Budgets, Reusability and Mass Production

[CaptRobau]

If science, reputation and money are interchangeable, then I imagine you could either trade science for money or reputation (from going to the Mun, Duna, etc.) for money.

Also when I originally started this thread I envisioned reusable (outside of your usual spaceplane) to mean à la SpaceX. One or all stages returning virtually intact via a powered landing. Partial re-usability such as the Space Shuttle SRBs parachuting down into the sea (and needing quite extensive rebuilding) is far too difficult to handle. It makes it too easy to just land a big booster using a lot of chutes. So my suggestion would be to check if parachutes were used to land it. If it is, it's probably not going to be reusable.

Edited May 20, 2014 by CaptRobau

[Red Iron Crown]

That's a bit of a tough row to hoe, though. Getting science gets progressively harder as the easy biomes get harvested, so if the exchange rate is fixed you end up running more and more expensive missions for about the same amount of science. Plus, once the science from the celestial bodies is exhausted you'd be stuck intercepting asteroids repeatedly to get their science, which would get repetitive quickly.

[regex]

That's a bit of a tough row to hoe, though. Getting science gets progressively harder as the easy biomes get harvested, so if the exchange rate is fixed you end up running more and more expensive missions for about the same amount of science. Plus, once the science from the celestial bodies is exhausted you'd be stuck intercepting asteroids repeatedly to get their science, which would get repetitive quickly.

Well, by then you should be flying SSTOs almost exclusively because you can recover and refuel them at no cost, so this isn't really an issue.

[thorfinn]

Finally, I read the dev's talking about how contracts are not going to *drive* the game, just give some context and flavor along the way.

....they are really scared of this game becoming too hard, aren't they?

[Dodgey]

....they are really scared of this game becoming too hard, aren't they?

No, the are afraid of restricting the player too much and rail railroading them into a certain play style.

[Red Iron Crown]

Well, by then you should be flying SSTOs almost exclusively because you can recover and refuel them at no cost, so this isn't really an issue.

Sometimes you're so dry I have a hard time telling if you're serious or not. This would pretty obviously fall into the "railroading" category that we're trying to avoid. I'm not a spaceplane/SSTO guy, so being pushed into that playstyle would be less than optimal for me.

[Laie]

Finally, I read the dev's talking about how contracts are not going to *drive* the game

....they are really scared of this game becoming too hard, aren't they?

Well, it IS problematic. The game as it is encourages you to get into space by trial and error. "How hard can rocket science be anyway?" As it turns out, the better part of rocket science is MOAR BOOSTERS*. A monetary system where every lauch costs money would change the game beyond recognition**.

*)with some caveats, yadda yadda. No nitpicking please.

**) this might also be a good game. But it would lack many things I love about KSP.

[nholzric]

I am seriously curious as to what the money generating mechanic will be if contracts are optional.

Yeaaah, that's a great point. One option is that each launch will have a set budget that can be plussed up or down for either the short term or long term. So for example in the beginning every launch is limited to 1000 credits but you can trade science/reputation for a one-time 1500 credit launch or a new 1200 credit baseline. Reputation presumably coming largely from contracts, making "optional" a funny word.

But I don't believe contracts are going to be strictly optional meaning you can play career without them, what I remember reading is that contracts are not going to tell you to go to the Mun for example, but if you are going to the Mun you will have the option of picking up several contracts to complete on the way. That's a big difference from being completely optional meaning you can play a career without them.

....they are really scared of this game becoming too hard, aren't they?

I know there's a lot of discussion about building the game in a way that is either too easy or two hard - and usually those discussions are easy to mock. But keeping a game true to its nature is a tricky thing. KSP is about flying rockets, I'm really excited to get the economics/space-agency overlay but I don't think anyone would disagree that in theory they could make the game *way* too focused on management to the detriment of flying. Barring either extreme, this is just a discussion of degree. Never mind the easy/hard paradigm (though a game can be ruined by those extremes too), to me the immediate danger is on the focus of management/flight.

[regex]

Sometimes you're so dry I have a hard time telling if you're serious or not. This would pretty obviously fall into the "railroading" category that we're trying to avoid. I'm not a spaceplane/SSTO guy, so being pushed into that playstyle would be less than optimal for me.

