can now use it in small amounts for new parts you couldn't build before. But after a bit of research, you discover another use (more new parts, colony buildings) for resource X, but now you need an order of magnitude more of it. Your existing deposit just won't do, but luckily your probe orbiting Eeloo has found a huge, concentrated source of X. That's where you'll go next to get enough to play with these new parts and colony buildings.

The important thing is this: Timewarping your way to a full resource storage breaks the experience I just described above.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Lyneira

[Periple]

5 hours ago, MarcAbaddon said:

However, if you go with quantities there needs to be limitations that makes sure that you do not get an effectively infinite amount the moment you find it. If you look at games with have more complex economies like Anno (one of the early one suffices, no need to look at the complexity of 1800) those constraints usually one of the following: extraction speed or costs in term of other resources and/or money or exhaustible deposits. 

This is very true!

There are strong indications that resources will be quantified, like a certain part requires a certain amount of certain resources for you to make it. I don't know if they'll make resources limited at the source or if the limitations will be indirect, e.g. logistical, and if so, will it be possible to just timewarp through them making resources effectively unlimited once you've set up the supply lines. There are arguments pro and con either way.

If mines are inexhaustible then the challenge is to set up the supply lines; this could be interesting enough if you want them at all balanced so one resource doesn't pile up while you're waiting for another one to accumulate. If they're exhaustible then you would have a continuous incentive to explore in order to find replacements, which could turn out to be a lot of fun, or extremely grindy, or anything in between. 

Either way there's potential for a lot of interesting self-directed gameplay there!

[moeggz]

Why can’t the resource extraction rate be tied to real world game time and not Kerbin time?

I know, it’s immersion breaking but so are space frogs that don’t need to eat.

To me this solves a few problems

1. The unavoidable meta-gaming around time warping (or making resources binary which is not what I would want) is solved. Time warp for your missions. Or don’t if you don’t need to, time warping now is only useful for it’s intended purpose.

2. Resource extraction rate. This can be on a difficulty slider and dependent on the quality of the extraction equipment but also, whatever difficulty you are on, one resource deposit can only have 1 base. If the extraction rate isn’t satisfactory to keep up with real world desires, the player is then nudged naturally back into the core gameplay loop to find new deposits and then  build more colonies.

Say a player has unlocked on the tech tree an interesting part they would like that requires a new material. They find it, land a colony and see the resource extraction time is, say 1 hour real world game time. They could either do another mission if they would like, building suspense, or find more of the material and build another colony and delivery route, and now (counting time done on the mission) it’s 5 minutes away. They can hop in the vab knowing it will be done soon. For future missions, as long as they aren’t launching a ship with this material every 30 minutes they are set.

There are issues; it’s immersion breaking, if you’re stuck waiting for 10 minutes it can be annoying (always having something else for the player to do here helps) but it solves the finicky issues around time warp becoming a mechanic in ways it’s not intended to be.

Edited August 17, 2023 by moeggz

[Lyneira]

1 hour ago, moeggz said:

Why can’t the resource extraction rate be tied to real world game time and not Kerbin time?

I know, it’s immersion breaking but so are space frogs that don’t need to eat.

There are more problems with this than just immersion breaking, it pushes the play style towards that of a live service game where you can play a little bit, then you're forced to stop playing to wait for "energy" or other resources to come back in real time. Especially when you're also playing with a group of friends in multiplayer and you only play the game a few hours a week. On top of that if it's linked to the real time that the internal server has been running, it will put this style of play at a big disadvantage to someone playing single player every day.

The idea can work if instead you link resource production to some measure of "player effort" that takes a minimum amount of play time, but it does risk forcing players into repetitive actions that feel like grind in a bad way. (not all kinds of grind are bad, but if it's too obvious it will feel like the bad sort of grind)

[regex]

2 hours ago, moeggz said:

Why can’t the resource extraction rate be tied to real world game time and not Kerbin time?

