Do you think Life Support should be Vanilla?

[r4pt0r]

I would note that poll results are not proof of any player sentiment, there are many people on steam, Reddit, consoles, ect, that never visit the forums.

[juanml82]

14 hours ago, Andem said:

How about we reframe this discussion? Instead of just trying to shut down the idea of LS and make the people who want it shut up, could we maybe change to Why don't you think that it's fun, and What could change to make it more fun? I think that would probably lead to an actual discussion rather than two sides yelling at one another because one preference shouldn't have the right to exist for everyone.

Why I don't think it's fun: micromanagment. One think I dislike about career is how I need to run missions I don't want to, specially to unlock the tech tree. If I'm finishing the tech tree and I want to set up a refueling rig and tanker on Minmus, I need to run Mun landing missions to unlock the final parts I need, even if I don't want to send kerbals to the Mun but to Minmus instead.

When you combine life support with permanent stations or bases, you add even more missions that have to be done, but I don't want to do them. And since this is a game, it's supposed to be fun.

 

This, however, is a featured that's probably looked differently depending on each player's playstyle. Those who don't run concurrent missions, may just be happy to slap enough food and run their usual missions. Those who play at the Kerbin system may not care too much anyway. Those who like to juggle many concurrent missions suddenly find the need to find even more support missions.

And if bases and stations can run greenhouses that let them operate indefinitely, then what's the point in the first place.

Also, LS needs plenty of planning tools that are completely absent from the stock game.

11 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

If it's just storing food & oxygen, and a recycler, then no - that's just adding another fuel tank. If it's a more complex solution involving needing to keep kerbals mentally & physically fit over the course of a voyage, then yes that would definitely add something, including tradeoffs between crew efficiency & craft design.

That's something I can get behind - essentially, a toggleable option which makes sending a single kerbal to Eeloo in a cramped MK1 landing can is not ok.

6 hours ago, Snark said:

First and foremost:  Life support is easier to design.  "You have <stuff>, you consume it over time at a constant rate, and <bad thing> happens when it runs out."  There.  That's it.  That's the design, right there.  You can add a few bells and whistles around recycling equipment and what-not, or planning tools, but those are fairly minor details that don't affect what the feature basically is.  I don't think anyone could possibly argue with that design, it's what life support is. 

Well, no, life support is more than that. It includes habitation, microgravity, radiation, at least for humans psychological issues. Even with the money, we can't send a single astronaut in a cramped cockpit into a twenty years mission deep into Jupiter's radiation belt and back to Earth.

[tater]

I usually play career, and on scaled up solar systems, and I always run concurrent missions, and I use LS. I never warp missions to completion from start to finish. I make sure any bases are well supplied, then I might warp to a maneuver node. In fact, with concurrent missions, I find LS actually gives me something to do. I run a few supply missions, rotate crews, then maybe it's time for a mid course correction on longer missions.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, juanml82 said:

Well, no, life support is more than that. It includes habitation, microgravity, radiation, at least for humans psychological issues. Even with the money, we can't send a single astronaut in a cramped cockpit into a twenty years mission deep into Jupiter's radiation belt and back to Earth.

You're perfectly right, of course, but you missed my point-- all those other things you're describing are what I referred to as "habitation requirements".  Having stuff like that is certainly a potential feature.

The main point of what I said is that just saying "life support" is lumping too many things under one umbrella.  There are really two different categories of issues around supporting a crew:

• Life support:  Necessary consumables, used up continuously, which kill you if you run out of them.
• Habitation requirements:  Everything except that.  Living space, exercise equipment, etc.

The terms "life support" and "habitation requirements" are just what I called them, for lack of a better term-- pick your own terms if you have some you like better.  The point is not what they're called, but that they really are different things.  They involve different strategic needs for gameplay.  Some players (like me) love the idea of life support, hate the idea of habitation requirements.  Other players may love habitation requirements, but hate life support.  Some may want both.  Some may want neither.

When I said "life support is a no brainer" I specifically meant only the stuff involving consumables.  My point is that designing what I'm referring to here as "life support" is simple and straightforwardly obvious.  Designing the "habitation requirements" (i.e. the stuff you describe, which you'd like to have) is a lot trickier.  Not to say impossible, just that different people are going to have very different ideas of what constitutes "reasonable", so it'll be harder to come up with a solution that everyone who's into that feature will like.

