Museum of astronautics at space centre

[Atterratio]

Greetings, developers

not long ago friend complained to me that he did not have enough money from contracts for his own projects, like space stations or bases on other planets, suggest that it would be nice if there was a regular small income. After a short epic flight on Duna, I came up with the idea of ​​how to implement it, not only breaking the balance, but diversifying gameplay.

You can make the museum of astronautics at space centre. Where could be exhibit returned vessels. Instead of getting instant money, each of them would bring a steady income, which would depend on the price of the returned parts, places where he had been, how much he return and transfer science, and the reputation of the space center.

English not my native language, but I hope I have clearly explained the idea.

[mekatzer]

Greetings, developers

not long ago friend complained to me that he did not have enough money from contracts for his own projects, like space stations or bases on other planets, suggest that it would be nice if there was a regular small income. After a short epic flight on Duna, I came up with the idea of ​​how to implement it, not only breaking the balance, but diversifying gameplay.

You can make the museum of astronautics at space centre. Where could be exhibit returned vessels. Instead of getting instant money, each of them would bring a steady income, which would depend on the price of the returned parts, places where he had been, how much he return and transfer science, and the reputation of the space center.

English not my native language, but I hope I have clearly explained the idea.

To add to this, I thought it'd be neat to be able to review all of the crazy nonsense I fired into space, and walking through a museum would be a good mechanic.

[WooDzor]

Love this! I've been thinking about building a museum in orbit

[Beeman]

An in-game museum that would showcase your achievements was suggested before...actually, in a couple different forms. I can't remember if the devs ever talked about a museum but I know players were really into the idea at one point. Then it just kinda faded from memory. I don't remember most of the old discussion of the topic, but the general idea was that you'd be able to manually save scale models of successful ships, rovers or landers as well as things like samples or pictures for exhibits.

Another idea that I always liked was the encyclopedia idea. This was simply to showcase your progress in the solar system. The science menu kind of functions like this but in a far less quaint sort of way. The idea here was that whenever you started a new game, you'd have an encyclopedia. This encyclopedia would be mostly empty, with some detailed surface pictures of kerbin and some grainy pictures of the mun...and maybe minmus with quirky little text entries for each. Then, when you build(or first use, if KSC construction/investment doesn't become a thing) your observatory, you'd get slightly more detailed pictures of these bodies as well as grainy first-look images of more distant planets. From there, you'd have to send out probes, orbital telescopes and even kerbonauts themselves to these celestial bodies to fill out the encyclopedia's pages with progressively more detailed images and paragraphs of information. I always thought that'd be a perfect sort of...guide to your personal progress and the potential for quirky initial planet descriptions would fit the game perfectly.

But yeah, the museum is still a pretty decent idea. Might not be something the devs are interested in working on 'cause it's kind of superfluous but it'd still be nice to have regardless of that.

[Thomas988]

Great idea! +1 support

[sumghai]

The idea of a museum located at the KSC is an often-suggested one, as evidenced by the following existing threads:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/85136-Capsule-Musuem

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/78301-Aerospace-museum-at-KSC

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65898-Museum

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/61125-Mission-History

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59351-Museum

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53462-Hall-of-Fame

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53055-The-Kerbal-Space-Museum

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/49955-Flight-History-and-Museum

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/45688-Space-and-aeronautics-museum

For everyone's benefit, I'm going to consolidate many of my thoughts and responses that are otherwise scattered amongst the existing threads:

Listing in-game achievements

Since KSP 0.21, the groundwork for this feature has been partially implemented - if one examines their savegame files, they'll note that the game already tracks the time when a player achivements (e.g. first successful orbit, first docking, first landing on a celestial body). It seems to me that it's just a matter of displaying this text on a readable plague within the museum.

Exhibits of Recovered Crafts / vessels

Whenever someone suggests this, they always fail to / ignore the following show-stopping problems:

- Modding is a major part of the game, with third-party add-on packs providing many unofficial rocket / aircraft parts. However, mod parts often change between updates, and sometimes users may uninstall entire mods. If a museum exhibit featured a craft that contains mod parts, what would happen if the mod parts are removed/altered from the game? Does the exhibit simply disappear?

- Similarly, would exhibited crafts display their original textures, or will they end up as simply clay / metal castings? What if a mod changed a part's texture? Would the exhibit retroactively gain the new appearance?

- How does the game decide what part of a craft is displayed in an exhibit? Often all that is recovered from a craft is just the crew capsule, with maybe a couple of parachutes and a few other parts. How would space stations, lander probes, rovers or complete lifter rocket stacks be handled? .craft files? What if the user deletes the .craft files?

