Do you think Life Support should be Vanilla?

[Alshain]

3 minutes ago, Andem said:

Wait seriously? That's seriously disappointing... crap. Uh, sorry then. But my point about actually reading the thread is still valid and still stands.

Well it wasn't just a matter of making it less realistic.  Aerodynamics and heat are tied together, the problem was aerodynamic heating was very demanding.  Fine for skilled players, but a bit much for your average "just-bought-the-game" player. 

As far as reading the threads, of course he didn't it's freaking 8 pages long.  He replied to the original post, and that is a very typical thing to do.

EDIT: 9 pages!

Edited August 30, 2016 by Alshain

[Andem]

19 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Well it wasn't just a matter of making it less realistic.  Aerodynamics and heat are tied together, the problem was aerodynamic heating was very demanding.  Fine for skilled players, but a bit much for your average "just-bought-the-game" player. 

As far as reading the threads, of course he didn't it's freaking 8 pages long.  He replied to the original post, and that is a very typical thing to do.

EDIT: 9 pages!

That's a fair point, but the last two pages probably would have also been worth a look. 

As for reentry heating, I thought that that was why heat shields existed.  That doesn't make much sense to me.

[AlamoVampire]

On August 27, 2016 at 8:36 PM, swjr-swis said:

  "The line must be drawn he-arr! This far, no further!"

Captain Picard to Lily in the conference room on the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-E, about the Borg, Star Trek First Contact. Oh gawd ima nerd. Lol

[Diche Bach]

I play with the USI Survivability stuff (so many sub-modules i cannot keep them all straight, but one of them is Life Support) so I find Life Support adds a lot to the game. What I find still lacking there though is "food" seems to be all that is considered, with "habitation" "homesickness" and "electricity" figuring into as well. What about "air?" I guess we are meant to conclude that every Kerbal module with passenger capacity has air scrubbers sufficient for its crew capacity . . . A minor complaint so minor as to be not even worth mentioning really . . .

Still, I voted NO.

I don't think Life Support should be in the stock game, or if it is (and simply "using" the USI stuff would seem like a wise path) then simply make it a toggle on/off option and then with a settings pane like in the USI mod.

Had you made: "Include it as a user configurable option (on/off, etc.)" I would've voted that way.

In fact, I think Squad should pretty much take my mod list, and incorporate all of it into the stock game (as user configurable options! ) maybe if the code for all these mods were optimized to work closer to the source code it wouldn't be such a RAM hog . . .

The one thing I have yet to find a mod for, which I think is the most egregious area for improvement in the game, is the flight planner window. The apparent lack of configurable options, or use of alternative user-inputs (right-clicking, shift-clicking, etc.) to open up various options panes in the flight planner is one of the things that nearly causes me to rage quit the game from time to time. Sometimes you just do not want to see all those mission waypoints cluttering Kerbin whenever you are trying to plan a precise maneuver . . . or when the multiple copies of "Kerbin Apoapsis" for a series of maneuvers start to clutter over one another . . . or when the stats for a rendezvous point are only visible by twisting and tweaking the camera into some weird angle so it isn't obscured by the "Kerbin Periapsis HERE!" marker.

I would pay for the game all over again if they just put all their effort into improving the UI and functionality in the Flight planner for one work cycle and released it as a pay for DLC.

[mattinoz]

5 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

I play with the USI Survivability stuff (so many sub-modules i cannot keep them all straight, but one of them is Life Support) so I find Life Support adds a lot to the game. What I find still lacking there though is "food" seems to be all that is considered, with "habitation" "homesickness" and "electricity" figuring into as well. What about "air?" ....

When RoverDude first started talking about Life support had the same thought...

What about air?

I mean every time the capsule opens all the air is lost then the Kerbal just gets back in like it's nothing. Or so I though. After a bit of research to try and put together a better argument I came across one very horrible fact. All the air in an average house when compressed and cooled to a very cold liquid could fit in a container about the size a of kettle. So imagining the capsule makers have down their job it would be a very tiny amount of space needed to store more than enough liquid air to refill the capsule on return a few times (I work on the assumption the kerbals in the VAB know where I'm going even if I don't).

Yes but the air doesn't stay fresh, but this is the genius of USI-LS supplies they aren't just food they are just a combined mass of stuff needed to feed, water and oxygenate a kerbal.