Because in a single player sandbox game it's garbage gameplay if you don't have a wealth of other things to do in the meantime (see Minecraft, which also has ways to shortcut that gameplay if you have enough resources).

I don't think extraction rate is anywhere near the problem people think it is because there are far better ways to limit the player's progression such as science points, a tech tree, VAB limitations on size and mass, available resources to the VAB at any one given time, the number of supply craft running routes allowed, and so on. We shouldn't be concerned with time at all because it's not a limiter, there are much better and far less onerous methods to limit progression.

Edited August 17, 2023 by regex

[moeggz]

To be clear, I meant real world but still in game time ie resources do not accrue if the game is off. 
 

I do like the idea of upgradeable off Kerbin VAB limits and storage limits.  If that is the limiting factor then resources should be binary in that the colony has access to them but can only use them within the caps of the colony. 
 

Because in a game with time warp for interstellar travel, connecting resource to in game time is meaningless, and just adds a “time warp at max speed for 2 seconds” step to any action. 
 

Limiting Vabs is a better solution, but then in my opinion just make the resources binary up to the cap limit.

[regex]

7 minutes ago, moeggz said:

To be clear, I meant real world but still in game time ie resources do not accrue if the game is off.

Yes, that should be assumed, and is how Minecraft works when you're not running a server.

There's nothing wrong with having an extraction rate or waiting for resources to be shipped in this context because that can be immersive, but that should never be considered a limiting factor on the user because of time warp.

[Lyneira]

While basic resources might be balanced with a running cost at your colonies, exotic resources could be reliant on a "Proof of work" that comes from the core gameplay loop. It signifies that the player has done something meaningful for the space program, and that it is something they invested their own time and effort in rather than letting an automated process do the work for them. We could call this proof of work Funds, Keuros or whatever ("money" from hereon in this post), and it would be required for the kerbals to manage any extraction/production you set up for this resource. It allows game design to balance the player's exotic resource income with money earning capacity. Technology and part milestones enable new and more powerful ways to earn money, discounts to the cost of resource production and enable the extraction of new exotic resources. These act as a multiplier for your resource extraction capability in the later game. With each milestone bringing a change to the playing field of how to earn money, apply it to resource extraction and towards unlocking new milestones, this creates a positive feedback loop that feels rewarding.

The key is that if the game has money that ties back to "proof of work", it should not be possible to set up automated money printing because that breaks the effort:reward feedback loop.

[moeggz]

1 hour ago, regex said:

There's nothing wrong with having an extraction rate or waiting for resources to be shipped in this context because that can be immersive, but that should never be considered a limiting factor on the user because of time warp.

This makes sense, but resources being binary to me wouldn’t be immersion breaking, and would save me from having to max time warp each time before going to the VAB.

I like your idea of just limiting the VAB. Each colony has limits on storage capacity and manufacture size/part limits and these can be increased by adding more supply routes of different materials. 

If that’s the setup, from my view, it’s simpler to just turn resources into a YES/NO (up to the limit of the colony based on its progression) then time warping whenever I would like more of a resource.

43 minutes ago, Lyneira said:

exotic resources could be reliant on a "Proof of work"

What if those exotic resources were more “colony” material then “money” or “spacecraft material.” Say the first expansion to max part buildable by a colony is resource “x” which is only on one moon of Jool and each colony must be tied to that resource with a supply route to expand. Resource “y” is the “storage tank” material and each colony must be tied up to that to expand the amount of resources that can be stored. 

I think that accomplishes the goal both of us have of leading to players being naturally led back to the gameplay loop to expand. The difference is I think I would prefer this limiting factor be just another resource and given to the colonies instead of to the Kerbals themselves.

I’m not fully opposed to that idea, just the implementation of funds in KSP1 wasn’t exactly an engaging gameplay loop for me personally. However that doesn’t mean that KSP2 couldn’t implement a more engaging system. I’d just rather not have to juggle between resources and money, and was sold on their idea of limiting it to just resources.

