Funds Imbalance vs Science, Grinding vs Education, and the Purpose of Hard Mode

[toadicus]

There have been numerous threads before discussing the imbalance of Funds and Science; specifically that the amount of effort required to upgrade buildings at higher difficulty settings is disproportionate to the amount of effort required to unlock science. This leaves players with large but unusable stockpiles of science while they grind through funds-heavy contracts. I want to look briefly at why this is bad, and why this is failing to provide a meaningful "hard" mode.

In my current career game, I am playing "Moderate" difficulty with the two "Hard" toggles unchecked (no reverts, no quickloads). I've got a handful of buildings upgraded once, and am staring down the barrel of the first R&G upgrade at 785 kilofunds.

I have science->funds and rep->funds strategies on, have unlocked all of the tier 1 science, and have a 90% profit margin on Kerbin-orbit satellite missions. I can complete any Kerbin-orbit satellite mission with a 10k craft, and get over 90k in reward. This means I need to do 8-10 satellite missions just to unlock the R&D center, so that I can get the tech I need to reasonably move on to interplanetary missions.

At my very fastest, a satellite mission takes at least 5 minutes to do, and usually more like 10. This means I've got an hour or two of monotonous grinding to do in order to move on in the game. I thought I'd left that behind when I quit World of Warcraft.

So, what is the purpose of the funds currency? It seems to me that funds probably has two basic purposes:

• Penalize failure by sinking funds when missions are performed inefficiently or are failed, and
  
• Restrict scope in the early game to promote education
  

Currently, Funds are failing at both of these goals on harder difficulty settings. With a profit margin of 90%, failing a mission is effectively no penalty at all. Considering the price disparity between my satellite craft (10k) and the progress gate (785k), losing a ship costs me about 1% of my goal. This is not a meaningful penalty; losing the 5-10 minutes of real-world time that it took to execute the mission was way more painful.

Too, "hard mode" is something that is ostensibly undertaken by more expert players. Expert players need less time sink in the name of education, not more. Lengthening the early game in the name of "difficulty" is frustrating to expert players, not rewarding.

I suggest that -- at least in hard mode -- the price of rocket parts be increased substantially compared to contract rewards. A 90% profit margin is unrealistic, and a unit cost on the order of 1% of the cost to progress in the game trivializes the penalty for failure. Further, I suggest that the price of building upgrades -- especially upgrades that are effectively mandatory to continue progress within a game -- be substantially reduced. A ratio of 10:1 or even 5:1 would probably provide a more natural feeling.

If part costs were increased by a factor of 5, satellite missions would still be 45-50% profitable. If building upgrade costs were reduced by a factor of 4, this would achieve greater parity between mission costs and upgrade costs. The 785k R&D upgrade would instead cost 196k, reducing the number of missions to 4 or 5. At this ratio the loss of a 50k mission vehicle will be a more noticeable loss of 25% of the goal. This is a meaningful penalty that requires an entire mission to overcome, instead of the current "nothing but lost time" feeling that accompanies a mission failure.

In general, "hard mode" is intended to offer a feeling of reward for more-expert players who can overcome risk in order to more efficiently perform a difficult task. Currently, the funds balance in "hard mode" does nothing other than lengthen the early stages of the game -- the educational portion meant for beginners -- and as such has the opposite effect.

Discussion is welcomed.

Edited January 29, 2015 by toadicus
Change a blanket statement or two to specifically address funds, in case context wasn't enough.

[tater]

Agree completely, hard mode is grind mode.

[regex]

Too, "hard mode" is something that is ostensibly undertaken by more expert players. Expert players need less time sink in the name of education, not more. Lengthening the early game in the name of "difficulty" is frustrating to expert players, not rewarding.

Worth quoting, can't say this enough. Anything that reduces the monotonous grind of the current career mode (even in "normal" difficulty it's excessively tedious) is welcome. Your idea is a good one.

[dudecon]

So, basically, the "hard" difficulty has margins that are too large, and goals that are too far apart?

I mean, it seems like this is a confusion (perhaps on SQUAD's part) about what the adjective "hard" is referring to.

