Random events might be fun!

[kiwiak]

Im not writing this to somehow try to convince devs to include random events, they said "no go" and i respect and somehow understand their vision of game. But, thats why we have mods...

So, I want to show you my opinion about hypotetic random disasters and events, and how it might be fun.

Right now our space missions end in two ways.

- Success, every part of mission was accomplished without problems

- Disaster, explosion, quickload (or sometimes - not enough fuel left in tank for maneuver, quickload)

And now think about it, how gratifying woudl be to have some unpredicted random problems during mission - overcome it - and complete a mission! And I dont mean simple thing like going eva, clicking on damaged component and click "repair".

I just have some vague ideas: engine malfunctions resulting in shotting down some of them, or lovering their stats, exploding oxygene tanks (wait where did i heard about this), malfunctions of navigation instruments, solar flares.

It certainly woudl have to be well balanced. Random events, but giving player some way to sort things out and succeed. Its no fun to just have your rocket randomly completly explode without reason.

[SkyRender]

The only thing I can say to this idea is no. A thousand times over. Randomness kills fun in games faster than anything else, and giving even a 0.01% chance of things horribly going wrong on any given part means that someone out there (usually me) is going to experience every single possible part breakdown within seconds on a single mission. KSP's main appeal is that it does not resort to taking control away from the player arbitrarily by way of letting the RNG decide if they get to have fun. If you want a game that randomly punishes you for having the gall to play it, there's more than enough titles out there which already do so. We don't need KSP joining the ranks of thinly-veiled casino games.

[kiwiak]

The only thing I can say to this idea is no. A thousand times over. Randomness kills fun in games faster than anything else, and giving even a 0.01% chance of things horribly going wrong on any given part means that someone out there (usually me) is going to experience every single possible part breakdown within seconds on a single mission. KSP's main appeal is that it does not resort to taking control away from the player arbitrarily by way of letting the RNG decide if they get to have fun. If you want a game that randomly punishes you for having the gall to play it, there's more than enough titles out there which already do so. We don't need KSP joining the ranks of thinly-veiled casino games.

And im not ancouraging devs to implement IN ANY WAY.

[sal_vager]

Not so sure about that Skyrender, I remember having a lot of fun with Flight unlimited 3 and its random failure system.

Breakdowns were rare, you could do 20 or 30 flights and nothing would go wrong, but when it did it was something that made you have to think of how to deal with it, such as a faulty gauge or broken undercarriage.

These events just added to the immersion of being a civil pilot, you didn't know what might go wrong or when, and it was rare enough you didn't worry about it.

[SkyRender]

One thing I wouldn't mind is if there were a more complex tolerances system. That, at least, would have some potential to give players a thrill without arbitrarily punishing players. Lower-quality, cheaper parts could be added with less lenient tolerances for the risktakers. Similarly, damage mechanics could be properly implemented for when things overheat, so that tolerances and efficiency drop as the item gets more and more damaged from the above-spec heat levels. There's great potential to increase the challenge without introducing a random element already.

I'm dead-set against unrestrained randomness. This isn't easy for a lot of people to understand, but when you call upon a chain of random possibilities, you must always consider the best- and worst-case scenarios in your design. You cannot say "oh the odds of that are astronomically low" and dismiss it for the worst-case, because someone (again, usually me) is going to encounter that worst-case eventually. And they will hate you forever for it.

[Sirrobert]

"This mission that took me 10 hours to prepare is going awesome, everyting according to plan.

Wait what? Where did my torque go? What do you mean I got hit by a solar flame? There go 12 hours of playing in 1 random crash."

Yea... no

[NASI Director]

I believe the devs have implemented random failures in the form of the Kraken

[Beachernaut]

I have a feeling it would end up like the random setting on my Ipod. I've got 8 gigs of music (thousands of songs), but it "randomly" seems to play the same 12 songs.

As much as I like the challenge this idea represents, it could get unbearably frustrating when it randomly shuts down control on my Tylo lander at 300 meters.

[regex]

I like this idea and I've been wanting to implement a mod for it for some time. I actually have half of a system programmed to handle random failures, I just haven't had the time to finish it, much less test it. For a lot of systems it's quite easy; you can scan a part for resources and have them leak, disable engine gimbal, explode a part... The important thing to remember is that these sorts of things should be rare events and should enhance gameplay. They should also be fixable, for the most part. KAS has the cool ability to allow you to replace certain parts, so that could add an entirely new dimension to the gameplay if a part exploded, for instance.

[Anton P. Nym]

The thing about random events in KSP is that it's not like we can power cycle the rendezvous radar or set SCE to "Aux" to recover. It's just not that sophisticated a simulator. Random failures would essentially be unrecoverable, so unless we had much more redundancy than real-life rockets the failure would terminate the mission. Just not fun, at least not for me anyway.

