Simple AI Space Program, Astronaut Orientation, and Anomaly Sites

[woodensen]

Hello. I'm just a newb here, but i played game quite a lot. So, i may can come up with suggestion based on other games. Most of it is based on heavy strategy games like EVE Online, Civ, FM, Xcom, etc. However, i'd like to keep my ideas really simple and try to be as close as possible to the essence of this game. I've also went through the "What Not To Suggest List" and apparently, my ideas are not in the list.

These are just rough idea and open for discussion for the flaws. Im not sure if these ideas has been proposed/has been made into mods. But hopefully, these ideas could be taken into consideration for further development:

1. AI space program.

inspired by Civ 5, but i'm not gonna make this game become a war game (although the idea seems quite viable to me:cool:). The idea is we are not alone. There are other space program corporations that may already well established, or just starting same like us. The objective is to make Kerbin Solar System less lonely.

the AI that i was talking about is not the complex AI like in most 4x games. Such AI have a high margin of error and can be very difficult to program (As discussed in here: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/25ml0z/ai_controlled_space_programs/). Its just a substitue / complementary of contract system in career mode. Basically, they are the one who gives you contracts in career mode. So far, the additional content for contracts in addition to this implementation that i can think of is:

-refuel their vessel that are low on fuel and orbiting somewhere.

-saving their astronauts from certain planet. (little backstory, my Jeb is stuck on the mun, surviving the crash from testing the prototype of my munlander. i run a mission of rescuing him and it was really2 satisfying to see Jeb's happy face when he was going back to Kerbin)

-scan some planetary objects/anomaly site (see below: Anomaly Sites).

These relation points will allow you to interact further with them. The ways that you can interact with them is:

For example, you are going to land on Duna, but you lack the fuel. However, you have a good relation with the corporation that have a fueling station orbiting around/near Duna. So you may purchase a fuel with a price from them by docking your vessel into their refueling station (be careful though, destroying their station will have negative impact on your relation).

you can also forge "alliance" with them by signing research agreement . I'm still thinking how we gonna do this. So far, the ideas that i can think of is:

-purchasing fuel in their refueling stataion (as mentioned above) with discounted price

-Docking in one of their orbiting vessel/station to reach your destination

-to increase your science and funds yield

-rent/trade skilled astronaut (see Astronaut Orientation below)

-borrowing funds/investing funds to them. If we invest funds to them, after they successfully perform a space program (mun landing for example), we got their share of funds + science. Vice versa if we borrow their money

2. Astronaut Orientation

Im pretty sure many people have already proposed/mod'ed similar ideas to increase the variability of the astronauts. So i'll just keep it simple:

Every astronaut have its own orientation, for example:

-Jebediah kerman, good at interplanetary landing (-3m/s crash tolerance)

-Bob Kerman, good at maintaining and controling thruster (Better thruster overheat tolerance & engine vectoring control)

-Whatsoever Kerman is accomplished astronauts with a knack for science (25% more science gained from each data, transmitted or kept)

-etc

Astronaut Complex will only offer astronauts without any particular traits. To gain these traits, you will have to train them yourself, or just trade with other corporations' astronauts.

3. Anomaly Site

Heavily based on EVE online, this will put more incentives for player to build satellites and probes. You have to equip the satellites/probe with a scanning devices and start orbiting planets and moons in the deep space. Sometimes, you will get a notification of an anomaly within the scanned area. From this on, you can choose to launch a vessel to investigate and retrieve whatever is in there to gain significant funds and science, or run your probes to "capture" and monitor it to get diminished amount of science.

There are probably some mods that do similarly like this (such as SCANSat). However, the difference is, this opens the door to many random events, (the essence of Crusader Kings 2's watafak moments). For example, when you investigate the site, its actually a kerbonaut belongs to a particular corporation sending distress signal. You decide to inform the corporation and your relation with that corporation will increase. Or maybe the site will makes your venturing astronaut face become upside down? who knows.

These are my suggestions. Sorry if i mistakenly post ideas that has been already in the form of mod/have been proposed before. I hope for the feedback/critics from you guys.

[Skyro]

Coming from 0.90, It seems that #1 can be implemented into the contract system in career mode, #2 can somehow (I'll let the devs decide that) fit into the current kerbal experience system, and #3 is almost basically using SCANSat to find anomalies and going to them, but here you want to give some sort of random event/element to the anomaly when you get to them/within a certain distance of it. I personally like the idea of all of these, especially #3, because going to an anomaly to date is like being a tourist (except that one with Ike) going to visit some cool thing. It would definitely be more interesting to find out what an anomaly does to a kerbal or probe that comes too close