Kerbal Economy Enhancements

[Ixonal]

A suggestion:

How about maintenance costs for every flight in progress, not only when Kerbals are active?

The poor Kerbals at KSC need money for snacks during supervision of manned/unmanned flights!

One possibility to gain money would be through communication fees, a vessel with a Communotron 16 around kerbin should yield xx money, a Comms DTS-1 would yield more and the Communotron 88-88 the most.

You should only get money from the 88-88 if it's geostationary (or keostationary) around 2800km, Communotrons 16 gain money in LKO (200km?) and DTS-1 between 200 and 2800km.

The better the reputation, the more you earn, but to avoid satellite spamming the total amount of money you get should drop drastically after a certain amount of satellites (eg 6 for the Comm 88-88, 4 in geostationary and 2 polar) in Orbit.

Regards,

Stage

I like this idea, and it'd integrate nicely with Remotech.

Maybe also a little bit of government funding depending on reputation?

Also, I'm getting the white square too.

[zyngawow]

I like this idea, and it'd integrate nicely with Remotech.

Maybe also a little bit of government funding depending on reputation?

Also, I'm getting the white square too.

Government funding depending on reputation seems like a good idea, but I feel the game is easy enough, at least for me, so I don't really know how to add government funding (or getting paid for satellites) without making it even easier.

The white square issue will be fixed soon. There isn't any functionality for the AppLauncher button, so I might as well remove it. It should be fixed by renaming the KEE folder to Payroll.

[veryinky]

You'll have to pay to fire kerbals.

This is the only thing I really disagree with. Mostly because of "rescue kerbal in orbit" missions which auto-hire the rescued kerbal. They're already not worth the reward, but having to pay a rescued kerbal's salary/firing is too much.

Other than that, I agree with the suggestion of rewarding the player for setting up a com network. I play with remotetech and would love it if the game acknowledged some benefit for setting up various networks, even if it was limited to stock antenna/dishes for compatibility purposes.

[Ixonal]

Government funding depending on reputation seems like a good idea, but I feel the game is easy enough, at least for me, so I don't really know how to add government funding (or getting paid for satellites) without making it even easier.

The white square issue will be fixed soon. There isn't any functionality for the AppLauncher button, so I might as well remove it. It should be fixed by renaming the KEE folder to Payroll.

Admittedly, I'm looking at it from the point of view of using Kerbal Construction Time, so things can end up getting pretty tight. hmmmm.... I'm thinking when you get the "You'll need to engineer the parts you research. This means, you'll have to pay funds to unlock them even if you spend the science." thing implemented, it may counter that.

[Justin Kerbice]

Look interesting but need to be carefully design and take care of all aspect of the game, ie: what about long term mission and timewarp use ? (like a 200days or more waiting delay before an orbit shift)

You may add the ability to put kerbonauts career "on hold" (not pay them every day) or something to prevent too much profits/losses.

[tygoo7]

Look interesting but need to be carefully design and take care of all aspect of the game, ie: what about long term mission and timewarp use ? (like a 200days or more waiting delay before an orbit shift)

You may add the ability to put kerbonauts career "on hold" (not pay them every day) or something to prevent too much profits/losses.

I would also like something like this. I'm using this mod but it gets a little annoying with long time warps.

[riles]

Maybe the solution is to pay kerbals upon return of mission or loss to help keep budgets easy to manage

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Wow... Paying kerbals 600 Funds a day? That's F18,000/mo, or F216,000/yr.

NASA astronauts make between $65,000 /yr for new astonauts, to $142,000 for experienced veterans.

ESA astronauts make between (adjusted to American dollar) $84k and $116k for their experience range.

CSA's are paid between $89k and $158k

Given the cost of rockets in KSP, the Fund is of higher value than the dollar by something around an order of magnitude. So I can only conclude that with numeric values double those of real space agencies, and a per unit value an order of magnitude stronger than real currency... This mod overpays kerbals something fierce.

I'd make the suggestion that the base pay for a kerbal be significantly reduced. And then make 'hazard' pay that tracks how many days a Kerbal is not within' Kerbin's atmosphere during a mission perhaps even track the rate based on what sphere of influence they're in. (The further away, the higher.) Then pays them when they get recovered.

This way, a bunch of kerbals sitting around playing pool in the space center aren't pulling salaries that compete with Donald Trump while Jeb, pioneering that trip to Duna, gets underpaid for the risk he's taking.

I'd also say also having a sliding pay rate during the missions for more experienced kerbals, but it doesn't make sense to do that when an experience value has no benefits. (Yet) But it should be considered.

[Stage]

I have to agree with you, 600 Funds a day is a bit much (although still ok for stock KSP).Maybe the wage should depend on courage/stupidity and how long they are at KSC.

Unfortunately, with KCT (Kerbal Construction Time) installed, I was just not able to use this mod. If you have to wait a couple of days for a rocket to finish, you simply run out of money all the time. Maybe this mod could be recognised in future versions of KEE and wages adjusted accordingly.

[Sutima]

I have to agree with you, 600 Funds a day is a bit much (although still ok for stock KSP).Maybe the wage should depend on courage/stupidity and how long they are at KSC.