-- Steve

[WillHop]

I suppose it could work if implemented properly, but I would have to try it out first. Maybe it could be fun for an engine to malfunction on launch and thanking God you made that LES, maybe not. Would be interesting to see a mod implement this though

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

What I would expect random failures to be, a part would be researched. It will have a selected percentage of a failure rate. It would be low. You would then have to spend science to up the percentage

[henryrasia]

My idea would be that you can build your own parts within KSC, and those would have awesome safety and efficiency (depending on your Development budget) but would generally be VERY expensive (buy facility, workers, parts... all in one of course, we dont want micromanagement). Alternatively you could comission other "companies" to build them for you and, depending on the company, safety, efficiency and price would vary.

With this system you can invest in critical mission components and save up on non-critical ones for when money is a thing. Also, investing in the wrong things or not investing at all will bring you not-so-succesful missions. What do you guys think?

[elxverde]

"This mission that took me 10 hours to prepare is going awesome, everyting according to plan.

Wait what? Where did my torque go? What do you mean I got hit by a solar flame? There go 12 hours of playing in 1 random crash."

Yea... no

Then make sure your payload is properly shielded.

Some of you are just afraid of being forced to think, I think.

[Lazro]

But even the smallest chance of disaster in a mission can really screvv it over. Remember, noting is 100%. Even if the majority of your craft is made of shielding, there's always a chance that a solar flare will destroy your electronics. Even if you've spent years, decades even researching a space launch vehicle, there's always some ambiguity.

You cannot prepare for everything, practically and theoretically.

Now, how would you feel if your massive grand tour met that 0.00001% per year chance for a major disaster with no chance for repair?

[User Unrelated]

I think the best thing to do is to not be a little wimp, and don't use quick-saves

I've had PLENTY of little random things happen, like accidentally draining an entire transfer stage of a station because I forgot that docking ports used as decoupers allow crossfeed... (I was draining the station storage tank on the pad) The station still made it to Minmus.

and I ran out of fuel in a huge eliptical off-camber orbit way early on with no docking ports, and sent out a ship to corrall jeb's crippled craft back to an aerocapture on Kerbin...

I've also completely re-configured a station layout due to an unforseen issue with a tug (it had no probe core!)

I landed on Eve without landing legs in my last save

I retrofitted a kethane mining rig to also act as a transfer vessel (instead of using seperate transfer vehicles) by constructing and docking with a big strut, girder, and docking port aparatus.

I've flown an entire mission with 2 of 4 engines because 1 became mysteriously detatched (and I shut down the one across from it because symmetry)

I like solving problems

and sometimes my own stupidity is the best source!

[boxman]

I would like some randomness as well besides the bugs. Some of my most interesting missions has been when I have had unexpected failures, which sadly does not happen so often now that I am more experienced with the game.

But I think it should be optional and disabled by default if they ever added something like that.

It is kinda odd how they say no go though, since in early squad streams they actually talked about wanting to add a certain chance of mechanical failures.

[boxman]

One thing I wouldn't mind is if there were a more complex tolerances system. That, at least, would have some potential to give players a thrill without arbitrarily punishing players. Lower-quality, cheaper parts could be added with less lenient tolerances for the risktakers. Similarly, damage mechanics could be properly implemented for when things overheat, so that tolerances and efficiency drop as the item gets more and more damaged from the above-spec heat levels. There's great potential to increase the challenge without introducing a random element already.

I'm dead-set against unrestrained randomness. This isn't easy for a lot of people to understand, but when you call upon a chain of random possibilities, you must always consider the best- and worst-case scenarios in your design. You cannot say "oh the odds of that are astronomically low" and dismiss it for the worst-case, because someone (again, usually me) is going to encounter that worst-case eventually. And they will hate you forever for it.

That I think would be a great idea.. Being able to do some cost cutting in career mode or something which might increase the chances of something going wrong with those parts.

[NQMT]

How about, instead of 'random engine/part failure' there could be a limited amount of 'uses'. Say, an LV-N would have a maximum of 36h in-game at full thrust, meaning you'd need to replace old and worn-out components.

Random wouldn't work, you'd have a perfectly running ship, then BOOM! Fuel tank rupture because why not?

[SDIR]

This is a great idea, but it needs a bit more refinement and needs to be more specific before anyone takes this up as a mod. It would just need some interfaces, or an "inspection" feature where the kerbals can EVA and check the integrity of various components. Also, it would be extremely nice if you COULD fix things, but it requires special tools in a special part module, that's probably very, very heavy, like 10-15 tons. That would add more challenge to the game and would make it more fun as well. Just a suggestion

[Liowen]

I dunno about anyone else, but for me there is enough randomness with my skills, or lack there of, to make any mission fun and exciting. I have never landed in the same place on any mission, mostly because I am still learning and the other half is just poor planning. Messing up staging while moving parts, so that one bank of SRBs does not fire causing your craft to back flip into the ocean. My more recent one a decoupler not breaking free causing the small engine to not want to fire, I think I may have put it on the wrong way but still...

