Mission Audio Logs for Manned Missions?

[LittleBitMore]

A neat idea I had today.

I'm sure that a lot of us here have seen the Apollo audio logs from old NASA repositories (if not, here is Apollo 11). I had an idea: what if Kerbals constantly talked about random things during their mission (probably with Chatterer or something similar), creating audio logs similar to these for us to read?

I love games with little mechanics that make everyone seem interesting and unique through conversation. Even management and strategy games can pull them off sometimes (for whatever reason, the main one that comes to mind is the Bitbook system from the mobile app Tiny Tower, where all the tower residents would post on a Facebook analogue about the tower, eachother, and themselves). My idea is something where a massive list of pre-written conversations creates audio logs between the kerbals on the ship or in the colony, as well as including Mission Control sometimes.

This would include a little layer of fascination and intrigue to your experience of your kerbals, making them feel as if they were actually there doing things, and potentially even giving them personalities to which their responses in the conversation stick to. This would make KSP2 feel so friendly and immersive, I feel. Combo'd with a Chatterer analogue, it could make for some interesting vibes.

Even more so, the conversations don't have to be random talking about mustard on sandwiches (I swear that was an actual conversation in one of the Apollo logs), but also context-aware stuff, like talking about upcoming maneuvers, relaying descent information to Mission Control, or spotting celestial bodies out windows.

Here's an example of what an audio log for a Jool mission might look like, as well as some notes to let you guys know how I think it would work:

Spoiler

(Starts with a random filler conversation, using the crew names to input the participants)

[1034:04:19:16] Jebediah Kerman: I think it's interesting how we don't really know who's out there. I wonder how many civilizations in the stars wonder the same thing.

[1034:04:19:21] Bill Kerman: Yeah, it's interesting to know that we don't know anything we should know about the universe.

[1034:04:19:26] Jebediah Kerman: Well, we know some things, Bill. For example, we know not to trust Bob with the stove.

[1034:04:19:30] Bob Kerman: Hey! That was one time!

[1034:04:19:32] Jebediah Kerman: (Laughing)

[1034:04:19:32] Bill Kerman: (Laughing)

 

(Switches to a conversation about the maneuver node now that a maneuver node is approaching)

[1034:04:19:41] Mission Control: Maneuver node in T-60 seconds.

[1034:04:19:43] Jebediah Kerman: Roger.

 

(Player turns RCS on and points towards the maneuver node)

[1034:04:19:49] Jebediah Kerman: Activating RCS, alligning to maneuver.

[1034:04:19:51] Mission Control: Roger. Watch the monopropellant.

[1034:04:19:53] Jebediah Kerman: Understood, taken into consideration.

 

(Because nothing happens for a little while, a filler conversation plays, using context awareness from nearby planets)

[1034:04:20:34] Jebediah Kerman: Jool is beautiful this time of day.

[1034:04:20:35] Bob Kerman: We're in an interplanetary craft, there is no day or night.

[1034:04:20:37] Jebediah Kerman: It's a saying. Can anyone spot Laythe?

 

(Player activates thrusters, interrupting conversation)

[1034:04:20:39] Jebediah Kerman: Initiating maneuver execution burn now.

[1034:04:20:41] Mission Control: Roger.

 

(Nothing eventful happens so the filler conversation continues)

[1034:04:20:48] Jebediah Kerman: Anyways, as I was saying, can anyone spot Laythe?

[1034:04:20:49] Bill Kerman: I think it's just right over there.

[1034:04:20:52] Jebediah Kerman: Wow. ...I'm speechless.

I think this isn't too difficult a programming task unless it was made really fancy (procedural conversations, personalities taken into account, etc.), but would add a lot of atmosphere and character to every mission, situation, and kerbal. What do you guys think?

[shdwlrd]

Something like this would work if everything in the game was scripted and all possible random events was accounted for. This is KSP, there are very few routine operations where this could work. The rest is about as random as you can get.

[t_v]

I think it would work without having to script the flight. Once you have a maneuver node created, Mission Control would announce something like “Sending you the next maneuver now” or if you edit it after a long time, they could say “Change of plans [pilot]” in the moment. This would add a lot of life to the game, as it feels like your space program is actually doing the things you are doing, planning the same maneuvers and executing the same planned or unplanned burns. If chatterer is implemented, this would be the best way to do it, and it could give audio cues to help players.  “Looks like we have a slingshot” could prompt the player to realize that they have accidentally made a gravity assist. 
 

That being said, there is one immense problem: Languages. The amount of text and audio that would have to be transcribed to different languages would be enormous. I don’t think I know of any game except maybe Hades that translates that much text, and forget about audio entirely. However, if it were to be implemented, I think it would completely change the game and add a whole new dimension to the world. 

