Campaign: forum controlled KSP campaign: Space race to the Mun!!

[Zutha]

Well umbral, everyone who went for 70km now has two choices:

1. Buy tech and do a lower tier mission to get screwed again as on average it will obviously costs less not factoring in tech.

2. Don\'t buy tech 3 and again do a low quality mission to hopefully catch up with the people who got an \'advance to go\' from Tog.

While Jamini who did the 35k with tech 2 items can just carry on advancing, buying the tech 3 and and do the more difficult tasks for better reward.

R&D costs may be one time, but to ignore them completely, not factor them into the cost of the ship at all and give a higher reward to people who achieved less is fucking stupid.

I understand there\'s teething problems in this, but that fact that you tog are trying to back up the amounts for round 2 and seriously believe that having a higher reward for doing less is the direction you want to take it.

Then as i said before, it\'s not a space race or campaign.

It\'s a \'who do i want to win\' campaign.

I seriously can\'t believe people think it\'s right....

[UmbralRaptor]

My argument was much smaller in scale and apparently too subtle? This is *not* about the rewards side of things. Paying, say, ¤8000, ¤8000, ¤5000, ¤5000 for a series of missions will benefit you more than paying ¤6000, ¤8000, ¤12000, ¤13000. (all other things being equal)

That rewards in a given turn appear to be based on average amount spent on that mission plus some percent is a different problem. There are real risks of something like Progress Quest, rubber banding, perverse incentives (like you said, and depressingly realistic), etc. I\'d prefer more than 2 turns to see how this plays out, though.

For a lack of anything else WRT payments and appropriate designs: some of the designs I went through for these past 2 turns:

[table]

[tr]

[td]Propulsion[/td] [td]Rocket Cost[/td] [td]TL[/td] [td]Cost w/ R&D[/td] [td]Mission[/td] [td]Notes[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]3 SRB[/td] [td]¤4272[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]¤4272[/td] [td]10,000 m alt[/td] [td]Burn 2, 1[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]4 SRB[/td] [td]¤4722[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]¤4722[/td] [td]16,500 m alt[/td] [td]Burn 2, 1, 1 or 2, 2[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]6 SRB[/td] [td]¤5622[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]¤5622[/td] [td]35,000 m alt[/td] [td]Burn 2, 2[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]8 SRB + 1 TR-18[/td] [td]¤7497[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]¤7497[/td] [td]35,000 m alt[/td] [td]Burn 3, 2, stage, 2, 1. Fully conventional staging.[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]9 SRB[/td] [td]¤6972[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]¤6972[/td] [td]70,000 m alt[/td] [td]Burn 4, 2, 2, 1[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]10 SRB + 1 TR-18[/td] [td]¤8397[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]¤8397[/td] [td]70,000 m alt[/td] [td]Burn 3, 2, stage, 2, 1. Fully conventional staging.[/td]

[/tr]

[tr][td]2 FLT-250 + 2 LV-909[/td] [td]¤4872[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]¤7872[/td] [td]35,000 m alt[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]2 FLT-500 + 2 LV-909[/td] [td]¤5322[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]¤8322[/td] [td]70,000 m alt[/td] [td]May be capable of 350+ km range.[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]3 FLT-500 + 3 LV-909[/td] [td]¤6522[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]¤9522[/td] [td]LKO (briefly)[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]1 FLT-500 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤4222[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]¤11122[/td] [td]16,500 m alt[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]1 FLT-500 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤3800[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]¤10800[/td] [td]16,500 m alt[/td] [td]No parachute. Powered landing required.[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]1 FLT-500 + 1 FLT-250 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤4447[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]¤11447[/td] [td]70,000 m alt[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]2 FLT-500 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤4672[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]¤11672[/td] [td]70,000 m alt[/td] [td]May be capable of 350+ km range.[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]3 FLT-500 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤5122[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]¤12122[/td] [td]LKO (briefly)[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]4 FLT-500 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤5572[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]¤12572[/td] [td]LKO (briefly)[/td] [td]Any inclination possible, can carry some additional payload.[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]5 FLT-500 + 1 LV-T30[/td] [td]¤6522[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]¤37522[/td] [td]11,400,000 m alt[/td] [td]Münar flyby possible. Carries 1 ZO2 solar panel.[/td][/tr]

[/table]

Full sized tank prices use the forum cost (¤450) instead of the ingame (¤550) one. All rockets are assumed to require a Mk 1 Command Pod, Mk 16 parachute, and ZO2 main (¤2922, 2.5 tonnes). Now for fewer questionable rewards?

edit: fixed some data.

edit 2: additional data point added.

edit 3: Higher TL altitude runs added.

edit 4: minimal TL3 altitude design added.

