Should/could Kerbals return from the dead in career mode?

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

I was thinking about what a blow it is to lose a kerbal and i was trying to think of ways (excuses) for the same Kerbal to return after a terrible accident, just now i've lost Jebediah and Bob in a large rocket with landing gear i stupidly made myself out of pylons and and struts, on test-landing the entire ship did a fandango before headbutting the floor and crashing my game, on reload it seems only Bill survived, must be because he was thrown clear of the blast.

I realised in career mode it's probably all over for those kerbals but i just can't let go, so i came up with these two similar scenarios that could allow their return:

Scenario one: Kerbals have souls! Yes despite being natural scientists and obsessed with rocketry Kerbals have souls which make their way back to the ancestral home of Kerbin on death, floating all the way back takes time though so you'd be without that Kerbal for as long as it took his soul to make it's way home, could be a year or more depending where in the solar system you blew up.

Once it arrives the soul flies straight to the hallowed cactus patch from whence all Kerbals originate, picture thousands of Kerbal shaped cactuses lying around waiting for souls to enter them, after which they get up, rub their eyes, have all their memories come flooding back and head straight for the nearest space center. (that wouldn't happen in the game of course, the kerbal would just re-appear ready to be sent, this is just background story.)

Or scenario two: Every kerbal is fitted with a chip that sends a complete copy of it's host's brain back to a cloning factory on Kerbin every 30 minutes, now this process takes a while of course so X amount of time passes before Jebediah II opens his eyes inside a cloning vat and pounds on the glass till they let him out for another space-ride, all memories and stats of the original Kerbal are implanted in the new clone, might explain why all Kerbals look the same.

This wouldn't stop new kerbals from spawning however because you'd need a new one while the replica of your much loved Kerbal is made/soul flying back, what do you guys think?

[Richy teh space man]

I'd prefer perma death for career mode, it'd give it more of a realistic feel to it.

[ecat]

Maybe something like resurrecting a favourite minion in Overlord II. It works on a sacrifice principle, if you want someone back then several others must be sacrificed. The more important and longer serving the dead one, the more lives required to resurrect. This feels like a good time for a Muhahahahaha.

[ZedNova]

I agree with richy, it would be more realistic and give another reason to be careful when building your budget rockets.

[Vostok]

They should all permanently die, it would mean that if you get someone with a cool name and good stats, you want to keep them.

Except Bill, Bob and Jeb, who should just get a I, II, III, IV, etc after their names when you brutally murder them under a thousand tons of rampantly burning solid rocket motor.

Maybe the numerals were a bad idea, but Bill, Jeb and Bob should definitely have some way of being able to be revived. Maybe you have a 1/1000 chance of getting them if they're not already alive?

Edited June 9, 2013 by Vostok

[Darston]

I think the perma death idea is the way to go. If you get a kerbal team with good stats you will need to be careful to no lose them and if something does go wrong and they survive you have incentive to actually go rescue them other than to just see if you can.

[cesarcurado]

No, they shouldn't return.

But maybe if you paid a very expensive price they would be back?

[Vostok]

No, they shouldn't return.

But maybe if you paid a very expensive price they would be back?

An expensive price similar to the cost of re-training them? How about an 'accelerated training' option? That would be neat. Whereby you could pay a large sum of money to have a kerbal trained fully in 1/10 of the time of normal, cheapo, budget training.

[Johnno]

I'd prefer them not dying at all, it even bothers me in the current sandbox version. I just quickly hit VAB/Space Center/quickload without reading that part of the flight log and keep reminding myself that they were only injured and eventually crawled out of the smoking wreck and were back on active duty after some slight R&R.

Permadeath would just end up wearing down my quicksave/quickload buttons, if you want permadeath then let's remove quicksave/load and make the persistant file save automatically whenever something happens? And a limited namelist could potentially make you run out of new recruits... are you suggesting a game over scenario?

I'm all for realism, but I really prefer the lighthearted side of Kerbal where you can just build more rockets and send your guys up again. It'd seriously depress me if my guys stayed dead. If you wanna depress me, how bout we add a growing graveyard next to the landing strip? And every 7th day you'd have grieving widows visit the graveyard and the game would play psalms the whole day?

No thanks.

[zekes]

Only Bill, Jeb, and Bob....

[caekdaemon]

I think that they should stay permanently dead, and to put the icing on the cake, a memorial wall around the complex that, when you click it, brings up a screen with a list of all the dead people, with the ability to click them and see their profile, see what missions they flew on, that kind of thing.

[Ronox]

I like the idea of perma death, and no quicksave/load, but maybe on a hard setting?

[Cdr_Zeta]

and..

and this is why my first few or so Kerbals, aint gonna get hazard pay anytime soon..in fact...the first few are actually fully trained in the SIM but will train other rookies to actually go into space - we dont send our teachers into space.

That said...it depends on the situation and also how people play...so..for me...if they have an accident and go poof...thing is, they come back into the game...there is a crew roster mod that can change their names I think if that happens...so it could be their child etc haha that takes over when you change their name!

Just an example...There will be instances where the death/accident may be caused by a game issue, or a bug you knew about but forgot; guess what...revert; gamesaves; etc; start over from the last good point in game before the glitch.

Yes in the end they die but in game they come back; in career, they shouldnt, and thre should be like a 100 character limit; or limits a player can set; AND (AHAHA>>>??AA); a cloning station (?); or a cryo station where we can give them powers to kep them alive; until they cant except cryo no mo...etc

I will probly have to get that mod and change their name to reflect a sibling of the predecessor.

Cdr Zeta