[LittleBitMore]

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

Something like this would work if everything in the game was scripted and all possible random events was accounted for. This is KSP, there are very few routine operations where this could work. The rest is about as random as you can get.

I agree that like, plotting out the conversations for entire missions is unlikely, but my idea involves breaking down important mission parts into their core concepts (instead of an entire conversation for executing a maneuver, there might be one part for approach, one part for alligning, one part for throttling up or down, etc.), which results in maybe 50 different unique situations to cover. Anything dependent on a specific planet will be configurable so that it can be whatever planet is involved in that topic, such as the Jool Laythe thing i mentioned (it would work just the same for Kerbin and Minmus, or Duna and Ike so long as you changed the names).

[shdwlrd]

@t_v simple routine communications can be done based on what you're doing. You're right about the languages, that would be a ton of work. You put an example of a routine maneuver that can cause a false trigger. It's quoted below.

2 hours ago, t_v said:

Looks like we have a slingshot

You're doing a planetary rendezvous. The game thinks you're doing a gravity assist because you weren't fast enough to add the retrograde burn before the audio will play. There's one bug with that. 

@LittleBitMore you can be very specific of when and how the audio plays, but as I pointed out above, there could be situations where false triggers can happen. That would be more of a annoyance than random comms chatter. 

Just to be straight, the only sounds I play KSP with is the decoupling, flame out, and useful sounds. I mute the ambient sounds, game music, and patched out all other sounds because I find them annoying and I don't want to go deaf. (Listening to the same frequency all the time, you can become numb to that frequency.) I play KSP with whatever music I have going in iTunes or in silence.

[t_v]

4 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

you can be very specific of when and how the audio plays, but as I pointed out above, there could be situations where false triggers can happen.

Alright, that was a bad example that assumes what the player’s intentions are. But there are lots of situations where audio will not mess up (executing a planned burn, making and adjusting a maneuver) and the solution to keeping the buggy audio out is to not include those subjective situations. 
As for the preferences, it can simply be made an option like every other effect. 

[LittleBitMore]

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

@LittleBitMore you can be very specific of when and how the audio plays, but as I pointed out above, there could be situations where false triggers can happen. That would be more of a annoyance than random comms chatter. 

False triggers would be an issue, and I don't really know how I'd be able to make them less annoying unless they were as broad as possible-- for example, instead of syaing "looks like we have a slingshot", a broader statement may be "it seems there's now an encounter with The One Planet Or Moon, You Know The One, The One You're Always Accidentally Encountering." Although I do understand false triggers can be problematic and plentiful, I don't feel like that's that big of an issue, or completely unworkaroundable.

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Just to be straight, the only sounds I play KSP with is the decoupling, flame out, and useful sounds. I mute the ambient sounds, game music, and patched out all other sounds because I find them annoying and I don't want to go deaf. (Listening to the same frequency all the time, you can become numb to that frequency.) I play KSP with whatever music I have going in iTunes or in silence.

6 hours ago, t_v said:

If chatterer is implemented, this would be the best way to do it, and it could give audio cues to help players.

My original idea was for the standard, random, gibberish Chatterer sounds, because I think using actual human speech would be too distracting and more annoying than funny if false triggers occur. If it were just text + random gibberish, the only difference would be in the audio log, which you likely wouldn't be able to read unless you opened its menu, nor would rely upon or be distracted by if something happens. Although, human speech is still an interesting idea. Like @t_v said, audio can and probably should be toggleable or lowerable so people don't get annoyed over it.

6 hours ago, t_v said:

That being said, there is one immense problem: Languages. The amount of text and audio that would have to be transcribed to different languages would be enormous. I don’t think I know of any game except maybe Hades that translates that much text, and forget about audio entirely. However, if it were to be implemented, I think it would completely change the game and add a whole new dimension to the world. 

You're right about this, I completely forgot languages were a thing. This is probably the biggest hurdle for this system. I have absolutely no clue how to fix this other than hiring lots of freelance translators, which obviously isn't ideal economically.

[shdwlrd]

You can keep the comments fairly broad to avoid false triggers. There is still a bunch of typical situations and operations that dialog would have to be written for. That is if you real want to use a real language. If you continue to do the reverse Spanish gibberish, you really don't have to worry about the different spoken languages. Just don't make the comms completely random, so you know when to expect them. No more jump scares because of random comms.

I'm a soft pass on this idea. I liked chatterer until I didn't. For me it's mainly personal reasons why I don't want it. Technical and logistical reasons are minimal as stated above. I'm more thinking about how annoying it will become after time. I'm thinking about the waste of storage space after I stop using it.

Edited March 17, 2022 by shdwlrd