Currently (for experienced players) it is simply "hard to find enough time to make progress." What you are looking for seems more like "hard to plan, design, and fly successful missions" for which, at this point, you may need mods. The mission strategy is fairly linear, vehichle design has a few fairly clear optima, and piloting is (thanks to kerbal pilot abilities) easier than ever. Really, if KSP were to offer a real challenge to current experts, it would have to be deeper in many ways.

The suggestions above are a good first step, especially to improve the game for newcomers. For experts, though, I suggest sandbox mode, and then setting your own obstacles.

[toadicus]

So, basically, the "hard" difficulty has margins that are too large, and goals that are too far apart?

I mean, it seems like this is a confusion (perhaps on SQUAD's part) about what the adjective "hard" is referring to.

Currently (for experienced players) it is simply "hard to find enough time to make progress." What you are looking for seems more like "hard to plan, design, and fly successful missions" for which, at this point, you may need mods. The mission strategy is fairly linear, vehichle design has a few fairly clear optima, and piloting is (thanks to kerbal pilot abilities) easier than ever. Really, if KSP were to offer a real challenge to current experts, it would have to be deeper in many ways.

The suggestions above are a good first step, especially to improve the game for newcomers. For experts, though, I suggest sandbox mode, and then setting your own obstacles.

I agree that to genuinely offer a "hard" mode, the game needs improvement to offer "hard" challenges. Perhaps the science game could be revisited to be more than just "get there and click", or new contracts could be offered that pose a genuinely difficult challenge. But, that's a bit off-topic for this thread, as I'm suggesting a specific improvement to an existing system.

[ghpstage]

While I agree the balance of funds and science is currently broken, I would say its primarily because of the lack of risk, spammability and huge ROIs of several Kerbin SOI contracts. Its much too easy to max out your science and facilities without ever leaving the Kerbin SOI.

You can achieve a great deal more than most people even consider within the limits the lower tier buildings set, the below is, in my opinion, nothing more than an example of grinding your way out of a potential challenge.

I have science->funds and rep->funds strategies on, have unlocked all of the tier 1 science, and have a 90% profit margin on Kerbin-orbit satellite missions. I can complete any Kerbin-orbit satellite mission with a 10k craft, and get over 90k in reward. This means I need to do 8-10 satellite missions just to unlock the R&D center, so that I can get the tech I need to reasonably move on to interplanetary missions.

If you upgrade your tracking station and mission control then you can send probes to almost, if not every planet and moon in the solar system with no further upgrades. they can complete the very lucrative exploration contracts, as well as satellite and scan contracts at those locations.

If you add nothing more than a launchpad upgrade, then you can do manned missions to Duna, Ike and Gilly, possibly more.

You don't need to upgrade R&D for any of that!

You can, on hard, still complete every single scripted contract, thats altitudes, orbit, and explorations, one after another, while never taking a random one. So the potential for non grindy play throughs does exist (even if the core path will sadly be the same each time), but the path of least resistance seems too attractive too many.

Removing science rewards from random contracts, adding actual time limits, rebalancing the funds rewards and adding difficulty scalable requirements to contracts may help to add some challenge.

Edited January 29, 2015 by ghpstage

[toadicus]

The fact that interplanetary missions are feasible at this stage isn't really the point. I know that they are, but it's a bit impractical and doesn't invalidate complaints about "lack of risk, spammability and huge ROIs of several Kerbin SOI contracts", which I am specifically addressing.

Also, is Squad's intent for us to run a swath of interplanetary contracts while stashing enough science to finish the entire tree without unlocking 2/3 of the parts? I don't think so. I'm not saying "I can't do anything," I'm saying "my available options are not good ones, and the current gameplay is wrong."

I do agree that science costs in general should skyrocket, to devalue the science in the Kerbin SOI relative to the rest of the system, but again, that's another issue.

