Resources in KSP's career mode

[LethalDose]

First, please read Moach's post here, Page 19, at 17:40 on 13.Dec.2013.

This mod explicitly stated this was the appropriate place for this discussion.

I think resources should absolutely be included in a career mode. Resources are a major reason for humans going to space, exemplified, in part, by this video:

Further, the game advertises that it will have a "Tycoon-style" career mode. The challenge and the fun of this style of game is, at least in part, effective resource management.

At the very least, extrakerbestrial sources of fuel should be included. See below for more.

Ideally, i would like to see a much more robust system.

I would like to see the following resources included in the final game:

• 2-3 types of metal
  
• Silicates for circuitry
  
• All types of fuel (Hydrocarbons, Hydrogen, anything else I missed)
  
• Radioactive "Blutonium" (SQUAD came up with it, not me)
  
• Food
  
• Breathable Oxygen
  
• Water
  

Ideally, I would prefer players to start with a pool of money and specific resources at the beginning of the game, and receive small amounts of money and resources at some regular interval to get started.

I think parts should cost resources. It would also be acceptable to have an alternate part cost in money instead of resources.

Players should use money to purchase resources, including fuel, on some exchange. This should be money's primary use. The same exchange should allow players to sell resources for money.

The economics of the game should encourage to secure their own resources from the planets ASAP. Kerbin should be abundant in some resources (Water, O2/Oxidizer, food), but other locations should have more concentrated deposits of other resources (metals, silicates ,etc).

Some resources should require processing/refinement (e.g. metals & silicates). Resources should be able to be processed into other resources (e.g. hydrocarbons -> fuel).

Contracts should be randomly offered to players, with a monetary or resource reward for accomplishing the contract goal.

It should be possible to recover Parts or resources from recovered craft.

I think that's at least the majority of what I'd expect to see from a resource system in the game.

This post was designed to explicitly address what was addressed by Moach.

Edited December 14, 2013 by LethalDose
Clarified minimum expectations, and what would be preferred

[GusTurbo]

I agree to some extent, but I don't think resources should be required for anything on Kerbin. That would seem to require setting up resource extraction on Kerbin, which feels backwards to me. To me, resources have always been about reaching farther into space with limited mass, rather than as a part of getting there initially. Money is the only "resource" you should need to get started, since presumably the Kerbal Space Center was built with resources from Kerbin, which were taken from somewhere, using some kind of existing infrastructure.

I also don't think it really makes sense for a space program to be buying raw materials directly (your exchange idea). That would be the province of the fictional companies in-game who produce the parts (e.g Rockomax). Buying fuel makes sense though.

Edited December 14, 2013 by GusTurbo

[The Dulas]

Until SCIENCE rolled into town, the Kethane mod was really the only reason for me to set up shop on a far out moon and continue regular operations there. I would love more than anything to have a full resource system, as it would allow for more of a "colonization" of the other planets, and would give an active site of operations. That being said, if SCIENCE were to be a continuously generated thing (the direction it appears to be going), this could be a fair substitute for the resources. Nevertheless, I like the ideas of different metals for construction, even if it is only a few selections. Since the first talk of resources I have been waiting and longing for them. I do understand that it may be simply to complicated to add in, this game is fairly complex as is, and would understand if this is the case. Still, I will frown a little...

[FITorion]

I want to be able to go to a planet. Land on the planet. Extract resources from the planet initially manually and later in an automated fashion. I want to then be able to use those resources to construct buildings on the planet. These buildings to include Kerbal Housing, Fuel tanks, VABs, Launch platforms, and Science labs. Scanning for the resources might be an unnecessary mechanic or could be done differently from the way it was planned to be.

You could make finding and gathering resources really fun or really boring or really tedious... That is where the real work is. But the system of using said resources to build a multi planet civilization is something KSP can not do without.

[Kegereneku]

I have never been that interested in the idea of building spacecraft on place using resources and all. Especially since I doubt KSP is shaped right for -or would be interesting with- automatic mining and factory.

The last resources system we heard off from SQUAD was only about making fuel in situe and I think it's all we really need : Refueling point for our exploration effort.

I really wouldn't see KSP as a resources management game where you sell resources for... what ? As far I know not even a nuclear fusion engine, uranium/blutonium or rare Kerbin metal would make the market profitable.

though KSP is a rocketpunk universe so it hardly matter.

[Torham234]

I personally saw the train coming down the tunnel for a while. As I said in the original thread, I didn't think the devs would be willing to implement a feature that will increase the complexity of the game while stating that the purpose of the research is to "introduce" the game to casual players...

My thoughts:

Its a shame, I would have loved the resources, but I am not really THAT upset. It seems to be though that Squad do not have a solid idea of the final game worked out yet, witch hampers and slows down the development process. I think they would do good if they sat down for a week and hammered out a final idea for the game and than implement it. It can be improved upon later on, but sort of working on features that are later scrapped and or suddenly adding huge new features like the Multiplayer is not the best workflow for a small indie dev studio...

[Torham234]

On types of resources:

I would personally be happy with a much simpler model of resource mining.

1- fuel. Well obviously liquid + oxidizer, witch can be feasibly mined and processed within the limits of a vessel.

2- monoprop - same as fuel, it is feasible to produce it onboard.

