My thoughts on KSP money

[KatzOhki]

With 0.22 currently in the works, we have seen that there are two new units of measure:

Data and Science

As I understand it (feel free to correct me), Science is the points used to unlock things in the research facility. Data is the information that is collected from running experiments and is converted into Science when either recovering or transmitting the Data (transmitting nets you less Science).

Parts have always had a "cost" listed in the VAB/SPH, but nothing really happens from this. The new units have got everyone curious about how this cost works (again, probably) so here are my thoughts on how the exchange of money might occur in KSP:

Data and Science will probably stay the same (or similar) to what has been shown to be in the 0.22 update. Mission Control (a currently unused building) will probably "commision" certain objectives to go and do things, ie: "collect materials sample form Mun surface." Completing a mission successfully will net you a certain Money reward, which you can use to build more rockets. You will, of course, collect Science and Data as a consequence of missions like this as well. A secondary method for collecting the Money might also be that any Science points gathered also reward the player with Money.

Well, these are my ideas. What do you guys think?

I think it would be cool if they scaled the money up by maybe 1000 times so you can say your rockets cost in the millions (Kerbal Space Bucks?).

[Wait- Was That Important?]

So what happens when some crazy guy crashes the game as the cost of his rocket exceeds the 32-bit maximum integer

I think something like monetary rewards for completing mission objectives is planned.

[KatzOhki]

Hmmm I guess the economic system will have to be floating point lol

[Sandworm]

Rewards for mission objectives is great for games, but is not how space programs are actually funded. I'd rather see a system of reputation and incentives.

Accept a mission, get the cash up front. Complete a mission, get some rep points that will give you access to other/bigger/better missions. Fail a mission and your rep suffers, locking out some of the more advanced stuff until you improve. That's how things are funded in the real world.

[Dispatcher]

I suspect that whatever the method of acquiring "munny" (I couldn't help myself), the game will reward those who stick to a mission budget (or vehicle budget). A budget might even be rigid, not to be exceeded, unless exceeding a budget penalizes the player somehow. Of course, one of the rewards of performing a mission under budget might be to keep the excess for future missions (or reduced for the next fiscal year ).

[SkyRender]

I'm pretty sure the devs have already stated multiple times that they're more concerned with gameplay flow than realism. The idea of having any sort of major bottleneck for the player having fun doesn't really fit with that philosophy. I suspect that the player will be given a budget for their rockets, and will be able to spend their own earnings beyond that budget. This would have two effects: one, it would make sure that the player can never be completely screwed over and unable to do anything at all (especially important for new players since frequent failures are going to be the order of the day at first!); and two, it would give a clear incentive to doing missions well (more money to spend on your rockets and to buy the upgrades you unlock with your science tree).

[Dispatcher]

I'm pretty sure the devs have already stated multiple times that they're more concerned with gameplay flow than realism.

Surely, my short post doesn't touch on any depth of implementation. I don't think Squad should follow a resource based game (hold the land, grow the timber, mine the ore, build the castle, etc.). I think any penalties (if any) should be trivial and perhaps humorous. I think there will be ways to have fun while having a motivation for at least approaching a cost budget (your tech tree mention).

[FITorion]

I'm thinking...

some sort of per rocket Budget... basically a limit on how expensive your rocket can be. You can build and do what ever you want within this budget.

The budget gets boosted as you achieve certain milestones... reach orbit, reach the Mun... unlock tech tear X... that sort of thing.

Then get bonus money for completing suggested missions with their own constraints as offered by the mission control building.

That's how I'd do things. I wonder how they'll do things.

[KatzOhki]

I can imagine the flavor text now:

"Kerbin society is curious about Minmus. Some scientists think it is made of ice, some say salt, but the prevailing theory is mint ice cream. Travel to Minmus and study the composition if the surface. Reward: 1000000 bucks. Bonus: 1500000 bucks for sample return."

I imagine it to be something like that.

[techonce]

Another option, which is realistic, is that if you agree to take a mission you receive x amount of money and when you pull it off you get y more. Perhaps that amount can change based on other criteria.

Money in the bank can be set aside for future use, to cover expected overruns, or for unsponsered flights.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Another option, which is realistic, is that if you agree to take a mission you receive x amount of money and when you pull it off you get y more. Perhaps that amount can change based on other criteria.

Money in the bank can be set aside for future use, to cover expected overruns, or for unsponsered flights.

This, in essence, is what I would like.

[KatzOhki]

The problem I see, in a gameplay sense, with giving out money upfront is that a player could accept a bunch of missions to generate free cash.

[SandMan13]

I think a budget system of "You can only spend so much until you do x" would be best. For example you are allowed to use 10,000 Kerbal Bucks or something to start. You can't go over that, but even if you mess up 100 times you will still have money to build your rockets. You increase this cap as you accomplish things. I feel this would be the best system. It restricts you but makes it so you can't end up dooming yourself for failing too many times.

