Are resources a better fit than money for KSP2?

[moeggz]

6 hours ago, Periple said:

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

I think there would be an easy to make “auto pause” feature that prevents this for the average user. 
The ones who would be compelled to write a script to get around it would just mod it to how they like it.

[Periple]

1 hour ago, moeggz said:

I think there would be an easy to make “auto pause” feature that prevents this for the average user. 
The ones who would be compelled to write a script to get around it would just mod it to how they like it.

As a rule of thumb, if you find yourself having to pile on things like this to keep the incentives aligned, most likely there’s something wrong with your mechanics. 

I think that any mechanic that incentivizes doing nothing is questionable at best. You will find these mostly in f2p games that let players pay to avoid them. I think that says a lot about how enjoyable they are!

[moeggz]

19 minutes ago, Periple said:

As a rule of thumb, if you find yourself having to pile on things like this to keep the incentives aligned, most likely there’s something wrong with your mechanics. 

I think that any mechanic that incentivizes doing nothing is questionable at best. You will find these mostly in f2p games that let players pay to avoid them. I think that says a lot about how enjoyable they are!

The way I see it this is the breakdown:

Resources are either binary or are gradually harvested. If they are gradually harvested they must be either 

A. Tied to the in universe clock on Kerbin time. Which means the player can just hit time warp one million and the situation reverts to a binary choice for all practicality.

B. Tied to the real world time in game. There’s ways to exploit this, it’s immersion breaking, and feels a little like a free app.

C. Possibly another way that isn’t one of the above two? But I don’t know how it could accumulate gradually and not fall under A or B, though would be happy to learn more.

As B has issues and A is really just binary resources in all but name, I would rather skip the “time warp as a resource extraction exploit” and just have the game make binary checks of “has this colony received a shipment from the player for resource c?” If so, the “automated route” is just the storage of resource x is set to full at colonies that have received a shipment of the material.

[Pthigrivi]

18 minutes ago, moeggz said:

A. Tied to the in universe clock on Kerbin time. Which means the player can just hit time warp one million and the situation reverts to a binary choice for all practicality.

Part of the puzzle is storage limitations, where you can warp forward a short time and the tanks fill up and anything after that is a waste. So its not really infinite and binary. Ideally this would happen naturally and you’d fill up for your next mission as you fly your current one. Its a little hard to predict given wild scale changes as you go interplanetary and then interstellar. Fuel types and tech unlocks will come into it. Im going to take a day and think on this though. 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[moeggz]

14 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Part of the puzzle is storage limitations, where you can warp forward a short time and the tanks fill up and anything after that is a waste. So its not really infinite and binary. Ideally this would happen naturally and you’d fill up for your next mission as you fly your current one. Its a little hard to predict given wild scale changes as you go interplanetary and then interstellar. Fuel types and tech unlocks will come into it. Im going to take a day and think on this though. 

I agree storage/colony VAB limitations (coupled with ways to expand those limits as you progress through the game) are the key to making the core gameplay loop fun and engaging. I guess whether or not the tanks are binary or gradual isn’t a huge issue, as I’m sure there will be mods to let you do whichever method the devs don’t chose.

Balancing all of this is going to be one heck of a challenge tho with the many different ways people play KSP1. Hopefully they pull back the curtain on these systems soon, they’ll be more to talk about with a general idea of how this system will work.

 

[regex]

KSP does have some time-based mechanics inherent to the solar system which means time isn't exactly meaningless, and that also means that resource rates can have meaning. However, I again argue that resource rates really shouldn't be used for practical limits when we have much better mechanics, especially since timewarp heals all (and we're going to be timewarping a lot when it comes to interstellar travel).

[moeggz]

1 minute ago, regex said:

KSP does have some time-based mechanics inherent to the solar system which means time isn't exactly meaningless, and that also means that resource rates can have meaning. However, I again argue that resource rates really shouldn't be used for practical limits when we have much better mechanics, especially since timewarp heals all (and we're going to be timewarping a lot when it comes to interstellar travel).

Transfer windows are only meaningful when there is some punishment for them warp. As life support or part decay aren’t likely to be in the game, that leaves RTG’s basically and I don’t think that’s a big enough hindrance. If you miss a transfer window you warp to the next one. If the resource extraction rate is both gradual and transfer window dependent, I think again players will just warp to the next one. As you say, time warp heals all. I do think some punishment for time warping too much would have cascading benefits across the game, among them making a resource extraction rate make a bit more sense gameplay wise. But that’s not really on topic for this thread.

I think your ideas on the other ways the devs can limit progression are much more interesting then limiting the resource extraction rates. Have enough resources of varied difficulty to get, have them expand and unlock various parts of colonies/rocket parts and you have a pretty engaging core loop. No need for money imo.

