Another take on development of parts

[404james]

I've been thinking.

there have on numerous occasions been suggestions to have some species of system by which a part, as it is used, gains 'experience' of some description, such that later ships that use that part will have it more efficient, or more powerful, or some such. this is a good proposal, and I would be quite happy were it to be implemented.

But it does introduce some issues.

Take, for instance, the sharing of craft files. If someone with full experience on an engine, which might make it more efficient, builds a spacecraft for a mission requiring a certain amount of delta-V, and shares the craft file with his buddy, who has less experience on that part, who launches the same mission with that craft, the shared version may not be able to complete the mission. This has negative implications for challenges, among other things.

There may be a solution, though.

when a real space program builds, for example, a rocket engine, they build (or contract a company to build) it with very specific parameters, one at a time, varying their parameters, and their budget, to be tailored to the mission.

I think this could be done in KSP. When you build a part, such as an engine, there would be a bar on the tweakables menu, for budget. Increasing the budget would make engines more efficient, reduce dry weight of fuel tanks, and so forth, but would increase the cost to build and launch that part, on a case by case basis. So, if I make a rocket engine, and I need it to be very efficient, I can put a lot of money into building it, and get an appropriately powerful engine, but if, the next time around, I'm on a tighter budget, but don't need it to be as powerful, I can spend less on construction, saving money and getting something less powerful.

There could also be bonuses associated with it that change costs. for instance, if I just unlocked a part, it could cost a good deal to improve the performance, but I would still have the same range of capability. Then, as I unlock technologies related to the part, or gain experience using it, or even just buy a lot of them, the price to optimize it would start to decrease.

This way, if person A builds a vehicle with a highly optimized part, which he has invested a lot in, then shares the craft file with his buddy, person B, who has invested less in that part, person B will still get the same vehicle as person A, with the same performance, but it will cost him more to launch it.

[Rakaydos]

I'd rather have something like "Mass produced assembilies." Saving a subassembilly costs money, but using that assembilly is slightly cheaper than rebuilding it each time, so after, oh, about 5 uses it becomes cheaper over the course of your carear.