[FITorion]

The problem I see, in a gameplay sense, with giving out money upfront is that a player could accept a bunch of missions to generate free cash.

Yeah, I'd have instead a per rocket budget and then money in the "bank" that you could use to go over that per rocket budget. The money would be rewards for doing missions.

[Rockstar04]

The problem I see, in a gameplay sense, with giving out money upfront is that a player could accept a bunch of missions to generate free cash.

There could be a penalty for not completing a contract within as set amount of time so even if you did this, it would come back to bite you if you didn't actually do the missions.

[KatzOhki]

I think a budget system of "You can only spend so much until you do x" would be best. For example you are allowed to use 10,000 Kerbal Bucks or something to start. You can't go over that, but even if you mess up 100 times you will still have money to build your rockets. You increase this cap as you accomplish things. I feel this would be the best system. It restricts you but makes it so you can't end up dooming yourself for failing too many times.

Yeah this is a good idea too, sort of like a maximum mission budget.

[Nostromo]

I'm thinking...

some sort of per rocket Budget... basically a limit on how expensive your rocket can be. You can build and do what ever you want within this budget.

The budget gets boosted as you achieve certain milestones... reach orbit, reach the Mun... unlock tech tear X... that sort of thing.

Then get bonus money for completing suggested missions with their own constraints as offered by the mission control building.

That's how I'd do things. I wonder how they'll do things.

That sounds really reasonable and goal oriented which I think fits well with how Science will be functioning for the overall direction of the player.

[pa1983]

Another option, which is realistic, is that if you agree to take a mission you receive x amount of money and when you pull it off you get y more. Perhaps that amount can change based on other criteria.

Money in the bank can be set aside for future use, to cover expected overruns, or for unsponsered flights.

Im all for this idea.

The problem I see, in a game play sense, with giving out money upfront is that a player could accept a bunch of missions to generate free cash.

Why would it be a problem? Its not like it was a problem in games the last 20+ years? Transport Tycoon Deluxe, very popular still (Called OpenTTD now) there you had to take a Loan, loan had interests and if you could not pay your interests to the bank it was Game over and you had to start over or load a save. Sim city had similar functions.

To stop exploiting a set date for the mission to be completed would be a part of the contract just like real life, every day spent past that deadline would cost YOU money that you would pay back just like real aircraft manufacturers do when some one orders a craft and its not delivered in time.

In the advent you want out of a contract for any reason you would have to pay back what you where given plus a severance fee based on a percentage on that contract.

Now if you try to exploit this by just taking a bunch of contracts you will soon bleed money and only way to have a positive bank balance would be taking more contract but that would only make it worse as you will bleed more and more money every day until you go in the read faster then you can make up for it.

After a year in the red you as the player would loose you management position at KSC and well that would be game over.

The more contracts you take and fail on the worse your reputation gets so you get fewer contracts with less payout margins so in the end if your just trying to cash in fast you would not get any contracts eventually until you actually fulfil some of those contracts and get your rep up.

I realy hate the idea that every gamer should be allowed to win a game. In the old days there where not even save files so you COULD fail. Now days most games must be run on the hardest difficulty to offer a challenge.

This system would award players that take contracts and completes them on time. More contracts would be given that are harder to achieve but with a bigger payout and margins then for a player that fails to deliver on set dates. So for a good player there would be lots of contract to opt from with a wide range of difficultly and payouts.

For the newcomer easier contracts would be the only option until the player rep improves.

Those would fit well with the Tech tree and the learning curve of new players. Old players will most likely do the easy missions pretty fast and soon get more challenging missions.

This way the game is relatively balanced but you can still fail hard but you can also show what you got if your a skilled player.

[KatzOhki]

Pa1983, you make a lot of excellent points. Personally, I don't think a system where you can loose hard fits KSP very well because the game already has a difficult learning curve. I think the individual failures of missions is enough to frustrate the player and reward them with satisfaction when they finally complete it. I don't think having to restart the tech tree would add much gameplay value other than frustration. Also, I think the ability to totally lose the game implies that you can win the game, rather than being an open ended adventure where you can do what you want in late game.

Maybe a hardcore mode could be available to satisfy players who demand more challenge. Serious consequences for loss of life and equipment (budget?).

Space is hard.

Edited October 15, 2013 by KatzOhki
Accidentally posted early

[cybutek]

A teaser to what is on its way very shortly after 0.22 release. The foundations are almost complete and will only need tie-ins with the science value in the game for a working release.

Science is tied directly into money using a cost ratio. Every time you launch a ship from either the VAB/SPH it will deduct n amount of science from your global pool. There is no limits, if you build with 0 science you go into a negative, but you will have to gain science in the mission to offset this debt, plus any extra needed to be able to unlock any R&D. There is a ledger which will keep note of transactions, debits and credits to the pool. Which is stored as a tab delimited .csv file that is importable into Excel etc.

Current difficulty settings are based on the cost ratio. Easy = 2000, Normal = 1000, Hard = 500.