Edited January 29, 2015 by toadicus
swath vs swatch

[Clockwork_werewolf]

I agree with the above post but I would also say, make the jump and cost of level 2 building less, 30 parts to 60 would be a big jump and it could be at a lot cheaper if it wasn't 30 to 255. 255 is pretty much all the upgrade you need, so the extra isn't worth it. Almost all the buildings are like this so that it becomes "1 billion dollars" to go from 0 to 100 with no steps in the way. I do play on the default (no reverts) hard, and trust me it is hard but my problem has been the grind not the toughness.

[ceauke]

Currently, Funds are failing at both of these goals on harder difficulty settings. With a profit margin of 90%, failing a mission is effectively no penalty at all. Considering the price disparity between my satellite craft (10k) and the progress gate (785k), losing a ship costs me about 1% of my goal. This is not a meaningful penalty; losing the 5-10 minutes of real-world time that it took to execute the mission was way more painful.

(snip)

If part costs were increased by a factor of 5, satellite missions would still be 45-50% profitable. If building upgrade costs were reduced by a factor of 4, this would achieve greater parity between mission costs and upgrade costs. The 785k R&D upgrade would instead cost 196k, reducing the number of missions to 4 or 5. At this ratio the loss of a 50k mission vehicle will be a more noticeable loss of 25% of the goal. This is a meaningful penalty that requires an entire mission to overcome, instead of the current "nothing but lost time" feeling that accompanies a mission failure.

In general, "hard mode" is intended to offer a feeling of reward for more-expert players who can overcome risk in order to more efficiently perform a difficult task. Currently, the funds balance in "hard mode" does nothing other than lengthen the early stages of the game -- the educational portion meant for beginners -- and as such has the opposite effect.

Discussion is welcomed.

Amen. I'm a beginner grinder but completely agree with this approach. It's very simple to implement and you can easily put a slider in for the factor.

I'm giving this tread stars!

[tater]

Real hard mode:

1. Kerbol system is randomized at career start. Planets in different orbits, masses and atmospheres changed enough that wiki is useless.

2. You only learn the actual values of those worlds (aside from their orbits, and surface details of Mun/Minmus telescopically visible from kerbin) by going there and doing science. No tabbing to Jool, if you want to see what it looks like this game past a XX pixel wide preview, GO THERE with a probe.

3. Life support.

Even this is not "hard" per se, but it is a challenge an advanced player would desire. It would make the early career FUN for advanced players, because every game would involve actual discovery.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I agree with everything in the OP. To me, the difficulty settings are more like 'select grinding level'. The higher levels don't make the game more difficult, they require the same level of difficulty as an easy mode, just more of it. That is not hard, that's just repetitive. I guess that's in part due to the insane building upgrade costs (I'm looking at you, 3 million R&D...), but contract fund reward plays into it as well. The thing is, the station/outpost contracts pay well but I rarely take them on simply because I know they can be achieved with the barest minimum and I'll never have to deal with them again. If contracts like 'add a science lab to Station X' or 'increase crew capacity of Station Y by N' then I'd be more inclined to not only take on the initial Build Station Here contracts, but to actually make them part of a progression and build them logically and easy to add to. But hey, that's another discussion for another time so I'll just yes, I agree with everything you wrote. Have some (more) rep.

Edited January 29, 2015 by ObsessedWithKSP

[ghpstage]

The fact that interplanetary missions are feasible at this stage isn't really the point. I know that they are, but it's a bit impractical and doesn't invalidate complaints about "lack of risk, spammability and huge ROIs of several Kerbin SOI contracts", which I am specifically addressing.

Of course it doesn't invalidate the problems of grinding being easy, but the fact it can be done without too much difficulty (a lot of satellite contract designs people use will get to Duna, Eve and Jool, the explorations of which all pay out 250k+) does invalidate the idea that first building upgrades are far too expensive. Or that grinding is a necessity (which is a common train of thought).

Exploring other planets and moons using probes should be a very important part of career mode, but right now most people will never bother with any, if any probes, as you can grind your way up to a manned mission with little effort fairly quickly.

Some reduction in cost would be fine, but care would be needed to avoid completely removing the limits they impose by making them too cheap.

