Alternate ways to get cash

[covi2955]

I love the new career mode. Having to balance my personal goals with not just the restrictions on research but also having to fund my exploits has made this game immensely more entertaining and challenging to me.

However, I've been playing with the kethane mod and started thinking that there should be other ways to get cash besides just the missions (which are mainly testing out parts in various locations).

The two thoughts that came to mind were Grants and Sales.

The Idea for Grants was that a company (probably one of the ones that gives you missions) would provide a large amount of funds every X days, but that they require certain features to be maintained, such as a constant base on the Mun, a certain number of flights reaching Duna, or taking a certain number of passengers to Minimus. Something like that so that you receive funds but have a quota of something that you have to fill each month.

The idea on sales was that vanilla KSP could include the option of selling things like surface samples from other places as opposed to researching them. This would provide incentive to keep going back to the Mun after you've gotten all the research from it to help fund future missions by "selling moon rocks." With this UI available, modders would be able to go in and add in things like selling kethane. I'd have loads of fun orchestrating a kethane mine on the Mun and transport back so I could sell it to pay for my journeys to other places. I would think that like research, value would go down as you get more of the same thing, but its value would last longer in my mind.

Anyway, what thoughts do you guys have about this?

[Jetwave]

I also think there should be different ways of getting money other than contracts, and I do like the idea of selling stuff you mine from other planets. You could also have a "Space Tourism" type of industry, where kerbals pay to be taken to specific places for an amount of time. For example, they could request to be sent to Duna for a year, or any other planet. If you had a ship specified as a space station or base from the rename menu, they could pay to go there instead. You could get these missions the same way you would get any other contract, probably after completing the explore mission for that body. However, if you make them return too early or too late, or they don't get to their destination soon enough, you would lose some money and a large amount of reputation. You'd also have to have a large amount of reputation to unlock these contracts in the first place, because who would want to go the a space station from some random little space centre in the middle of nowhere?

[Sirrobert]

Selling surface samples is coming in a way.

You'll be able to convert Science into funds (and vice versa)

On Kethane: I doubt you'd ever actually be able to make money bringing back things from outer space, because of how expencive it is to launch the things you need to transport it in the first place. Though a little bonus cash for bringing back keepsakes would be nice yes

[Alias72]

One thing that may help is if/when contracts get expanded. There may be missions like company X wants you to put a satellite with a communitron 16 into orbit with periapse B and Apoapse C.

[Javster]

I also think there should be different ways of getting money other than contracts, and I do like the idea of selling stuff you mine from other planets. You could also have a "Space Tourism" type of industry, where kerbals pay to be taken to specific places for an amount of time. For example, they could request to be sent to Duna for a year, or any other planet. If you had a ship specified as a space station or base from the rename menu, they could pay to go there instead. You could get these missions the same way you would get any other contract, probably after completing the explore mission for that body. However, if you make them return too early or too late, or they don't get to their destination soon enough, you would lose some money and a large amount of reputation. You'd also have to have a large amount of reputation to unlock these contracts in the first place, because who would want to go the a space station from some random little space centre in the middle of nowhere?

You could change the config of Kethane to have a money value like other fuels do

[covi2955]

You could change the config of Kethane to have a money value like other fuels do

That's a brilliant idea! I think I'll delve into the files to do that. I've just been wanting to have some sort of space-mining setup that actually brought in revenue. I suppose with the values that I'll have to give kethane to make it practical I'll just have to ignore the fact that there's some of kerbin.

You'd also have to have a large amount of reputation to unlock these contracts in the first place, because who would want to go the a space station from some random little space centre in the middle of nowhere?

I bet a Kerbal would