Making Kerbals more meaningful in our adventures.

[Red Thought]

     So I have posted a few threads on here, in this section.   This is my favorite, single player game, ever, by far at this point.  I am rather biased to start with, as I am obsessed with space in general.  I have been watching ksp develop for the last 4 years waiting for a polished product, in order to have the best first experience with game as possible.  lol anyway    I have been advised to think of ways to improve the game that mods have not already accomplished.    A few mods have touched on this subject but not enough.  Perhaps there are not enough tool currently for them to work with?

     I would love to see the Kerbals in game have more influence on adventures, and conquests than they currently do.     Currently after you acquire enough science to get the AI pilot, the usefulness of all the Kerbin seem nearly meaningless.   You need a pilot for back up in case you forget to deploy fairings or suddenly fall out of range of comm network.   Engineers repack shoots and open solar panels when you make a mistake.  Scientist are needed to reset science experiments if you need while on the go.  However this aspect is only really necessary if you try to make it hard on yourself in science, either by mod or by career settings.  Also they are needed to make the science modules work, which are extreamly op and only really needed if you have a modded game or have made science hard in game settings.

     I would love to see more things for the Kerbals to do, and a more meaningful leveling experience for all of the Kerbals.   I also want to feel something for a Kerbin, after I take the time to level he or she up.  I want to feel bad if i lose someone.  I currently only feel bad if i lose Jebidiah or Valentina ... lol     For example, perhaps the following could be entertaining if worked into the game.   Perhaps add RNG into the game, say in the form of malfunctions,  which are abundant in real life rocket science.  Simple designs with few parts would have little chance of malfunctioning.   Larger craft with 50+ parts would need an experienced engineer on board  in order to get ahead of, or fix any potential problems that may arise.    Perhaps a good pilot could give you 5% more agility with any craft that hes in.  

     There has to be thousands of good ideas out there on how to improve upon the Kerbals interactions with the Kerbal Space Program.    I would love to hear others thoughts and ideas on this, and see if something meaningful could be achieved.  

Edited March 29, 2018 by Red Thought
Clarification

[Gargamel]

Agree.

And I hate this answer, but there are a lot of mods that add some of the features you talk about, failures for example. 

Engineers do make various parts work more efficiently, and can repair various items that break (wheels and solar panels for example). 

If you want to help prioritize the kerbals you do send up, try a life support mod.  It adds another level of complexity to mission planning.  Time and resources for the kerbals themselves become an issue. 

But also try the Final Frontier mod.  Doesn't add much to the gameplay it self, but it does make you become  more attached to the kerbals you have.

[razark]

I agree the stock game could use some improvement to the crew.  At this point, they're simply interchangeable parts, like engines.  Do I need more thrust or more ISP from this engine, should I swap it for that engine, do I need a level 1 Kerbal or a level 3, this or that solar panel?  Final Frontier definitely helps give the Kerbals some more individuality, and I also track my crews and flights outside of KSP with some additional RP bits, so it at least feels like I'm not just swapping parts.  I wish some of that would be added to the game. 

What I'd really like to see, though, is autonomous crewmembers.  Pilots that can be given a flight plan, and follow it to the best of their experience-based abilities (Increasing as they get more flight time.  A rookie that's made orbit shouldn't be better than a never-orbited pilot with 1000 hours of flight time.).  Engineers should be able to fix errors on their own, simply by saying "X Kerman, repair y part."  The time and ability to fix things being again based on experience.  Scientists should be able to be given a flight plan, and told to carry out a list of experiments as conditions warrant.  Before the flight, give them a list of "When first at high altitude over Mun, run a and b.  When you are in orbit, run c.  In low orbit, reset a, b, and c, then rerun each.  When landed, run experiments x, y, and z."  Again, with the time needed for the tasks and the ability to run them correctly based on experience.

Then, you can design a mission, select your crew, and send them out to do what needs to be done.  It would be kind of like an actual Kerbal Space Program, rather than Kerbal Space One Guy Does Everything.

[HeliosPh0enix]

On 3/29/2018 at 5:01 AM, razark said:

It would be kind of like an actual Kerbal Space Program, rather than Kerbal Space One Guy Does Everything.

This is so true. I try to get myself to use other Kerbals, but I usually forget to change them before flight and, even then, I tend to only use a few because I don’t invest in leveling up lots of Kerbals. 

[Gargamel]

7 minutes ago, HeliosPh0enix said:

This is so true. I try to get myself to use other Kerbals, but I usually forget to change them before flight and, even then, I tend to only use a few because I don’t invest in leveling up lots of Kerbals. 

Along with Final Frontier, try Crew R&R.  It forces R&R periods after missions, and forces you to use more crew. 

[sevenperforce]

This issue goes along with bases and colonization. There is simply nothing for Kerbals to do anywhere, particularly in sandbox.