If they put it in I would be fine with it so long as there is a way of selecting if you want it on or, just like if the wanted something like deadly reentry in game. It may turn away new players from wanting to learn it as it would be overly complicated. I could be alone on viewing it this way though, but that is just my thoughts on it.

[thiosk]

I think it would be more exciting to have incoming cometary bodies or asteroids as a random event. Such an event would throw an unprecedented, dynamic challenge at the player. At the start, you'd only see comets etc pop up close to the orbit of kerbin... but with telescope installations further out in the future Kerbol system, you could see them earlier to scramble missions in time. Random gilly sized bodies coming through might be really fun and exciting.

It would not be fun to have one of four lander legs suddenly break and refuse to open mid flight, especially with no existing infrastructure for effecting a repair.

[Liowen]

It would not be fun to have one of four lander legs suddenly break and refuse to open mid flight, especially with no existing infrastructure for effecting a repair.

Is it weird that once in orbit I open my landing gear and close it to make sure it is fine? LOL Maybe I have some weird form of OCD or something.

[AndrewBCrisp]

I think that, with regards to random events such as space weather or breakdowns, some means of anticipating them would help balance the fun vs. frustration factor. I think we can live with randomness if we can see it coming and at least take appropriate action. Likewise, we'd need to be sure that such random events are not "one-hit kills" for spacecraft. Random events should also be rare - like, happening only once every 1,000 game-days or so on.

Take solar flares, for example. If I was to implement them in the game, I'd probably limit space weather to three states, with one state - "calm" - being the normal, and the other two happening only occasionally. Two classes of solar flares would be enough. Minor solar flares would mean temporary loss of communication for ships not shielded by planetary bodies (i.e. science transmissions won't go through), but no system malfunctions. Major solar flares would introduce system malfunctions, but at a small chance of them happening. I would NOT include Coronal Mass Ejections or Carrington-level solar storms because, well, any spacecraft caught in the open when such a thing happens is fried. Period.

While ground weather would be too complex to model, perhaps ground conditions that change occasionally might help - with a weather report that can show what said conditions will be in a region. Again, for example, we can apply this to launching a mission from the KSC. When you go to launch a spacecraft from the launchpad or runway, you get, not just a list of ships and kerbonauts to fly them, but a "five day forecast" with some events (thunderstorms, tropical storms, hurricanes) having a chance of launch failure. You might still lose a ship, but only if you don't heed the forecast. Knowing it's coming in advance would help to make sure players don't toss their computers through a window if their 200 ton Duna mission is torn apart by Tropical Storm Jeb on ascent.

Eve might have a chance of malfunctions due to heat for missions that land on the surface. Duna might have dust-storms that pop up in one biome or another every so often that block communications or reduce efficiency of solar cells or rover wheels, but not so bad as to tear landers and rovers apart. Again, events that can be anticipated.

As for system malfunctions themselves, if an event triggers a malfunction (e.g. a probe gets hit by a major flare), I'd probably have the malfunction be a one-off thing, with permanent damage limited only to non-critical hardware. So you might lose a temperature sensor or a comm antenna, but not your lander motor or RCS system. Some permanent damage could be repairable by kerbonauts - like rover wheels are now. One-off malfunctions would mean the part in question would not work, but if you tried to use it again, the malfunction would be gone. E.g. A comm antenna gets zapped by a flare but not permanent knocked out. Attempting to transmit with it once means the transmission is lost, but use the antenna gain and it works as normal (for those who would need an in-game reason, we can imagine the ground controllers finding a workaround to get that antenna working again, as has happened with so many missions in reality). Of course, having redundant systems - like extra antennas and sensors - would also offset the permanent malfunction issue. Some measure of prevention can also help: e.g. if your Duna lander is about to get hit by a dust storm, you could fold up solar arrays to protect them.

In the case of malfunctions affecting probe cores and command pods, we can imagine different cores having different levels of robustness. A Stayputnik core for example might be cheap but vulnerable to flares, but an OKTO or HEX core could be hard as nails, letting you laugh at major flares even if you have the bad luck of having two or three major flares in a row.

Lastly, improving prediction of random events can also be a feature: space and ground weather can be predicted by KSC, but putting a weather satellite (with say a special weather camera part) in orbit around Kerbin or Duna can improve prediction of events there, while a satellite in Kerbol orbit with, say, a magnetometer part or a solar telescope part can help improve flare prediction, so that forecasts can go from just "what's happening today" to "what will happen 5 days from now". These, of course, can also deliver science points.

Just my own thoughts on the matter.

[FenrirWolf]

The best thing about KSP is how it doesn't use an RNG to determine if you're gonna have fun or not. I'd rather keep it that way, but that's me.