Funds to science Admin Strategy is really overpowered

[nine_iron]

Just realised I ended up with 2.2k science for going to the Mun and back with a handful of experiments on board. Doing a bit in orbit, some in a crater and then bringing it all home pretty much opened the tech tree for me.

Hardly started to explore and I have opened more of the tech tree than I did in .24 going to Duna, Ike, Gilly and Eve + bases/space stations on/around Mun, Kerbin and Minmus!

[tater]

I checked and the max science you can start a career with is 5000. That doesn't open the whole tree, but a lot of it. So anyone wanting a career with a budget, but not worried about tech tree can simply set the starting science to 5000. You can also turn off the requirement to buy the new tech after unlocking it. Your first few missions (particularly any planetary ones) will unlock the rest of the tree in no time.

[moogoob]

I have to admit, having this strategy is very useful, but yeah, very overpowered. Planted one flag on the Mun and got 950 or so science - and that's with the slider at only 20%! The other ones aren't so much - rep to science & funds to rep for example are more subtle in their effects.

[Zylark]

Axiom of game-design - If an exploit exist, it will be exploited!

In my current career (Moderate Settings), only strategy I've employed is 5% of rep going to funds. Getting science isn't a big deal, getting funds is. Especially now that you got to buy each part to make it available for use. Some parts later on in the tech tree is _very_ expensive. Especially with regards to the the Near Future mod parts.

[stevism]

yeah i agree with the idea that it's broken...

i had gotten away from ksp, came back for 0.25.

tried the rep-->money strategy, thought it was lame cause a) i didn't make any money and was slowing down the introduction of new contracts

then later on i tried the money-->science strategy, forgot about it, and after doing 3/4 missions i checked my science tab and i was at like 2.5k or something...

i wasn't even doing science on those missions, just stupid little contracts. only been to the moon once in this save.

science is broken by that strategy. admin building is kinda stupid imho.

[Sky_walker]

Axiom of game-design - If an exploit exist, it will be exploited!

In my current career (Moderate Settings), only strategy I've employed is 5% of rep going to funds. Getting science isn't a big deal, getting funds is.

On my first afternoon in KSP 0.25 I played hard difficulty and ended the fun around in-game day 13 visiting Mun and Minimus, having unlocked almost half of the research tree and still owning 600k cash.

And I wasn't limiting myself with unlocking technologies for cash. I got everything I need + tons plenty of parts that I might need at some point in future. I guess if I would limit myself only to the parts I need I'd have over 1.5m on account.

Oh, and yes - I did use funds to science for a moment, but when found out how ridiculously broken this thing is - I instantly turned it off.

Besides - remember that you cannot go bankrupt in KSP. It's impossible. This game got a broken design, so no matter how much you f*** up - you'll still end up winning (carebears FTW).

We had a guy on a forum that intentionally pushed himself to bankruptcy - announced it on a forum, just to find out two days later that he basically discovered a fountain of infinite cash.

Especially now that you got to buy each part to make it available for use. Some parts later on in the tech tree is _very_ expensive.

I found the mistake you make: Unlocking every part.

Why on earth would you need _every_ part?!

Just unlock what you use.

If you're in the editor you can right-click on a part to lock popup and then press a button in it's lower-left corner to unlock the part if you need it. See - there is even no need to exit the editor.

[Torquemadus]

...sure, I have no doubt that balancing Strategies on higher difficulty would be crucial

That said, if its meant for higher difficulty - then there's no logic in having it available at lower difficulty, at least not in its current form.

There's no point in using the Admin Building on low difficulty, because players are given far more resources than they could possibly need. Players can earn insane amounts of money, science and reputation without ever flying beyond Kerbin's moons. Since resources are already effectively unlimited, using the admin building to get even more resources is meaningless.

Playing on low difficulty doesn't just make the Admin Building meaningless. It makes Career Mode meaningless. If players are being given far more resources than they could possibly need, then the resources themselves become meaningless and the game becomes indistinguishable from Sandbox.

The question then, is what effect the Admin Building has at higher difficulties where resources actually become meaningful.

[r4pt0r]

While yes, it is a bit overpowered, It lessens the grind of the system science considerably, letting me get on with my true goal sooner:

THE COMPLETE DOMINATION OF VALL(HALA)

[Sky_walker]

Players can earn insane amounts of money, science and reputation without ever flying beyond Kerbin itself.

