Unified realism!:Dang it, Construction Time, Test Flight, Weather, Wind, Enthropy, Countdown etc.

[kimiko]

I am quite a big fan of those difficulty enhancing/realism add-ons, and I am quite fascinated by Dang It, as it introduces technical failures, which is not uncommon for real life launches. However, I don't tend to use them. The reason being that there is no game-play element that encourage you to prevent the specific failure, only resolve after it has failed. In other words, I'd like there to be an element of preparation, to help reduce the chance of failure before it occurs. Which again is also a large focus in most real life missions, as there is usually no one to climb outside with a wrench. Test Flight is of course purely based on this, as you do test flights to lower the chance of failure, but it's only one element of a larger process, if you compare it to real world.

So my thoughts are: If it's even possible, how about an add-on which unifies the "preparation" elements from other add-ons with failure elements from failure add-ons?

For example, let's say you use Kerbal Construction Time and reuse parts very often. Then that factor could affect the chances of having a failure with Dang It. Or perhaps you rushed the construction to intercept an astroid?

With the Kerbal Weather Systems or Kerbal Wind add-on you could have increased chance of failure if you launched during bad weather. Which gives you incentive to wait with certain launches, giving an extra challenge in planning launch windows.

Other thoughts is to perhaps have a "launch readiness" factor combined with a "launch countdown" element to give an incentive to do a proper launch countdown. For example, there is a set of green/red lights representing different sections and departments which needs to be ready for launch, and you can chose to launch even if one section has not reported "go for launch", risking higher chance of failure. This could even include add-ons like Remote Tech, if you chose to launch even if capcom reports red light.

Once gain, even the readiness function could also be affected by prior preparation elements, such as construction time and test flights. And perhaps even be affected by the stupidity levels of all your hired engineers, and the current level of your Mission Control building.

Although it's probably a bit unrealistic to have such a unification, as it require someone to read through every involved add-on and learn its functionality, I at least hope it would give an incentive to the original authors for each respective add-on to leave some extra comments at certain places in the source which could potentially be used for such a unification. Then, perhaps in the future it will be more likely! : D

[Tontow]

I think having Dang it reduce part failures on a given part based on how many test contracts you have done for that part is a great idea.

[*Aqua*]

The reason being that there is no game-play element that encourage you to prevent the specific failure, only resolve after it has failed.

In Dang It! you can do maintenance and inspections to lower the change of failure. But I guess that's not what you are looking for.

This interoperability of mods is quite cool but at the same time quite challenging for the mod makers. It's not a problem to check if a certain mod is installed. The real thing is to adapt to different mod installations because not every player installs the same mods. What failure values does Dang It! need when only Kerbal Construction Time ist installed? What values are needed if I add add Weather? What values do I need if I now remove Kerbal Construction time. This balancing takes a huge amout of work!

For example you mentioned 5 mods (I counted the two weather mods as one). If a mod maker want to change Dang It! to work with the other 4 ones he'll have to test and balance 15 different combinations (Dang It! stand alone, Dang It! + Weather, Dang It! + Weather + RemoteTech, etc.). If you add another mod to that list the possible combinations raise to 27 etc. It's not feasible. Unfortunately.

I would see something like this too! But the amount of work is just .

[John Nowak]

One of the highlights of the Saturn V facility at Kennedy Space Center for me is the firing room display which walks through the launch of Apollo 8. Essentially, it's a great big checklist of things which need to take place, in sequence. That's basically what a countdown is. It's fascinating to watch them step through, but I'm not sure how to turn it into part of a game.

...Unless the game could actually perform a final checkout of your design, and give you the chance to ignore the warnings or revert to the VAB to correct them.