Still this is where API's are great, instead of writing a whole Life support mod to tweak one aspect of life support you could just have a mod that tweaks Air supply, If no air then Kerbals put on their helmets and strike after 3 days not a fortnight. The same could be applied to mental health aspects with another mod that tweaks if Kerbals are eating or over eating due to homesickness without the need to write a whole new life support system.

[James M]

It needs to be an "Option". Like one of those toggle-able settings, you know? Let's be honest, without it, vanilla players don't use drones enough.

[gmiddlemass]

I would have to vote no to stock LS.

It just adds one more thing for new players to worry about and I feel that it would cause more players to quit playing because of it. I've already had friends quit because the game is "too hard" for them as it is.

I would however be open to life support being offered as an official mod such as the "Asteroid Day" one which Squad has now.

I see it as working in a similar way to USILS with simplified (or single) resources and some way of generating more so that bases at least can be self sufficient. I also like that Kerbals do not die if you run out of supplies, they just become tourists and can be revived with a resupply mission. That said though, constant resupply missions just become tedious after you've done them a few times so perhaps some sort of automated system could run in the background where things are supplied (either partially or completely) for you in exchange for funds using something in the administration building. The contracts would be run by the same "invisible" contractor who occasional  leaves it's Kerbals stuck in space for you to rescue.

Just my opinion but to be honest something like this is never going to please everyone.

[simonh]

No, for two main reasons.

One is it would close off many game play options that are currently available. Yes it would add new ones, but at the cost of existing viable options. Anything that restricts what is currently possible in the game has to be considered very carefully. Even a relatively minor thing like tweaking aerodynamic heating caused a huge ruckus, even though it would only involve very minor changes to existing vessels to make them work. Even that is a lot to ask. Life support would completely invalidate many vessels and missions that are perfectly viable today. That kind of collapse of the possible game play space is a huge deal.

The second is that no two people are likely to ever agree exactly what a good game balance for life support should be. Should it all be abstracted into a single 'consumables' resource? Should food be distinct from recyclables such as air and water? Should we have food growing modules? How about components for recovering air or water from the environment? How close to realistic volume and mass requirements should it be? What would be realistic anyway? Lets say there are even only 5 different ways this could be balanced, each one with a similar number of people who support it. Whichever balance option Squad were to select, 4/5 of the players would disagree with it, to varying degrees. I suspect life support is far more susceptible to this than most game balance issues because it's so complex.

This is a perfect example of an area where mods are the right way to fill the gap. There's plenty of scope for different mods to take different approaches and provide different gameplay experiences. Even if life support was added to the game, I suspect there would still be many mods tweaking or replacing it.

Simon Hibbs

[Pthigrivi]

Im going to guess if there was a 'yes but with a toggle' option (which it would obviously have) there would be very few 'no's. Oh the power of bad polling. 

[simonh]

19 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Im going to guess if there was a 'yes but with a toggle' option (which it would obviously have) there would be very few 'no's. Oh the power of bad polling. 

The presence of a toggle wouldn't change my answer. In fact I'm wiling to just assume that any such feature would come with a toggle.

I don't think toggles significantly change the equation as to whether any significant feature should or shouldn't be added. In particular, if a feature is so controversial that it would only get a pass if it can be switched off, that right there is a strong indication that a large proportion of the player base would in fact switch it off. In which case that dev effort to create it was completely wasted from the perspective of many players and would have been better expended on features more players would use an appreciate.

So you have a direct tradeoff. The more important a toggle is to giving it a pass, the less value the feature offers.

Simon Hibbs

[Superfluous J]

36 minutes ago, simonh said:

...if a feature is so controversial that it would only get a pass if it can be switched off, that right there is a strong indication that a large proportion of the player base would in fact switch it off.

The new "remotetech" features have a toggle. Technically both career and science mode have toggles to "turn them off". Should these things not have been implemented?

 

[simonh]

24 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

The new "remotetech" features have a toggle. Technically both career and science mode have toggles to "turn them off". Should these things not have been implemented?

 

I don't think my post can reasonably be construed as saying anything like that. I considered trying to re-iterate my point more clearly, but I don't think that's necessary or would achieve anything.

Simon Hibbs

[Pthigrivi]

It's a long thread so I couldn't expect you'd read the whole thing but we have actually addressed most of the concerns you raised. Aerodynamics and heat indeed did raise a huge ruckus (and includes a toggle) but now that people have grown accostomed to it it's become an indespensible component of the game. It adds a level of dimension to craft design that deeply enhances the experience. Life support in many ways has even greater potential, to inject time as an element and give a sense of urgency and involvement in surviving in the harsh environment of space that doesn't exist at present. It paves the way for real colonization mechanics. If integrated with IRSU bases would become real functional installations and not just set pieces. Life support could make this game something it could never be otherwise.

