Alternate contract/funding system

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

(I'm labeling this as a suggestion because I'm making a specific suggestion, but maybe it would be better labeled as "discussion" or as a request in the addon section. What do you all think?)

The current funding/contract model in KSP is not much like a space agency. NASA is the one handing out contracts, overseeing projects, operating missions, and performing research. By and large, they do not handle rocket construction. That's the part that they contract out.

The current contract system is much more like the business models of the aerospace industry. Customers want satellites, rockets, or whatever to do this or that, and they'll pay some money to make it happen. If the mission succeeds, the company gets kudos and more customers come to them, and if it fails, customers look elsewhere.

I get why the contract system is the way it is (both of those aspects of aerospace are interesting, and contracts do make nice ways for encouraging players to try new kinds of missions -- I think I read someone in the Fine Print thread saying that they wouldn't have tried building stations or whatever without Fine Print giving them the idea), but I think that the model could be tweaked to be more like the way that real space agencies work while keeping those nice features.

Rather than getting funding per-contract, the agency could be funded more like XCOM or Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager, receiving a certain amount of funding each month (30 days, plus six extra to be distributed to a few months each year, plus leap years) as a budget, with the value growing or shrinking depending on the agency's reputation at review time. Most of the contract and strategy system could stay as-is, representing the wishlist of whatever political body it is which funds the agency (or the companies which fund their re-election campaigns). This would also have the effect of spreading out the agency's launches over time, much like Kerbal Construction Time does.

That's the quick-and-dirty modification. With the new upgradeable-base system coming in 0.90, the funding and research system could be overhauled much more significantly. Rather than chasing parts-testing and other simple contracts, the agency could receive monthly funding with minor adjustments based on reputation, and then big changes at yearly reviews on progress towards bigger goals that start with "get something into space" and ends with "Kerbalkind ascends into the cosmos" (cf. Rockwell's Integrated Space Plan), with goals following each other in a tree structure (the agency gets to determine which goal it's working on at any time, though the penalty for switching goals mid-way may be quite severe).

What do you think? Should Squad try to implement my suggestion, or should I brush up my C# (or whatever language it is that mods are made in) and do it myself? I imagine that malkuth's Mission Controller 2 might be a good basis for a mod that revises the mission system like this...

[Red Iron Crown]

The issue with money over time (and with science over time, as has been suggested too) is: What is to stop a player from just timewarping until enough money is available? It seems like it is a financial reward for not doing anything, rather than a reward for doing something as in the current contract system. How would your proposed system avoid that issue?

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

If you don't get results, taxpayers are displeased and your reputation (and funding) gets cut. Something like Punish the Lazy. Might need a lot of tweaking to give the appropriate time (edit: and budget) for launching to the Mun vs. a mission to Jool (edit: and/or incremental milestones to meet along the way).

Edit: XCOM and SPM have the "advantage" for this approach of having opponents who will punish players if they sit back and do nothing. SPM also has a much more scripted path (players can made choices about resource allocation and program management, but the general path is set).

Edited November 30, 2014 by Kerbas_ad_astra

[BudgetHedgehog]

Yeah, I like this. Or maybe even not tie the budget to rep at all - at the end of every month, all activity is taken into account (SoIs entered, orbits achieved, bodies landed on, recovery of vessels after X, Science from surface of Y etc. The game can already track the first instance of these, just make it track on a month-by-month basis as well) and budget awarded as appropriate. This has the added bonus of neither penalising nor rewarding inactivity (such as Jool transfer) - if you do nothing, you get nothing. Gotta keep them launches and explorations going if you want to keep the money rolling in. Course, you'd have to severely nerf or eliminate the cash payouts for contract rewards as otherwise, you'd quickly end up with more money than you know what to do with. It would depend on the contract though, I guess.. the Explore X contracts would have no cash reward (you use the budget to fund those), Science From X would have no cash reward.. survey contracts (on Kerbin at least) would be mainly cash reward though - no science or rep to be gained from exploring your own planet. Come to think of it, survey contracts everywhere would be mainly cash reward too - you already have Science contracts and Plant Flag contracts to get science and Rep. Part testing and Asteroid Wrangling should be a mix of all three, I think.

