Boost Research Cost / Science ratio

[boolybooly]

As a fairly practiced player of KSP I have found the new career mode delightful but way too easy and as a result the pace of the game is too quick and it is over much too soon.

In particular there is a problem with the fact that there is way more science available than is required by research costs and you can complete the tech tree with a couple of trips to Minmus and a few part tests which are very easily funded. As a result there is no challenge to go further afield.

Leaving funds aside for now and focussing on research, to get the most out of the game it strikes me there needs to be much more research cost to balance the science available.

So I would like to suggest that each part in the tech tree should cost the same amount as the parent category to unlock the part. This will multiply the total cost of the tech tree and present choices. It will no longer be possible to complete the tech tree in the Kerbin SOI but it will still be possible to unlock enough tech to get to other planets.

Further to this I think we should need to unlock 50% of the parts in a category before the follow on category becomes available.

Edited August 10, 2014 by boolybooly

[boolybooly]

Just an update to say that I still think the above is a good idea and that I have begun a career game in which I have a rule that I cannot get any science within the bounds of Kerbin SOI or do any mission with the word Kerbin in it including the Mun and Minmus and it has the right feel to be obliged to plan more and more ambitious missions and has proved much more challenging and interesting to use early tech parts to achieve them but even so it has only taken a few trips into Kerbol orbit and and a single probe mission to Eve with lander to Gilly to complete half the tech tree and get all the sensors.

I feel that it needs to be much more carefully balanced than it is now and at hard settings it should really test your inventiveness and most of all I want it to last longer! Its over too quickly.

Kerbin in particular is an anomaly because it gives minor tech rewards but requires a huge investment to get them, bang for buck its much easier to go to Minmus than anywhere on Kerbin even at tier 1 because aero capability is too far down the tech tree. It feels like the game is missing a stage of play involving Kerbin exploration with basic cheap but slow and limited aero parts like dirigibles, canvas wings and prop engines with a steam punk era feel (imagine Jeb with a pilots hat, scarf, goggles and insane grin) which should be available at the start and this should make it economical and fun to collect enough science from Kerbin in a couple of missions which would then allow you to work your way up to what is currently tier 1 of space rockets. I think that would create a kind of theatrical experience because of the contrast between planet bound exploration and escape to space, which would make the space exploration seem special.

I know Harv just wants to do rockets and was not very keen to add plane parts and I think he should do what he wants as he will do that best but I am just saying I can see the scope for aero as a context and significant addendum for the space game (due to the possibility of spaceplanes as was the focus of the most popular mod contest winner) and it may be that someone else in Squad would be interested in doing the necessary to put it in place.

Edited September 8, 2014 by boolybooly

[Eric S]

You can do ModuleManager configs to change that now. The ability to change them via in-game UI is coming in the next version, 0.25.

[boolybooly]

Well that will help modders, though I feel the stock game should aspire to be complete and worth playing in its own right.

I just wanted to point out that the current situation there is too much science available and not enough to unlock with it and so the game is over too quickly.

These two aspects need to be tuned in relation to each other to get the most out of the game and increase the gameplay time.

To balance these it is either necessary to reduce the science yield or to increase research costs, there are various options though.

As suggested in the OP you can expand the tech tree by researching components individually at the same cost as the parent category, there isnt enough of it at the moment and that would help.

You could also provide other things to spend science on. Such as functionality, ie you could start the game without the ability to plot nodes and spend science to get a tracking computer added to the tracking station. If you can do that why not start without the ability to predict vectors ie no orbital lines at all, and use science to buy a radar for the tracking station to add it, so the game would play out by starting at kerbin with aero craft, you would do a few missions exploring Kerbin to get radar and rocket engines/tanks/capsule, do a few launches to get tracking computer and go from there.

If this kind of balance and incentive was included you could also have enhancements to these such as range which looks like it is planned for transmissions. So your first tracking radar might only be able to reach a few miles from KSC and if you went outside it or didnt have it you would be flying by the seat of your pants and the navball (maybe without the radar/map view available).

