Balance after Mun

[Marclev]

Ok, having posted a thread about how great hard mode was a few days ago...

With a rapidly dwindling amount of credits of 15,000 I launched a rickety contraption of a Mun lander for 14,500 in a last ditch make or break attempt to boost my credit rating with the lucrative first Mun Exploration contract. With a hope and a prayer it made it there, Jeb transmitted the orbital crew report and EVA, and then touched down, transmitted the surface crew report (with which the mission was complete) and got the surface EVA and surface sample.

I then checked the available contracts and found already a "collect science from space around the Mun", and "collect science from the Mun surface" so figured I'd pick that up on the return leg, along with a "collect science from space around Kerbin" for good measure. The makeshift Mun lander somehow made it back to Kerbin with fumes left in the tank and I recovered the craft to see that I now had over 300,000 funds available!!!

Since then I've been raking in money as even without a permanent Mun base or satellite I can accept the flag and science missions and sent my el-cheapo Mun lander up for 15k to collect combined rewards of over 50k. I haven't bothered to go to the other bodies yet, but I'm assuming they'd give an even bigger return on investment.

tl;dr: The point of this post, is that the game balance on hard mode is great up until you manage to land on the Mun and after that seems completely in the players' favour. Surely it should be the other way around (i.e. easy to start with and then get progressively harder, not tough to start with as you haven't got enough funds and then basically sandbox as you collect money left right and center)??

Edited October 15, 2014 by Marclev

[tater]

tl;dr: The point of this post, is that the game balance on hard mode is great up until you manage to land on the Mun and after that seems completely in the players' favour. Surely it should be the other way around (i.e. easy to start with and then get progressively harder, not tough to start with as you haven't got enough funds and then basically sandbox as you collect money left right and center)??

This is basically what many of us were saying. That even with Hard plus sliders left, the game would start slightly slower, then degrease to sandbox quickly. Had you used your first 15k (with whatever parts unlocked required) and gone to the Mun, it would have been gravy from even earlier. I think nI reported that I was on the Mun (or in orbit) my 3d launch… You also have to assume that most playing "Hard" have probably played at least one other career before, and hence know how to make a simple Mun rocket.

[Tex_NL]

From the space center get each and every 'landed on Kerbin' mission! Remove all fuel, activate the part and recover for 100%. You don't even have to leave the launchpad.

Rescue missions are also a great way to make some cash. Especially when you've got SSTO plane technology. Land on the runway for 100% recovery.

And last but not least: once you do land on Mun before leaving check for new Mun contracts. You can accept contracts at any given time.

[Norpo]

Yeah, i'm having the same issue. I was really struggling, until I sent something to the Mun, and then I could afford everything.

It might change later, when I have to scrape up the cash to go to duna, but I don't think it will. same situation, 30k funds, then went to mun, now i'm rolling in the funds like scrooge mcduck in a room of gold.

[Marclev]

From the space center get each and every 'landed on Kerbin' mission! Remove all fuel, activate the part and recover for 100%. You don't even have to leave the launchpad.

Rescue missions are also a great way to make some cash. Especially when you've got SSTO plane technology. Land on the runway for 100% recovery.

And last but not least: once you do land on Mun before leaving check for new Mun contracts. You can accept contracts at any given time.

Umm ... yes, well thank you for the contribution. To be fair, I did put a tl;dr bit at the end for people who didn't want to read the entire thing...

Edited October 15, 2014 by Marclev

[Marclev]

This is basically what many of us were saying. That even with Hard plus sliders left, the game would start slightly slower, then degrease to sandbox quickly. Had you used your first 15k (with whatever parts unlocked required) and gone to the Mun, it would have been gravy from even earlier. I think nI reported that I was on the Mun (or in orbit) my 3d launch… You also have to assume that most playing "Hard" have probably played at least one other career before, and hence know how to make a simple Mun rocket.

I agree. I think it took me a few more than 3 launches but not that much more. I was just dissapointed as I was having a great time with the challenge and from one moment to the next it dissapeared. It was a promising enough start though, I hope Squad can find a way to maintain the level of tension that comes from only having limited funds for longer in a future update (although at some point you do then obviously just want to build crazy stuff).

[Marclev]

Yeah, i'm having the same issue. I was really struggling, until I sent something to the Mun, and then I could afford everything.

It might change later, when I have to scrape up the cash to go to duna, but I don't think it will. same situation, 30k funds, then went to mun, now i'm rolling in the funds like scrooge mcduck in a room of gold.

http://i.imgur.com/zYISVgm.png

Not much to add except to approve of the Scrooge McDuck reference!

[sal_vager]

Games not finished buddy, can't expect perfect balance right away

[Marclev]

Games not finished buddy, can't expect perfect balance right away

Sure, I'm posting the feedback in the hope that something gets done about it.

[[email protected]]

I think there are some changes that could help. I like that you now have to purchase every part after researching a node but I think it could be even better. Say with each node you unlock that there is research time. Meaning that it takes a day or two to research cheaper nodes, and much longer to research more expensive nodes...and that you could only have one node being researched at a time. Add an option where you could spend additional science on a node to decrease its research time, but it costs greater funds to unlock the parts if you do so.

Couple this with something akin to construction time and more pressing contracts and you can add a dynamic to the game that just isn't there right now. Pressuring you to decide between forgoing certain parts on a mission where the time window is closing, or to splurge additional valuable resources on it to get those extra parts.

Its just too easy to click to unlock ten nodes at once, still too easy even with the additional funding cost because I can just cherry pick the parts I want.

[r_rolo1]

The issue is that the 0.24 balance of science and funds ( aka our current "Normal" difficulty in 0.25 ) was made with the objective of catering new players in a way that they could get all the science tree without going interplanetary ( something that comes from even before ), plus the funds to keep up with that in terms of ship building ( in terms of contract revenues ). Thus ( IMHO, others disagree ) the game balance in terms of difficulty/reward is heavily unbalanced towards the Kerbin minisystem ( mainly the Mun and Minmus missions ) in the "Normal" difficulty , and as the sliders do not address that particular aspect, that behavior is carried towards the other difficulties ...

[prophet_01]

I am ok with the balance shifted towards mun and minmus for new players. But the sliders to reduce science everywhere by the same rate are not going to work to change that on hard mode. For hard mode I suggest to lower the amount of science from mun and minmus and beyond by a higher factor than on kerbin. I agree that at the start of a career it is more or less balanced. It's those tests for large engines and mun/minmus/other planets contracts that need to be nerfed (on hard mode). The idea of sliders is a good idea but it needs to nerf specific areas a lot more than others.

I was having a great time for my first 20 missions in career hard mode. It's not that I am not capable to land on tier one, I just don't want to I do suborbital launches, flybys on free return trajectories and all that stuff. I refuse to recover much beyond pods and parachutes at the begining. I am kinda adicted to roleplay I guess But then I wanted to get dome budget for an apollo style landing. I did a test contract for a mainsale and suddenly had roughly 400 science... I don't want to get that much science for this little effort it gave me around the same amount of science as my actual landing...

Edited October 16, 2014 by prophet_01

[Padishar]

In general, I think that getting more science for testing a part than it costs to unlock the whole node containing that part is simply wrong, no matter where you are asked to test it...