Kerbals and their Mental Health?

[yorshee]

I was reading through this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69532-WIP-KerbalSocial-just-an-idea-at-this-stage and I noticed that nothing really came from it and it's dead. I was a bit disappointed by that, because I loved everybody's awesome ideas. Between the last relevant post in the thread and now, have there been any mental health mods for KSP? If not, it's something I would be really interested in because it would add a lot more immersion to the game and would give us emotional attachments to the wellbeing of our Kerbals (killing them a-la Danny2462 gets a bit boring after a while ). The idea of the Kerbals not responding to inputs once they 'snap' is really what caught my attention the most and would be an interesting way to essentially fail a long mission. It's something other than simply not having enough delta-v and/or electric charge.

I know that at its core, KSP is a space flight simulation game but little aesthetical things like the Chatterer mod and even the goofy Kerbals themselves give the game a lot more charm and let it stand out from just another physics simulation game.

I would love to make this mod myself but I lack the experience. I could teach myself how to code all this stuff, but it all sounds too complex. I'm an artist, not a programmer.

TL;DR: Are there any mental health mods for Kerbals?

[Dunrana]

I did some work on a psych reports mod awhile back, where a science lab would let you collect information on how deep space was affecting the minds of your kerbals. but it was just another type of science report.

[RainDreamer]

There are a few concepts ideas, like the KerbSocial one you mentioned. Another is stage 2 of CrewQ(ueue) - stage 1 is out, but that has nothing to do with mental health.

Finally, there is AMP year power mananger which mostly deal with electricity and stuff, but has a metric for "cabin craziness" which will make kerbals do bad things if they are left cramped inside a spacecraft for too long with no entertainment (You can spend some power to turn some entertainment on to help reduce it, but that means less power for other stuff). But this is a WIP and may have a lot of bugs.

[JPLRepo]

There are a few concepts ideas, like the KerbSocial one you mentioned. Another is stage 2 of CrewQ(ueue) - stage 1 is out, but that has nothing to do with mental health.

Finally, there is AMP year power mananger which mostly deal with electricity and stuff, but has a metric for "cabin craziness" which will make kerbals do bad things if they are left cramped inside a spacecraft for too long with no entertainment (You can spend some power to turn some entertainment on to help reduce it, but that means less power for other stuff). But this is a WIP and may have a lot of bugs.

As RainDreamer said. My AmpYear mod, although primarily about power management, does have my "Cabin Craziness" concept within it.

Give it a go. Whilst a WIP I have now completed extensive testing. That said, I am working with an idea of breaking the "Cabin Craziness" out into something a lot more expansive. It currently has a Craziness attribute attached to crewable parts and this slowly goes up based on how crowded your crewable parts are and how far from Kerbal you are. Use of Luxury items within the cabin reduces this. But I am looking for more game dynamics than just - add a part and turn things on and use some electrical charge and all will be good. All Ideas are welcome.

[yorshee]

As RainDreamer said. My AmpYear mod, although primarily about power management, does have my "Cabin Craziness" concept within it.

Give it a go. Whilst a WIP I have now completed extensive testing. That said, I am working with an idea of breaking the "Cabin Craziness" out into something a lot more expansive. It currently has a Craziness attribute attached to crewable parts and this slowly goes up based on how crowded your crewable parts are and how far from Kerbal you are. Use of Luxury items within the cabin reduces this. But I am looking for more game dynamics than just - add a part and turn things on and use some electrical charge and all will be good. All Ideas are welcome.

That's awesome! I'll definitely be downloading that later.

An idea I liked in the thread I posted was that the Kerbal's Stupidity and Courage levels correspond with their psychological needs, for example stupid Kerbals are more easily entertained but deal with tragedies (i.e. part failure/explosions, crewmate's deaths) a lot more worse than smarter Kerbals who need to be mentally occupied more and are more logical-thinking. I'm not too sure how their Courage levels could come into play.

Heck, this would take a looooot of work and I wouldn't even know how to go about even starting working on a mod for this, but maybe Kerbals have 'Morale' and 'Anxiety' levels that fluctuate depending on what they experience on their space travels, that you can see by hovering over the Kerbal's facecam. Morale should be kept as high as possible, whereas Anxiety should be kept near the middle (after all, exercising caution is healthy and keeps your mind sharp!)

If a Kerbal has high Morale it means they are happy and devoted to the mission, if they have low Morale they will start to lose hope. If they have a too low Anxiety level they will become incredibly bored, but if it's too high their actions become panicky and unpredictable. It would be cool if we could see what mood the Kerbals are in from their facial expressions on the facecam.

I dunno, just thinking out loud here. I wish so knew how to make this stuff a reality 'cause I would totally do it.

[hab136]

There's also KeepFit for physical health