[tater]

There are some aspects of "habitation" (which I'm fine with as a term) that are in fact "life support," though. They are related in a  complex way.

Take a habitat centrifuge as an example. Its a huge quality of life issue, if for no other reason than how the bathrooms would work.

It's also a LS issue, since microgravity will wreck people over time, even with a rigorous exercise program, irreversibly in some cases.

In the case of a Mars/Duna mission, it can also affect how well people can do their jobs once they arrive---or how long they need to take it easy before they can function normally again.

[pandaman]

I think from a KSP gameplay angle @Snark's separation of 'life support' and 'habitation' as two different things makes sense.  Yes, certainly IRL there is some crossover as @tater  rightly points out, 'quality of life' can certainly impact lifespan as well as affecting crew efficiency.

Though from a KSP perspective I think they could be treated as separate entities...

'Life Support' dealing purely with the supply and consumption of food, water and air necessary for survival.

'Habitation' dealing with the quality of life issues and its effects on crew efficiency.

Each could be used independently of the other or in combination, at whatever difficulty settings, depending on players' personal preferences.

Of course there is always the 'danger' of introducing too much 'micro management' into either of these if the implementation is not done carefully, and some players would probably enjoy that aspect, but that's a different argument to whether or not they should be included or represented at all.

[Flamingo]

On 26/8/2016 at 4:27 AM, Aragosnat said:

Only if it is optional and can be toggled on or off. As well start in the defualt off for those that want to keep playing their save without Kerbals dropping like flies unexpectidly. Otherwise I would be intrested in seeing what Dquad comes up with. As I have always wanted to try the mods out. But, with the game developing as it had in the past. I kept puttign it off.

I completely agree.

It would be nice to have things like Remote Tech, FAR and life supports in the stock game, but they should definitely have the option to be toggled off.

[Crown]

Maybe.

As an option to be selected in the difficulty menu.

[Pthigrivi]

I think it's pretty obvious that any kind of LS would toggleable and no one would be forced into it. Something like going on strike or hybernation would also have to be available in the difficulty settings. Habitation would also need its own toggle, and I tend to think kerbals mental health should be tied to their ability to gain experience. I came up with a relatively simple mechanic for this:

Happiness - Kerbals leave the launch-pad with 100% happiness and remain so for 25 days. After that, a lone kerbal will deplete at 1% per day, meaning they will reach zero and become “unhappy” in 100 days. For each additional kerbal on board, Happiness depletes at half the rate, meaning 2 kerbals will be happy for 200 days, 3 kerbals will be happy for 400 days, 4 kerbals 800 days etc. At the time of reaching a goal Experience pays out based on how happy they are at the time it was gathered. The whole experience system needs some major work, and obviously if this was part of it everything would have to be balanced around it to make interplanetary missions more rewarding.

 

Aside from bringing extra kerbals, Happiness can be extended with the following modules (Percentages stack with multi-kerbal bonuses, but not with other module bonuses)

 

Small Living Quarters - 2.5m cylinder

- 2t

- 4200F

- draws 1e/s

- Reduces happiness depletion for up to 3 kerbals by 75%

 

Large Living Quarters: 3.75m cylinder

- 5t

- 6800F

- draws 3 e/s

- Reduces happiness depletion for up to 6 kerbals by 75%

 

Inflatable Habitation Module - 2.5m inline toroid that inflates to approx 5m.

- 7t

- 11000F

- draws 5e/s (while deployed)

- Reduces happiness depletion for up to 12 kerbals by 75%

 

Training Module - (inline Dodecahedron approx 3.75m)

- 5.5t

- 9500F

- draws 2 e/s while dormant and 12 e/s while operating

- Replenishes kerbals' Happiness up to 90% and allows level-up without returning to Kerbin

 

So 3 kerbals with a small living quarters will arrive at Duna at 75% Happiness, and 6 Kerbals with 2 small or one large quarters will arrive at 97%. You could of course just bring a training module, but it would come at a steep cost.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[eddiew]

Definitely not mandatory. As an option that you can toggle, certainly.