On your second point there's actually a surprising concensus that life support should be a single resource with extension mechanisms similar to USI. I've seen very little opposition to that. Issues like resupply are also entirely solvable. Bases could become self-sustaining with ISRU and stations could be supported with greenhouses that could easily go years without resupply. It's tricky for sure, but having used USI for the last couple of years I can't imagine going back. 

No one said this should be an immediate priority. I'd actually fully agree things like mission planning and career adjustments should absolutely be addressed first. That said as a general question of bang for the buck development time I can't think of many gameplay elements that could add more. 

Edited September 7, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

USI-LS doesn't forget air. All the supplies required for a given kerbal are simply lumped into one, and the large % of this is water. The mass of unrecovered oxygen needed per astronaut is a small fraction of a kg/day. What it's called doesn't matter as long as the total mass is right.

 

[Warzouz]

Life support would probably transform the game to a much more probe exploration.

I think this should always be a mod.

[Alpha 360]

Life Support can be extremely fun, but it can be such a pain in the butt to supply every ship with life support. Then travel to like jool or eeloo would be virtually impossible because a large fraction of the rocket mass is food, water, oxygen, you get it. 

[WillThe84th]

If they do end up adding life support it should be lightweight and configurable. To someone who just wants to play and get through the game, life support is just a hassle, but if your someone that wants a difficulty, then life support can add that. The reason I say lightweight is because if you use USI or any other "heavy" life support mod, its hard to get through a true interplanetary mission without devoting tons of space on your ship to life support or devising some complex strategy. That challenge would only be increased for new players.

[Alshain]

@WillThe84th See, that's just the problem though.  It's not difficulty, it's tedium.

It's kind of like the Hard Difficulty option we have now... it doesn't actually make it harder, it just adds pointless grind.  Life support is the same, it's not hard... it's boring.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, Alshain said:

@WillThe84th See, that's just the problem though.  It's not difficulty, it's tedium.

It's kind of like the Hard Difficulty option we have now... it doesn't actually make it harder, it just adds pointless grind.  Life support is the same, it's not hard... it's boring.

I agree that "Hard" mode as is is "grind" mode, and boring, but I disagree on LS completely. I think it profoundly changes things. If you miscalculate a dv requirement, and lack propellant to head home, a rescue mission becomes a race, for example. 

I suppose the fact that I play on scaled up systems virtually all the time aside from testing things vanilla (including mods) factors in here. The problem with the stock game is that getting everywhere is so trivial that the entire game balance is borked. In stock you can orbit single stage stuff with ease---if you can build a rocket with a mk1-2 capsule on top and get it to orbit with something that doesn't look like an Atlas I or Saturn I (not Ib), then the balance is screwy. So I suppose since sending huge payloads is so trivial in KSP, LS could be percieved the way you do, since it's trivial to add more mass to the top of the stack with literally no bad effects. In a more tightly constrained balance (more realistic solar systems), adding kg to the top of the stack can make the difference between getting anywhere or not, and designs need to be far more optimized.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Just make life-support necessary for using pilot-skills (pointing prograde, retrograde, etc) or decrease the mining output of your drills with an engineer on board.
It is a similar way of what the communication network does to probe-cores in 1.2 (no mission failures, just a bit more annoying if you go without)

By doing so, you leave all the freedom still intact in the game that you had before and satisfy everyone that would like to strap another ton of supplies to their backs to go on a jaunt on the mun

I would

Edited September 3, 2016 by MalfunctionM1Ke

[Alshain]

4 hours ago, MalfunctionM1Ke said:

Just make life-support necessary for using pilot-skills (pointing prograde, retrograde, etc) or decrease the mining output of your drills with an engineer on board.
It is a similar way of what the communication network does to probe-cores in 1.2 (no mission failures, just a bit more annoying if you go without)

By doing so, you leave all the freedom still intact in the game that you had before and satisfy everyone that would like to strap another ton of supplies to their backs to go on a jaunt on the mun

I would

But that would just undo the work that the new CommNet system is doing to make Kerbals relevant again. Right now the game might as well be called Probe Space Program.  In 1.2 it has the possibility of being Kerbal Space Program again, so then why would they go back to making it so that Kerbals aren't worth taking?  That is what any form of life support will do, force users to take unmanned probes instead of Kerbals.