[Periple]

35 minutes ago, moeggz said:

As B has issues and A is really just binary resources in all but name, I would rather skip the “time warp as a resource extraction exploit” and just have the game make binary checks of “has this colony received a shipment from the player for resource c?” If so, the “automated route” is just the storage of resource x is set to full at colonies that have received a shipment of the material.

Your argumentation is sound! Thing is I still disagree. Maybe. Although I haven’t thought it through!

With games, you’re looking for what’s fun. Simplifications like this make sense on paper but they may master it less fun. I think there may not be a way to fully disincentivize time warping, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing — some players will want to play as time-efficiently as they can, others will warp to refill their resources. As long as both are having fun, where’s the problem?

The resource economy is going to be a crucial and complex design and I’m sure they’ve thought a lot about it and I certainly wouldn’t presume to know how to do it off the bat. Like I only think I maybe disagree with your idea about binary, non-quantified resources. I’m not sure, I’d need to think about it a lot more!

That said, my starting point would be quantified resources, a few of which would be exhaustible. You can warp to refill your stores but your uranium mine will eventually run out, so you need to keep exploring.

If it’s reasonably well balanced, warping while you explore should fill your stores as you play, without having to warp especially for it… and if every once in a while you have to, so that as long as it doesn’t become rote, why is that a problem?

4 minutes ago, moeggz said:

As life support or part decay aren’t likely to be in the game, that leaves RTG’s basically and I don’t think that’s a big enough hindrance.

There could be others! Not necessarily parts wear but other tech that is super efficient but degrades over time. Although that’s tough to balance and make fun too, I don’t think it would be all that enjoyable to focus on a vessel and find it derelict because a resource ran out.

[moeggz]

3 minutes ago, Periple said:

As long as both are having fun, where’s the problem?

Agreed. But a binary fill (of the capped storage unit, possibly coming with an equivalent reduction in the amount of the resource at the mine, still thinking about my thoughts on depleteing material sources) means both play styles get equivalent access to resources. The player who wants to plan his missions based on what the next available transfer window is isn’t hampered in resources compared to the one who is ok warping through it all.

 

6 minutes ago, Periple said:

The resource economy is going to be a crucial and complex design and I’m sure they’ve thought a lot about it and I certainly wouldn’t presume to know how to do it off the bat.

Yup. The ideas are fun to talk about in the abstract, but the specifics of balancing it all will be quite tough.

 

7 minutes ago, Periple said:

why is that a problem?

I was never one who wanted very complex life support in the game, but in late career saves I always felt guilty warping a great length of time and leaving several kerbals in tiny tin cans in orbits or on planetary surfaces. I would rather there be some incentive to not do that, but recognize I may be in the minority on it. A “this command pod is good for 6 years, then will be inoperable due to Kerbal death/hibernation” would imo lead to more intentional and planed gameplay decisions. I still don’t think that needs to be in the base game.

However,  for those who like to keep those considerations in mind binary fills would allow that style (even if just player limited) to not be hindered while, from my perspective, not taking anything away from the other side. They can still time warp as much as they want, there’s just no need for the more timeline methodical style to do so.
 

Make the limiting factors the other ones here discussed, and I can approach advancing those limiting factors with a goal of minimizing Kerbal time in tin cans while others can disregard that.

[Pthigrivi]

@moeggz Hey and you got a question in to the AMA. Is it really "MO EGGS" or have I been imagining "Mogues" this whole time?

[moeggz]

7 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

@moeggz Hey and you got a question in to the AMA. Is it really "MO EGGS" or have I been imagining "Mogues" this whole time?

I wasn’t able to watch it live so I’ve been waiting for the transcript. And yeah it’s MO EGGs as in more eggs. Yoshi was my main on smash bros and child me was very creative with usernames lol. I’ve kept using it tho since it’s short and so far I’ve never had to adjust it on any new platform. Of course now that’ll be jinxed tho 

[GigFiz]

Not going to dive into any of the debate right now; just want briefly weigh in on the original question: I am very in favor of resources over money. I like having having extra goals/limitations to work around & overcome, and this has good potential for interesting gameplay and stories, as well as helping giving some direction and goals beyond the very beginning. In KSP1 there is lots of cool stuff you can make, but the purposes and limitations around most of it has to come from a created headcanon for that save, because the game doesn't really give you any.

And, let's face it,  in KSP1, money was meaningless 99% of the time, outside of maybe trying large ambitious projects very early on. I also have no idea how reputation worked or what it did, because I literally did not have to interact with it in anyway, not even once, in all the time I've played KSP (almost all of it in career, too)

[Barrackar]

Weighing in on the OP with a few considerations:

 * A huge number of KSP1 mods add resources of various types. Clearly there is a lot of interest to have some aspect of resources in KSP2.

