Company reps

[Winter Man]

So now that we've got these shiny company logos, how about putting them to use? For example, a 'messageboard' screen in the space centre with contract bids from different companies. One company might be a little unreliable but cheap (lower max. heat on the engine?) or what have you. Since there's tweakables, it'd just be a matter of adjusting the max. settings of everything by a constant per company. Say you need more power and you don't care about cost, you switch your engine contract to a company who provides that.

You could have it so that when you initially develop a part, you pay more for having it built in-house until you farm it out to contractors.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Winter Man

[Judgementus]

I like this Idea, using different company branded parts giving different perks.

The only issue I can see if that revert to hanger button being exploited to avoid reliability issues costing a mission extra cash.

But I like the more power, less heat, better ISP, at higher cost or additional research or something...

[Vindelle_Sunveam]

Revert to launch can be disabled.

As for now, it is just a line in the persistent.sfs, but I guess this statement could be made false during the flight, and brought back to true once the player goes back to the space center or fails critically.

I can easily understand if some contracts came with a warning such as "this is an experimental component, so saves will be impossible during the initial flight". And this would be a good thig as to give player a hardcore challenge in the middle of an otherwise "forgiving" game during the initial flight stage.

[Winter Man]

I think that's probably the best solution to the problem, giving an 'experimental part' warning.

[Javster]

I would quite like it if companies had "personalities": some focus on Kerbal safety (more impact tolerance, more life support, but lower engine efficiencies), while others are more interested in making high-quality parts like efficient engines, but at a higher price. Also, contractors would give different penalties: unreputable contractors would care more about their payload being destroyed than the 50 Kerbals you massacred in your attempts to launch the payload.

[xcorps]

I like this.

A lot.

[cpast]

Sounds somewhat like Borderlands (different manufacturers having different characteristics). I quite liked Borderlands, and I quite like this idea. Only thing to add would be that it should be easy to, at a glance, tell who made the part. Maybe have the power-at-cost-of-reliability manufacturer have bright yellow warning-about-to-explode markings, cheap manufacturer have duct tape all over parts, etc.?

[Winter Man]

That'd be cool. Can you guys who like it rate the thread? Cos it looks like one guy has just stuck one star on it.