Trade Route Infrastructure

[starcaptain]

I had a mad idea last night. If this isn't fiesable for the game, I sure hope it will be for a mod:

Monorails.

Inspired by Lego Space sets, perhaps surface-based trade routes between different colonies on the same world could be strengthened by building a monorail. Gameplay-wise Monorails would be faster, deliver more resources and cost less to operate than regular surface trade route missions, but require a major investment of time to build at the outset.

I've included pictures to show what I mean.

Here is a representative colony on some planet/moon, with the vehicle assembly building and some other attached modules.

The red building is a buildable module that serves as a kerbal passenger station and freight loading depot. As far as trade routes are concerned, this building is what's functioning in the player's economy. Everything else is just cosmetic decoration for their surface base(s). At the station, the player can easily adjust the frequency of train departures and arrivals to match their economic needs or whatever. Or perhaps just put a dial that says "send a passenger train every 15 minutes". Forgive the crudity of these models, it's all simple illustration.

Yellow indicates track, which is procedural generated (see below).

Red towers are the support columns for the track, and these are the things which cost the aforementioned time to build. They're plopped on the surface like Deployable experiments. Once deployed, they cannot be moved or affected by outside forces and behave like invincible structures.

Between the center-points of the deployed tower structures, a virtual curve is interpolated. A straight line is virtually drawn which points to the previous tower (cyan). This straight line drives the control points of some kind of spline (blue). This spline then is offset for Left and Right track paths (black). The track is then procedurally generated along the virtual path (orange, shown above). This also becomes the governing path of where the train vehicle goes, which is then animated when a train is sent to or from a station.

No, I'm not trying to imagine KSP2 as a game that competes with Surviving Mars or Per Aspera or Cities Skylines. It just occurred to me and I thought I'd share.

Again, if nothing else, it's a novel idea for a mod.

Edited November 15, 2020 by starcaptain

[Guest]

You got me at "monorail".

Also the 6991 set is a legend among AFOLs.

[Caerfinon]

Good idea... but now I'm humming the song from the Simpson's Monorail episode...

 

[starcaptain]

1 hour ago, Caerfinon said:

Good idea... but now I'm humming the song from the Simpson's Monorail episode..

He who laughs last...

[shdwlrd]

Interesting idea. It could be useful for distances up to a few hundred km. After that, it might be faster to fly or hop from location to location.

[mcwaffles2003]

7 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Interesting idea. It could be useful for distances up to a few hundred km. After that, it might be faster to fly or hop from location to location.

if there's multiple trains on a schedule, individual trip times will be meaningless and it will all come down to an economy of energy

 

38 minutes ago, starcaptain said:

He who laughs last...

That's a pretty unique rickroll and i love it...

BTW... the game

[Acid_Burn9]

Conveyor belts BlessRNG. 


 

Spoiler

THE FACTORY MUST GROW

 

[Multivac]

This sounds like a really fun idea! I love that it's inspired by those awesome old Lego space sets, and given that colonization is a stated feature to be included in KSP2, this seems like a reasonable feature idea to me. It may well make sense to have multiple colonies on the surface of one body, and having some efficient way to link them just makes sense from the perspective of "colonization" gameplay.

Also:

4 hours ago, starcaptain said:

Forgive the crudity of these models, it's all simple illustration.

[K^2]

7 hours ago, starcaptain said:

No, I'm not trying to imagine KSP2 as a game that competes with Surviving Mars or Per Aspera or Cities Skylines. It just occurred to me and I thought I'd share.

Again, if nothing else, it's a novel idea for a mod.

Reminded me of Satisfactory more than anything. Definitely viable for a mod if nothing like this is in the game.

Also, above and beyond on illustration.

[MechBFP]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

Reminded me of Satisfactory more than anything. Definitely viable for a mod if nothing like this is in the game.

Also, above and beyond on illustration.

Speaking of Satisfactory, I HIGHLY recommend it.

[mattinoz]

Like a hyperloop without the need for the loop given the low air resistance.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, MechBFP said:

Speaking of Satisfactory, I HIGHLY recommend it.

Yeppers.

 

Fun game.  Short at the moment, but fun

[Kerminator K-100]

A very City Skylines idea

[starcaptain]

One thing I kind of have a hard time turning over in my brain is how construction could work.

I imagine that making a model that behaves the same as deployable science parts is not hard, when it comes to the whole "take from canister, put in pocket, place on ground" thing. And I already speculated on the nature of how the mod would interpolate the placement of a bunch of deployed 'structural towers' and treat them as nodes for drawing the rails.

Would it be too much to ask of players to make them construct in such a manner, where a Kerbal must place them on foot?

• Drive 200 meters.
• Exit construction rover
  • Do you have structural towers?
  • If no, go back to your base and get more
• Place a structural tower
• Get in construction rover
• Repeat

Until you've covered all the ground from one base to another?

The gameplay purpose of the mod would/should argue that such a tedious and specialized mission would be worth it.

When it comes to the actual appearance of the monorail rolling stock (locomotive, cars, containers, etc) I would think they behave rather differently from the rest of the game's vehicular parts and would not be customizable unless you replaced their model assets within the mod folder.

Edited November 18, 2020 by starcaptain

[mattinoz]

On 11/18/2020 at 11:19 AM, starcaptain said:

One thing I kind of have a hard time turning over in my brain is how construction could work.

I imagine that making a model that behaves the same as deployable science parts is not hard, when it comes to the whole "take from canister, put in pocket, place on ground" thing. And I already speculated on the nature of how the mod would interpolate the placement of a bunch of deployed 'structural towers' and treat them as nodes for drawing the rails.

Would it be too much to ask of players to make them construct in such a manner, where a Kerbal must place them on foot?

• Drive 200 meters.
• Exit construction rover
  • Do you have structural towers?
  • If no, go back to your base and get more
• Place a structural tower
• Get in construction rover
• Repeat

Until you've covered all the ground from one base to another?

The gameplay purpose of the mod would/should argue that such a tedious and specialized mission would be worth it.

When it comes to the actual appearance of the monorail rolling stock (locomotive, cars, containers, etc) I would think they behave rather differently from the rest of the game's vehicular parts and would not be customizable unless you replaced their model assets within the mod folder.

Why get out?

Surely the point of a construction rover is to allow the driver (engineering skill) to automate the process from the Cab.

Also things that hang from the structure tend to have a lighter looking frame and track to hang from than sitting on top of an elevated structure.

Edited November 19, 2020 by mattinoz

[Nazalassa]

I'm trying to make a minmus monorail in KSP1, I'll see if it works. And no, it's not a mod.

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Nazalassa