My Prediction on .24 update

[MKI]

The latest update from the dev team announced the merging of the .24 and .25 updates.

So instead of .24 holding contracts and Reputation, the update will also bring the addition of funds.

I personally believe the Contract system will be an integral part of career mode. It gives career mode many more possibilities for a player. It also opens up a whole new realm of mods and add-ons players can add.

Reputation and funds will be more limiting factors along the line of the tech tree and science. Now here is where my prediction really takes off, as what i have said so far is general and almost promised simply by each parts name. (contracts bring contracts, budgets brings some sort of funds etc etc.)

1. Contracts- will become a semi-optional "quest like" system.

Contracts should be varied and optional. But their rewards should be beyond functional. The rewards are the main reason why .24 is being held back according to the Devs. Without budgets(the main resource IMO) Contracts have little weight.

Variations of contract rewards should include:

Getting Extra funds, getting extra science, and getting extra reputation.

I wont go into detail of what i feel the contracts should look like, as they really can look like anything. This is why The contract system is very important to career mode. It opens A LOT of doors simultaneously to KSP career mode.

I have come to a realization that Contracts could also phase out the current way of getting science. Instead of direct experiment - to science transfer, contracts could act as a middle man. That would act as a guide to getting science. Grab a contract to do an experiment in a certain biome on the mun, and get reputation and science for it. Its a perfect way to make more sense of unlocking science currently, add visible goals to complete and give repercussions for failed expectations in missions. The only issue is there are a huge number of experiments possible, and it may be to much or to limiting.

2. Reputation- will be a repercussion resource.

So far we know Reputation will impact the game enough that you can LOSE your career mode because your reputation is so bad. (no more killing kerbals for fun!) Beyond that, reputation could impact gameplay very little, to a lot. Little changes could be not meeting contract deadlines or specifics. Big changes could mean removal of revert flight buttons and or quick save options (then missions will have REAL REALLY impactful repercussions!, i doubt this would occur)

Beyond that, its integration with the contract system should also mean there are ways to utilize contracts to gain or lose more reputation. Such as successful completion of a contract grants more reputations, failure grants negative rep etc.

3. Budgets- will be the primary resource for missions themselves.

Budgets will be the strength behind scientific research. Whats the use of getting a new engine if you can't afford to utilize it often because its to expensive for every launch? Budget implications can range from single launch requirements(budget for a single mission contract) to an all encompassing program. Where every launch takes funds from your program. Regardless of how far the budgets reach, funds will force missions to be smaller and more efficient. No longer should you be able to build the biggest asparagus staging in the first few launches to go to other planets. Such builds would be easy to get tech wise, but be a costly and inefficient endeavor financially.

If budgets are all encompassing (the most interesting option IMO) Contracts are going to provide income for the space program. Which will be the rewards the dev's talked about for their reason on holding back the .24

update. This goes back to how Contracts will be a semi-optional system. Launches can still be done for "fun" or larger goals than a direct contract to mission system (a contract applies to a single launch) such as a multi launch mission to duna. But in the end your missions must make up for their costs somehow, by being useful in a contract.

Summary:

The addition of Budgets to .24 will bring the biggest portion of Career mode to the game in one go at one time. The withholding of the update until the addition of budgets is a smart move by the development team. As they said, contracts with only science and reputation to play around with doesn't seem very rewarding. There are repercussions (reputation) and rewards (more science) but without budgets not taking contracts at all still is easily possible. With Budgets, contracts hold rewards, and launches for science hold costs. This could mean .24 could easily be the defining career mode update.

This will be th first update that will create a true space program in career mode. Rather than a space simulator/sandbox game with a tech tree, Career will present a player with the challenge of running a Space Program with funding and goals to be meet. That is after jeb takes his new rocket for a ride into the side of the VAB ;D

.24 should hold great things, and should bring some of the most impact changes to career mode.

PS. I also predict that the said changes will NOT MAKE THE GAME MUCH HARDER rather it will make it a little more challenging. But things such as the size of budgets will probably be forgiving and the reward for contract completion will be very satisfying. As the game is not fun if it is to much of a grind. The Semi-optional design of contracts should allow plenty of fun and failure missions to still exist in career mode as they already do in sandbox. Maybe in the future a difficulty setting could be added to change the resource makeup, as having a smaller budget and harsher repercussions for failure could create a very difficult game without changing anything more than starting money. (very much in the way of a tycoon game)

Yet still allow a casual player to play without to much worry he is going to lose the game in a few launches because he doesn't know what he is doing. (thats how you turn off new players)

Edited May 14, 2014 by MKI

[Sirrobert]

I wonder how Kethane will change the game when money gets implented.