The main goal at the moment is to get something that is simple but works, and will be ready for a very quick release as soon as 0.22 is available. Extra features that are not essential will come down the road. The project is also on GitHub

[boomerdog2000]

The problem I see, in a gameplay sense, with giving out money upfront is that a player could accept a bunch of missions to generate free cash.

What if you could only accept a certain amount of missions? This would encourage you to go do those missions as quickly as possible to go start more.

I don't like the idea of a time limit because that doesn't seem to take into account interplanetary transfer windows. It's not your fault you couldn't do the mission if Jool was in the wrong place the whole time.

[pa1983]

Pa1983, you make a lot of excellent points. Personally, I don't think a system where you can loose hard fits KSP very well because the game already has a difficult learning curve. I think the individual failures of missions is enough to frustrate the player and reward them with satisfaction when they finally complete it. I don't think having to restart the tech tree would add much gameplay value other than frustration. Also, I think the ability to totally lose the game implies that you can win the game, rather than being an open ended adventure where you can do what you want in late game.

Maybe a hardcore mode could be available to satisfy players who demand more challenge. Serious consequences for loss of life and equipment (budget?).

Space is hard.

I have not sad anything about reseting a tech tree. I only sad it fits well with the tech tree. A new player will ahve basic contracts, sub orbital, lko missions etc requiring basic parts. A player that have progressed further and are doing more advanced mission will also have done more science and unlocked more advanced parts making those harder contracts possible.

And whats wrong with sandbox mode to actually learn to play the game? OpenTTD is based of a game almost 20 years old and its still being developed and played adn you can fail and have to start over but you can also play on for ever and apparently people just love that concept. I doubt KSP will be developed 15+ years from now still.

What if you could only accept a certain amount of missions? This would encourage you to go do those missions as quickly as possible to go start more.

I don't like the idea of a time limit because that doesn't seem to take into account interplanetary transfer windows. It's not your fault you couldn't do the mission if Jool was in the wrong place the whole time.

How hard do you think it would be for squad to write some code that takes planets position in to account so it wont offer you impossible missions and timeframes?

Also time is realy a none issue. To do a specific mission the time for transfer windows are more or less known already so they wont change much. If you do a stupid burn well thats part of the failing at the game part and if your lucky you only loose some cache by completing the missions a few days late but still make a profit.

So as I sad not every one can be a winer all the time thats just plain boring but I suppose thats what there teaching kids and what gamers want this days. No challenge.

And the way the game works now, if you abort a mission it will go back to the time when you launched it so not time is lost. So if we assume you can abort time dont realy mater much. Time spent building is more ore less irrelevant because as fare as I know it do not count now so probably wont then either. No reason why it would because you could just import a ship you made before to save time... exploit any one? So theres no reason for time to count in VAB/SPH.

So time limit wont be a factor unless you miss your transfer window due to pilot error or badly designed craft, even then you could just abort and try again. Time building wont mater either because it wont count. So in the end time realy only mater if you take more then one contract, you complete one contract while you have not done anything on the other contract during that time period then you have lost time.

From a game perspective the only good reason to take more then one contract is if it allows more then one contract to be completed with the same lunch craft like satellites or probes and that would save you money and be a good strategy.

In the end, for those beginners that dont like to learn from there mistakes the hard way they can just "abort" and try it all over again and thats fine with me I do it to if I dont feel like trying again. For more hardcore player that like to except there mistakes that might cost them a perfect score or make a mission go in to the red they can still play on and try to make up for it in the next mission by making a bigger profit there and from my experience people will do both approaches from time to time. Its not like where talking super mario bros where you cant save and will hit game over in 15 minutes or less if you never played the game.

Most of the "I dont like this idea because this and this will happen" is just ridiculous because its based on assumptions that are not even realistic. Why would squad write a program that gives you contracts you cant possibly do? Why do you assume contracts will be awarded with a time limit thats not doable?

Its more likely contracts will come and go as "transfer windows" are available. Some missions dont realy have windows others do and those that have are harder missions so fits with the added difficulty of harder missions any way with better payout.

But all this assumes squad wants a system where you are paid in advance to fulfil a contract.

Anything can be done. Some times I think people forget this is a computer program, you can write ANYTHING with the right skill set. Computer is a flexible tool not a fixed function machine.

[Requiem762]

As it stands now each part has an assigned cost in the VAB/SPH and the way I think it will go is that the cost of the rocket will be the sum of all the part costs

[KatzOhki]

Pa1983, you said something that I interpreted as saying it would be possible to lose the game. By this I interpreted it to mean that you would have to start a new game (hence the unlocking tech tree all over again). I guess the tech tree could be global and not tied to any save game. Not sure I'd like that though.

[dazhat]

What if you could only accept a certain amount of missions? This would encourage you to go do those missions as quickly as possible to go start more.

I don't like the idea of a time limit because that doesn't seem to take into account interplanetary transfer windows. It's not your fault you couldn't do the mission if Jool was in the wrong place the whole time.

What if the missions available were tied to launch windows?