How will budget work?

[quantumpion]

So how do you guys think the budget system will work in 0.24? Will you have finite dollars to work with on individual missions, such that if you have a mission failure you have to go back to easier, lower cost missions? Or will budget be like science points and never lost - completing contracts simply grants a higher budget allowance?

[regex]

Based on this:

Essentially, we're moving the core essentials of Budgets, which were originally planned for 0.25, up to 0.24. This includes, among other things, the requirement to spend your program's Funds to launch vessels and purchase parts in R&D.

I think we'll probably just have a money pool that will be used to pay for things. You'll probably be able to convert science points into money and vice versa.

[bigyihsuan]

And maybe you get Money from Contracts?

Most likely (Probably.) (Maybe.) _{(I hope so.)}

[Rakaydos]

But remember that contracts are suposed to be optional. That means that you must be able to expand your budget WITHOUT doing contracts.

[regex]

But remember that contracts are suposed to be optional. That means that you must be able to expand your budget WITHOUT doing contracts.

There could be a mechanism whereby successful flights gain you reputation which, in addition to the science you gather, can be exchanged for money. Alternatively, successful flights could simply net you a cash bonus. Achievements in the game could also net you cash bonuses; the game already tracks what you do and records your activities on and around certain bodies. You could get a monthly/yearly stipend based on your reputation, but that's open to abuse via timewarp and would probably require some of community's ... dumber ideas on how to avoid such abuses.

[thederper121]

I think it would be cool if the contracts were simply like this:

Contracts would appear randomly, and if you have the required tech for it.

Open mission control, go to contracts, click on a contract (for example it could be called "Contract: Orbit Kerbin")

Contract would have basic info, such as the name of the contract, the main objective, and a description. There would also be a little thing at the bottom showing additional info and possibly bonuses to get more cash from the mission, such as doing it before a specific time period.

Then there would be a button to either accept or decline, where declining it will simply dissapear and maybe reappear after a while in case they changed their minds.

If they accept it and do the mission, a little info thing would pop up (like the little science info box when you do science) and say that you completed the mission, and also show the bonus things you did and the total amount of money you earned.

[Superfluous J]

There could be a mechanism whereby successful flights gain you reputation which, in addition to the science you gather, can be exchanged for money. Alternatively, successful flights could simply net you a cash bonus. Achievements in the game could also net you cash bonuses; the game already tracks what you do and records your activities on and around certain bodies. You could get a monthly/yearly stipend based on your reputation, but that's open to abuse via timewarp and would probably require some of community's ... dumber ideas on how to avoid such abuses.

A dumb idea like making your rep go down every year so you have to keep doing things to keep it elevated?

[regex]

A dumb idea like making your rep go down every year so you have to keep doing things to keep it elevated?

Among other dumb ideas that force you to play a sandbox game in a certain way.

[Corw]

There could be a mechanism whereby successful flights gain you reputation which, in addition to the science you gather, can be exchanged for money. Alternatively, successful flights could simply net you a cash bonus. Achievements in the game could also net you cash bonuses; the game already tracks what you do and records your activities on and around certain bodies. You could get a monthly/yearly stipend based on your reputation, but that's open to abuse via timewarp and would probably require some of community's ... dumber ideas on how to avoid such abuses.

If you remember, HavesteR said no game mechanic will be linked to lapse of time. If you would get certain amount of money every month/year, just timewarp until you have enough money. Also, the opposite would be that you actually have to timewarp until next pay-check to actually do something, which is equal amount of silly.

[LadyAthena]

They explained this in an earlier blog. For Contracts you'll get both reputation and money (and something else I forget). Failing a contract will reduce your reputation, and you will get no money from it.

You can exchange money for reputation, or reptuation for money, or any of the two for the third thing (again I forget what it is). So even if you're low on money you can exchange one of the other 2 for it. Or if you're low on reputation etc.

[TMS]

Science, money and reputation are supposed to be interchangeable, in that you can cash one in for another.