Talking of Science contracts, only make it count if a non-zero amount of science is transmitted/recovered. Would stop the exploit of putting a thermometer on the Mun and saying 'yep, still pretty cold' every time someone asks. The game already knows how much science is available and where (see the Science Archives) - make contracts based on that rather than arbitrarily. Once all Science in the system has been gained, you're able to unlock the tree anyway so you don't need them any more (but you could still get Science from part tests).

Strategies.. they'd be roughly the same as they are now, just a bit of rethinking/rewording needed. Or maybe they could be targeted to affect specific contract types, rather than globally? Globally would still be an option, though (see SKB for suitable examples). Like, make one give cash instead of Science for Science From X missions, under the guise of an agency wanting to know how cold Eeloo is for their own private needs. You give them the knowledge, they pay you for it.

Just some ideas I had, is all.

[Kegereneku]

The issue with money over time (and with science over time, as has been suggested too) is: What is to stop a player from just timewarping until enough money is available? It seems like it is a financial reward for not doing anything, rather than a reward for doing something as in the current contract system. How would your proposed system avoid that issue?

I don't know how Kerbas_ad_astra intend to avoid it but there is easy fix to this like establishing an upper limit you have to work to raise.

Right now we are used to the game treating "Time" as (near)meaningless, when ideally it should be part of the game logic.

Taking time into account would allow :

- to avoid launching 50 rockets in 3 day until that time you aim farther than Minmus

- to make contract deadline more important

- to make launch windows important (can you assemble your multi-ship Exploration fleet in time ?)

- and it would encourage parallel mission.

A self-replenishing -yet balanced with upper limit and all- budget could allow :

- to avoid entirely the need to grind for money

- to avoid systematic flight-reset or even counter it

- to increase rocket size more progressively

And I see no reason it wouldn't work with Fine Print Contract, Strategy, Building Upgrade, although it would require balance.

So I suspect the main reason any "time-based-budget" will be hard to sell, is that some players want to feel like they are managing a successful business, not an Agency that can only accomplish anything using public money, even if its realistic and Reputation is a noble goal in itself.

[Red Iron Crown]

Kegereneku, looking at your linked suggestion thread it looks like you'd get around the time warp exploit by not counting time passed in warp towards money over time. Wouldn't that penalize legitimate uses of time warp? Wouldn't it promote leaving your save running at 1x while you sleep/work/eat? Honest questions, not 100% sure I understand your idea.

[Kegereneku]

Well, my linked suggestion can't have been perfect, but no, I still do not expect anything like that happening with the projected system.

(I ought to rework that suggestion some day, including strategy & building upgrade)

The two rules are :

- If you do nothing that produce any change, your budget plus eventual extra-funds you gained have no reason to change.

- If you reach the end of the <administrative time period> while under-budget, be it in real-time or timewarp, the budget refill up to the limit. A limit you play to increase.

This suggestion's main goal was to get rid of the need to "grind all 100% of your money back" after a failure, thereby allowing less generous contract which for now make it pretty hard to lack money.

It rely on there being no "money/reputation per time" in the game, which is a perfectly legitimate&interesting design choice even if others players would like to turn KSP into a economy/tycoon game.

The suggestion was made in 0.24 when there was no administrative building, but I do not see be incompatible with strategy althought the effect of those would certainly change.

[FishInferno]

I like this idea very much. Especially late-game when it is just boring to do the part-test contracts. Maybe in the beginning of a career game, you do not get your monthly "paycheck" until you have completed enough contracts, gotten X reputation, etc.

I think there should also be a reward for Kerbals kept in orbit, like a space station. However, I think that the money gained from this should "wear off" to enforce the need to bring up new crews for stations.