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Really worried about how rescue missions are going to mess up life support.


Moon Goddess

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I keep waiting and waiting for Squad to put life support, and yet seems like every patch they throw up another roadblock, so I use mods... but now they're going to spawn kerbals in suits orbiting, I'll have 6 hours to rescue....

How on earth is a player who's not that great supposed to pull that off before they die?

I wish they'd just put stock life support in the game and then think about it before they make decisions like this, and like "manned first because it doesn't use electricity" both of which will be destroyed when we get stock life support.

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I think to think of it like this: Mods are supposed to conform and adapt to Squad, not the other way around.

And anyways, I'm sure that the life support mod dev could think of a way to make rescuing Kerbals more fair in his mod. Like, maybe having the Kerbals spawn in command pods or hitchhiker containers, instead of by themselves, with a fair amount of life support so that rescue would be entirely feasible.

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Hopefully TAC and other either add relevant life support to kerbal or simply put them in hibernation.

kerbals in low orbit around kerbin can still be rescued.

For kerbals at other bodies one simple solution exist: say a kerbal is stranded on Ike, send a ship with free room for a kerbal, put it in orbit around Ike then accept the mission.

I do not think the kerbal / ship spawns untill you accept the mission.

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Well, 6 hours is plenty. If you know how to RV, even to the most basic level, there's no reason why it should take you more than 10 orbits to get close enough.

Apparently you can take control of the stranded kerbal once you get within a couple of kilometres, and EVA them over to your ship, so there's no requirement to get a very close RV, and no need to be able to dock.

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Moon Goddess, don't really count on getting stock life support. I've heard from nowhere else that SQUAD was even thinking of doing this. In fact, life support can be found on the WNTS list (under Flight category), so it's a pretty good bet that we're not getting it.

Remember that you can always use mods (I see that you have been, which is good in this scenario)!

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In fact, life support can be found on the WNTS list (under Flight category), so it's a pretty good bet that we're not getting it.

OH MY GOD!

New parts are on a WNTS list!!! We're doomed! No new toys will come in KSP!

*facepalm*

What not to suggest list is not a list of features that we will not get. It's a list of features that they know community wants and there is no need to remind them about that every week or so. Some of them will, some of them won't be implemented - but you cannot say whatever something will or won't be implemented just from it's presence on a list.

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The lost kerbals cannot be controlled until the player has been really close to them (source: some preview video).

Question is if an LS-mod could exclude crafts not under player control or if mods would even affect them?

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I keep waiting and waiting for Squad to put life support, and yet seems like every patch they throw up another roadblock, so I use mods... but now they're going to spawn kerbals in suits orbiting, I'll have 6 hours to rescue....

How on earth is a player who's not that great supposed to pull that off before they die?

I wish they'd just put stock life support in the game and then think about it before they make decisions like this, and like "manned first because it doesn't use electricity" both of which will be destroyed when we get stock life support.

Scott Manley said in his video that you can't control the kerbal until you get into render range, so clearly they appear to be something slightly "different" than a normal kerbal in code. Whether they're tagged somehow or are just considered a different object, I don't know but clearly they have some setting to make the kerbal non-controllable.

Perhaps Squad, if they ever put life support in the game, or modders like the people who make TAC might be able to use that same flag or setting to "disable" life support for that kerbal until it gets into render range and becomes controllable.

Edit: SNIPED! :D

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Moon Goddess, don't really count on getting stock life support. I've heard from nowhere else that SQUAD was even thinking of doing this. In fact, life support can be found on the WNTS list (under Flight category), so it's a pretty good bet that we're not getting it.

What not to suggest list is not a list of features that we will not get. It's a list of features that they know community wants and there is no need to remind them about that every week or so. Some of them will, some of them won't be implemented - but you cannot say whatever something will or won't be implemented just from it's presence on a list.

so it's a pretty good bet that we're not getting it.

He didn't say it wouldn't be implemented, just that it's very unlikely :)

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Apparently you can take control of the stranded kerbal once you get within a couple of kilometres, and EVA them over to your ship, so there's no requirement to get a very close RV, and no need to be able to dock.

This. Six hours should be plenty of time to play around and get near enough. Taking the contract would be a good way to learn a bit of basic RV stuff. There's no need for plane changes or puffing about with RCS, it's just purely about setting up an orbit that roughly intersects then killing some relative speed.

As for stock life support, I wouldn't hold your breath (hurr, hurr). The Planned Features list on the wiki isn't terribly current, but life support sure ain't on it.

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"You only have 6 hours."

"6 hours is all I need."

But seriously, rescuing a stranded kerbal in orbit as an early mission? I think it would be better if it were placed with high-tier missions, at least after you've completed a "dock this part to this vessel in x hours" mission.

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But seriously, rescuing a stranded kerbal in orbit as an early mission? I think it would be better if it were placed with high-tier missions, at least after you've completed a "dock this part to this vessel in x hours" mission.

Docking is a lot harder than the Kerbal rescue mission though.