[Lisias]

On 7/23/2023 at 4:25 AM, KSK said:

As for 3), I’m not averse to fail states. For tycoon or management style games, there almost has to be a hard fail state where you lose the game because of bad management, otherwise what’s the point?

I second that. And there's the Science Mode for people not willing to deal with money, and this model worked fine IMHO.

It's not a mutually exclusive choice, you can have both playing paradigms on the same game - KSP¹ did it at least.

[Periple]

2 hours ago, moeggz said:

To be clear, I meant real world but still in game time ie resources do not accrue if the game is off. 

That would just incentivize players to leave the game running overnight which would be worse. Great for simultaneous player count stats though!

[Pthigrivi]

On 8/15/2023 at 4:53 PM, Skorj said:

Not sure where you were getting that idea from my posts.  The launch cost for a basic rocket should be the same amount of funds, metals (or whatever material) and fuel regardless of where you launch it from.  In the early game, metals and fuels would be unlimited, but funds would be tight. 

Great post. I agree with almost all of it and yes I did misunderstand. I thought for some reason you meant parts would cost money on Kerbin instead of resources. But let's take a step back and ask a more fundamental question. Why have limited resources or money at all? What is the desired effect on the way players build and fly? I think you'll agree the primary goal is to create a sense of challenge, but to me the specific challenge that's being posed is that of efficiency: How far can I get and how much can I do with leaner, meaner vessels. I think teaching players to 'play smarter, not harder' and not just brute force navigation puzzles is a big part of why I was so engrossed by KSP in the first place. Lots of people say getting to the Mun was that big first feeling of achievement, and it was for me too. But right next to that for me was getting a really intuitive feeling for TWR + ISP and just when and how to balance them. I think teaching this skill is absolutely fundamental to the game and putting a bit of limit on rocket glut is a solid way to reinforce that. I think you'll probably agree. It also has a benefit for overall game performance because many fewer players will be building unruly monstrosities when they don't really have to. 

So, the question I have is: if having soft limits on resources like storage requirements can succeed in applying that pressure and teaching that skill is there a need to include a money and contract system on top of that? I'm not saying you're wrong that it could work--I think it could--I just feel like its potentially redundant and unnecessary. Its an appeal to "all things being equal simpler is better."
 

On 8/15/2023 at 4:53 PM, Skorj said:

OK, I'm utterly baffled by where the "grinding" comment came from.  I assume you've ever played Factorio or some game in the genre it created, so you know it not about grinding.  You simply can't progress the game that way, you have to embrace the new mechanics.  And as you do the resource you worry about shifts over time.

Yes, I totally a agree that "X or Y" can be more fun than "X or 10X", but that's much more dev work.  Forgive me if I suggest that's not a useful direction, all things considered.  (As a point of reference "451 games" (a kind of immersive sim) are all about "X or Y" to pass every challenge, and while I find them immensely fun they're so expensive to develop that only a few have ever been made.)  That being said, Factorio is a whole lot of fun and it barely has any "X or Y" elements at all (coal liquefaction, and belts-or-bots are the only ones that comes to mind, and the game was a success before those).  There's an amazing amount of player agency and choices to make in how you solve the problem, rather than which problem do you solve.

You also talk about player choices that skip some steps, and while that can be fun for expert play, a lot of that doesn't have to be designed in.  Expert players will find all sorts of skips you never designed in.  But I don't think you should make content that, on a first playthrough, many players will skip (other than easter-egg type stuff), because again that's an expensive approach.  Limited dev resources are usually better spent making content that all players will see.  Of course, KSP does have replay value, so it wouldn't be a waste, but to me any sort of (designed-in) "alternate path" stuff should be added after the game is finished.  It makes good DLC/expansion content, after all.