* There are more ways to have resources be limiting than just adding a cost to parts, even if you assume infinite resources on Kerbin. For example: (a) Colonies consume resources rather than any individual rocket/vehicle; (b) colonies could have levels of development/size where larger colonies support larger VAB construction. Increasing the size of a colony may require supplying certain quantities or rates of resources. This kind of limitation would correspond to upgrades of the launchpad/VAB/SPH/mission control/tracking station/etc. in KSP1 which imposed weight and part count limits. Devs have mentioned size limits - which might mean the limits they are considering might fall more along the lines of resources limiting a size/part count/weight of vehicles rather than direct costs.

* Even with infinite resources, starting from the ground on Kerbin may be more difficult than ISRU from somewhere closer. Both are viable play-styles. Some players may prefer to design enormous rockets from Kerbin while other players may choose to incorporate more ISRU. The ultimate resource for a game is the player's time. For delivery to low-Kerbin orbit it is easiest to just design a rocket, but for anywhere in Jool it may take less time to design smaller vehicles from a Colony than it is to take the time to design something so massive as would be required to start from Kerbin. Some parts might alone might just be too massive to reasonably launch from Kerbin - certain interstellar engines, for example.

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of the game's development has been moved to Development Discussions. 

[Lowi_Sace]

The recource instead of money is very appealing for me. It sounds really cool building colonies and exchanging recources between them 

That being sad, how will it work on kerbin? It now seems like kerbin has unlimited recources. But that would in my opinion not be  practical (like for transport routes). a currency on kerbin would therfore in my opinion be  very nice. 

Having some missions for inspiration could also be good gameplay addition. While making progress focus would slowly shift from missions to colony and recources

[cocoscacao]

9 minutes ago, Lowi_Sace said:

That being sad, how will it work on kerbin? It now seems like kerbin has unlimited recources.

Emphasis on "now". We're playing sandbox. More exotic resources should be on different bodies and need to be extracted by building colonies. 

[Bej Kerman]

On 7/23/2023 at 2:46 AM, Pthigrivi said:

We've talked about this before but some time has gone by and very likely we've got some time to kill before a full progression mode takes shape. I'm firmly of the opinion that the decision to focus on resources as the prime commodity for producing fuel and parts is the right one for a small host of reasons. I'll keep it short and we can dig in to each topic. 

1) Career mode and funds never really worked well in KSP1. Between the generative contracts, unmanageable scaling and pacing, and the bolted-on nature of the system Career mode never really became a smoothly integrated part of the game.

2) KSP2 has a much wider proposed scope. KSP1 never offered the ability to build vessels offworld so everything needed to be built and sent from Kerbin. As soon as you have colonies and offworld VABs you've wildly changed the structure of the game in ways that make resources utterly critical to development and money less and less useful over the course of the game.

3) Having a central abstract currency that's needed to buy parts creates potential failure states wherein you've sent out vessels hoping for a return but they fail for whatever reason, potentially leaving you without the cash to continue your program and forcing a restart. 

There are others but I'll start with those. What do you think?

3 reasons why I never understood liking career mode. You can set challenges yourself in Sandbox mode and you never have to worry about hitting balance issues or having to do asinine, undemanding missions to get a part you want.

[Bej Kerman]

8 hours ago, Lowi_Sace said:

That being sad, how will it work on kerbin?

Probably unlimited. Shouldn't need limits down your throat while you're still starting out. I expect resources and limits will only become relevant on other planets where having hard limits on how you can progress makes sense.

[Periple]

On 8/22/2023 at 9:16 PM, Bej Kerman said:

3 reasons why I never understood liking career mode. You can set challenges yourself in Sandbox mode and you never have to worry about hitting balance issues or having to do asinine, undemanding missions to get a part you want.

I need constraints and progression to enjoy myself! I only really played career mode for this, even though it’s actually pretty bad! It’s just that of all the modes it’s the one I found least bad!

I do understand that many people enjoy the self-directed challenges of sandbox, I’m just not one of them!

[Gargamel]

Some off topic posts have been removed.   Discussion about other games should be in their own thread in the Lounge.  

[betaking]

I find "communication satelite" and/or other launch contracts somewhat fun, though they could be better; It would be fun to have more thought put into them, with executive meddling from your contract provider; parts shortages/vacancies (such as what lead to the NK-33 engine development; Korolev's first choice for engine designer had been tasked with working with glushko).. fuel-type restrictions ("No Cryogenics; we need this thing to launch on short notice", or inversely "limited Hypergolics, the launch site has both a wildlife refuge and a population center down-wind/down-current");

but for other planets, colonies, etc. I'm not sure that there's going to be the necessary depth to whatever system for settlement managment