[togfox]

[table][tr][td]2 FLT-250 + 2 LV-909[/td] [td]5322[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]8322[/td] [td]35,000 m alt[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]2 FLT-500 + 2 LV-909[/td] [td]5322[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]8322[/td] [td]70,000 m alt[/td] [td]May be capable of 350+ km range[/td][/tr]

[/table]

I\'ve added bold. You\'ve highlighted the crux of the problem. The ship used for 35000m is the same for 70000m and this is causing a disparity. If there is a campaign version two then the missions should be looked at carefully so that the same ship design can not satisfy more than one mission. This is where benchmarking is important and what you guys are doing now is providing benchmarking info that can be fed back into v2.

[UmbralRaptor]

I\'ve added bold. You\'ve highlighted the crux of the problem. The ship used for 35000m is the same for 70000m and this is causing a disparity. If there is a campaign version two then the missions should be looked at carefully so that the same ship design can not satisfy more than one mission. This is where benchmarking is important and what you guys are doing now is providing benchmarking info that can be fed back into v2.

Er, that was actually a math error on my part. The 35 km ship should have been ¤4872 by itself, and ¤7872 including research. That said, the 70 km rocket is only 9% more (6% more counting research) than the 35 km one. You\'ll see a similarly tiny cost difference (if any) for 0° (east) vs 90/270° (polar) vs 180° (west) orbits). Expect costs to jump once we\'re doing higher payload and ?V missions, though.

[Zutha]

I guess the crux of it is is, tough shit... it\'s done... move on and pray that this doesn\'t happen again?

I\'m all for carrying on, but the pain for me is feeling like a majority of us simply got cheated... NOT oh an error occurred, actually cheated as it has given people who did less the lead.

[Awaras]

First of all, If you do 35,000m, should that count as completing the 10,000m and 16,500m missions as well, since you technically went over those altitudes and landed safely?

The rewards for doing things that you technically already did (doing 16,500m after you did 35,000m) should be much lower than for missions that you do for the first time.

Just curious, I have done 10,000m, 35,000m and submitted a flight to 70,000m in turn 3. What would be my reward if I did 16,500 now?

Also, if we have the cash, can we do multiple launches per turn?

[togfox]

There was a decision a few pages ago there would be only one launch per turn. You can do the 35000 mission after the 70000 mission but you won\'t be first and that will hurt. The same deal for those that did 35000. They were first on that but won\'t be first on 70000.

It appears some still wish to continue with the campaign. Let\'s end this turn saturday night +10 gmt. That\'s Saturday morning in the US of A.

[Zutha]

Can you populate the rewards for round 3 for each mission?

[DonLorenzo]

Another thought, your system of calculating rewards based on actual submitted craft prices really disincentives designing as cheap as possible. At least if you know or suspect you\'re going to be the only one to do a certain goal.

If i can do a mission for say 5000 credits my reward would be 1.3 x 5000 = 6500 for a 1500 dollar profit.

Now if I tack on another 3000 credits worth of boosters, decouplers or what have you the ship will fly a bit higher but still complete the same objective and my reward would be 8000 x 1.3 = 10400 for a 2400 dollar profit.

Not really the direction you want to be going in, I think?

[togfox]

Agreed. But I never intended on revealing the maths.

Still, you don\'t know who might do the same mission as you so you still need to design cheap.

[UmbralRaptor]

Careful, we\'re in an iterated situation and we can communicate. The standard prisoner\'s dilemma rules may not apply.

---

It looks like doing 1 or more orbits without any deaths requires TL3 or a lot of luck. The 'main' (400 unit) tank seems to last for ~800 seconds, while a 69,078 x 69,078 m orbit takes ~1830 seconds. How many orbits does it take to count as a success, and what happens if 1 or 2 crew members don\'t make it back? If these numbers are correct, then a crew of 3 needs more than one large ZO2 tank per orbit(!) I expect that, payload requirements before the TL5 solar panels are going to get... interesting.

[DonLorenzo]

Togfox said a while back that for the \'orbit\' missions the mere act of establishing orbit already counts. So you don\'t have to stay up there. Anyway you\'re totally right that any extended space ops without the zox panels are very difficult. I tried making a munar-altitude ship with enough zox to make a flyby and boy it was a monster.

[togfox]

Circularising at 70,000 and then re-entry is enough to hit the front pages of the kerbal times.