Of course, these plans may have changed.

[Superfluous J]

Among other dumb ideas that force you to play a sandbox game in a certain way.

Ah, that argument. I won't have that one with you again. I believe we (or at least I) agreed to disagree

[Pecan]

OH, Oh, I know this one ...

"Budgets will work entirely as intended and without bugs. Although widget-coloured they will be lightly-scented with lightbulbs. During radio dramas the llamas will consult with the first move they thought of."

And that's official!

It's also as meaningful and useful as anything else anyone may say here. There are already a few other 0.24 pointless-speculation threads, do we need another one? Did we need them in the first place? Is there any way at all to forestall all the 'what do you think will be in 0.25' threads?

[Streetwind]

I have a feeling this needs to be merged with this thread that someone already made before this one.

But anyway, a simple money pool is a recipe for desaster. I've tried this approach already with the Mission Controller Extended mod, which has been providing a contracts feature and money earning/spending for a long while now. Under that system, a skilled player could make so much money that it is pretty much a non-object, completely making the feature redundant. At the same time, a newcomer could easily, within 2-4 launches, utterly ruin themselves to the point of having to reset the mod - a feature presumably introduced to avoid the alternative, which would be "start a new save". For a stock implementation, that would be the only option left to the player. So whichever way you turn it, there's only a limited band of "average" players in the middle who can use the feature as designed without bombing their saves, yet are still actually challenged by it.

No, I think we should take the term "budget" more literal. Squad has always used that term instead of outright saying "cash" or "money", and I think that's no mistake. I think the player will be getting a self-replenishing 'allowance' with which to conduct their business, and merely the size of that allowance can be increased or decreased through ingame success/failure or currency exchange. Such a system would ensure that players cannot bomb their save through things like "I forgot to set the staging order correctly, my rocket failed to launch and now I'm in the red, help!". In fact, while Squad has stated (in an interview somewhere) that yes, there will be a Game Over screen, they have also stated that you will have to be exceptionally bad for an extended period of time in order to get to see it. You could never realize this with a fixed money pool, but with a budget in terms of a self-replenishing allowance of variable size, this can be done with great control on the developer's end over the speed with which a player spirals into bankruptcy. Not to mention that it accurately reflects the situation of real space agencies, who don't have or earn any money themselves; they just get yearly budgets assigned to them by other entities, and those budgets keep coming even if the agency happens to have a slow/unsuccessful year.

Now, as already mentioned above, the existence of timewarp renders any time-based refresh mechanism pointless. Instead, I could imagine a per-launch allowance. You can build any rocket you like, but when you press launch, the rocket's cost is checked against your budget, and if it exceeds it, you simply can't launch. And if you do launch a rocket and it fails, you have not lost any money: you can just launch again, so long as whatever vessel you launch stays below your budget allowance. Of course, failing repeatedly will probably reduce both your reputation and your launch allowance, so if you keep being an idiot you might be able to fail yourself into a corner where you remaining allowance is so low that you can't fly useful missions anymore (or simply the Game Over screen triggers if one or more of your three currencies reaches a certain lower threshold). By making budget cuts percentage-based, you can ensure that an advanced player with a high budget stands to lose a lot from a high-profile failure, while a new player on a small budget who's randomly pressing buttons to figure out how stuff works will only see small decreases that don't impact him that much (unless he fails over, and over, and over).

Reusability could be modeled in an interesting way with this system; namely, a part of the value of anything that you "recover vessel" could be added as a one-time temporary boost to the next launch of similar vessels (i.e. recovering a spaceplane would give a bit of a boost to your next SPH launch, but not to a VAB launch). Players trying to simply launch, land and recover something for budget boosting purposes could be discouraged in some way - for example, that flight could be seen as "failed", because it didn't actually achieve anything. The player "wasted" third-party funds on this launch without having anything to show for it, and this costs him reputation.

