A Reliability Rating for Parts

[Gaming Kraken]

In the current base game, a lot of the Contracts we see relate to testing out different parts. Yet, these parts are infallible no matter how much they are tested. I am proposing that all parts in Career mode exclusively be given a reliability rating, like 90, 80, or 70%. This value determines if a part is to fail, however, with increased testing and flight-proven success, that rating increases. What are your thoughts?

Edited June 5, 2019 by Gaming Kraken

[Gargamel]

4 hours ago, Gaming Kraken said:

Yet, these parts are infallible no matter how much they are tested.

I have always viewed the tests as outside vendors paying the KSC to ferry the test part to a specific location and do the test for them.    Kinda like real life commercial satellite contracts, the owner of the satellite has to buy space on a launch vehicle.     So from that point of view, reliability ratings really don't make sense.  

Part failures though.... if each part has a 1% chance of failing on any launch, and my launch vehicle is 100 parts.... does some math... carries the 4.... Oh..... oh no..... that's not good.... only a 37% chance of a safe launch.    Part failures shouldn't be handled through seeing if each part will fail, but through a mechanism that sees if any part fails, and then picks a part (See also:  Most of the mods that do part failures), So using this mechanism as you propose, and have a minimum launch safety rating of 90%, the part reliability rating would have a really high value of almost 100 :).  But I'm open to counter arguments on this one.   

But overall, given the complexity this would add, and the number of mods that do this, "There's a mod for that" would be my main suggestion to this. 

[AVaughan]

My experience with part failure mods is that I tend to revert/reload if a mission critical part fails, which means that for me, using those mods isn't fun and installing them is pointless.  (By extension, adding part failures to stock also wouldn't be any fun, at least for me).

[Gargamel]

10 hours ago, AVaughan said:

My experience with part failure mods is that I tend to revert/reload if a mission critical part fails, which means that for me, using those mods isn't fun and installing them is pointless.  (By extension, adding part failures to stock also wouldn't be any fun, at least for me). 

I do use a part failures mod, so don't take my initial post as saying there shouldn't be part failures, I just didn't like that proposed mechanic for it.   But having the part failures mod 'forces' me to do a couple things.  1) I must design in a crew escape system for every crewed launch, and have an abort plan in place for the various stages of launch.  2) Use that abort plan.   Using the Final Frontier and R&R mods adds a nice bit of RP to the game if something goes wonky.   I really do enjoy the little bit of suspense I get when I launch. 

[Guest]

Thumbs down on this one. It would make the base game much more hardcore and that's a job for mods.

[pandaman]

I can't say i like the idea of 'random failures' in stock too much, but yes I get that it adds an extra element of realism and sense of 'tension', so I can see the appeal.  But I am perfectly capable of stuffing things up myself without the assistance of any arbitary in game random chance.

It really would depend on how it was implemented as to whether i used it or just turned it off, but i suspect the latter most of the time.

 

 

 

[Aeroboi]

Give people the option. It's a little mechanic. Stuff already explodes, so no extra mechanic needed. Just a auto:off setting in the main menu for part failures with a clever configuration formula = no time spent and a few happy faces. Obviously the static failure rate should be very low. The best way of doing it, have a 1% failure rate that any part on the ship fails, with a by-percentage to certain parts like engines having a higher chance of failing after launch. Then add a static formula of further failing of 1% every 1 through 10 year(s). It doesn't have to be that difficult
That means having a slider to further calibrate the occurrence rate.

Sophisticated version

Add code to it so that if a engine fails the fuel tanks also fail and explode with it as that type of failure is supposed to simulate a combustion failure.
Think of any other types of failures that are known and add code to simulate it. For instance, if a fuel tank of another stage leaks on top of the firing stage it should leak the tanks of that stage and have reaction forces of the leaking fluid disrupting the flight path.
Have reaction wheels shutdown. By-effect it's a low chance to disrupt reaction wheel torque by breaking them allowing it do be considered a actual saturated stock ksp reaction wheel due to failure
Failure to open solar panels (or retract them which means anytime you do want, requires engineer to fix)
Also have command pod control torque fail or have batteries fail.
Maybe allow engineer's to fix any damage as long as they bring a certain amount or "ore" depending on the part which is damaged to fix it or salvage such a craft to be recovered.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Aeroboi