Advanced Colonization

[Clockwork13]

Advanced colonization would allow you to effectively colonize other worlds, beyond just sticking down a bunch of crew capsules onto the surface:

 

Environmental Dome

This would be a massive object, and would have to be constructed on the planet. It would not be inflatable, but an actual dome of reinforced glass. It would start with just a new resource called "Glass", and you'd need to send 10,000 tons up to your colony site. It would not only take a lot of time, but be very expensive. One the glass is up there, You'd need to land a special object onto the colony site which would produce glass frames. They'd be pretty large, and a full dome would consist of about 15. You'd need to put them in place with your Kerbals. The dome would consist of an airlock on the side for Kerbals to enter and exit, plus a hatch on the top for space ships to come through. The main purpose of glass domes would be to provide a large habitable environment, which I'll go into later. While setting up a large dome network would be tedious in singleplayer, it would allow for incredible civilizations once multiplayer is officially released. When a dome becomes habitable, then the surface inside it would slowly become green and Kerbals would no longer need a suit to walk around in it.

 

Inflatable Tunnel

The inflatable tunnel would be a thin but long and flexible object used to connect domes. It would come in straight pieces, plus curves and intersections to create large networks.

 

Greenhouse

The greenhouse would be used to both provide food and oxygen to your colony. Without food, your Kerbals would slowly started 'leaving to go back home', which would in more blatant terms mean they are dying out. Greenhouses would produce food at a steady pace, but a larger Kerbal population in the dome would mean that they'd go through food faster. You'd also be able to ship food to the colony from Kerbin if needed. Domes would also become inhabitable without a space suit if they reach a certain threshold of oxygen along with nitrogen. If a dome has too much oxygen, then things inside would become much more likely to explode and Kerbals wouldn't be able to safely live in it.

 

Nitrogen Extractor

The nitrogen drill would simply extract nitrogen from the planet's crust. If the dome reached a certain threshold of nitrogen, then it would be considered inhabitable if enough oxygen is also present. The dome would remain uninhabitable if there's too much nitrogen.

 

Launchpad

The launchpad would be a special building that would be launched from Kerbin in a very heavy but compact form. You'd be able to construct rockets for launch on it.

 

Material Factory

From the material factory, you'd be able to produce rocket parts, which you could eventually use to construct rockets from your colony.

 

 

Anyways, that's my suggestion. Sorry if I got a bit lazy at the end.

 

Edited October 8, 2016 by Clockwork13

[Twreed87]

5 hours ago, Clockwork13 said:

Environmental Dome

This would be a massive object, and would have to be constructed on the planet. It would not be inflatable, but an actual dome of reinforced glass. It would start with just a new resource called "Glass", and you'd need to send 10,000 tons up to your colony site. It would not only take a lot of time, but be very expensive. One the glass is up there, You'd need to land a special object onto the colony site which would produce glass frames. They'd be pretty large, and a full dome would consist of about 15. You'd need to put them in place with your Kerbals. The dome would consist of an airlock on the side for Kerbals to enter and exit, plus a hatch on the top for space ships to come through. The main purpose of glass domes would be to provide a large habitable environment, which I'll go into later. While setting up a large dome network would be tedious in singleplayer, it would allow for incredible civilizations once multiplayer is officially released. When a dome becomes habitable, then the surface inside it would slowly become green and Kerbals would no longer need a suit to walk around in it.

 

 

This seems like an incredibly inefficient way to build a planetary base. I'm sure if anything similar were ever attempted the materials would come from the planet, not shipped from Earth.

I'm all for increasing colonization, but I think this is a bit too far. KSP should stay within the realm of the "mostly currently technically possible" and this seems to be getting too futuristic.

[Clockwork13]

5 minutes ago, Twreed87 said:

This seems like an incredibly inefficient way to build a planetary base. I'm sure if anything similar were ever attempted the materials would come from the planet, not shipped from Earth.

I'm all for increasing colonization, but I think this is a bit too far. KSP should stay within the realm of the "mostly currently technically possible" and this seems to be getting too futuristic.

To be honest, isn't the idea of colonizing other worlds at all a little too futuristic then?

