Radio Reciever - Contact aliens!

[Clockwork13]

The radio receiver would be a special building at the KSP. It would allow you to "contact aliens" in a more or less realistic way, based off of how we are already doing it here on Earth. Unlike other buildings, it would not exist in a new save, and you'd need to build it first. Building it and making it level 1 would require 1,500 science and 1,000,000 funds. The reason for the high cost is because it would end as something new for endgame players to do while conducting other missions. The high quantities of science and funds you could get from it would probably give a bit too much of an advantage on new saves.

 

Levels:

Level 1 (1,000,000 funds and 1.5k science): You can access the radio receiver and send out transmissions to potential aliens.

Level 2 (800,000 funds): The chance of making contact with extraterrestrials is doubled, and the receiver will slowly send out transmissions automatically, 1 per every 10 seconds.

Level 3 (2,500,000 funds): You can decipher alien transmissions to figure out what they are saying. The receiver now sends out transmissions more quickly, 1 every second. Also increased chance of finding aliens and reduces time.

 

Transmissions

When you enter the RR, you would be able to see previous successful transmission sent and current transmissions being sent. You would also have access to a button that every time you click, a transmission would be sent. For a level 1 facility, you'd have a 1/15,000 chance of making contact per transmission. This would get lowered to a 1/10,000 chance for level 2, and a level 1/5,000 chance for level 3.

Every transmission would take anywhere between 5 and 100 years to make potential alien contact. For level 1 and 2 receivers, the messages would appear unreadable and in a made up language that the aliens would speak. Level 3 receivers would be able to decipher a message, but doing so would require about 50,000 funds and 75 science, although the price would slightly fluctuate.

A transmission would continue going for 100 years, and it would disappear. If it encounters a civilization, it would appear green, and you'd have to wait an amount of time for whatever aliens there are there to send a transmission back to you, although they only would about a third of the time.

 

Alien Contact:

When you establish contact with aliens, they would sometimes send you a gift or just some quote. Possible messages you can get:

"This transmission seems to just be static. We aren't really sure what it's supposed to mean." [Nothing happens] (40%)

"Wow, the aliens were willing to step up to fund our space program!" [Receive between 10,000-100,000 funds] (20%)

"We seem to have contacted an advanced civilization. And look at that! They were willing to lend us some of their knowledge!" [Receive between 10-150 science] (1%)

"Huh, that's interesting. They seem to want us to do something for them. We should check the contracts board for more information. [Aliens will either ask for help checking on a long lost satellite of theirs or send them science or funds to help them during a crisis. If you give them science, they would return funds, if you gave funds, they would return science.] (25%)

"I can't figure out what this is supposed to mean, but the message appears to be in all capital letters, which is probably a bad sign." [Nothing happens] (9%)

"We were able to decipher most of this message, but we aren't really sure what the word "human" is supposed to mean, and it's said like 10 times here." [Nothing happens, just a reference to how humans are sending out radio transmissions into space.] (5%)

[Rath]

Yeaaaaaah, 

but.....

How about No

[UnusualAttitude]

10 hours ago, Clockwork13 said:

 It would allow you to "contact aliens" in a more or less realistic way, based off of how we are already doing it here on Earth.

Wow,  have I been missing something here...? 

What colour are they? 

Edited February 19, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Warzouz]

Well, aside from SQUAD saying they don't want aliens in the game, I don't grasp the point of that feature. This is merely textual and very random which offers no real gameplay improvement.

This would only makes sense if interstellar and galactic mods were stock.

[Guest]

Nope.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

What colour are they? 

Green.

[Kerbalstar]

Good idea.

[Wjolcz]

I suggested something similar to this in the thread about adding telescopes and sky observation. A radio telescope would search the sky for pulsars/other strange signals/whatever real life radio telescopes do and you could find easter eggs. Just like the one on Duna, which is a simple pyramid with SSTV signal that can be decoded.

EDIT: Also things like moon-bouncing signals and other fun stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#The_RuBisCo_Stars

Edited February 21, 2016 by Veeltch

[Tex]

On 2/21/2016 at 6:24 PM, Veeltch said:

I suggested something similar to this in the thread about adding telescopes and sky observation.

This. I agree with getting a science income for looking for astronomical phenomena, but contacting aliens wouldn't make sense or fit into KSP very well at all.

[tater]

Do not answer! Do not answer! Do not answer!

[Wjolcz]

14 hours ago, Maximus97 said:

This. I agree with getting a science income for looking for astronomical phenomena, but contacting aliens wouldn't make sense or fit into KSP very well at all.

I think I would prefer if observing unique objects gave actual scientific info about what is happening there and why. The composition of observed star/size of planets orbiting them/their orbits/pulsars and their evolution and plenty of other things like that. I think SPORE kind of tried to achieve that, but it would work even better in KSP.

[Buster Charlie]

If they add aliens, they should essentially look like different colored kerbals (minions?).

 

And you should be able to fly a ship to their planet, abduct them, put them on a cargo ship back to your solar system and sell them for profit.

I know what I'm suggesting sounds terrible in the context of human ethics,  but is probably no worse than burning kerbals to death in our death-trap rockets en mass.

And in all seriousness it would give an excuse for a new solar system and a new resource gathering mechanic,  combined with life support, a real challenge.

 

You can use the radio communication mechanic mentioned in OP to locate other civilisations,  and punish them for their foolishness. 

[Madrias]

I could see this being interesting as a mod.

Would also like to suggest having a 1% chance of it being essentially a long-distance interstellar prank call when deciphered.  Something along the lines of "As far as we can tell, we were contacted and asked to make something called a 'pizza,' and a lot of them, and to send them to this very specific location."  Have it pop up something as a contract to launch a vessel to (insert planet here) and land within a certain distance of the target with a part containing 1 ton of pizza.

[Guest]

By the way, aliens are in the "do not suggest list". In case you guys forgot.

Anyways, what would the point of this be? There are no other solar systems in KSP, so you would not be able to visit the aliens. Just hoping for some random message pop up isn't something fun to do, and much less an objective.

KSP shouldn't have aliens.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Guest