[Andem]

1 minute ago, Alshain said:

But that would just undo the work that the new CommNet system is doing to make Kerbals relevant again. Right now the game might as well be called Probe Space Program.  In 1.2 it has the possibility of being Kerbal Space Program again, so then why would they go back to making it so that Kerbals aren't worth taking?  That is what any form of life support will do, force users to take unmanned probes instead of Kerbals.

Not really. Well, sure, if you don't have any sense of game balance, that would be true, but other things still need to change to make kerbals relevant. for example, we need a differentiation between kerbal contracts and probe contracts. Just make kerbal contracts significantly better paying, and then you can tweak as needed to balance it out. Make sure that a contract for kerbals can A) Pay for the life support required, and B) still provide a decent profit. That way, both "Probe Space Program" and "Kerbal Space Program" running (mostly) independently, which, coupled with life support settings, would please nearly everyone.

[tater]

39 minutes ago, Alshain said:

But that would just undo the work that the new CommNet system is doing to make Kerbals relevant again. Right now the game might as well be called Probe Space Program.  In 1.2 it has the possibility of being Kerbal Space Program again, so then why would they go back to making it so that Kerbals aren't worth taking?  That is what any form of life support will do, force users to take unmanned probes instead of Kerbals.

You alter the reward paradigms a little.

Allow sample returns via probes (add such a part), but the amount recovered is small (make it a mini ore drill, and it collects a tiny amount, say 1kg or less). You can collect much more, but it's a bigger craft. Assign a large mass to kerbal-collected samples by comparison---10---100 kg). Weight the science returns accordingly. EVA reports are obviously kerbal only. Given that parts are bought with science, add new orbital science that is in fact kerbal medical stuff in space. Generate science for that, and weight it as that has far more bearing on new tech than rock samples. Make funds rewards predicated on Rep gains, and Kerbals on the moon are worth vastly more rep than probes on the moon (or duna, etc).

[CobraA1]

Re-entry heat is fine as a concept, but I'm not liking the way it's currently tuned. Aerobraking is practically impossible at several planets. I also think we need the inflatable shield in all sizes.

I'm not sure about CommNet. I tried the mod that did something similar - and I can tell you, setting up satellite constellations is a superbly tricky task. How many satellites will I need? What kinds of orbits? How can I ensure coverage? A new player isn't going to know any of that stuff. I would have to go scouring the internet again to figure it out.

Not to mention, it really make you prioritize the communications network, because if you don't have anything up, you can't do anything at all. And it really sucks when you're behind the Mun or in low orbit around another planet and you basically lose your ship.

In the end, I found it to be too much work, not enough enjoyment.

Maybe the new system will be different, but I wasn't impressed.

Now - life support? Basically a time limit on all of my missions? Eh, no.

I'm already struggling to meet delta V requirements on my missions to Jool's moons, the last thing I need is a time requirement on top of that. Sometimes saving some delta V does mean taking extra time. So that would mean more mission failures and a real struggle to keep reputation up.

What I'd really like to see reworked are the tech tree and the contracts.

The tech tree is a pain because oh hey look, what you need to get more science is locked deep into the tech tree, and you need science to get deep into the tech tree. It's a chicken and egg problem.

You should get the "raw science" parts  early in the tech tree. I don't see why the Gravioli Detector should be locked up in the late game, when you probably don't need it anymore. With mining in the game and advanced communication coming up, there ought to be enough late game tech available, and I think it's time that side of the tree got re-balanced.

Contracts also needs a bit of a rework. I think that the player ought to have a bit of control over the general direction of the game. Like, I want to focus on getting science from the Mun instead of going to Duna. I like that contracts can give me some direction if I'm unsure of where I want to go next, but I'd like some control over the direction if desired.

Right now, it's either pure player direction (sandbox) or pure AI direction (campaign). Hoping for something in-between.

Also - THREE (or six) SCIENCE FOR EACH OBJECTIVE?! Even in the mid to late game? Why even bother giving us science at all, if it's going to be so little?

. . . and just allow us to see the missing science reports in the archives. Please. There's not much reason to visit an archive of stuff I've already seen. Mods are already doing a much better job than the archives.

Edited September 6, 2016 by CobraA1

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

As a difficulty option, yes. Integrate USI, BAM, problem solved.