If fuel is going to cost money, setting up a Kethane refinery on the Mun is going to be a real investment, allowing you to lauch your rockets with just enough fuel to reach orbit, and than refeul them from the refinery.

[Red Iron Crown]

I think it will take a while after 0.24 drops for all the mod makers to get their stuff balanced with the new currencies. Pricing on parts is all over the place, and I expect the stock part pricing to be adjusted anyway (there are glaring imbalances in it now), so even those mods that have set prices carefully will need a rework.

[MKI]

I wonder how Kethane will change the game when money gets implented.

If fuel is going to cost money, setting up a Kethane refinery on the Mun is going to be a real investment, allowing you to lauch your rockets with just enough fuel to reach orbit, and than refeul them from the refinery.

I personally don't think fuel should cost anything. Regardless of the impact of Kethane and new budgets, if you can return a full orange tank back to the surface with an SSTO, you shouldn't have to invest into a whole orange tank worth of fuel. Fuel tanks themselves shouldn't be that expensive, as fuel = delta-v. There isn't really a more efficient fuel tank, only bigger ones. (minor differences between them aren't extremely impactful)

If fuel costs money, thus SSTO type ships need to pay to refuel, the most efficient SSTO would be the smallest one. So a super mini one with seats attatched all over.

If you can get an orange tank into orbit for an SSTO, you shouldn't have to pay more than a guy with the smallest tank.

Edited May 14, 2014 by MKI

[Red Iron Crown]

I personally don't think fuel should cost anything. Regardless of the impact of Kethane and new budgets, if you can return a full orange tank back to the surface with an SSTO, you shouldn't have to invest into a whole orange tank worth of fuel. Fuel tanks themselves shouldn't be that expensive, as fuel = delta-v. There isn't really a more efficient fuel tank, only bigger ones. (minor differences between them aren't extremely impactful)

If fuel costs money, thus SSTO type ships need to pay to refuel, the most efficient SSTO would be the smallest one. So a super mini one with seats attatched all over.

If you can get an orange tank into orbit for an SSTO, you shouldn't have to pay more than a guy with the smallest tank.

Weird, all the reasons you list make me think fuel should cost money. Smaller, more efficient ships absolutely should cost less than overbuilt ones. Having fuel costs separated from tank costs would give reusable craft and stages an economic incentive. Both of these effects are desirable to me.

[regex]

If contracts are to be truly optional, as the devs have indicated, then there must be a way to generate money/reputation aside from simply trading in science points (especially if we don't have the biomes to support that!) Otherwise this is a nice little vision of the future. Like all things, we will see.

Having fuel costs separated from tank costs would give reusable craft and stages an economic incentive.

I hope we don't see reusability bonuses; it overly favors and emphasizes one single type of play. Unless jet engines and RAPIERS are massively expensive, reconditioning a spaceplane is properly expensive, and parts break down with repeated use... Reusability should have its drawbacks as well.

[Dodgey]

Just about you comment on biomes regex, I think it is safe to assume biomes will be coming for all of the bodies.

[regex]

Just about you comment on biomes regex, I think it is safe to assume biomes will be coming for all of the bodies.

Yes, of course, that's a given. Unfortunately, for those of us who might want to try a career mode without touching contracts, waiting or installing a mod might be our only option.

[Dodgey]

Ok I see. I'm very interested in how rep will play into it.

[Red Iron Crown]

I hope we don't see reusability bonuses; it overly favors and emphasizes one single type of play. Unless jet engines and RAPIERS are massively expensive, reconditioning a spaceplane is properly expensive, and parts break down with repeated use... Reusability should have its drawbacks as well.

Agreed, reusability has to be carefully balanced to keep from railroading players into a single style of play. But I think some reusability mechanic should be used, otherwise I suspect the economic method of play would be to use SSTOs that are never recovered, with cheap tanker trucks used for refueling them. Not having to buy anything but a docking port, some wheels and a fuel tank for each payload would presumably be much cheaper than buying a whole ship every time.

[MKI]

Fuel costs is more of a grey area.

The cost of an overbuilt ship shouldn't apply to a reusable craft. Which is where the cost of refueling things comes into play. If you can't re-land and thus "re-use" a craft, refueling it doesn't shouldn't really matter.