Reason; life support typically reduces the ways to gracefully fail a mission. In the event of a fuel shortage, a crash where the command pod alone survives (common scenarios), the crew is going to die before you can rescue them. That's not 'fun'...

USI-LS handles it nicely, in that Kerbals go on strike rather than die, meaning rescues are still on the table, but you do have to transfer some food to the crashed/powerless ship to get it moving again. On the other hand, it could be argued that it's 'just weight' that has to be added to ships.

On the other hand, give me a greenhouse module that improves crew morale and makes them perform 1-star up on usual, that's something I would love  

[swjr-swis]

• Maybe, but only as a per save-game toggleable option, not tied to difficulty level. Iow: I would like to be able to select a 'hard' game without it automatically meaning I have to deal with LS. At other times, I want to toggle on LS on an 'easy' game. Or, and I don't see anyone mentioning this: I want to be able to 'do' LS in a sandbox game when the fancy strikes me. I have moods; they swing, and are not necessarily rational; my game should accommodate for this one absolute and universal law.
• It should be tweakable:
  • how fast resources are used/accumulated (not at all to wait where did the suplies go),
  • how hard it is to generate new supplies/recycle waste (not at all to help, the gantry is overflowing),
  • end result of being out of supplies for too long (meh i can suck on a potatoroid to please put my teddy in my space coffin)
• I consider Life Support to be only about 'stuff-needs' (stuff my kerbals need to eat/breathe/osmose/evacuate/exude for their bodies to keep functioning), to be distinguished from 'comfort-needs' (conditions or activities my kerbals need to maintain a content and productive attitude). 'Comfort-needs' should be its own thing, separately toggleable and tweakable.

[Somtaaw]

I have mixed feelings on Life Support and/or habitation effiency as it seems to have evolved in the posts over time. But with the upcoming 1.2 patchnotes showing a rather severe "nerf" to unmanned misisons (or manned missions that do not have a pilot, using a probe variant to sub for pilots), I have started leaning towards not wanting Life Support (as in food, water, etc) now. Until there's a better balance between unmanned and manned missions, since apparently only a Kerbal can dig a soil sample, despite the fact that a robot can operate a drill, collect a sample and put said sample into a container just like a Kerbal can.

 

If the Life Support in vanilla acted something vaguely like the Convert-a-trons turn ore into LFO, and Fuel Cells turn LFO into energy... which you could say is almost Star Trek like "take carbon molecules, scramble them around, tada you have X food to personal taste". But having to load up greenhouses, and maybe even waiting on said greenhouses to mature to self-sustainability, or various other forms of "fuel but not fuel", then it'll simply become tedious running supply missions constantly, dependant on how many Kerbals are stationed or based wherever you have them.

 

Habitability, or "keeping your little Kerbals happy", while basically just Kerbalized The Sims is already essentially what we're playing even if you don't have life support. Instead of building a single building, or a small town, etc you're building rockets. so we're all still playing The Sims with little green Kerbals. So adding in a few more Sims knockoff's, like keeping them happy, or exercised, and socialized is already something many people do as part of self-added moral system (don't use nukes in inhabited atmospheres, or sending more than one Kerbal on a long mission in more than a Mk1 fuselage). Since many people already act like that, that making it part of vanilla would simple give us added incentive to keep doing it, rather than simply for personal pleasure.

 

 

If some variant of this gives a way to "skill up" crews without constantly having to bring them home to Kerbin, just to let their flight experiences tick into crew level, I'll probably start leaning back into true neutral on some variant of LS/Habitation coming into vanilla. But as I first stated, currently there's still far too much emphasis on manned missions, and nearly anything you can possibly do with an unmanned mission you can do at LEAST 200% better with just one Kerbal along for the ride.

[Red Iron Crown]

I have to say I really don't understand the Kerbals-Sims comparison, life support or not.

[Somtaaw]

1 minute ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I have to say I really don't understand the Kerbals-Sims comparison, life support or not.

You have what amounts to an avatar, who makes unintelligible mouth noises, and you spend a LOT of time clicking them or their environment to make things happen. The only difference is instead of the Kerbal(s) walking around on their own, they wait to be told what to do but otherwise sit there, float or orbit however they were until/unless instructed otherwise.