The cost for the second upgrade to buildings really does need to be looked at however, especially as a lot add virtually nothing. For example 6 million for the R&D buildings second upgrade on hard, when all the tech you really need is available with the first upgrade that costs 1 million.... a lot of the building functions and costs need rebalancing anyway.

I suggest that -- at least in hard mode -- the price of rocket parts be increased substantially compared to contract rewards. A 90% profit margin is unrealistic, and a unit cost on the order of 1% of the cost to progress in the game trivializes the penalty for failure. Further, I suggest that the price of building upgrades -- especially upgrades that are effectively mandatory to continue progress within a game -- be substantially reduced. A ratio of 10:1 or even 5:1 would probably provide a more natural feeling.

If part costs were increased by a factor of 5, satellite missions would still be 45-50% profitable. If building upgrade costs were reduced by a factor of 4, this would achieve greater parity between mission costs and upgrade costs. The 785k R&D upgrade would instead cost 196k, reducing the number of missions to 4 or 5. At this ratio the loss of a 50k mission vehicle will be a more noticeable loss of 25% of the goal. This is a meaningful penalty that requires an entire mission to overcome, instead of the current "nothing but lost time" feeling that accompanies a mission failure.

This doesn't address grinding, it merely reduces the amount someone needs to do. There is no additional risk nor difficulty introduced as the satellite contracts are incredibly easy to complete, the only change that would result is that recovery would be considered much more important. While I would quite like progressive parts costs for difficulties, balancing them around the ROI of the most blatantly overpowered contract type would not be a good idea, especially as the proposed 5 fold increase wouldn't stop 80-90%+ ROIs being commonplace, or, if craft recoveries were included, the baseline.

It would be much easier and effective to change rewards on a per contract type basis. There are a bunch that need a big buff, i.e. parts tests landed on various non Kerbin bodies, or flying at Kerbin, and several that need a nerf, satellites chief among them.

Also, is Squad's intent for us to run a swath of interplanetary contracts while stashing enough science to finish the entire tree without unlocking 2/3 of the parts? I don't think so. I'm not saying "I can't do anything," I'm saying "my available options are not good ones, and the current gameplay is wrong."

Of course this is an issue, but one that could be curbed by reducing the availability and value of science points.

As side note, in the game where I allowed myself only the upgrades necessary to get manoeuvre nodes, to use only Stayputnik probe cores, and to accept only the scripted contracts, this was one problem I didn't have at all!

Funds came thick and fast, but science not so much.

Real hard mode:

1. Kerbol system is randomized at career start. Planets in different orbits, masses and atmospheres changed enough that wiki is useless.

2. You only learn the actual values of those worlds (aside from their orbits, and surface details of Mun/Minmus telescopically visible from kerbin) by going there and doing science. No tabbing to Jool, if you want to see what it looks like this game past a XX pixel wide preview, GO THERE with a probe.

3. Life support.

Even this is not "hard" per se, but it is a challenge an advanced player would desire. It would make the early career FUN for advanced players, because every game would involve actual discovery.

This would cause the need for a great deal more planning, and a need for multi tiered missions, adding a lot of depth to career. But to make it work, a random career would need access to KER like information readouts and a method of logging useful data e.g. gravity values obtained by probes, else the player would get overwhelmed by calculations and swamped by a need for written notes, and to gather info the player would need earlier access to gravity and pressure value measurement equipment.

Its something I would like to see, even if its just in mods.

Edited January 30, 2015 by ghpstage

[regex]

Exploring other planets and moons using probes should be a very important part of career mode

I disagree, especially when you're talking "hard mode" and "experts" in the game. The last thing I want to do in stock is explore the system using probes; that's incredibly boring and unchallenging gameplay after two years playing KSP.

This doesn't address grinding, it merely reduces the amount someone needs to do.

Reducing the amount someone needs to do is the very definition of addressing grinding. Or maybe you have a different definition of grinding?