At this point I'm beginning to think the best way about this is to simply make reusability a tech node up by the hidden "modder nodes". That skips most of the problems while putting it squarely in the end-game content where it (apparently) will mostly be used. I'm also pretty surprised that most people here have such a narrow definiton of reusable craft/parts; to me that unfairly and wrongly skips over other potential playstyles, especially considering other recovery can be modelled (if modders can do it, so can SQUAD).

[thorfinn]

I know there's a lot of discussion about building the game in a way that is either too easy or two hard - and usually those discussions are easy to mock. But keeping a game true to its nature is a tricky thing.

Yes, but, we will always have sandbox

I don't want to push ultrahardcore stuff on everybody (I don't even play ultra hardcore mods myself), I just hope we won't have a repeat of the science tree affair: believe me, I DO understand that new players needed some hand-holding at the level of complexity KSP had reached, but if you are going to limit my choices, give me a real challenge that adds to the fun. Making me bother about science and money, but just a little, without really enforcing anything... is just a bother.

I mean, like the electricity system that for months existed just to kill your probes when you forgot to add a solar panel, and even now isn't much beyond that in vanilla KSP. Sometimes I'd rather it doesn't exist: what aerospace company would forget to put batteries in its satellites and hope that the customer adds some later, after all? If we had more choices in electric propulsion, of course it would be a different matter... in the same way, if I have to care about a budget, I'd want ti to matter.

[tutrakan4e]

Ever heard of a powered landing?

I don't see the purpose of that in KSP, just put some parachutes on the top and some landing legs on the bottom.

[Chillfox]

My thought is that recovered ships and stages should have their parts (not money value) put back into inventory. Parts that contain consumables (fuel tanks, monopropellant tanks, etc) would pay some nominal price per unit of consumable to refill. The player would be free to reuse the parts in the same ship again or rearrange them into something new.

It's not perfectly realistic, but it offers the following advantages:

- It keeps with the modular, Lego-like flavor of building things in KSP.

- It is difficult to sidestep. If a reusability mechanic involved a significant cost penalty, a workaround is to never recover a reusable ship and use ground crews to refuel and install payload. (Not that ground crews aren't cool, just they shouldn't be required to be economical).

- It is simple, requiring almost no bookkeeping or calculation.

- It rewards reusability.

- Building bigger ships becomes easier as players accumulate parts (scrap several small ships to make one bigger one).

+1

I like this idea the best.

[RedPine]

I'll Take That in Cash

KSP is complicated enough without an inventory... return cost of recovered craft in cash, not parts or entire vehicles!

Distance is Money

If an SSTO land on the KSC runway, it should be recovered at 100% cost*. If a part lands within 100km or so of the KSC (usually booster stages) it should be refunded at about 90% with anywhere further away giving a 50% refund.

Save My Boosters!

Spent stages with with enough chutes for its weight, traveling below a certain speed, should be auto recovered instead of deleted.

KSP is About Engineering Not Economy

Mass Production is a big NO. A player shouldn't be discouraged from improving his booster stages because he already invested "Mass Production" funds into an inefficient design. The advantage of using sub-assemblies and craft save files is great enough as is. Craft a player has already learned how to fly and tested is less likely to blow up.

SSTO vs Single Use Rocket

How large and unbalanced a payload can an SSTO get into orbit? Not as big a payload as a single use rocket. SSTO's (especially spaceplanes) have severe design limitations and advantages that make them neither better nor worse than single use rockets. Don't try to balances oranges against apples! If the contracts and costs system gives an extreme advantage to SSTO's, we'll only know when we test it.

*Hoarding reusable SSTO's at the KSC instead of recovering them should be discouraged, as more vehicles at KSC = laggier launches at KSC.

[RedPine]

Yeaaah, that's a great point. One option is that each launch will have a set budget that can be plussed up or down for either the short term or long term... example in the beginning every launch is limited to 1000 credits but you can trade science/reputation for a one-time 1500 credit launch or a new 1200 credit baseline....

Huh... interesting idea... It would mean a player would be rewarded for making expensive craft reusable (be it a kerbin-mun tug or an SSTO) while not punishing building non-reusable cheap craft. It would need a lot of balancing in regards to failing missions, failing to recover craft savely, etc.