Do space suits deserve a place alongside rockets&planes as a design activity in KSP?

[T.C.]

When I play KSP, I feel that I'm exploring the engineering considerations of rocket and spaceplane design. I would love to do the same for space suit design.

I believe the subject is rich with interesting design challenges. Depending on the mission, a suit needs to maintain internal pressure, supply oxygen, regulate temperature, vent excess heat, deflect ultraviolet radiation, protect against micrometeoroids & rough surfaces, provide illumination, permit communication, ensure mobility, and facilitate survival & rescue in an emergency. In many cases, there are different ways to approach these requirements (e.g. hard-shell suits vs. soft suits, life support backpacks vs. umbilical tethers, etc.), and each decision has tradeoffs which could impact mission success. If space suit design were part of the game, I predict that we would end up customizing our suits to match the mission requirements, and that would add another layer of interesting & realistic variety to the gameplay.

That's my idle thought for the day. Feel free to comment.

And forgive me if this has been discussed before. I searched the forum, but all I could find regarding space suits were requests to change the color.

-TC

[dryer_lint]

Hmm... space suits seem a little too small in size to "design your own", because that would be something like making new parts. As for choosing which type of spacesuit your crew wears, that could work I guess.

[Harry Mckay]

"umbilical tethers" Oh My Kod THIS! And when they're implemented it'd probably be a snap to implement things like cables/fuel lines, especially for separate modules of extra-Kerbinal ground bases.

[Othuyeg]

A more meaningful designing aspect would be the internals of a command module, I believe. Espescially if crew life support requirements are added to the game.

[Wallace]

We need the giant gold armadillo suit from Sunshine!

It would be nice to pick between adding things like parachutes or RCS, tho I think there probably wouldn't be that many combinations of gear possible.

On the downside there would be the potential for many 'oopps forgot to change the suit for this new mission' moments where we watch Jeb float helplessly away with no rcs, or he ends up flailing about like an inverted turtle in his over-heavy hard suit on Eve, etc.

[Special Agent Sigvan]

We need the giant gold armadillo suit from Sunshine!

It would be nice to pick between adding things like parachutes or RCS, tho I think there probably wouldn't be that many combinations of gear possible.

On the downside there would be the potential for many 'oopps forgot to change the suit for this new mission' moments where we watch Jeb float helplessly away with no rcs, or he ends up flailing about like an inverted turtle in his over-heavy hard suit on Eve, etc.

Maybe a storage container?

Packing things like EVAFuel or different suits just in case?

[Specialist290]

Dropping this in Suggestions and Development Discussion

I for one think that the ability to customize the suit loadouts for your kerbonauts would add an interesting dimension to the game, though I probably wouldn't take it quite so far as T.C. is speculating on. I do like the idea of different loadouts having different specialties and tradeoffs to encourage players to use different ones in different situations would possibly encourage people to launch more multi-crew missions, for instance.

[KaBob]

It would be nice to have a few choices in suits such as parachute vs jetpack but I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to make it a full customization feature.

Although if they do add things like life support eventually then I could see more customization options being useful, such as swapping out eva fuel for more oxygen if you're going someplace like eve.

[technicalfool]

I like the idea. Keep it simple, for instance have a few base suit types with different-size back packs. An EVA tank could take up say, a 1x1 block, pack of 10 flags 2x1, storage for 5 samples another 2x1 block. Maybe add a few suit-attached instruments to the game for acquiring surface and subsurface science. Arrange the blocks in the X by Y-size space in a design room screen.

[Mitchz95]

Yes! This needs to be a thing. Please do it, devs!

[Whirligig Girl]

I think just having a selection for the Helmet, body, legs, and arms would be good, and then you can tack on some additional parts like lights, jetpack tank and thrusters, and parachutes. Also, EVA action groups, such as "Move arm straight out" to use a wrist-mounted flashlight, or "Pull in tether."

Speaking of which, I'm suprised Tethers still haven't been implementndwsanofndcaounfdc

[pizzaoverhead]

Astronauts on the ISS refer to their space suits as spacecraft because that's what they are: single-person self-contained craft, with life support, engines and power.

In KSP, EVA suits are currently the only kind of vessel that can't have their design improved. They're treated as part of kerbals. I'd like to see more separation between the craft and the character, much like the 0.16 release did in adding extra-vehicular activities. Kerbals on the surface of Kerbin, in low altitude flight or in space stations don't need anything more than a flight suit.

As the science report says:

Separating the craft from the kerbal also lets you do interesting things such as Suitport airlocks:

I'd like to see the customisation done as part of a wider IVA update, so we can really feel that going outside to a vacuum is a big undertaking.