[CaptRobau]

I agree with everything in the OP. To me, the difficulty settings are more like 'select grinding level'. The higher levels don't make the game more difficult, they require the same level of difficulty as an easy mode, just more of it. That is not hard, that's just repetitive. I guess that's in part due to the insane building upgrade costs (I'm looking at you, 3 million R&D...), but contract fund reward plays into it as well. The thing is, the station/outpost contracts pay well but I rarely take them on simply because I know they can be achieved with the barest minimum and I'll never have to deal with them again. If contracts like 'add a science lab to Station X' or 'increase crew capacity of Station Y by N' then I'd be more inclined to not only take on the initial Build Station Here contracts, but to actually make them part of a progression and build them logically and easy to add to. But hey, that's another discussion for another time so I'll just yes, I agree with everything you wrote. Have some (more) rep.

You can complete station contracts by expanding existing stations, but it's not mandatory or explained well. A contract that really wants you to expand an existing station would be better than anything the existing contract can do, as it would add a feeling of progression.

[ghpstage]

I disagree, especially when you're talking "hard mode" and "experts" in the game. The last thing I want to do in stock is explore the system using probes; that's incredibly boring and unchallenging gameplay after two years playing KSP.

More form a sort of plausible reality and immersion angle than difficulty.

Almost anything is going to be unchallenging if you have played the game long enough. The only kinds of things that could be done to achieve a challenge is giving contracts like, Moho, Eve, Tylo returns with multiple Kerbals, large payloads and random part limitations.... the sorts of things you are only likely to find on the forum

I can't see how sending a probe somewhere is going to be any less interesting than doing the same satellite contract 3-5 times

Reducing the amount someone needs to do is the very definition of addressing grinding. Or maybe you have a different definition of grinding?

Grinding is generally accepted as repeating the same actions, doing the same number of different contracts would not necessarily be grinding (though better variety is sorely needed). The OPs suggestion actively enforces the grinding of the exact same contract by making the vast majority of other types marginal earners at best and a number will probably be losing propositions without SSTOs with runway landings. The 'reduction' in grinding proposed is purely to reduce the number of times you need to complete the games few remaining viable contracts. Edited January 30, 2015 by ghpstage

[BudgetHedgehog]

You can complete station contracts by expanding existing stations, but it's not mandatory or explained well. A contract that really wants you to expand an existing station would be better than anything the existing contract can do, as it would add a feeling of progression.

Yeeeees, but that's more of an intentional exploit of unclear coding than an actual thing, so I don't really feel comfortable doing it.

[toadicus]

ghpstage, it's true that my numbers center around a single contract, and it may be that the satellite contracts need to be nerfed. At this point, though, it would be madness not to use them when making money is what you want to do. Also, no other contracts are going to get buildings unlocked in less real time, so in general reducing the amount of grinding is a good thing. That said, I'll happily admit that my numbers were exemplary in nature and someone with easy access to all of the real data should definitely have a look at things before taking my word for it. That said again, I've written a little mod to do what I proposed, and am going to play with my numbers and see how I like it.

As regex said, reducing the amount of grinding is the most basic method of addressing grinding. If you want to more strictly look at ensuring that a single task need never be repeated, then Squad will have to completely reinvent their career mode.

Deciding to play the game with nothing but probe cores is a fine choice for you and occasionally interesting. However, based on basically everything Squad's ever done to date, that's almost certainly not their vision for gameplay. That it is a frequent symptom of the current system implies that the current system is not fulfilling their goals for it.

I feel like you and I are actually generally agreeing on the big picture items, and disagreeing about semantics and subjective assessments. "Too much grinding" for you might be more grinding than "too much grinding" for me, and that's fine. We both think the game is too grindy -- you to a lesser degree than I, it seems -- and we both think funds are unbalanced. I'd love to hear your suggestions!

CaptRobau, ghpstage#2, ObsessedWithKSP, actually-challenging contracts well outside the scope of those currently in the game definitely sound good to me. As long as funds are balanced, too.

ghpstage#2.5, let me say that for my part I don't like skipping a whole bunch of time waiting for the Duna window; I like to keep my space program constantly active. As soon as it's open, I'll send something wherever I am in the tech tree / building upgrade game. Also: only 250k? I mean, that's a fair bit more than a satellite contract, and especially for a place like Duna would not be expensive to perform... but still, something as momentous as landing on another world is only worth a third of a single R&D upgrade? I don't know what body is funding these Kerbals, but those guys are some real misers.