3 - provisions/life support. Water, oxygen and food can be lumped into this. While oxygen and water recycling facilities are probably included in the command module I would still like to see some resource that would limit the amount of time the Kerbals can survive onboard. Implementation of this would not be difficult, at the very basic model, you would just have a module that would contain provisions for your astronauts for a set period of time. After depletion, astronauts decrease efficiency and after several months they die. You do not die of starvation in a week.

Long haul missions could bring Hydroponics modules to produce onboard food, and you could send automated bases to outer solar system , that could park on orbit, or land on moons and cultivate food for the astronauts that are coming.

[tntristan12]

Well well well. I go away from the forums for a month or two and when I come back there's a brand new topic that everybody is up in arms about. It certainly seems like Squad has kicked a hornet's nest with this one, but before I give my opinion I'd like to clarify that I haven't seen all of the Kerbalcon footage, and so probably missed the comment(s) that has(have) so incensed everyone. All of the input I have to provide on the matter comes from information I've gathered through other posts around the forums, so there's that. If somebody could tell me what exactly was said, well I'd appreciate that!

Anyway, here we go...

Resources should most definitely be an integral part of the core game. I think Squad knows that some level of resource gathering would enhance the core gameplay's richness and provide more incentive for the exploration which is essentially the *entire* point of the game. That said, I think what is in question here is the extent to which resource gathering needs to be implemented. The resource chart provided by Squad is certainly complicated and could probably be simplified significantly without impacting the learning curve too hard. The main argument around here seems to be "it's too complicated so new players wouldn't be able to figure it out and would probably give up playing," to which I say "there is nothing in the proposed mechanic that would explicitly require new players to learn and use this mechanic, making it completely optional." Also, let us not forget that KSP is and always has been a game about space program management, which in itself requires a base level of ingenuity and wit. If somebody is able to learn and master all other mechanics in the game then I see no reason why resource management would be anything special.

I have also heard rumor that multiplayer has been officially announced. Again I did not hear this get said during Kerbalcon so perhaps somebody could enlighten me, but if this is indeed the case then I feel it is a gross misapplication of resources available to Squad. The formal stance has always been to provide an outstanding standalone single player experience to the player, wherein they could play around in a consequence-free sandbox mode or try their hand at a deeper and more rewarding career mode. Adding a third mode specifically for multiplayer seems extraneous, and in my opinion does not provide anything to the core experience unlike resource management.

In short, I sincerely hope I am missing something, because if the new stance is "resources no, multiplayer yes" then I am none too pleased with the development path KSP seems to be taking.

[Torham234]

Well, I also haven't seen the whole Kerbalkon, but from what I have gathered around the forums, and from the clips I did see it seems that:

- resources, if not scrapped completely will at least be massively simplified, and the whole idea is currently shelved indefinitely.

- Multiplayer seems like a real idea that is seriously being thought about by Squad, and it has been placed as the next item in the pipe line to develop/implement.

I am personally having trouble imagining working multiplayer in a game that relies HEAVILY on time warp function. I gather that there was some outcry for multiplayer for some time, but although I visit the forums nearly daily, a didn't see that much noise about it until the kerbalkon. Perhaps the vocal minority was too loud, since all of us silent majority were... well... not taking the idea seriously...

[Rusty6899]

The way I had imagined it, resources would be obtained from other bodies and returned to Kerbin where they could be sold. This could be done through being assigned contracts, which make for a financial reward and/or new parts being made available upon being fulfilled.

For example Company X will pay you $Y if you bring Z tonnes of ore W.

Ideally, this could be done with the use of satellite imaging of planets, where you were required to identify a resource and plan a mission to that planet/moon.

Money would be the only usable resource, but you would have many other resources that you could collect and sell.

The further you got in the game, the more efficient your rockets would need to be to make a profit from each mission, and the resources would be more difficult to obtain.

This sort of development would, in fairness, suit more experienced players, but these additions could be unlocked after the completion of the tech tree so as to keep the game as planned for beginners.

[Eadrom]

In my opinion, the whole resources thing boils down to this. It's the meat and potatoes of the "stuff" to do.

Resource exploitation very typically follows exploration. So that's one thing to do now. We can explore. Any infrastructure we build off out homeworld pretty much only practically supports exploration. With current game mechanics, that means the only useful things to build offworld are fuel depots. Space stations have no use (game mechanics-wise) outside of orbital gas stations. Once you are done exploring, the refueling infrastructure rapidly loses its value. If you've explored everything, you no longer need to refuel, so you don't need to refuel your stations and your space program basically stagnates. Yes, you can try doing different stuff or give yourself challenges and what not (and providing your own content is an important part of sandbox games), but the basic impetus for playing the game breaks down after a while.

Building the infrastructure to locate, extract, transport, and use resources is the long term content that brings people back to playing the game. If all you can do is explore, once you've explored, a large portion of people could conceivably lose the mental push that makes them pick KSP over the other games they have. Even adding multiplayer doesn't solve this. Once you are done exploring with your friends, what else is there to do?

Yes, there IS a lot of player created content that is available right now. A ton more when you add in the mods that are available!

Here's what my argument boils down to. Give me stuff to do (resources) that doesn't run out after I've completed a space tour of all the shiny orbs. Then let me do that stuff with my friends (multiplayer). Give me a reason to WANT to fire up KSP and play with my friends instead of us playing a different game together.