Astronaut Salary

[Murder-H0BO]

i think 38k upkeep for an astronaut is way to damn high thats almost the cost of a lunch pad and research center combined i men it goes from 7k upkeep for a skill 1 to 30 for a skill 2

[Thorin]

Consider it the total cost of that astronaut, not the single cost of the guy. You need dozens of almost good candidates for the one actually useful, many people to support all of those candidates and the entire system that feeds everything into the end result. Similar to top athletes, they don't cost that much on their own, but if you have to pay all the stuff for the entire pyramid that can produce one top level athlete, it is insane at the end.

[Murder-H0BO]

lol when your astronaut program and supporting buildings cost more then your whole rocket program and space vhichles combined you houston we have a problem i am up to 127k upkeep cant wait to be done with the moon landings wont have to keep so many on staff

[Zild]

38k isn't much. It's only enough for 38 cakes, apparently...

(Play enough and that will make sense eventually!)

[Sheethead]

Originally posted by striker88:

lol when your astronaut program and supporting buildings cost more then your whole rocket program and space vhichles combined you houston we have a problem i am up to 127k upkeep cant wait to be done with the moon landings wont have to keep so many on staff

I don't know the details about their budgets, but I'd be surprised if the rockets were the biggest items on their expenses list. Continuous maintenance of assets can be really expensive.

[steve]

When you are in Era II and working towards Era III there is some huge development time, you need for science to access further missions etc. I had a huge window, when I didn't plan crewed missions, instead focus on outer planets etc. Do you think it is worth firing all astronauts? What are the disadvantages firing astronauts?

[Sheethead]

Originally posted by steve:

Do you think it is worth firing all astronauts? What are the disadvantages firing astronauts?

From a purely financial standpoint, the decision is pretty simple - if hiring an astronaut costs X, you know you won't need one for M months, firing anyone whose salary is higher than X/M and then re-hiring is cheaper (e.g. hiring costs 200k, you won't be using them for 10 months, anybody who is eating up more than 20k per month costs you more over the idle time period).
It gets complicated by the fact you can't know the exact hiring costs in advance or you might want some specific perks, so you have to think in ballparks. Generally the hiring costs are about 10x higher than salaries, so if you know you won't have a manned mission for at least a year or two, firing them saves more money.

[Magic Cuboid]

Yup, I hired and fired all the time. Enthusiasts (tier 2 astronauts) are great for one-off easy request missions because they're so cheap. I pretty much stuck to tier 1/2 for the whole game, but got a staff of tier 3 astronauts for the final mission which definitely helped a lot.

[Martinspire]

38k would be fine if the budget was simply higher than what it is now. I also find the budget restrictions to be more annoying than worth the time.

[Murder-H0BO]

Originally posted by Martinspire:

38k would be fine if the budget was simply higher than what it is now. I also find the budget restrictions to be more annoying than worth the time.

indeed i agree

[Fugitive Unknown]

Honestly, this is why I do my best to skip the crewed missions entirely in the early game, unless I'm running Cut-price Cosmonauts and Human Endevor.