The simplest solution I can think of is to introduce offworld assembly and launch facilities, and have them built slowly by Kerbals who are present.

Edited April 17, 2018 by sevenperforce

[Not Sure]

KIS/KAS feels almost mandatory for me. That with some simple life support and the workshop mod, you can spend irl hours on EVA, and every bit of it feels productive and fun.

[Pthigrivi]

A few things:

There are a few gameplay elements that still feel a bit unfinished and the experience system is one of them. There really aren't any perks for going past level 3, probably because creating those perks would be huge content adds. Still, I'd love to see them.

Pilots could have additional SAS options, hold on angle to horizon, maintain altitude, etc. They could also provide landing and aerobrake predictions, time to reentry and impact and such. Im not as much a fan of making Mech-Jeb "land at target" or "execute rendezvous" stock because I think it takes away too much of what players should really be learning to do well, but some of the more basic functions not only are nice to have but act as tools for players becoming better pilots themselves.

For engineers I do agree the best thing is KIS/KAS. Hooking up fuel lines field-strutting would be great to start, and giving the option to add parts to existing craft both solves the "Oh shoot I forgot x!" problem and could provide some fun contract possibilities. It might also be nice to let engineers edit control groups, make VAB wheel and landing leg adjustments, etc. You could also give some functions like display drag, delta-V, maintain COM by pumping fuel around, etc.

The easiest perks for scientists seem to me boosts to sample values and MPL payouts, but the mobile lab is already kind of OP so its more like you'd want to let high level Kerbals use it at current levels and nerf the lower levels. What I'd really love scientists to be able to do is conduct actual science experiments, but that's a whole other discussion.

 

The other thing I'd love to see would be to just give kerbals some uniqueness. I think you could model a half a dozen hairstyles, glasses, facial hair, etc and randomize them for new hires. It seems silly but it I think it would give just a little more personality to them. Being able to see visually that they're individuals helps players invest a little more feeling in the little guys.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Pthigrivi

[Barar]

I wouldn't mind if they added the minimumCrew = *, requires = Pilot/Scienetist/Engineer to other modules. Right now it exists in the ModuleCommand and ModuleScienceLab. If it was added ModuleResourceConverter, ModuleGenerator, ModuleResourceHarvester, ModuleAsteroidDrill and others. One could easily make a crewed drill, ISRU, engine rooms. If you wanted to add engines to the list, you could make it work like the radiators that affect up to x4 parts.

So there would be a reason to carry more Kerbals since you would need to crew parts for them to work. As it is, you only really need one pilot, one engineer, and two scientist for everything.

If you had a massive engine build, it might require a module with 2-3 level one Kerbal engineers or one level 5, and maybe a pilot.

Surveying a planet with scanners, auto-tracking solar-panels, running a nuclear reactor would require a scientist crew member or be adjacent to the pod.

A simple right click context menu could say "Engineer required (2)".

This could all be fleshed out and balanced by mods, so stock game would not even be affected. Could even lock it out in the menus like advanced tweakables.

Ideally it could be its own module, as a made up example below. 

ModuleResourceHarvester
    { 
        CrewModule
        { 
            SurefaceAttach = true
            Nodeconnected = true
            MinExperianceLevel = 1
            MaxPartAffected = 5
            Adjacent = true
             minimumCrew = 3
            {
              requires = Engineer
              requires = Engineer
              requires = Scientist
            }
        }
    }

 

 

[juanml82]

On 20/4/2018 at 5:46 PM, Pthigrivi said:

A few things:

There are a few gameplay elements that still feel a bit unfinished and the experience system is one of them. There really aren't any perks for going past level 3, probably because creating those perks would be huge content adds. Still, I'd love to see them.

Pilots could have additional SAS options, hold on angle to horizon, maintain altitude, etc. They could also provide landing and aerobrake predictions, time to reentry and impact and such. Im not as much a fan of making Mech-Jeb "land at target" or "execute rendezvous" stock because I think it takes away too much of what players should really be learning to do well, but some of the more basic functions not only are nice to have but act as tools for players becoming better pilots themselves.

For engineers I do agree the best thing is KIS/KAS. Hooking up fuel lines field-strutting would be great to start, and giving the option to add parts to existing craft both solves the "Oh shoot I forgot x!" problem and could provide some fun contract possibilities. It might also be nice to let engineers edit control groups, make VAB wheel and landing leg adjustments, etc. You could also give some functions like display drag, delta-V, maintain COM by pumping fuel around, etc.

The easiest perks for scientists seem to me boosts to sample values and MPL payouts, but the mobile lab is already kind of OP so its more like you'd want to let high level Kerbals use it at current levels and nerf the lower levels. What I'd really love scientists to be able to do is conduct actual science experiments, but that's a whole other discussion.