[UmbralRaptor]

Togfox said a while back that for the \'orbit\' missions the mere act of establishing orbit already counts. So you don\'t have to stay up there. Anyway you\'re totally right that any extended space ops without the zox panels are very difficult. I tried making a munar-altitude ship with enough zox to make a flyby and boy it was a monster.

My very back of the envelope guess is at least 50 large ZO2 tanks (75 tonnes) for a Hohmann ellipse. Something like that 42 minute münshot in the spacecraft exchange would probably be in order. >_>

Circularising at 70,000 and then re-entry is enough to hit the front pages of the kerbal times.

Possibly the best approach for capping off this iteration of the game. Are the reporters at the Kerbal Times counting any orbit, or do they distinguish between ones at different inclinations?

[togfox]

The kerbal press would love to see if any old orbit is possible, being new ground and all. A polar orbit is lised as a separate mission. They want to see if polar bears really do exist ...

[Zutha]

Are you going to provide any information on rewards for this round?

You seems to have a base now for 35k and 70k...

[togfox]

You can expect around 30% profit of whatever your ship cost you. If your craft cost you $1000 then you can expect $1300, as a rule of thumb.

[Zutha]

I\'m withdrawning from the campaign.

It\'s moving in a direction that I dislike where efficiency, ship design and strategy are NOT the factors to winning the space race.

The key to winning this is simply, design the most expensive ship you can and pray everyone else is doing it so you make the most profit.

[DonLorenzo]

We\'ll see how this turn goes, but I\'m gonna go out on a limb here and predict your math approach won\'t lead to fair and balanced rewards this turn either

[pit_muc]

I\'ll continue. Ship submitted for round 3.

[UmbralRaptor]

Mission submitted. Feh.

[Amram]

Just brainstorming here.

I wonder if a budget income system, with a set \'national budget\' and a percentage payout, with a few modifiers based on your missions and progress, with lumpsum payouts for achieving firsts would be a good way to handle such a monetary progression predictably with a minimum of anomalies.

In such a setup, one could use, say, a 200,000 national budget, and dump 1% of that into each person\'s program initially, for a per turn gain of 2000. Apply some inflation, say 13% to the national budget, so that 10 turns later that national budget would be 600800, and as a result, anyone with a 1% budget would get 6008 per turn at that point.

Apply a modifier(or several) based upon overall performance, such as advancing your program. Keep progressing and moving towards some end goal, and you generate prestige for your program, and this makes you look good, so you get larger budgets as a result, something like +0.2% per successful mission that isn\'t to far behind the leading edge. If 0.2% were the value for a full prestige gain, then achieving 35,000m when everyone else achieved 70,000m shouldn\'t be worth the same increase, say 0.15%. You stil progressed, your program is more impressive than it was, but you didn\'t do something new and really WOW people.

Tech should probably have a sliding cost as well. The first to research it pays full cost. All 10 n one turn do it, then all ten pay full cost. Later completions of an already achieved tech level should be cheaper. This of course should wait until after there is a stable cost/income progression that works well with minimal anomalies.

As an incentive to drive forwards and achieve your goals, completing firsts should achieve a one-off payout. Don\'t divide it among those that achieve it, just give it to everyone thats gets there that turn, but it needs to be a campaign first. Going to 35,000m when someone else went to 70,000m is nothing special at all. its a successful mission and progresses your program, so you receive the prestige bonus, but no one-off payout, should have reached 70,000m if you wanted that.

And last, a subsidy system, to keep it interesting. A system like this benefits good players more than anyone else. because everyone works with similar budgets, and has the same prospects to generate a larger bonus, those you can do the same mission on a cheaper budget will have more to work with next turn. Several firsts and several missions with the cheapest rocket, and you could be sitting on a very sizable lead between your budget level, and the surplus cash you have banked at the moment. So to keep players from being left behind in a campaign, subsidize them by some amount to help them keep up once far enough behind. not enough that they can leapfrog the leader and get back out in front, but enough that its VERY difficult to actually get out ahead of the pack enough to be unchallenged in being first to do something.

I make no claims to balance, the numbers are pretty much just off the top of my head and would need some tweaking to find good values, but it might do everything needed from it with a minimum of fuss, and best of all, it could be very predictable. players would know exactly what their payouts might be. If everyone does the same mission in the same turn, the cheapest rocket is the best choice.