Why is Duna the first IP contract? Something with a window closer to Y1D1 seems a better choice. Too, satellite contracts to other planets should happen along with or before their scripted "Explore" contract, and doing so could help encourage productive use of the first windows.

Thanks for listening and discussing, folks; stay civil and keep it up.

[tater]

This would cause the need for a great deal more planning, and a need for multi tiered missions, adding a lot of depth to career. But to make it work, a random career would need access to KER like information readouts and a method of logging useful data e.g. gravity values obtained by probes, else the player would get overwhelmed by calculations and swamped by a need for written notes, and to gather info the player would need earlier access to gravity and pressure value measurement equipment.

Its something I would like to see, even if its just in mods.

You'd not need KER, though that would be cool.

One, the career could include a launch planning ability (even if it just calculated graphs). Two, you could perhaps allow the "science" data to populate the "info" you can currently click on in map view for the various worlds. Even a crasher probe could get basic atmospheric data. Any probe that enters the SoI could fine tune the mass of the planet (a ballpark figure would be the starting point) based on positional telemetry alone. Biomes via something like scansat… it would be very cool.

[Jouni]

I didn't feel the career mode grindy at all, when I completed it on moderate. I just followed two simple rules:

1. Every mission must be completely different from the previous one.
   
2. Biomes and science experiments don't exist, unless specifically required by a contract.
   

Mission planning was basically thinking about what I'd like to do next, would it be feasible to do it, and whether someone is willing to pay for it. Before completing the tech tree, I had visited every planet and moon except Eeloo in one way or another, including three multi-moon Jool missions, out of which one was a Jool-5.

I could have completed it much faster by grinding, but I chose to have fun instead. Whatever changes Squad makes to the career mode, I hope that this playstyle remains feasible.

[ghpstage]

ghpstage, it's true that my numbers center around a single contract, and it may be that the satellite contracts need to be nerfed. At this point, though, it would be madness not to use them when making money is what you want to do. Also, no other contracts are going to get buildings unlocked in less real time, so in general reducing the amount of grinding is a good thing. That said, I'll happily admit that my numbers were exemplary in nature and someone with easy access to all of the real data should definitely have a look at things before taking my word for it. That said again, I've written a little mod to do what I proposed, and am going to play with my numbers and see how I like it.

Another problem I can see in doing it this way, is that upgrades will come so rapidly that the limits imposed may as well have never existed in the first place. Will be interested too hear how this turns out!

As regex said, reducing the amount of grinding is the most basic method of addressing grinding. If you want to more strictly look at ensuring that a single task need never be repeated, then Squad will have to completely reinvent their career mode.

A few additional contract types that would be fairly difficult, and worth similar, or even more than the current satellite contracts would be nice. Some of the parts tests are already a candidate for this, e.g. testing a BACC on the Mun is significantly harder, and dramatically costlier than launching a small probe into some orbit!

Deciding to play the game with nothing but probe cores is a fine choice for you and occasionally interesting. However, based on basically everything Squad's ever done to date, that's almost certainly not their vision for gameplay. That it is a frequent symptom of the current system implies that the current system is not fulfilling their goals for it.

It was mostly an example of how low science, high funds rewards could work. I certainly wouldn't expect everyone to try it!

It originally started as a scripted contract only challenge, the additional restraints were added because it was too easy. If I had added the odd random contract then a lot of the explorations (Duna, Ike, Gilly, Jool moons) could have been manned.

As for Squad's vision, I haven't a clue what they are planning, nobody does. We might get a better idea with the next patch, hopefully the current career is mostly placeholder. I really hope better incentives for probe usage are included however.