Unfortunately, with KCT (Kerbal Construction Time) installed, I was just not able to use this mod. If you have to wait a couple of days for a rocket to finish, you simply run out of money all the time. Maybe this mod could be recognised in future versions of KEE and wages adjusted accordingly.

Well if you want to change the wages download http://www.jetbrains.com/decompiler/download/ and open the dll and change it to your liking =).

I would like it if it scaled with time and experience, amount of missions etc. Would integrate nicely with Final frontier =).

[tygoo7]

I have to agree with you, 600 Funds a day is a bit much (although still ok for stock KSP).Maybe the wage should depend on courage/stupidity and how long they are at KSC.

Unfortunately, with KCT (Kerbal Construction Time) installed, I was just not able to use this mod. If you have to wait a couple of days for a rocket to finish, you simply run out of money all the time. Maybe this mod could be recognised in future versions of KEE and wages adjusted accordingly.

Yeah the cost is a bit too much and it eats a whole lot of my funds just on a trip to minmus with the time-warping. I can't imagine how much funds it will take on a time-warp to Duna or Jool!

[StevenJ]

I was curious but where is the button to fire them? I think I hired too many lol.

[autumnalequinox]

I like where this mod is going. I was going to actually start working on something similiar myself to fill some holes in the economy. So far I have been working the numbers out manually and editing my Kerbalollars myself. With the wages being paid out like this, how about an annual budget as well? I use my reputation score as a guideline. Higher rep = larger annual payment. This represents the public's support and the support of your various space-oriented Kongressmen. I set a baseline of 10,000 per annum (I play with Dang it!, TAC, and other time sensitive mods, so I need to maintain my fleet). It then varies up and down based on my current reputation score, which acts as a percentage. A reputation of 900, for example, adds 900% to the baseline.

This may not be for everyone, however, as you could easily spam money by just time warping unless you use time sensitive mods. That would hurt me, for example, as I will end up with tons of broken equipment in orbit and dead Kerbals out of life support supplies So perhaps it could be an option?

Just an idea. I may get around to doing it myself eventually once I have some free time. I need to tackle some basic modding anyways.

[Sigmar]

Cool idea, but 600 per day is way to much for me to effort, I would be bankrupt before the first rocket is built (I play with the Kerbal Construction Time mod).

Could you probably do a version in which the player could adjust the salery?

[Ixonal]

I find that if you do an occasional mission specifically for income, you can still profit, even with the high pay level. I run this with KCT, FAR, TAC Life Support, RemoteTech, and several others. I was actually kinda thinking I was still making money too fast >.>

[Sigmar]

Well, that's the small difference. FAR makes rockets generally a bit cheaper. Mission Controller with 3x the stock costs on the other hand...

I still think that the salary should be adjustable, because different Mods produce different financial situations.

[Javster]

Do they get paid if they're not on a mission?

[Sigmar]

Yeah, 600 per day when they are not on a mission and 1200 when they are on a mission during paytime.

[Ballistic Idiot]

CashMoney? I like CashMoney.

Beans, Kerbals should exchange beans.

[Ixonal]

is this still being actively developed?

[drtedastro]

Beans, Kerbals should exchange beans.

Klams..... They trade in Klams.

[raziel420]

$600 a day is WAY to much to be paying them, quick look at nasa website shows that the pay is closer to 60k a year. http://astronauts.nasa.gov/content/faq.htm They get paid on the goverment scale between GS-11 and GS-14 which translates to $64k - $141K a year, your paying them almost double the peak pay.

600 * 365 = 219,000

Closer to realistic would be $175-386 a day

[colmo]

This definitely encourages using your Kerbals instead of having them sitting around eating your profits. The high pay could be thought of as the costs of training and support crew, not just the Kerbal's wage.

You could implement an overdraft facility to allow negative funds, but you pay charges, just like the real thing. Once you max out your overdraft and can't pay the charges, then it's game over.

[Apollo13]

600 funds per day per kerbal is far too expensive. I have 12 kerbals on each of two Science Stations. That would bankrupt me quickly. And lets not forget the long missions to other planets. Perhaps, 5 funds per day per kerbal.

Bottom line: the mod sounds interesting, but for me, this is a No Go.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Apollo13

[Brucey]

I think the 600 funds (or some other value) per kerbal-day could work, actually, if it were implemented along-side the ability to also produce daily income in some way at the same time. (beside just doing contracts), and also make the first three (Jeb, Bob and Bill) free. Say, for example, I want to increase my astronaut roster to 6 Kerbals. With the first three being free, now I need to come up with 1800 funds per day. If I could earn consistent daily funds through mining or some such means, I now have not only solved the problem of paying Kerbals during long duration missions, but also I now have an actual economy. Suddenly the game is about increasing daily earnings so that I can pay an ever increasing pool of Kerbonauts.

Here's a random thought: I think it would be cool to get to implement a "Mars One" style economy. Where you make money by producing off-world camera footage for a reality TV show. Attach a "tv-show" camera to the ship. Film Kerbals walking around on other planets and doing space walks, then transmit the footage back to Kerbin for funds. Lots of interesting possibilities there, especially when combined with RT2.

Anyway, I hope the critics have not scared the OP off from this project. There is definitely a need for an improved economy.