And instead of building houses, and towns or cities, you're building rockets, bases, stations, and various other spacecraft, aircraft, or whatever else you can think up. But we're still playing what could be called a Sims game, it's just cloaked under space, math, and science stuff.

[Red Iron Crown]

The kerbals aren't necessarily the game's focus though. I've played entire saves without launching a single kerbal. I also see a fundamental difference between making vehicles and making houses.

I dunno, the analogy just seems strained to me.

[swjr-swis]

12 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I dunno, the analogy just seems strained to me.

"Relax RIC, we won't sue over those green cuties setting up house on another planet." (translation: our lawyers told us they're too different for any real chance of getting a settlement out of this) - EA

[Superfluous J]

50 minutes ago, Somtaaw said:

The only difference is instead of the Kerbal(s) walking around on their own, they wait to be told what to do but otherwise sit there, float or orbit however they were until/unless instructed otherwise.

I think that isn't just "the only difference." It's a fundamental difference, and it's a huge one. It's like how "The only difference between Quake and Minecraft is that in Minecraft you build stuff."

[tater]

57 minutes ago, Somtaaw said:

Habitability, or "keeping your little Kerbals happy", while basically just Kerbalized The Sims is already essentially what we're playing even if you don't have life support. Instead of building a single building, or a small town, etc you're building rockets. so we're all still playing The Sims with little green Kerbals. So adding in a few more Sims knockoff's, like keeping them happy, or exercised, and socialized is already something many people do as part of self-added moral system (don't use nukes in inhabited atmospheres, or sending more than one Kerbal on a long mission in more than a Mk1 fuselage). Since many people already act like that, that making it part of vanilla would simple give us added incentive to keep doing it, rather than simply for personal pleasure.

The Sims reference is absurd WRT habitability. There need be no "micromanaging."

It's not subjective, at some level it's objective. There is no way a year long or greater mission happens in a mk1 pod (or cockpit), regardless of LS supplies. Microgravity requires exercise just to deteriorate less quickly (you deteriorate regardless). This is not happiness, or morale, it's physical, just like having improper nutrition or oxygen levels. Kerbals seem roughly analogous to people (and that allows for plenty of slop for gameplay, I'm not seeking to replicate people). So you need a facility like a hitchhiker just for the exercise equipment. You also need recyclers, etc, which take room. 

For a stock system, that would sort of be the point of the hitchhiker. I would calibrate that from a gameplay POV such that for any long duration mission you need at least one per 4 crew, and if it's a really long mission, maybe that increases to 1 for 2 crew, then 1 per crew. It need not be more complex than that for stock. USILS puts the recyclers in the lab.

[Alchemist]

Yeah, habitable volume is a good point. For example, Soyuz descent module can fit 3 on short-term basis (launch/landing), while in mid-time duration it's good for 1 (while other 2 spend the time in the orbital module) and rather cramped for 2 (yet, there was 7K-L1 without orbital module and 7K-LOK would fly like this back from lunar orbit). And for long-term missions you would prefer to get the crew on the station.
While different concept from life support resources (although, long-term-grade modules should also have much bigger capacity for those), addressing this issue would really make the point of choosing between different kind of modules or having different crew capacity of the same module for different applications.

[tater]

From a gameplay POV, I think that LS adds mass, and a time limit as a function of that mass. Habitation is partially subsumed in LS if you make parts like the HH contain enough of the LS gear/supplies (remember that some of LS is machinery that is not consumed).

Honestly, for stock with the appropriate tweaking of which parts get what LS functions, habitation can become a non-issue---you'd need a HH for X crew just because that has some of the LS machinery required for long duration missions. Done.

 

[Pthigrivi]

I would say adding habitation should be separate, and deserves incorporating real habitation modules. It would just make colonization strategies and stations feel so much more real. 

[Van Disaster]

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I would say adding habitation should be separate, and deserves incorporating real habitation modules. It would just make colonization strategies and stations feel so much more real. 

We're talking "habitation" with respect to crew space, rather than colony modules - currently we can send crew anywhere in something the size of a Mercury capsule, whether they have enough food or oxygen ( if you're using TACalike LS ) or no LS mod at all. Someone stuck in a capsule the size of the Mk1 for a few years is going to be seriously ill even if they have all the food & other sustenance they could wish for.