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Agreed with the others that 6 hours is plenty. I can usually dock with a craft in about 30 minutes. More than likely the early rescue mission will be close enough to Kerbin it won't be too hard to do it in 6 hours. Thats assuming that TAC gets applied to Kerbals spawned for the rescue mission. For all we know it might not apply to them, or the maker(s) of TAC could tag spawned Kerbals as not being a part of TAC or whatever.

It's still too early to tell how it'll play out so I say just sit back and wait. :)

Also agreed with the WNTS comments, just because it's on there doesn't mean it won't happen. Some or all of it could just be that it's planned so, like someone else said, they don't need daily/weekly reminders. :)

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What you guys are missing is that contracts are procedural and will be generated based on where you can fly. Even the contract you saw in Scott Manley's video specifically states "(...) around Kerbin" at the very end. Do you know what that is? That's a $body text variable, to be replaced with a random celestial body from a list of bodies you can reach. In other words, if you sent an early unmanned Eve flyby mission, you are now fair game to be assigned rescue contracts "(...) around Gilly", "(...) around Eve", "(...) around the Mun", "(...) around Minmus" and quite possibly also "(...) around Duna" and "(...) around Ike" because that takes roughly the same dV.

You would not have enough time for these types of contracts with any form of life support installed. You could probably do the Mun, if you really hurried. Minmus and beyond? Impossible.

However, you guys also missed something else, too. Like it was mentioned before, you cannot control the stranded Kerbal until you're within physics distance. Did any of you wonder why that is? Well, the answer was already provided: Scott said in his video that these missions are using the same code that spawns asteroids. In other words, the Kerbal generated by the rescue contract does not physically exist until you get in range. And if it doesn't exist, it doesn't have resources, and cannot consume life support.

Thus, no matter where this rescue contract generates, you will always have enough time by the simple virtue of the timer not even starting to tick until you already completed your rendezvous.

Downside: it may be hard for the player to accept that that Kerbal tumbling around in low Eeloo orbit just won't die until you get around to visiting it...

On the bottomline, the already mentioned suggestion remains: if you don't like it, just reject these contracts. Rejecting them costs nothing, only accepting and failing does.

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I keep waiting and waiting for Squad to put life support, and yet seems like every patch they throw up another roadblock, so I use mods... but now they're going to spawn kerbals in suits orbiting, I'll have 6 hours to rescue....

wait wait wait. so squad is adding a contract for saving kerbals that spawn in orbit? in stock? and your issue is that your lifesupport mod makes eva's die after 6 hours?

my issue is the kerbals spawning in space for no reason.

edit: didnt squad say there would be no competing space programs? how does a kerbal thats not from my program get lost in orbit?

Edited by r4pt0r
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Downside: it may be hard for the player to accept that that Kerbal tumbling around in low Eeloo orbit just won't die until you get around to visiting it...

I'd just pretend that he had a ship packed with food, and then bailed once they heard a rescue ship was near :D

wait wait wait. so squad is adding a contract for saving kerbals that spawn in orbit? in stock? and your issue is that your lifesupport mod makes eva's die after 6 hours?

my issue is the kerbals spawning in space for no reason.

I wouldn't say for no reason. The text (as comprehensible as it is) generally tell tales of tests on kerbals going horribly wrong, resulting in them being launched into orbit, at least as far as the early "in orbit around kerbin" missions are concerned. Who knows what the text might way for kerbals stranded elsewhere.

Edit:

Stripping out some of the procedurally-generated garble in the text, I found 3 examples of how Kerbals got stranded from the preview videos:

1) One Kerbal was stranded due to an "unintended ignition" by Vac-Co

2) One Kerbal was stranded due to FLOOYD Dynamics "underestimating how volatile standard-grade solid rocket fuel really is"

3) One Kerbal was stranded during testing by Jeb's Junkyard and Spacecraft Parts on whether some Kerbals really enjoy high speeds

Edited by FleetAdmiralJ
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IIRC when you first install the TAC life support mod none of your ships will start consuming resources until you get in to physics range (>2k) so I'm thinking that the kerbal won't start consuming resources until you get close enough to them to rendezvous with them anyway - and 6 hours is plenty time. The only thing you have to ensure is that your rescuing craft has enough life support in order to bring the kerbal home safely.

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Six hours is like 12 orbits in LKO. If you can't rendezvous to within 2km in 12 orbits, you probably can't do it in more than a dozen orbits, either, so you won't be taking those contracts. It's a non-issue.

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I doubt Life support will be a thing. the game is difficult enough for newcomers, and anyone looking for extra challenge, there's always mods to spice things up.

Make it part of a learning curve - pods should have enough life support to sustain missions to the Minimus and back with some reserve - but if you want to go across to another star system: You need to pack up. It's not that difficult really, as after landing on the moons - there's not much left to learn (docking I guess is the only other big thing) and by the time you're done with moon landing - you're not a newcomer any more ;)

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one solution would be to start the 6h period as soon as you get in render range and the kerbal gets controllable.

That's not "one solution", that's already the case right now because of how the whole thing is implemented (see my post above).

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