3.75m "facilities"

[KerikBalm]

Field promotions have been proposed before, but they would be a little OP, as one could send out lvl 0 kerbals, and have them arrive at the destination basically fully competent... almost no need to train ever, or keep high level kerbals in your roster. But for ...reasons... I'd really like some sort of field promotion mechanic. I propose allowing us to bring a giant "astonaut complex facility" the size of the largest 3.75m fuel tank (or maybe a large inflatable one that expands to 10m like the heat shield) that can "process" kerbals one at a time *after* they gain enough new experience, to field promote them. Carrying a massive and bulky part would be the price for field promotions... and with.... say a 100 day processing time per level, 1 kerbal at a time, you probably wouldn't want to send rookies if you can't even have a fully trained pilot, engineed, and scientist until 300 days after arriving at the destination.

I would also propose an even bigger "science facility" that allows one to boost transmissions to 100%, or nearly 100%

Putting these two facilities at another location, combined with ISRU, would allow it to serve as a base of operations where new missions (using old craft) are fueled and launched, and returning missions come to drop off their science and promote their crew.

Maybe they would only work when their status is "landed" or "splashed down", but I don't really see a problem with large motherships or space stations being able to do this.

 

Currently, I'm at a bottleneck in my astronaut squad... I can train kerbals to lvl 3 easily enough... but advancing beyond that required interplanetary journeys. I don't have a single kerbal past lvl 3, despite having 4 kerbals at eve, 4 kerbals returning from moho, and 6 kerbals on duna, who have been there a long time and will be there until the next transfer window - 6 kerbals on the way to Jool, 3 kerbals halfway to dres.... I've also got tons of science, just waiting for transits and transfer windows.

I've got a huge 330 ton station in orbit of duna... lots of ISRU capability there, its sort of a base where I was planning on having kerbals return to from the outer solar system, and depart from... except... then I'll never get that science back, and I'll never get kerbals promoted (I really want lvl 5 engineers and scientists ... especially the engineers for the drilling speed bonus to make lower ore concentrations still able to yield a net gain when using fuel cells... as I have OPM installed, and solar is so not viable past jool).

Thoughts?

[lobe]

I second this. I imagine on long-duration spaceflight in the future (5 year journeys or greater) there will have to be training or simulation facilities onboard the spacecraft to keep the astronauts current.

[Kuansenhama]

Need a modder to get on this. I'm sure a large crew module model like this is already out there. (Prokjets habitats, or Stockaline Space Station Expansion). Just need someone to code it.

[Snark]

UKS/MKS has very nearly what you're asking for.  It's an "academy" part-- big, bulky, awkward-- which allows training up kerbals.  Works a bit differently that what you've specified, but the basic idea of "provide trainability off-planet, in exchange for an infrastructure investment" is there.

 

[Andem]

54 minutes ago, Snark said:

UKS/MKS has very nearly what you're asking for.  It's an "academy" part-- big, bulky, awkward-- which allows training up kerbals.  Works a bit differently that what you've specified, but the basic idea of "provide trainability off-planet, in exchange for an infrastructure investment" is there.

 

Perhaps a standalone part is in order though...

[KerikBalm]

Well, a stock part at least.

Its trivial .cfg editing to make a "a large crew module mode" by rescaling the science lab or hitchhiker can. What is missing is the code to train the kerbonauts.

I wonder if the old transmission boost code is still there... if so, the science facility part would be trivial to .cfg file mod (but a specific model, rather than an upscaled mobile processing lab, would be nice)