I'm sure there's downsides and/or difficulties to this approach as well, but for starters I think the concept has merit.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Streetwind

[Tortoise]

Maybe we'll just get 250 million dollars since its being funded by the government. Then get budget cuts a kerbal year later and spend billions to fund wars.

[Tw1]

snip

Overall, I agree with this point of view. However, the flaw in the per-launch approach is the fact that once docking ports are added, you can do a million small launches and make huge vessels in orbit. This does not strike me as realistic budget management.

One approach would be a set allowance per year/month/some amount of time, which can be topped up using money earned per contract finished. This budget rises or falls based on your reputation.

Selling reputation directly makes little sense, I'd prefer to see a level that rises and falls based things like your kerbal death rate, how often you succeed in fulfilling a contract, the level of science you've collected, etc.

then get budget cuts a kerbal year later and spend billions to fund wars.

Except I think Squad's trying to keep politics and military issues out of the game.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Tw1

[Kasuha]

Overall, I agree with this point of view. However, the flaw in the per-launch approach is the fact that once docking ports are added, you can do a million small launches and make huge vessels in orbit. This does not strike me as realistic budget management.

I guess you'll be entitled to single launch with single budget within a contract (or fixed number of either). Doing this will allow you to make greater missions with small budget but will not help you in any way if your budgets are already large.

[regex]

One approach would be a set allowance per year/month/some amount of time, which can be topped up using money earned per contract finished.

Contracts will apparently be completely optional so another mechanism would be needed.

To contest an earlier point, I don't think either approach (budget per time versus money pool) is going to challenge an experienced player, especially if all these cries for reusability/reclamation helping with budgets in some way are taken seriously. Budget per time will certainly put a damper in some people's plans, dragging out certain large missions to the point of tedium (though not necessarily being an afront to sandbox gameplay) since it relies on the timewarp mechanic, but that's unavoidable, I suppose.

[GluttonyReaper]

They explained this in an earlier blog. For Contracts you'll get both reputation and money (and something else I forget). Failing a contract will reduce your reputation, and you will get no money from it.

You can exchange money for reputation, or reptuation for money, or any of the two for the third thing (again I forget what it is). So even if you're low on money you can exchange one of the other 2 for it. Or if you're low on reputation etc.

I believe the third thing is science.

Edited May 14, 2014 by GluttonyReaper

[Kasuha]

Contracts will apparently be completely optional so another mechanism would be needed.

Some time ago I posted this (possible) mechanic:

- you have money account and can build ships off it but there's no direct income

- a contract comes with budget. You build a ship, spend it or not, no money from that come on your account but you can launch the rocket you built on that budget

- finishing a contract comes with money reward on your account - or in form of reputation which will open doors for better contracts to you

That does not make contracts optional but solves problem with newbies going bankrupt as long as you're able to get some kind of contract even with no money, no ships, and low rep. And still allows you to build ships and send missions out of contracts.

Other mechanic of gaining money on your account might be selling science points.

[Sylandro]

I'm pretty sure budgets won't be in sandbox, i mean; it's sandbox.

Parts are free in sandbox, so no worries about money.

[Jouni]

The money pool approach should work well with both beginners and experienced players. It just needs a difficulty setting that determines the level of funding.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Will there be any advantage to reusing rockets and spaceplanes. Building a rocket is more expensive but if we can save money by getting it back it could be worth it.

[Jas1126]

I wish they would reconsider converting other sources of income into science. Unless they have some plan to exponentially raise science requirements then one could fill the entire tree in no time. Making the idea of science points pointless. Maybe I'm just not fully understanding how the system is going to work. I read that all forms of currency could be converted back and forth.

Edit: I suppose the unlocking of the tree would make little difference if each part had to be bought individually from the science nodes. Is that how it's going to work?

Edited May 14, 2014 by Jas1126

[regex]

snip.

I've proposed essentially the same mechanic (I believe before you were around) with the added bonus of being able to "propose" (roll your own) contracts in order to maintain sandbox gameplay. I still think it's a decent idea.