I feel like you and I are actually generally agreeing on the big picture items, and disagreeing about semantics and subjective assessments. "Too much grinding" for you might be more grinding than "too much grinding" for me, and that's fine. We both think the game is too grindy -- you to a lesser degree than I, it seems -- and we both think funds are unbalanced. I'd love to hear your suggestions!

I just don't mind if the development in the game takes some time, provided interesting things are available to do (which there is currently a severe lack of), and also think it is possible to play without really grinding in its current state, but only if you push interplanetary quickly, or play with some self made rules.

ghpstage#2.5, let me say that for my part I don't like skipping a whole bunch of time waiting for the Duna window; I like to keep my space program constantly active. As soon as it's open, I'll send something wherever I am in the tech tree / building upgrade game. Also: only 250k? I mean, that's a fair bit more than a satellite contract, and especially for a place like Duna would not be expensive to perform... but still, something as momentous as landing on another world is only worth a third of a single R&D upgrade? I don't know what body is funding these Kerbals, but those guys are some real misers.

Time is another issue in career, for some inexplicable reason you could probably launch a thousand rockets by the time the Duna window arrives. The ability to launch a rocket to a local objective on a whim.

When I first got the game I though this may have been controlled by something akin to the production time mod as I had seen stock counts for parts in the demo!

It might not be a bad idea at all.

Alternatively an instant time warp, to jump forward to a set point in Kerbal time might be needed to prevent it getting too boring.

The rewards for those could do with being boosted, and doing so would be justifiable, considering their place as one time only contracts. I would like to see an expansion of these types of contracts, to include manned missions, either as part of the current ones, or as a separate contract opened afterwards. It would mean that seriously big money missions existed out there to grab, and going there ASAP could greatly accelerate your growth compared against spamming randoms.

This would of course include the Mun and Minmus, which currently pay out a combined total of around 300k on hard, if boosted to 600-750k when including the new manned contracts then the need to grind could be cut considerably.

Edited January 30, 2015 by ghpstage

[toadicus]

You'd not need KER, though that would be cool.

One, the career could include a launch planning ability (even if it just calculated graphs). Two, you could perhaps allow the "science" data to populate the "info" you can currently click on in map view for the various worlds. Even a crasher probe could get basic atmospheric data. Any probe that enters the SoI could fine tune the mass of the planet (a ballpark figure would be the starting point) based on positional telemetry alone. Biomes via something like scansat… it would be very cool.

Any career game taking itself seriously should have engineering data (says the guy who writes a mod that presents engineering data; I might be biased). That said, if a "hard mode" game is going to have relatively low profit margins and high costs for failure, optimizing ships will (finally) be important, and optimizing ships without real engineering data is a tedious chore.

Another problem I can see in doing it this way, is that upgrades will come so rapidly that the limits imposed may as well have never existed in the first place. Will be interested too hear how this turns out!

That is an intentional effect of my proposition, or actions like it. The purpose of slowing down progress with upgradeable buildings is -- presumably -- to promote education and keep beginner players from getting in over their heads too quickly. "Hard mode" should have steep costs for failure, but success in the early stages of the game should be swiftly rewarded with rapid progress.

I'll be sure to post here with my thoughts once I've had a chance to play with the cost modifier some. I can write mods at work sometimes... but I still need to find time at home to play the game.

A few additional contract types that would be fairly difficult, and worth similar, or even more than the current satellite contracts would be nice. Some of the parts tests are already a candidate for this, e.g. testing a BACC on the Mun is significantly harder, and dramatically costlier than launching a small probe into some orbit!

I don't want to open that can of worms, so I'll just say that I don't consider part tests for low-efficiency launch boosters on the Mun to be a good example of a meaningful "hard" contract. If that needs discussing, let's make another thread for it.

Time is another issue in career, for some inexplicable reason you could probably launch a thousand rockets by the time the Duna window arrives. The ability to launch a rocket to a local objective on a whim.

When I first got the game I though this may have been controlled by something akin to the production time mod as I had seen stock counts for parts in the demo!

It might not be a bad idea at all.

Alternatively an instant time warp, to jump forward to a set point in Kerbal time might be needed to prevent it getting too boring.