Fixed for you.

Playing on low difficulty doesn't just make the Admin Building meaningless. It makes Career Mode meaningless. If players are being given far more resources than they could possibly need, then the resources themselves become meaningless and the game becomes indistinguishable from Sandbox.

Not as much "low" as "normal". All that you speak of happens already in normal difficulty.

. Edited October 12, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Torquemadus]

Not as much "low" as "normal". All that you speak of happens already in normal difficulty.

Indeed it does. I define low difficulty as any setting that doesn't offer any meaningful challenge to the player, so that certainly includes normal and moderate.

[Wjolcz]

People think the Outsourced R&D is broken. I think it depends how you set the difficulty. I myself set the difficulty in such a way it's not OP at all. If you take anything lower than hard or customized hard option, don't be surprised you're getting so much science.

Yes, I get through the science tree faster, but I can barely launch a thing, because it costs me so much. I don't even have all the parts purchased because of the lack of money.

It's really well balanced that way. And if anyone can tell me how to find all the difficulty settings the save has, I will gladly share it for everyone who wants to have a bit of challange in their game.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Veeltch

[Kerbart]

People think the Outsourced R&D is broken. I think it depends how you set the difficulty.(...)

With Difficulty set to “Normal†I unlocked the entire tree in two Kerbal calendar days of gameplay and I haven't even gone beyond LKO. Makes me wonder what it takes to unlock the tech tree in "Easy." Put Jebedia in orbit?

While I agree that “if you want it hard, put it on Hard†I also think that “Normal†should offer at least some challenges.

[soulsource]

I agree, gathering science has been too easy already, and now it got even easier.

Anyhow, I wouldn't care too much at the moment. The game is still under development, and I think we can expect a rebalancing of the science/tech tree mechanics before the final release. Just think about the huge amount of science one would be able to get, once biomes are implemented for all bodies in the Kerbol system. This is of course pure speculation, but I could imagine, that the developers want to wait until the game is more or less finished, both in features and spacecraft parts, before fine tuning the career mode progression, to directly see how the availability of certain parts affects the difficulty of certain tasks.

Until then, we can of course simply use the difficulty settings to reduce science gain.

[Duban]

I assume the people maxing out the "science for funds" are playing on normal. I recommend trying it on hard or less that 50% income to make it harder. On 60% it hard to abuse the "science for funds" as you aren't completely rolling in the funds.

A big mistake I made was to try doing 50% of my income for science. I went to get some contracts and they were all wanting me to pay them to do the missions lol. (hard -60% admin -50%) great science though

I play on hard. I put 10% of my income into science and I'm still getting insane amounts of science and cash for missions.

This was my last mission.

http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2j0wec/lcev1_crackling_exploring_eve_gilly_duna_and_ike/

Spent 45,000 credits, made 1,125,805, and earned 4,420 science. Could have done 50% or more easily and the science gains were crazy even with only 10%.

[PatPL]

Easy solution: Don't use Strategies, and play like in 0.24.

[Hyomoto]

It's easy to think it's overpowered when you don't have to pay to unlock the parts. It's easy to think it's overpowered when you play with reverting and quick saves (good faith or otherwise). While I can't say you MUST play with DE or FAR to improve the challenge of the game, because they are mods and it really isn't the job of mods to 'complete' a game, Squad DID include awesome mod support so that they could while they develop. And despite what some players will claim, being in the minority that they are, if you punch the difficulty up to hard you WILL find the game a different experience. Take a chance, fail. Without the chance for failure there are no rewards, and quick save and revert remove ALL chance for failure. Figure out you forgot a fuel hose without them.

If you want to play baby mode, fine. Just don't come crawling with a pacifier in your mouth crying about how you broke your rattle. You might as well explain how easy it was to beat XCOM because Ironman was too hard.

By the way, I'm not insisting there is no adjustments to be made. Five years to rescue a Kerbal trapped in orbit around Kerbin is just a BIT on the long side. I'm saying if you aren't taking advantages of all the challenge the stock game has to offer, you are in no position to even begin to speculate on what those adjustments are.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Hyomoto

[Sky_walker]

It's easy to think it's overpowered when you don't have to pay to unlock the parts.