EDIT: As far as I'm aware, the only thing here that can be considered futuristic at all is the dome itself, everything else we already have the technology to do to a decent extent. Also, the dome would probably need to be pretty big to make up for the inefficiency.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Clockwork13

[Twreed87]

4 minutes ago, Clockwork13 said:

To be honest, isn't the idea of colonizing other worlds at all a little too futuristic then?

It's still within the scope of things we can at least technically do. Look at the ambitions of Space X's ITS. Landing on other worlds, doing science, refueling from in situ resources, that's all within the realm of things people are talking about. Building giant glass domes and terraforming are way too far off.

And again, I'm not sure it's really a very sensible plan. Would glass be a good idea? Would we really need giant domes?

[Clockwork13]

9 minutes ago, Twreed87 said:

It's still within the scope of things we can at least technically do. Look at the ambitions of Space X's ITS. Landing on other worlds, doing science, refueling from in situ resources, that's all within the realm of things people are talking about. Building giant glass domes and terraforming are way too far off.

And again, I'm not sure it's really a very sensible plan. Would glass be a good idea? Would we really need giant domes?

I'm not suggesting terraforming though, or at least not terraforming an entire planet, but a single dome at a time. Also the main purpose of glass domes would be to hold as many Kerbals as possible, and in a space that would allow them more freedom, plus also looking cool.

[Wanderhoof]

Aside from the specific details to be haggled over, I would LOVE to see a intra-solar system colonization aspect to KSP.  It is, yes, a bit ahead of the current tech curve... but not by much.  Really, if you want to get down to (space worthy) brass tacks, fully functional space planes are a little ahead of the current technology curve, but those are fully possible within KSP.  So, intra-solar system colonization does not seem an unreasonable feature to add to KSP at some point.  I would call it more in the realm of achievable versus fictional... somewhere on the arc between possible and probable.

As for giant domes of some transparent or semi-transparent material, this has already been an idea floated about in hard science fiction (i.e., Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" books).  There are concentrations of silica on Mars, so with some manner of processing plant the production of glass, as one example of dome material, is theoretically possible.

That said, Mars does have some nasty radiation bombardment due to it's exceedingly thin atmosphere and lack of magnetic field.  So, whether glass or any other material, above surface habitats would have to find some way of mediating that hazard. (And I am afraid I really know nothing about the science of how glass would be treated or composited to stop radiation... I am afraid I am just a dabbler in the sciences.)

Another option for large, open-spaced habitats (as opposed to a dome on the surface) would be to build sub-surface (i.e., underground) habitats.  Given that Mars lacks tectonic plates that shift around, it would be reasonable to hypothesize that subsurface structures would be relatively stable and safe.

All that rambling aside, yes, a colonization feature/aspect to KSP would be amazing!

[Greenfire32]

I always felt like colonization should be handled with a Civ 5 style of interface.

I guess it could work like Spore (shudder) in that you can actively switch between Regular KSP mode (what we have right now) and Colonization Mode. This would allow you to continue playing KSP as it is currently while also hopping into a different interface for town building, establishing mines, farms, barracks, refineries, etc etc.

Because let's face it, KSP isn't designed to administer a practical workflow when it comes to things like building a colony and yet at the same time, it desperately needs offworld development as currently the only reason to go ANYWHERE is...."because."

So I think we need less of "Launch building X into space, land, now you have launchpad on Duna" and more "Assign a Crew to work Factory"

The player will still have to do everything by themself at least once. Want a greenhouse at your colony? You're going to have to build one, launch it and land it. But after you've done so, you now have the option of assigning a crew to do that for you in the future. This means that the player always gets to be at the forefront of the game and never plays second fiddle to "automated" processes, while at the same time having those automated processes available so that the player can continue launching space craft instead of...

"ugh...I have to send ANOTHER shipment of ore to my base on Duna? I want to go to Laythe though..."

And while we're on the subject of colonization, I think we need to get away from the idea of Kerbin being the lifeblood of every colony ever. Sure, at first a colony is going to be 100% reliant on Kerbin for supplies, but I feel like eventually the colony needs to be able to become self sufficient and thus an extension of Kerbin's influence over the solar system.

You know, the entire point of a colony.

So at some point, colonies need to be able to have VAB's of their own and we need to stop relying on "send comsat to Duna" and focus more on "launch comsat from Duna"