I do use KCT to regulate time, so I won't get 1000 ships before the Duna window. I could get several dozen, though. But again, that's another issue.

The rewards for those could do with being boosted, and doing so would be justifiable, considering their place as one time only contracts. I would like to see an expansion of these types of contracts, to include manned missions, either as part of the current ones, or as a separate contract opened afterwards. It would mean that seriously big money missions existed out there to grab, and going there ASAP could greatly accelerate your growth compared against spamming randoms.

This would of course include the Mun and Minmus, which currently pay out a combined total of around 300k on hard, if boosted to 600-750k when including the new manned contracts then the need to grind could be cut considerably.

Boosting "big story" contracts is probably a good idea, provided the penalty for failure gets a lot higher. I completed the Mun story mission in a 15k ship; if I'd lost it there would have been no impact on my space program at all.

[Starwhip]

Real hard mode:

1. Kerbol system is randomized at career start. Planets in different orbits, masses and atmospheres changed enough that wiki is useless.

2. You only learn the actual values of those worlds (aside from their orbits, and surface details of Mun/Minmus telescopically visible from kerbin) by going there and doing science. No tabbing to Jool, if you want to see what it looks like this game past a XX pixel wide preview, GO THERE with a probe.

3. Life support.

Even this is not "hard" per se, but it is a challenge an advanced player would desire. It would make the early career FUN for advanced players, because every game would involve actual discovery.

I'm not entirely sure that this would be "fun". A lot of people, including me, have spent a lot of time perfecting techniques for stuff like SSTO's that will not work as well if planets were randomized. There's a reason that there's a wiki. Challenging, yes, but not fun.

All of the "Part Costs" boosts the OP states would be a great idea: Re-usability becomes massively profitable.

[regex]

The takeaway for me is that veterans of the game need more than part testing contracts and stifled progression. Maybe an option to unlock all the explore missions very early? More grand missions akin to the explore missions? Did the grand tour contracts get into stock? Anyway, by this point I am literally thinking "Another damn sounding rocket? Why do I bother?" when firing up a career save. It's boring to play with progression limits when you want to play with monetary limits; I've already recreated a good chunk of human launch history and beyond in KSP... Maybe if it were possible to exchange science and reputation for money without touching contracts, maybe have cash and reputation rewards based on activity and actions rather than some right-click button, or maybe just a better way to filter and reject contracts that I find boring.

[tater]

I'm not entirely sure that this would be "fun". A lot of people, including me, have spent a lot of time perfecting techniques for stuff like SSTO's that will not work as well if planets were randomized. There's a reason that there's a wiki. Challenging, yes, but not fun.

All of the "Part Costs" boosts the OP states would be a great idea: Re-usability becomes massively profitable.

Then play sandbox. Or use the "default" seed. (I'd have a "default" that would be the extant kerbol system)

There is ZERO replay in career. If you keep making the same stuff for career because you already know how… what is the point? I think exploring the unknown is FUN. I think exploring wiki is boring, not fun.

[Starwhip]

Then play sandbox. Or use the "default" seed. (I'd have a "default" that would be the extant kerbol system)

There is ZERO replay in career. If you keep making the same stuff for career because you already know how… what is the point? I think exploring the unknown is FUN. I think exploring wiki is boring, not fun.

Yes, exploring the unknown is fun. For me, obviously for you as well, exploring a randomized system would be possible, because (I have, at least) we've played for a long time.

But all of the new people coming into the game would have no one to help them if they got a previously unplayed seed.

You also have the dangers of randomizing. Programmers like me know that generally, random numbers work, but on rare occasions they can be a bad choice. What happens if the orbits of the planets are all at their maximum range, or very close together, or far apart? Or there is too much atmosphere or gravity?

And I don't make "the same stuff" in career. My rockets and spaceplanes are always getting faster, better looking, more efficient.

To me, the point of the game is to make new things and try them out in a known circumstance, rather than to take the old thing into a new place and see if it breaks or not. And a combination of the two breaks a fundamental rule of experimentation: Don't change more than one variable.