Reputation - a useless resource?

[cicatrix]

Currently, reputation has little-to-none impact on the gameplay in career mode. Moreover, its calculation principles are a bit vague and whenever a mission should 'in theory' make a big reputation boost, actually there's not that much rep points awarded.

And generally, aside from 'historical events' like "first (some action in space)" there's not much you can build your reputation upon. Actually, having played through three career modes, visited all celestial bodies I never actually cared what my current reputation is.

We have parts that do science, but we doesn't have parts that do reputation. Say, we can conduct PR-campaigns, make TV-shows from Mun, etc. Moreover, we should be getting more finance due to a high reputation and vice versa.

Actually, what I propose - put finance in direct dependence from reputation. Add loans/interest rates which depend on reputation, make parts that can generate reputation points and generally - make reputation more useful.

[Wanderfound]

1) Most of what you're proposing is covered by strategies already (e.g. aggressive negotiations converts reputation to funds; unpaid interns convert reputation to science; PR campaigns convert funds to reputation; etc.).

2) Reputation has a lot more obvious gameplay impact when it's low. Start with zero rep, kill a few Kerbals, and you won't be getting anything but part-testing contracts until you've restored the credibility of your space agency.

[Kegereneku]

Even if it look like ranting, he got a point here.

What real use is there to reputation if it only matter when its low ? Especially since it's when you'll be killing the more Kerbals.

Either reputation is an indicator of your in-game progression, which can decrease to lower contract difficulty.

Or reputation is a valuable resources that can be used to shape the way you play and gain science/money.

But to me it cannot be both because they interfere with each other.

Though, I'm interested myself by making finance dependent from reputation because of my own idea of getting "budget" from reputation. (a different idea from OP)

[FunnyBunny14]

If you've got more reputation you have better missions. It even works up to higher levels, but nobody notices it because they have so much reputation after the first few flights.

[worir4]

It's a colourful bar at the top of the screen. Now who doesn't want that eh?

[LethalDose]

I've read that there's also an upper limit to the amount of rep you can have. Once you get rep to a certain point, the amount of rep you gain becomes very small compared to what it used to be, e.g. if a mission gave you 75 rep when you had 50 rep, that same mission would give like 7 rep if you had 500 rep.

I'm not sure what the numbers are exactly, but its basically just diminishing returns after a point. Again, based on what I've read.

[worir4]

I've read that there's also an upper limit to the amount of rep you can have. Once you get rep to a certain point, the amount of rep you gain becomes very small compared to what it used to be, e.g. if a mission gave you 75 rep when you had 50 rep, that same mission would give like 7 rep if you had 500 rep.

I'm not sure what the numbers are exactly, but its basically just diminishing returns after a point. Again, based on what I've read.

I think that it is impossible to reach 1000 as the number you get just gets smaller and smaller.

[LABHOUSE]

Exactly why I make 10% of rep be money and 10% be science.

[Tw1]

I also think that would be a reasonable idea. Plus, reputation could be dependent on how much science you're doing.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/1767-Science-is-pretty-shallow-Could-it-be-shaken-up-a-bit

Reputation could be the measure of how well your program is doing.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Tw1

[cicatrix]

Look at what happens in real world.

NASA and other space agencies are mostly financed from governments. To simplify things - the government gives a fixed amount of money to its space agency and the space agency then decides (ideally LOL) what can be accomplished with this. If the space agency wastes money on failed launches or worse - killing astronauts then it would be logical that the next year's amount would be lower. From the other hand, if this space agency achieves something and thus makes itself useful (by providing either economic or reputational benefits) the funding would most likely be increased the next year. Reputation is ultimately is public opinion (what the taxpayers think of the ways you spend their money).

From what we have in KSP now I gather the space program is only sponsored by Kerbal corporations. And corporations would hardly be interested in exploring Jool without any theoretic profits to consider. If we're driven by private contracts then reputation should reflect the commercial potential of missions you perform.

[Wanderfound]

If you think your rep is uselessly high, go for Aggressive Negotiations. That's what it's for.