I do think it's overpowered and I do pay for parts.

Few satellites in crucial locations = no problem with cash. Ever.

Using SSTOs and small satellites also helps, but as long as you don't build one of these monstrosities people used to visit all moons of Jool - you won't have too much of a problem with cash.

It's easy to think it's overpowered when you play with reverting and quick saves

Yea, I did revert, but only because of bugs. I'm here to play the game, not fight against buggy code in KSP (I play hard with quicksave enabled - got way too bad experience with bugs all over the place (eg. random spacecraft deassembly when crossing SoI) to harass myself with that)

And despite what some players will claim, being in the minority that they are, if you punch the difficulty up to hard you WILL find the game a different experience.

Different - yes. Hard? No.

IMHO current hard difficulty with load/save enabled should replace "normal" difficulty. With 2 steps harder above it. And a game balance fixed.

Current easy difficulty is a joke. It's like a sandbox mode, only with more dialogs.

I'm saying if you aren't taking advantages of all the challenge the stock game has to offer, you are in no position to even begin to speculate on what those adjustments are.

And... what exactly you are trying to imply here?

Easy solution: Don't use Strategies, and play like in 0.24.

Yea, that's pretty much the only way to have a sensible balance in KSP at the moment. Still far from perfect (eg. deadlines are meaningless joke) but better than toying with thousands of science you get flooded with otherwise.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Sky_walker

[webkilla]

Easy solution: Don't use Strategies, and play like in 0.24.

Ya... but that almost completely undermines the idea of the strategies - which is why I'm raising the issue

[troyfawkes]

My 2 cents:

1) Funds for Science is definitely broken. 35 funds for 1 science just doesn't make sense, even on Hard+Ironman mode. I just enabled it to see its effects and for one mission I got twice my fully scienced out lander missions -- 550 science -- (100k funds, 20% went to science at the 35:1 ratio). Even for Normal this ratio is too good, I'd say at best 250:1 should be vanilla. 20k funds = 80 Science.

As a standard point, on 40% funds, rescuing a kerbal is about 30k funds, 20% of that is 6k, and at 250:1 you'd get 24 science. That sounds about right to me.

2) Everyone building ultra efficient rockets and complaining about how easy it is... You're good at the game If you stream or read forums you'll notice that a huge number of people can't even get to the Mun; that gap is huge. There are some mods that make the game much harder but also more rewarding, e.g. Deadly Reentry, NEAR/FAR + KIDS, Remote Tech (required for you "Oh I just probed everywhere in 1 launch" folks), etc.

Should Squad implement the mod behaviour? I don't know, let's not be so hypothetical. There are solutions for power gamers, let's not worry about where they come from

[Crzyrndm]

You can always change the balance via. a mod...

Outsourced R&D and it's insane returns aren't the only issue with strategies. Conversion from funds gives insane results, conversion to funds gives terrible results. Reputation <-> Science equivalencies are also not very well considered since the less reputation your program has, the more of it you get (and the 8:1 conversion ratio for reputation to funds is completely worthless leaving science as your only alternative). Even if you don't like my numbers, the .cfg is there and very easy to edit.

TLDR

Why whine when you can fix

[Hyomoto]

And... what exactly you are trying to imply here?

I'm not implying anything. I specifically stated, without reservation, that you are in no position to comment on what the adjustment to difficulty needs to be.

[webkilla]

TLDR

Why whine when you can fix

because Squad should make a proper fix to the game - not expect players to fix it

[Snark]

Suggestion: Change it from "convert N% of funds into science". Instead, make it multiplicative: "get N% less funds (from everything), receive N% more science (from everything)." e.g. set the slider to 20%, I get 20% less money for everything that gives money, and 20% more science from everything that gives science.

I think a big part of what makes this feature seem "broken" to so many people is that it goes against a basic KSP game mechanic, which is "science is about discovery."

Squad did an absolutely brilliant job with the basic design of how you get science: by going places and doing new things. New experience = learning = science. Especially key to the design is the fact that you can't get more science by doing the same thing again. If I've got my seismic scan from a particular biome on Minmus, I can't get more science by doing that same thing again. I have to do something different. This is a great way to give the player an incentive to go lots of different places and do different things. The get-less-science-if-you-transmit mechanic is great, too-- it gives you a reward for doing a return mission, which is a bigger challenge.

