Kerbals detecting Alien life Idea

[Kerbal KRIS7]

Hi Everyone,

Its my first post and I have only just got into Kerbal Space Program

One omission I noticed is theres no ability to detect "life" or look for potential life on a scanner in Stock.

Are there any mods that provide a module for a probe to detect life and add a ton of science?

Or how about a mod that puts actual simple creatures on some planets?

Maybe each time you load the game up its random where life will generate/ except on moons

What do you guys think?

 

Cant be that difficult to implement surely?

 

[Andem]

4 hours ago, Kerbal KRIS7 said:

Hi Everyone,

Its my first post and I have only just got into Kerbal Space Program

One omission I noticed is theres no ability to detect "life" or look for potential life on a scanner in Stock.

Are there any mods that provide a module for a probe to detect life and add a ton of science?

Or how about a mod that puts actual simple creatures on some planets?

Maybe each time you load the game up its random where life will generate/ except on moons

What do you guys think?

 

Cant be that difficult to implement surely?

 

Welcome to the forums! This is an idea that has been posted in different forms, so I just want to ask before answering, What exactly are you looking for? Creatures on Kerbin (Maybe Laythe), Random creatures spawning in the solar system, or the ability to scan for microbes on other planets?

[Hannu2]

Both procedural generation of details and aliens (at least macroscopic) are in "do not suggest" -list. Moving visible aliens would be hard to program and sane interactions between kerbals and them would be far out of the scope of this game. Simple life detector and funny one liners about found creatures would not give anything new.

[tater]

A slightly related, but perhaps acceptable idea would be to have something like Gateway (Frederik Pohl) or the Monolith (Clarke) exist. Not aliens, but alien technology. It would be in a solar polar orbit, though it could be random as well. In KSP it could function as a stargate. This opens the possibility of randomly generated star systems without changing the base game whatsoever. 

[Rath]

I'm fine with finding. Microbes on laythe, but that's it.

[Pthigrivi]

I could see a little going a little farther than that, fossils, stromatolites, primordial ooze. Would tiny shrimps or mushrooms be too far? Something visual would be nice just for the sake of excitement, but I don't think we need like weird space cows walking around.

[panzer1b]

Personally i think aliens shouldnt really be included, there is enough carnage and destruction in my game without a giant ufo coming in over the VAB and suddenly opening fire with its death ray!

 

Anyways, to be serious, while defenetely an interesting idea (im assuming you are talking about say scanning for bacteria or something akin to that), i feel it doesnt really add much if anything to the game as it stands.  I'd direct time and effort towards more critical things (like actually making the game not lag to death with part counts above 500).  Its just not worth spending resources on (if its a purely text based say scan for life on planet syle thing) at least in my opinion.

 

Now as for actual kerbal size space aliens, well, the most you're gonna get is a mod (assuminbg thats even doable in a mod).  Squad has said (correct me if im not incorrect) that aliens, weapons, ect will never be included in the stock game, although there are plenty of mods for the latter.

[pandaman]

As a range of different science tests and experiments to perform, perhaps with the chance to find actual evidence of microbial life then, in principle, I like it.

In practice though, if it's just another set of things to click then it won't really add anything new to game play.  

[Andem]

Scanning for life on Laythe and Duna is something I would really like to be implemented... give some long-term experiments as microbes develop... Oh! Sterilization would be cool, so you didn't unintentionally bring life to Laythe...

[MachoCyclone]

On 2/2/2016 at 8:04 AM, tater said:

A slightly related, but perhaps acceptable idea would be to have something like Gateway (Frederik Pohl) or the Monolith (Clarke) exist. Not aliens, but alien technology. It would be in a solar polar orbit, though it could be random as well. In KSP it could function as a stargate. This opens the possibility of randomly generated star systems without changing the base game whatsoever. 

There are several monoliths on Kerbin and the Mun. One of them is quite close to KSC

[tater]

Yeah, so place one in a distant, polar orbit big enough to fly a ship through... Randomize monoliths a few places. Find one, and it beams a signal to another one (showing it as a kind of unknown object on the map). Touch that one, and it beams to another, then the last points out the stargate version.

[Third_OfFive]

There is already an easter egg similar to this on duna.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/121335-what-could-be-the-strange-sstv-signal-from-duna/

[Laythe Squid]

On 2/5/2016 at 8:01 AM, Pthigrivi said:

I could see a little going a little farther than that, fossils, stromatolites, primordial ooze. Would tiny shrimps or mushrooms be too far? Something visual would be nice just for the sake of excitement, but I don't think we need like weird space cows walking around.

I think a good place to put all that would be Laythe, it would help explain all that oxygen.

[SchwinnTropius]

Looking for microbes could be implemented as a science experiment, perhaps as a part of surface samples. Maybe it could be a separate part that can dig for samples that can only be used by a probe so as not to contaminate  the soil as easily as with a kerbal present.

But as others have said, it wouldn't be good to add extraterrestrial life in any capacity beyond that.

[NSEP]

Microbes and fossils can be ok, but no real aliens, these do not fit in the game.

 But maybe animals on Kerbin so it looks more A E S T H E T I C

[DAL59]

On 2/2/2016 at 9:04 AM, tater said:

A slightly related, but perhaps acceptable idea would be to have something like Gateway (Frederik Pohl) or the Monolith (Clarke) exist. Not aliens, but alien technology. It would be in a solar polar orbit, though it could be random as well. In KSP it could function as a stargate. This opens the possibility of randomly generated star systems without changing the base game whatsoever. 

 

On 5/20/2017 at 6:22 PM, NSEP said:

Microbes and fossils can be ok, but no real aliens, these do not fit in the game.

 But maybe animals on Kerbin so it looks more A E S T H E T I C

Hundreds of small animals would be impractical to code.

What would be absolutely awesome would be to have some giant things on Laythe or Duna.

[Tyko]

I'd love to see some experiments centered on searching for microbial life past or present. No interest in multi-cellular intelligent alien life though.