So only in the terms of re-usable crafts (SSTO'S to keep things simple) refueling them would be the only price to pay for their function between launches, as they don't lose or drop parts. The philosophy that keeping things simple still works, as a simpler ship is cheaper to build in the first place. But bigger you get the more UPKEEP there is for craft. Which unlike a mostly non re-usable craft is more important than its initial investment of parts.

There's pros and con's to making fuel costs "free"

pros

+ It makes initial investments the only investment for a re-usable craft

+ It provides incentive to make bigger, more effective re-usable crafts WHILE still keeping the incentive to keep expendable launches cheaper.

+ It makes calculating/keeping track of mission costs simpler more streamlined (what if you came back with half a tank of fuel?)

+ It prevents previously stated issue of keeping ALL missions as small as possible, which could limit game play options when budgets are a concern.

+ minor addition of returning space junk for re-use (bring back an empty booster from space = new booster LULz real kerbal!)

cons

- you can't make use of "extra" efficient crafts by saving on fuel costs on re-usable crafts and expendable crafts, by not giving them more fuel than necessary at the start of a mission

- you can't "save" more money by flying more efficiently, it would be a very awesome game play mechanic when a player is low on cash haha

- upkeep constraints aren't realistic (free fuel?) unless KSP has a refinery under it

- Re-usable crafts become budgetary OP with little to no downside (hard to design is a big issue)

- Large Re-usable crafts are just as efficient to run as smaller more efficient to run after initial investments, which could cause an end game that is filled with crafts that bring back as much as possible all the time. Which is unrealistic. Think of a normal rocket, but with the engines strapped to the top with the command pod. Thus the more expensive launch part can be brought back with the pod.

I could totally add the to fuel or not to fuel discussion to the OP. But being such a difficult topic to decide on it should wait for another time

@regex the killer i see with the SSTO style of play is exactly what is difficult about it now. In career its one of the last things to unlock (you could get the SLS system in the same amount of time) and its still inefficient for many bigger harder tasks. (SSTO to eve and back?). They will have to compete with the strong SLS parts late in the tree when a player has enough funds to design and build an SSTO. And then the SLS system blows almost everything out of the water if funds are not a problem. Both are end-game content and should be rewarding for those who get there, not something to deal with.

Edited May 15, 2014 by MKI

[Red Iron Crown]

If fuel costs nothing, what is to stop a player from having a single large SSTO that lifts all payloads to orbit for zero cost? I agree that SSTOs could be cheaper to operate, but they should cost something. Getting to Kerbin orbit shouldn't ever be free, if the economic system is to be realistic at all.

[MKI]

If fuel costs nothing, what is to stop a player from having a single large SSTO that lifts all payloads to orbit for zero cost? I agree that SSTOs could be cheaper to operate, but they should cost something. Getting to Kerbin orbit shouldn't ever be free, if the economic system is to be realistic at all.

It doesn't stop them at all. Paying for a single large SSTO that literally can carry anything to orbit would easily have pretty astronomical costs. If you have that sort of funds why not utilize the thing? Having to pay costs for the ship to go back up would be negligible compared to its initial investment. In such a case the operation costs are a minor detail, and later become more a nuance than anything.

I will have to admit having no fuel cost is super unrealistic. But it does make the game easier to understand, and in the case of a super SSTO a good goal to go after if you can manage it.

The worst scenario would be to make SSTOS only slightly better than a cheaper simpler expendable launch system. In this case of a super SSTO that you mentioned, the total investment might be a complete waste if most missions can be handled by a simple cheaper launcher. In such a scenario fuel costs alone cost more than the simple expendable launch system. In such a case its NEVER worth building a large SSTO to carry payloads into orbit. As i said this is unlikely, and fuel costs would probably be negligible compared to a super SSTO's initial investment. Thus having an operation cost for such a thing is practically pointless to a player that already invested a large amount of funds into building the ship.

The game can still be rocket dominated, as SSTOs are still hard to build(tech and game wise). Meta players would probably build them as they will be effective budget wise regardless of fuel costs. I personally doubt budgets will actually be so impactful, SSTO's reusability will out rank all other factors of a launch ship. The Dev's can not afford career to have budget concerns at every launch without considering SSTO tech at all. It would make playing the game to difficult for an average player. Which is not what the game should be about. (difficulty)

[regex]

You make a good point about SSTOs being mostly end-game content, but I still think fuel should cost something. That just seems more ... intuitive to me, like having a more realistic aerodynamic model is more intuitive for building planes, and even rockets. At the end of the day, I'm also on your side regarding actual difficulty of the game; budgets won't phase an experienced player one way or the other. They'll still find a way to build exactly what they want.