But there is some "X or Y" in this approach and even a bit of "skip" choices, in that at each transition point between "how do I produce enough Resource A" and "how do I produce enough Resource B", there are interesting choices to make.  E.g., as you start making a colony on Minmus, do you try to bootstrap that with lots of launched from Kerbin, or lean into colony ISRU and have it mostly build itself, or as an expert player decide "you know, I bet a colony on Gilly is a better long-term bet, and almost as easy" and skip Minmus altogether,

Again I agree with almost all of this. I think you're right there's a place for both "X or Y" and "X or 10X". Let stick with Factorio as an example because it's awesome and Im currently obsessed with it. Factorio is obviously about production scale, but in a sneaky way it's also got a lot of "X or Y". When I laid out my KSP2 tech path options (H2 vs Nuclear for example) I wasn't suggesting a player would pick H2 and skip nuclear entirely, just that they might pursue one or the other first. Factorio is full of these kinds of decisions, choosing when to go in on trains, when to wall-off, when to start nuclear or solar or in which order, how fast to push toward roboports, etc. You usually get to everything eventually, but there's a lot of freedom to choose what specific order you want to unlock things and what to devote resources to. So I was probably wrong to frame my post as "X or Y" is better than "X or 10X". They're more yin and yang. What I meant was that I hope KSP2 doesn't have a rote, linear build order that almost everyone follows. Im looking for a bit of freedom and adaptation in the order folks unlock and pursue different fuels and technologies, the same way I scratch my chin a bit almost every time I pick a tech unlock in Factorio. 



Other posters have also made made interesting observations and I think folks are right that resources and time-warp is a hard nut to crack but I want to turn a bit to the AMA today. Chris dropped a few hints that are worth talking about:
 

On science (paraphrasing) - Primarily they're looking at dealing with approachability and exploitability--for instance a new player might be able to gather 10 science on the pad, but an experienced player could gather 100 if they knew how to exploit the system. So they'd like to even this out and make the experience more balanced and intuitive. They're also looking more closely at tuning and balancing experiments, how much science do they generate, do they need to be in a specific place, do they need specific resources, do they need specific time? - The mention of resources is curious here because "resources" aren't slated till much later in the roadmap. Im guessing he means resources like electricity? Or perhaps the presence of deposits like ices or metals or gasses that we can detect but can't yet extract?

A tangential hint on colony parts (again paraphrasing) - There will be multiple sizes of gravity rings but also different roles for gravity rings and that will have an impact on gameplay. - This is really interesting to me because I feel like there's a logic in KSP where parts always have a function. Are these greenhouse rings? Science lab rings? Places where Kerbals live or make rocket parts? Lots of cool possibilities. 

Specific to rockets being free (quoted, cleaned up for 'ums and ahs') - "We're effectively designing our progression such that that's not an issue. I should clarify that as we're going through our milestones the science milestone is going to be more similar to the science mode from KSP1. You didn't really have cash in that mode in KSP1 so we're working within the same constraints of that. In the far future when we have resources and things we're often taking the approach that we want players to feel like they're able to do a lot of stuff from the KSC and from colonies. So I'm not going to say that launching rockets will be free, there's always going to be a cost that's associated with a rocket, but the amount of various resources that you might have access to at the KSC, at various places,  that will control what you can launch when."

...

Follow-up to similar question: "This is a fairly far-future question in the sense that in the science update we're looking at the same scope as the KSP1 science mode generally, and in that sense we're not going to have limits on resources on Kerbin, but going forward again our goal is to push the player to explore outward rather than to explore inward. My kind of personal opinion on the role of money and scarcity is that we want to be sure to empower players to try new things in a safe environment. Kerbin is a safe environment. When you get out of safe environments like a colony on Duna, thats where your resources come in."

So it sounds as though yes there will be resources available at KSC and they either will or won't be limited in some way?  It may still be under discussion. Cool to hear the thinking behind it though. 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Pthigrivi