Encyclopaedia of knowledge gained from other planets

I suspect that these would have to be pre-defined in the game like the contracts/science flavor text, and each would be unlocked once mission pre-requisites are met. But again, this should be trivial like the achievements or "firsts" as long as they are limited to text / images pre-made by SQUAD.

In summary, it's a neat idea, but nobody has addressed the potential problems when dealing with craft exhibits.

[Red Iron Crown]

Exhibits of Recovered Crafts / vessels

Whenever someone suggests this, they always fail to / ignore the following show-stopping problems:

- Modding is a major part of the game, with third-party add-on packs providing many unofficial rocket / aircraft parts. However, mod parts often change between updates, and sometimes users may uninstall entire mods. If a museum exhibit featured a craft that contains mod parts, what would happen if the mod parts are removed/altered from the game? Does the exhibit simply disappear?

This doesn't strike me as that much different from ships in use having mod parts that are changed or deleted. Granted the mechanism for handling such changes in the stock game is poor, but it's less of a problem for a static display than for a live spacecraft where if it suddenly stops working the mission is at risk.

- Similarly, would exhibited crafts display their original textures, or will they end up as simply clay / metal castings? What if a mod changed a part's texture? Would the exhibit retroactively gain the new appearance?

Similar to above, this affects craft in flight just as much as museum exhibits. I'd imagine the simplest solution is to just retroactively apply the new textures to the exhibits, but other solutions could be implemented for those corner cases where it matters.

- How does the game decide what part of a craft is displayed in an exhibit? Often all that is recovered from a craft is just the crew capsule, with maybe a couple of parachutes and a few other parts. How would space stations, lander probes, rovers or complete lifter rocket stacks be handled? .craft files? What if the user deletes the .craft files?

I would imagine any exhibit would have its description stored in the save file like a craft in flight, so if the player deletes the .craft file it doesn't matter. As for what to display, that should be specific to each "achievement"; first manned return should save a copy of whatever landed on Kerbin safely, same for landing on other bodies. First orbit should have a copy of the craft as it was when orbit was achieved. What is appropriate to display for each achievement is an implementation detail of when to take a "snapshot" of the craft, not really a show-stopping problem.

[Atterratio]

what would happen if the mod parts are removed/altered from the game? Does the exhibit simply disappear?

I think, the exhibit contains inaccessible parts should disappear (before they are returned), showing a message about it, which can be disabled.

And I do not think that this is something terrible.

While finishing the post I got this idea. If there is no part of the ship, then it can be pack to box like statues in some museums, and put a sign that exhibit on renovation.

What if a mod changed a part's texture?

I think we should put the original set of parts. If the texture is what changed from version to viersion of mod, nothing to worry about, applied as well as to the ships in flight. If the part has been removed, see above.

- How does the game decide what part of a craft is displayed in an exhibit?

Often all that is recovered from a craft is just the crew capsule, with maybe a couple of parachutes and a few other parts. How would space stations, lander probes, rovers or complete lifter rocket stacks be handled

IMHO What you come back on Kerbin, that would be exhibited. If you threw out rover, and too lazy or could not get it back, you have no right to exhibit it. I do not think that the space station can be exhibited in the museum.

Often all that is recovered from a craft is just the crew capsule, with maybe a couple of parachutes and a few other parts.

If you return only the landing capsule, you'll get tens or hundreds of times less income than returning the landing capsule with engines and research modules. Besides you are unlikely to enjoy browsing through a museum consisting solely of capsules for the crew. So I think most of the players it will fill what is unique.

And yes, I thought from my post, it was clear that the player decides to get instantaneous price returning parts or to put such a beautiful and legendary monument to the history of space exploration.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Atterratio

[Sirine]

Could this "Museum" things be the "administration building" talking about at the Devnote? Seems.... likely...

[cantab]

The more graceful way of handling part removals would be to replace the affected ship with a post-it note saying

Quit using the museum items as fuses. They are important cultural artefacts!

- Indiana Kerman

[M3tal_Warrior]

Wouldn't it be possible to do a 3d snapshot of a part you made in VAB/SPH? It takes a button, and would get rid of the question of removed parts/mods, since it's just a 3d picture. X3D should be able to do that, and AFAIK it's open.

Then I don't see why one shouldn't be able to display a small model of something that hasn't returned to Kerbin. Why not a complete 1:100 model of the Kerbiane-X as it stood on the launch platform prior to exploring Jool? What's the harm?

But +1 for the museum!