Then you could upgrade radar to get one which covers a wider range and then spend science to add radar to your capsules and cockpits so they take it wherever they travel (which would then justify the MkI, MkII etc) so they get vector prediction wherever they go. Ditto you could use science to add tracking computers to the base tracking station and to the command modules, which could calculate nodes and then project one conic patch then two then three to assist the player with of more ambitious launches.

Adding these functions to command components likewise add a Mk number and making them more expensive, potentially requiring a change in the model from something like Gagarins spherical Vostock capsule as a starter capsule to the more advanced Gemini capsule we start with now. So a Gagarin/Vostock capsule would only be able to house the basic radar say and only able to plot a node when in transmission range of the base tracking computer.

Transmission range could depend on antenna range (already planned) and the receiver transmitter dish at KSC tracking station which would be a third piece of equipment to use science on enhancing. So you could compensate for lack of or low grade navigation computer in early command capsules by using a transmission link to the base computer. If you had zero nav computer on the Vostock capsule but a grade two tracking computer at the base you could provide control nodes with one additional conic projection as long as the capsule was within transmission range of KSC. Then you might consider transmission shadows in much the same way as light is blocked by solid objects, making satellites a useful part of gameplay acting as transmission links to facillitate control of distant flights when KSC is f acing away from the space craft and blocked by Kerbin.

In a sense this recapitulates the development process for KSP which is nice but is also recapitulates the history of aerospace technology which adds a little nuance credibility which makes it more fun. Done right this could enhance the sense of the scale of space and the satisfaction of making progress. But it needs to strike a balance between nerdy obsessive and fun gameplay, of course.

[John FX]

I`d like a slider or similar to set the multiplier for science return or the multiplier for later nodes to force interplanetary missions.

It could be set from `really easy` where you just need to go to Mun to complete the tree to `really hard` where there is just enough science in the whole system to complete the tree.

The part cost and missions rewards could have their own slider with similar ranges.

Then the game could be set to go from `really easy` to `just about possible` just by changing a couple of sliders either in the settings or at the start of a new game.

Obviously the default would be `really easy` for new players.

If you wanted to be really flash then you could use a slider that works like a gamma slider or a grey midpoint slider (changes midpoint without altering the endpoints) to weight towards early or later gameplay

[Eric S]

Well that will help modders, though I feel the stock game should aspire to be complete and worth playing in its own right.

Let me say again, the ability to change all the science returns is coming in the next version. It will be three sliders, one each for science, funds, and reputation, with the slider going from 10% of current gains (so Kerbin/Mun/Minmus would give a total science of less than a fifth of that you'd need to finish the tree) to 1000%, at which point you'd probably have the 2.5 meter parts unlocked before your first Mun mission. There will be a fourth slider adjusting your starting funds as well, and it goes all the way down to zero starting funds. This update won't involve the more structured tech tree you're thinking of, however.

There's no announced ETA for 0.25, but if I had to guess, I'd say 1-2 months.

I`d like a slider or similar to set the multiplier for science return or the multiplier for later nodes to force interplanetary missions.

Again, the system they're getting us isn't as sophisticated. We won't have the ability to tweak returns on a per planet basis, or the ability to change just the contract's science returns, from what has been announced. I wouldn't mind the ability to rein in the ability to repeatedly return science or plant flags using the same mission. I've got a long term life support experiment going on on both the Mun and Minmus, and even with TAC Life Support installed, both will last over ten years and permanent satellites in orbit of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus that can return science. Between those, I'll probably get a million funds just waiting for my first Duna launch window to open, and that just doesn't feel right.

Apparently, some of the people with QA access have been doing a challenge where you set all four sliders to the minimum and disable quicksaves. The number of hoops you have to jump through at that point is quite high. If you fail to fully recover any craft, it's a major setback, enough so that a single failed mission can end that career. The contract rewards were returning just enough to cover fuel expenses and one new part. So they'd launch a very basic craft, fill an altitude record contract, recover the craft at 100% which would give them enough funds to build the same craft but add one more fuel tank, which would be enough to repeat the same thing but with one more fuel tank.