Also, it becomes worth considering if you should go for say, the 35000m mission, or go straight to the 70,000m mission. Both will only get you a prestige increase in your budget, each will only get you one payout. the 70,000m mission should probably carry a larger payout, so you get more money sooner, but getting two full size prestige bonuses for doing both missions may well yield the greater income just a couple turns down the road. Choices, places for people to have a different decision and diverge. Makes for an interesting campaign race instead of always only clamoring to do the next mission up, or two ahead of the current one.

leaping ahead might put you ahead and help you stay there by collecting the payouts. more money sooner means more money to do firsts, which means more payouts, and more money to do firsts. steady progression might build the prestige more rapidly and leave you with more income later when preparing to goto the moon if you can\'t easily afford it the moment its viable. once programs reach orbit and there becomes much more room to do a wider selection of missions, the divergent paths might show their strengths since it becomes impossible to guarantee yourself all the firsts, there\'s too many for only you to get them.

One can also crowdsource the list of achievable firsts by looking here, [suggestion] Some suggestions for achievements.

Thats that. Was definitely a good idea to run this campaign. highlighted a few quirks, and all who went into it were cautioned from the beginning anomalies WILL occur, and they have. Growing pains, learn from it, move forward, and see if the model can\'t be improved in a way that eliminates at least some anomalies and introduces fewer than it removes, or none at all preferably.

I\'ve been following it, and using it as a guideline for offline play, its been amusing at least. Just figured I\'d share a thought on another way a funding system might work well.

All in all, I\'d say its off to a good start. its already done what build 1 is supposed to do, it found flaws, now to find more of them and find solutions as they arise. A few campaign iterations down the road we might have a good balance worked out with minimal flaws, and if we have a workable campaign structure, then that doesn\'t have to be done by Squad, which leaves them more time for other stuff, plus we get to play around with campaigns long before they make one themselves, a Win-Win if ever there was one.

[togfox]

Thanks for the positive post Amram. To be honest - I haven\'t read it all just yet as I\'m about to process turn 3. I shall read in depth though as I think you full appreciate the spirit of version 1.

Turn 3 is closed. I\'ll process flights now and post results later.

If any coders are reading this, some cheap and nasty tools would be extremely handy, especially as craft get larger and more expensive.

Results coming soon ...

[togfox]

I\'m beginning to understand what\'s happening here. You\'ll find some 'hard' missions are being flown for a cheaper price than the easy missions. This is because the higher tech in some cases comes at a lower price. It\'s a bit misleading though because the higher tech, with the cheaper parts, actually costs money to unlock. Anyway, here are the stats. One person achieved a \'first\' but did so with a very inefficient craft. This meant that a profit was made but far less than it could have been.

Some people have less balance than they had before but have new tech available and this means cheaper parts. A totally unexpected part of this campaign!

Here we go - I\'m sure you\'ll let me know how this is panning out.

[pre]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Player | Balance | Spent | Income | NewBalance | Turn | Claimed | Profit |

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Alchemist | 7561 | 6747 | 8497 | 9311 | 3 | Polar orbit | 1750 |

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Awaras | 7926 | 5772 | 7090 | 9244 | 3 | 70000 meters | 1318 |

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| CrowZone | 8466 | 5622 | 7447 | 10291 | 3 | 35,000 meters up | 1825 |

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| DonLorenzo | 8011 | 6325 | 8497 | 10183 | 3 | Polar orbit | 2172 |

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| Jamini | 9241 | 4000 | 0 | 5241 | 3 | Techlevel 3 | -4000 |

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| Jamini | 5241 | 4672 | 7731 | 8300 | 3 | 350km east | 3059 |

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| pit_muc | 7961 | 6972 | 7731 | 8720 | 3 | 350km east | 759 |

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| RulerofNothing | 7998 | 3000 | 0 | 4998 | 3 | Techlevel 1 + 2 | -3000 |

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| RulerofNothing | 4998 | 4797 | 7798 | 7999 | 3 | 16500 meters | 3001 |

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Sjwt | 8033 | 6550 | 8497 | 9980 | 3 | 1,400km east | 1947 |

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| STCatto | 7961 | 5397 | 7731 | 10295 | 3 | 350km east | 2334 |

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| UmbralRaptor | 9561 | 3000 | 0 | 6561 | 3 | Techlevel 1 + 2 | -3000 |

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| UmbralRaptor | 6561 | 6522 | 8497 | 8536 | 3 | 1,400km east | 1975 |

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[/pre]

A few people mis-stated their opening balance and craft costs. Please make sure you\'re using the balances on this forum and not whatever you have in your spreadsheets. Remember the cost of a large tank is twice that of a small tank. I think the game has overpriced the large tank.

Turn 4 is now open. Lets close this Wednesday night +10GMT which is Wednesday morning in the USA.

[sjwt]

I got a rule clarification on the \'death tax\', it is 33% PER Dead kerbal.