 

The other thing I'd love to see would be to just give kerbals some uniqueness. I think you could model a half a dozen hairstyles, glasses, facial hair, etc and randomize them for new hires. It seems silly but it I think it would give just a little more personality to them. Being able to see visually that they're individuals helps players invest a little more feeling in the little guys.

High lever scientists could do automated science sampling. So if you're biome hopping and have a level 4 scientist on board, you can set him to run the repeatable experiments when you enter a new biome while a level 5 can do that plus run the goo, science jr and surface scanner. It removes tedium and gives them something to do.

The catch is that once you max out the science tree, there isn't much use for science anymore. But that's the general problem of career mode being mostly sandbox+grind

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, juanml82 said:

High lever scientists could do automated science sampling. So if you're biome hopping and have a level 4 scientist on board, you can set him to run the repeatable experiments when you enter a new biome while a level 5 can do that plus run the goo, science jr and surface scanner. It removes tedium and gives them something to do.

The catch is that once you max out the science tree, there isn't much use for science anymore. But that's the general problem of career mode being mostly sandbox+grind

I like this idea but we can already sort of do that. I usually put all of my experiments on one action group and an experiment storage container on another so with 2 keystrokes I can gather everything. If its a vessel with a science lab I can clean the materials bay and goo canister from there, otherwise, yeah you gotta climb out and reset. Definitely could be a cool perk to reset those without a lab with a higher level scientist.

and yeah, we could have a whole separate discussion about the science system in general.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Pthigrivi

[Capt. Hunt]

On 4/20/2018 at 10:41 PM, Barar said:

I wouldn't mind if they added the minimumCrew = *, requires = Pilot/Scienetist/Engineer to other modules. Right now it exists in the ModuleCommand and ModuleScienceLab. If it was added ModuleResourceConverter, ModuleGenerator, ModuleResourceHarvester, ModuleAsteroidDrill and others. One could easily make a crewed drill, ISRU, engine rooms. If you wanted to add engines to the list, you could make it work like the radiators that affect up to x4 parts.

So there would be a reason to carry more Kerbals since you would need to crew parts for them to work. As it is, you only really need one pilot, one engineer, and two scientist for everything.

If you had a massive engine build, it might require a module with 2-3 level one Kerbal engineers or one level 5, and maybe a pilot.

Surveying a planet with scanners, auto-tracking solar-panels, running a nuclear reactor would require a scientist crew member or be adjacent to the pod.

A simple right click context menu could say "Engineer required (2)".

This could all be fleshed out and balanced by mods, so stock game would not even be affected. Could even lock it out in the menus like advanced tweakables.

Ideally it could be its own module, as a made up example below. 

ModuleResourceHarvester
    { 
        CrewModule
        { 
            SurefaceAttach = true
            Nodeconnected = true
            MinExperianceLevel = 1
            MaxPartAffected = 5
            Adjacent = true
             minimumCrew = 3
            {
              requires = Engineer
              requires = Engineer
              requires = Scientist
            }
        }
    }

 

 

ore drills and ISRU are already significantly more efficient if they are connected to a crew part with an engineer.  I think it would make the parts too bulky if you required them to be crewed directly.

[fireblade274]

I would be curious how often devs look at this forum topic; are we (players) just talking to ourselves 99% of the time here lol

[Barar]

1 hour ago, Capt. Hunt said:

ore drills and ISRU are already significantly more efficient if they are connected to a crew part with an engineer.  I think it would make the parts too bulky if you required them to be crewed directly.

Just ideas on how to make Kerbals more meaningful. As it is, you only need one engineer to benefit everything connected. For me, it would be nice to set up a mining base where the ISRU and Drills had to be crewed(different models would be needed). Instead of just keeping them in a command module. It is why I mentioned to be able to enable the option for an engineer bonus type to only affect the part crewed or adjacent if enabled. This way, if I had 6 drills and 2 ISRU that needed to be crewed to work. I would need to bring along 8 Kerbal engineers to run them all. As it is, I would need 8 separate vessels to do this right now.

Yes, it could probably be bulky unless someone made an animated model that could deploy. But that would just be a challenge to overcome in setting up a big base.

I don't see it as taking anything from the existing gameplay or forcing anyone into playing a certain way, since I am only suggesting to add a tool for modders. 

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, fireblade274 said:

I would be curious how often devs look at this forum topic; are we (players) just talking to ourselves 99% of the time here lol

Haha pretty much I think. I know they read it from time to time, but yes, they have their own ideas about these things.

[RedPandaz]

What if they had emotions, like the Sims or something?. Like "Jebediah is feeling lonely"  or "Gerkuk is feeling excited" 

[klgraham1013]

On 4/24/2018 at 12:55 PM, fireblade274 said:

I would be curious how often devs look at this forum topic; are we (players) just talking to ourselves 99% of the time here lol

Yes.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

USI-LS has a great system to bestow certain benefits upon veteran kerbals, and Earn Your Stripes has a great system to create vets. Perhaps look into these to add some value to your crew.