Misplaced a Zero?

[Whirligig Girl]

Tier 2 to Tier 3 Research and Development Facility Upgrade: 3,180,000 Funds. Wot. None of the other facilities have that big a price increase, not even the VAB. Surely this was a misplaced zero. Surely. And if not, then it must be reduced anyway, this is truly just too much. I'm going to cheat through this, making sure to have the same amount of money I would have if I only spent 318,000 funds.

[Anquietas314]

Tier 2 to Tier 3 Research and Development Facility Upgrade: 3,180,000 Funds. Wot. None of the other facilities have that big a price increase, not even the VAB. Surely this was a misplaced zero. Surely.

PSST. It's twice that on hard difficulty, but that isn't a wildly unreasonable price considering the previous upgrade (in normal) is ~500k. Too much, yes. Insane, no.

[Bill Phil]

This is more of a balance thing. It prevents you from getting so far in the tech tree early on. Basically preventing one mission tech tree missions. I was going to put a tech limit on the game anyways...

Although, a good way to force you to leave Kerbin would be to lower the science modifier in the system. Mun and Minmus are just too high.

[eRe4s3r]

The price of the RD facility is actually substantially higher than any other price in the game. If this is intentionally then it must be said that even with the mod that converts science gains to money, funding multi at 400% and several station science and science mods I literally never got enough money to unlock that tier 3 yet. For me the price is actually 12.8 million

Custom difficulty, 4 times the gains, 4 times the risks mode (And "buy parts" active) so actually tier 3 is not just a grind, it's a huge barrier, most of the tech in those tiers costs upwards of 200k credits to fully unlock.

I think the upgrading of that building should nor be in tiers, but we build "sub-buildings" to unlock certain tech-tree nodes. So if we wanted some tier 3 tech, we need to build the buildings that that node required.

Maybe moddable?

[Anquietas314]

eRe4s3r: I don't think you can really blame squad that your career mode is difficult if you set the building costs that high yourself.

[eRe4s3r]

eRe4s3r: I don't think you can really blame squad that your career mode is difficult if you set the building costs that high yourself.

Well of course though I also increased funding income by the same amount, but the RnD cost is clearly above any other cost in the game. The problem isn't really the cost itself, the problem is that it's a progression blocker of epic proportions that is a binary switch to unlock the ENTIRE remaining tech tree. Seems like a bad idea to do this like that, especially when mods add tons of more nodes (All behind the tier 3 "paywall")

I would really prefer if the upgrades to the buildings were more gradual anyway with at least 10 tiers, especially the RnD facility. I don't care if Tier 10 then costs 20 million, as long as it doesn't lock me out of the tech I want (in this case, it's RTG's, RTG's are behind a tier 3 node)

Ps.: And when I get down to it, when you enable in the options that you have to BUY unlocked parts, then the RnD building upgrade price becomes not just excessive, but absolutely insane. For that option the RnD building should upgrade with the nodes unlocked and % of parts purchased, not by investing in the actual building.. for only the 1 gain that you unlock more nodes to spend cash on, that you definitely won't have over after an 12.8 million entry purchase

In the end this is a balance issue as much as it is a design issue. With only 3 tiers, the final tier inevitably has to cost a lot of cash.

Edited December 21, 2014 by eRe4s3r

[Bill Phil]

I think that you should keep the models, but the first upgrades bring you better performance, and then change the models later on.

[Anquietas314]

eRe4s3r: I also have the buy parts option enabled. I'm managing just fine; it takes a while, but you can certainly get plenty money without too much trouble. Think of it as an opportunity to learn to do more with the lower tier stuff Currently I have all the buildings to at least tier 2, with mission control/launchpad (possibly others I've forgotten about - in the middle of a long mission that doesn't respond well to switching ships) at tier 3 and $874k available. I always found RTGs to be a bad trade-off anyway, with the small exception of driving at night on, say, Duna. Otherwise they're just too heavy compared to solar panels to be worth it, imho.

[Starman4308]

Maybe moddable?

The cost of upgrading buildings is the one part of the system which is moddable. The No More Grind mod can reduce all building upgrades by a flat rate: I'm sure that, if you know how to write code, you can figure out how to make it a bit more specific than that*.

*If you do figure that out, please send a pull request the authors' way. I really need to get Renegotiator finished, else I'd take a crack at it.

[Rusty6899]

I'm still saving up for the Tier 2 R&D. I'll probably have it by tonight. It's over 1,000,000 funds on Hard and most of the buildings seem to at least triple between upgrades, so I'm prepared for a big outlay. It is quite annoying at the moment as I only have one technology left to purchase before I finish the portion of the tree that is available.

[MKI]

I played on intermediate and had a stockpile of nearly 800 science before getting to teir 2 RND. I like the idea of a total bottleneck to tech. If its to easy the other buildings would just become the bottle necks. This way I have to make "large" rockets with crappier parts, which seems totally reasonable to me.

PS Intermediate I believe tier 1 to tier 2 upgrade was 700k~?

[Anquietas314]

I'm still saving up for the Tier 2 R&D. I'll probably have it by tonight. It's over 1,000,000 funds on Hard and most of the buildings seem to at least triple between upgrades, so I'm prepared for a big outlay. It is quite annoying at the moment as I only have one technology left to purchase before I finish the portion of the tree that is available.

The tier 3 upgrade is 6 million on hard. Yup.