Budgets and Goals - the KSC Administration Building

[Dave Kerbin]

This is just an idea about budgets, and specifically how they could help structure the gameplay. Something I’ve noticed playing in career mode as it has been introduced is that you can get pretty far fast. I’m not talking about those 2000 science in your first mission stunts, I mean that you can run your first dozen missions and still not even be through the first week or even the first day of the in game clock. I honestly think that the game does need some ‘feel’ of the space program unfolding over a tangible period of time, instead of your entire Mercury program happening in a single afternoon of in game time.

I think that budget could fill that in. The administrative building, which is currently unused, could be used to display your space program’s budget, its current monetary balance and funding, and finally completed and incomplete goals.

The space program’s budget is a number representing the maximum amount you can spend on a single launch. The guys in the admin building aren’t going to let you risk it all on a single giant rocket that could explode on the pad.

The monetary balance is the actual amount of money you have in the bank and ready to spend. While you can design a rocket within your program’s per-launch budget, you may not be able to actually assemble it and take it to the pad until enough money has been accumulated. The rate at which you accumulate money is your funding and later on it can help space out launchs and encourage cheaper ships.

The per-launch budget and the funding rate are both determined by the goals your program has completed. Goals are basically one time achievements for completing certain science objectives that are already in the game. For example an early goal is ‘Recover a spacecraft that has flown in the space near Kerbin’. Each time a goal is completed your budget and funding is increased proportional to that goals difficulty, and multiple goals can be completed in the same mission.

Completing goals also exposes new ones – getting to Kerbin orbit exposes goals for getting to the Mun and Minmus, while getting there exposes more specific goals for those bodies. That doesn’t mean you don’t get credit for achieving a goal that wasn't revealed yet (completing a future goal will immediately reveal it) it just keeps the number of goals visible to the player at one time to a manageable level. This provides a guide to new players on what they should be trying to do if they want to get science and push forward. They start out with a single goal – recover a spacecraft that has flown on Kerbin (you know, flight between 0-18km) which when completed reveals several other goals – recover a goo container that has flown on Kerbin, file a crew report from the space near Kerbin (orbit), recover a ship which been in the space near Kerbin.

The limited budget per launch could help new players to get a grasp on what they should build. For example their first launch should really just be a pod, a parachute, a fuel tank or 2 and an engine, so the initial per-launch budget could be tailored to not allow much more then that (with a nice pile of money so they can quickly try out ideas early on). Later on the limited budget challenges players to do more with less, creating better rockets. The monetary amount and funding over time is there to help space out launches and also to help encourage players to go under budget – launching a cheaper rocket means less time waiting for more funding to come in for the next one. This way there is still some challenge and use for new parts in building small ships even after a budget increase – for example a basic crew transport would still be small to save money for the interplanetary ship they will be ferried up to.