SSTOs are still hard to build(tech and game wise).

A middle-tech crew shuttle is quite easy to build and would save me a lot of mass lifted to orbit, if I actually cared about that sort of micromanagement. I think that's where you'll see the savings from that sort of craft really help. The mid-game will probably be an interesting place for veterans and newbies alike.

Anyway, my point is mainly that spaceplanes/SSTOs shouldn't be free to run or should have some disadvantage that non-reusable craft don't have.

[Bilfr3d]

If your parts cost though the budgets system, could you make reusable crafts and/or parachute the parts back to kerbin to sort of get your money back for bringing the part back down in one piece?

[ArmchairGravy]

A lot depends on how recovery will work. If you get full value for the cost of parts then fuel will be "free" as you are not actually re-using an SSTO/jet, but fully recovering what you launched then re-launching that set of parts. If recovery nets a certain percentage of the cost then fuel and wear and tear can be accounted for.

[Carmoldu]

Well, that's why they are developing reusable first stages in reality... The fuel is not free, but it represents less than the 10% of the rockets cost; reusable first stages will lead to a launch cost of an order of magnitude less than nowadays cost. So, what I mean is that free fuel isn't a bad approximation at all, although personally I'd prefer that it costed something (but if you get an orange tank back, if you are going to use it again you just pay for the fuel, not the whole orange tank...)

[MKI]

If your parts cost though the budgets system, could you make reusable crafts and/or parachute the parts back to kerbin to sort of get your money back for bringing the part back down in one piece?

You could, but with the current system landing stuff you would have to litterally watch the thing the whole way down to earth. Otherwise past the rez limit, the part would go back on rails. When it hits the surface it would be deleted parachutes or not. So reusing things with parachutes is totally plausable, its kind of annoying to do with the current system.

@Regex- middle of the tech SSTO shuttles are pretty easy to build. Its only when you start talking about payloads things get a little fuzzy. Getting kerbals into orbit may seem like a feat, but what would they do up there that would progress your career mode? Not really much, which is why it they shouldn't really cost anything, since they give you nothing in return. Now there could totally be a "space tourism" contract where you bring civilian kerbals to space or something (sounds freaken cool!) which could be abused with free fuel and SSTO's, but otherwise its again more of a niche roll with or without fuel costs.

Having fuel costs is a minor detail. It would only make sense for it to cost something to pay for fuel. I just don't know if such a detail is worth building a whole section of the budget calculation around. Even with the fuel costs SSTO's wouldn't be hindered very much, especially if they are small. A small jet tank couldn't cost much otherwise rocket costs would be astronomical.

@armchairgravy - i read your post and thought this was going to be the answer haha. Until i relized this could be sidesteped by just never recovering the craft in the first place. Land it, use the claw or a hard to aim docking port and dump new fuel into the old ship. Gameplay wise it would work, and it shouldn't cost any more than the average system(you recover maybe a cheaper system of a mobile fuel tank with claw) but it would just be more of a pain to do, which isnt exactly what we want.

[nholzric]

Streetwind suggested on this discussion http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79060-The-Career-Mode-Triangle-%28TM%29 that there may be a difference between "budgets" and "currency". Currency is what most people (including myself) expect - some number of credits that goes down when you buy stuff and up when you accomplish something. A "budget" on the other hand would be a fixed limit every time you launch a spacecraft. There could be long term and short term ways to increase a particular launches budget but there would not be a running total to worry about.

I think this budget idea solves some problems in a clever way, a career wouldn't sink because you blew your entire bank account on a launch that failed. It would also prevent several forms of reusable OCD - it doesn't matter if you parachute return each and every stage because your next launch will have its own budget and it will not be dependent on how thrifty the current launch is. Similarly, SSTO's would not be the end-all-be-all due to stinginess, though you might find motivation for SSTO's via contracts ("do x, y, z, and return safely without decouplers" or something similar).

I hope Streetwind is correct, that we get some clever budget system and not just a bank account. Even though it is not the most obvious path, I can see it feeling very natural and solving a lot of concerns people have.