Life Support... where running out doesn't kill you.

[RoboRay]

I know Squad has previously dismissed life support requirements on missions because keeping the crew alive for long missions requires planning and paying attention... and the punishment of killing the crew and forcing the mission to be over is a high barrier to entry when learning the game.

But what if running out of life support resources didn't kill the crew?

What if, when the snacks were all gone, the crew simply stopped being able to do their jobs. Pilots lost SAS, engineers couldn't fix things, scientists couldn't work the experiments, and nobody could go on EVA. The crew starts acting like Tourists.

That would give a pretty strong penalty for running out of supplies, but not a fatal one. You could still get the crew home... their experience wouldn't be lost forever. You could even salvage a mission in-progress by sending out a resupply ship with more lunchboxes.

It would need to be optional, of course, like reentry heat, with a checkbox to enable life support requirements in the game setup. Maybe even a Hunger slider to affect the rate of snack consumption.

[WinkAllKerb'']

Nice & Interesting compromise, could please many people with different skill and approach.

[Superfluous J]

I'm not saying "there's a mod for that" just to say it. I'm directing you to the USI Life Support mod to show what kinds of problems, loopholes, and workarounds this causes and good ways around those.

[WinkAllKerb'']

also lethality in itself could have a chekbox, why not, i will repeat myself but i kinda like the Klei "Don't starve" world setting approach wich allow each player to custom it's own preference while Klei themselves offer thiers ideas with the defaults settings. It's highly customizable, and mostly just balance var within the code @ world laucnh instead of constant.

[Torquemadus]

Life support for IRL missions is a question of mission architecture and contingency planning. This covers questions such as how much living space each crewmember has, how long their supplies will last, and what contingency measures are available in the event of trouble.

The obvious way to do life support in KSP is to adopt the Mark Watney approach! Kerbals should be required to operate from a safe haven, such as Kerbin itself, space stations, motherships, or surface bases. Missions despatched from these locations should have limited endurance, but should be capable of being supported from a suitable base.

There would need to be an alert system to remind players to return an expedition to a safe haven in good time. This could work just like a refuelling station, where spacecraft visit a station or base to get more fuel and life support consumables. These could be sent from Kerbin or produced locally by means of ISRU.

Running out of consumables should still be fatal, but there should be ways to plan ahead and prepare a robust abort plan.

[Wjolcz]

Meh. Basically what RoverDude's mod does.

I think it could simply be toggled like reentry heat and other stuff. You coulr have a "Death by starvation" either on or off and could change it anytime you want during the career playthrough. Forgot the food for an ongoing mission? Simply switch that to off! Nobody is going to judge you, or anything, right?

[regex]

Without a penalty for poor planning life support is not even worth playing with. In your case, I'd just install a probe core to get everyone home, ensuring they had enough life support to do the initial mission. For that matter, life support really isn't an issue without permadeath to begin with.

[Alshain]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/36863-What-not-to-suggest

[TMS]

Without a penalty for poor planning life support is not even worth playing with. In your case, I'd just install a probe core to get everyone home, ensuring they had enough life support to do the initial mission. For that matter, life support really isn't an issue without permadeath to begin with.

Came here to say this.

No fatality, no point.

[CaptainTurbomuffin]

If there will ever be a life support system in stock, I am sure that on easier difficulities, it won't kill you, and that on harder difficulities, it WILL kill you.

[Dodgey]

I think that once the life support runs out the crew just become complete dead weight until returned to Kerbin. That way they won't be "dead" but you couldn't take one to Laythe without keeping them alive the entire time. This could be even better if living space was taken into account.

[legoclone09]

You want Snacks in stock pretty much. The dev is working on the EXP losses thing. [citation needed]

[pincushionman]

USI takes the "dead weight" approach by turning your Kerbals into Tourists if their Supplies run out.

This doesn't mean they aren't dead, though. Thre are plenty of times you could Tourist-ify your pilot and doom your mission because of it. You can currently have a probe core fly for you, but with the new range limitations we may not be able to cheese the system so easily anymore. Jool missions may very much require a well-stocked crew to succeed.

[Arugela]

I know Squad has previously dismissed life support requirements on missions because keeping the crew alive for long missions requires planning and paying attention... and the punishment of killing the crew and forcing the mission to be over is a high barrier to entry when learning the game.

But what if running out of life support resources didn't kill the crew?

What if, when the snacks were all gone, the crew simply stopped being able to do their jobs. Pilots lost SAS, engineers couldn't fix things, scientists couldn't work the experiments, and nobody could go on EVA. The crew starts acting like Tourists.

That would give a pretty strong penalty for running out of supplies, but not a fatal one. You could still get the crew home... their experience wouldn't be lost forever. You could even salvage a mission in-progress by sending out a resupply ship with more lunchboxes.

It would need to be optional, of course, like reentry heat, with a checkbox to enable life support requirements in the game setup. Maybe even a Hunger slider to affect the rate of snack consumption.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Arugela