The current turn-funds-into-science mechanic turns that on its head. No discovery is needed. Just turn the crank and out comes science, in fully-repeatable fashion. There's no reward-incentive for going anywhere.

By making this to a percentage boost to science, that means all the basic game mechanics still hold-- something that was zero science before is still zero science, all the rewards are still in place. It just makes it so the player has the option of making science a bit less hard, in exchange for making funds a bit more hard.

(And of course, one would need to tune the percentages for playability/balance-- i.e. likely the percentage boost to the one shouldn't exactly equal the percentage hit to the other-- but that's just a detail to work out.)

[webkilla]

Suggestion: Change it from "convert N% of funds into science". Instead, make it multiplicative: "get N% less funds (from everything), receive N% more science (from everything)." e.g. set the slider to 20%, I get 20% less money for everything that gives money, and 20% more science from everything that gives science.

I think a big part of what makes this feature seem "broken" to so many people is that it goes against a basic KSP game mechanic, which is "science is about discovery."

Squad did an absolutely brilliant job with the basic design of how you get science: by going places and doing new things. New experience = learning = science. Especially key to the design is the fact that you can't get more science by doing the same thing again. If I've got my seismic scan from a particular biome on Minmus, I can't get more science by doing that same thing again. I have to do something different. This is a great way to give the player an incentive to go lots of different places and do different things. The get-less-science-if-you-transmit mechanic is great, too-- it gives you a reward for doing a return mission, which is a bigger challenge.

The current turn-funds-into-science mechanic turns that on its head. No discovery is needed. Just turn the crank and out comes science, in fully-repeatable fashion. There's no reward-incentive for going anywhere.

By making this to a percentage boost to science, that means all the basic game mechanics still hold-- something that was zero science before is still zero science, all the rewards are still in place. It just makes it so the player has the option of making science a bit less hard, in exchange for making funds a bit more hard.

(And of course, one would need to tune the percentages for playability/balance-- i.e. likely the percentage boost to the one shouldn't exactly equal the percentage hit to the other-- but that's just a detail to work out.)

Highlighted for truth

this explains the issue quite well - i applaud you

[Laie]

I think a big part of what makes this feature seem "broken" to so many people is that it goes against a basic KSP game mechanic, which is "science is about discovery."

[...]

The current turn-funds-into-science mechanic turns that on its head. No discovery is needed. Just turn the crank and out comes science, in fully-repeatable fashion. There's no reward-incentive for going anywhere.

One gripe I have since forever is that I don't quite see how taking the Mun's temperature leads to the development of better engines. I do agree that science can serve as a reward-incentive; I do not think that directly linking it to the discovery of new technologies is strictly necessary, or even a good idea.

IMO, uncovering the tech tree is a means, not an end in itself. When I started my very first game, I went straight into sandbox and was totally overwhelmed with the parts list. Career mode served as a tutorial and introduction. Great. But this doesn't mean that the final technologies should be withheld until one is basically done with the game. I want to have pretty much everything *before* I go on Jool-5, because afterwards... what am I supposed to do with it?

I've used funds to science and uncovered pretty much everything before I even went to the Mun. This means that for the very first time, I can plan and build the "perfect" Munar program; what's more, any infrastructure I put in place will be re-usable for Duna. The downside is that I don't really need much infrastructure because I don't have to visit the Mun anymore. Once, for the achievement, will be enough. Is that good or bad?

If I was a rookie, I'd totally go for the Mun, just because it's there. The desire to visit all places is be a stronger incentive than any kind of science points could ever be. And if someone doesn't want to land on the Mun, or Duna, I wonder why that person is playing KSP at all.

Squad did an absolutely brilliant job with the basic design of how you get science: by going places and doing new things. New experience = learning = science. Especially key to the design is the fact that you can't get more science by doing the same thing again.

Well, but almost the same thing. Landing in one crater or another isn't all that different, really. But then again, some places seem to be more interesting than others... I can't tell you why, but I'm not as fed up with Minmus although I went there just as often as to the Mun. Likewise, Vall and Duna are still interesting while Tylo and Moho have been struck from the list after the first visit.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Laie