Having used TAC over many versions, mission prep literally did just come down to considering food/oxygen/water as fuel - just stuff enough for the mission onboard ( which is frankly simple given it's just standard format hardware ) & it's exactly like fuel, either you have enough & the mission succeeds or you don't & it's a failure, the only difference to not having it is you can't eventually recover your crew. You learn really quickly how much you need, and after that it really adds nothing to gameplay other than make-work.

[tater]

6 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

We're talking "habitation" with respect to crew space, rather than colony modules - currently we can send crew anywhere in something the size of a Mercury capsule, whether they have enough food or oxygen ( if you're using TACalike LS ) or no LS mod at all. Someone stuck in a capsule the size of the Mk1 for a few years is going to be seriously ill even if they have all the food & other sustenance they could wish for.

Having used TAC over many versions, mission prep literally did just come down to considering food/oxygen/water as fuel - just stuff enough for the mission onboard ( which is frankly simple given it's just standard format hardware ) & it's exactly like fuel, either you have enough & the mission succeeds or you don't & it's a failure, the only difference to not having it is you can't eventually recover your crew. You learn really quickly how much you need, and after that it really adds nothing to gameplay other than make-work.

I'd not go so far as the bolded bit. What it adds is a time limit given the amount of mass you have added. KSP being KSP, the player is given limited information, so in terms of a stock implementation, you have to operate under the assumption of no KER or MJ to give you dv information, and in fact that trip duration will be sort of trial and error. The player can always stretch a maneuver node to the target world, and have some idea of 1-way trip time, but what will the return look like? As a result, they'd be prudent to send stuff ahead, just in case. If you do see that you've not planned well, you need to think about a resupply that is perhaps not the most efficient... In short, it adds all kinds of novel missions (planned and unplanned) into gameplay, so I don't agree it adds nothing.

My only reason for wanting habitation in there somehow, even if it's as simple as placing the best LS equipment in "hab" parts, is to avoid the single mk1 capsule being a thing.

[Pthigrivi]

Have you tried USI? I think this is a nice example of how clever game mechanics can trump strict adherence to realism. No matter what the solution is going to be an abstraction, so what really matters is producing tight trade-offs that players can find creative ways to navigate. I think people have come to a consensus that any stock implementation should be a single resource with a few mechanisms to extend it. I think keeping it that simple is really important and binding kerbal health to space requirements kind of muddles things. Habitation could be a really fun mechanic, but it should be so in its own right. When I say colonization I just mean needing to think about long-term habitation in space. Small crews on short journeys shouldn't really have to add anything, but if you're setting up a station or a munbase or sending 6 kerbals to Duna there should be some incentive for bringing purpose-built modules that keep them active and happy. The Hitchiker pod is fine, and maybe there should even be an MK1 habitation module to give players some flexibility on the lower end, but where it could really shine is supporting and incentivizing decent size crews on long missions. I also think this should be on the carrot side of things gameplay wise. Maybe on hard mode crews might become despondent if left in too small a space for too long but the standard focus should be giving boosts to how fast kerbals gain experience.

[panzer1b]

While im still against LS in general, id love some sort of habitation requirements (because it makes sense, is realistic, but unlike LS, isnt time dependent and just adds a minor drawback to excessively long missions).  Something akin to 1 month or less anything works, 1m-1year crew needs like 2 seats (and this doesnt count a pod like the mk1 or can), and anything above like 3+ years a kerbal needs 4 seats to remain happy the entire trip.  Ofc it would have to be toggleable, and im not sure what exactly the penalties would be, perhaps loosing experience or becoming unproductive or so (so like becoming tourists in this case).

That said, i highly doubt my new warship would have any issues with crew happiness.  Given that i actually took the time to model a full interior, crew quarters, recreation deck, briefing room, command bridge, engineering (reactor+engine rooms), walkways through whole ship, cryo storage, windows, and just about everything else a kerbal would need to enjoy their voyage through the stars (although said ship has so bad dV i dont thing they'd be visiting other stars )...

No crew space issues here