Tourist Training Policy

[SpacePilotMax]

In career mode, the tourists can't do anything at all. My suggestion is a tourist training strategy in admin building which makes tourists be able to control ships without SAS, EVA, and take crew reports. Obviously this takes income from tourist contracts.

 

Edited November 7, 2016 by PilotMax

[Magzimum]

There is a name for tourists that were trained at the KSC for their missions: they are called the Crew.

I am sorry to disagree, but a tourist cannot help in getting your spaceship anywhere, and cannot do anything useful - that's the whole point of tourists. They are about as useful as bringing a bag of dirt on your trip, except they talk much more. So I disagree with them controlling the ship without SAS or taking crew reports. If anything, they should make things worse, as proper tourists typically do.

But I could be ok with tourists on EVA, as long as they don't do anything useful while on EVA.

[Tex_NL]

3 minutes ago, Magzimum said:

There is a name for tourists that were trained at the KSC for their missions: they are called the Crew.

I am sorry to disagree, but a tourist cannot help in getting your spaceship anywhere, and cannot do anything useful - that's the whole point of tourists. They are about as useful as bringing a bag of dirt on your trip, except they talk much more. So I disagree with them controlling the ship without SAS or taking crew reports. If anything, they should make things worse, as proper tourists typically do.

But I could be ok with tourists on EVA, as long as they don't do anything useful while on EVA.

Perhaps they could be able to plant a flag or pick up a souvenir. But that should be about it. They are paying customers, not a replacement for trained kerbonauts.

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

Perhaps they could be able to plant a flag or pick up a souvenir. But that should be about it.

Hmm I don't know, in a universe with enough tourists and enough funds - and KSP has an infinite supply of both, the option to drive around cheap rovers on a lunar surface or fly a parasail on Laythe might entice more tourists to part with more of their funds than if all they can do is just experience micro-gravity or grab a rock. The additional funds could then further advance the space program, maybe even make it possible to combine the trip with a scientific mission (performed by the scientists).

That would require a separate logic for tourists to control a 'simple' vehicle while not being able to control a spacecraft, so it sounds like over-complication.

Still, now that I have thought about it, I think I'm going to examine packing tiny probe-controlled rovers for extraplanetary tourist landing contracts. If they pay me enough to bother, that is.

[radonek]

5 hours ago, Magzimum said:

There is a name for tourists that were trained at the KSC for their missions: they are called the Crew.

I am sorry to disagree, but a tourist cannot help in getting your spaceship anywhere, and cannot do anything useful - that's the whole point of tourists. They are about as useful as bringing a bag of dirt on your trip, except they talk much more. So I disagree with them controlling the ship without SAS or taking crew reports. If anything, they should make things worse, as proper tourists typically do.

But I could be ok with tourists on EVA, as long as they don't do anything useful while on EVA.

This gives me an idea:

You set up maneuver node or click SAS direction icon, and then let tourist try to handle it. Which he would, but with some random deviation. If you manage to bring him back despite his, erm, "efforts", well, he has something to brag about, right? -> bonus rep.
 

[Magzimum]

19 minutes ago, radonek said:

This gives me an idea:

You set up maneuver node or click SAS direction icon, and then let tourist try to handle it. Which he would, but with some random deviation. If you manage to bring him back despite his, erm, "efforts", well, he has something to brag about, right? -> bonus rep.
 

LOL! I have to say that I like that idea to have tourists screw something up, and the crew having to fix it for extra pay.

How far can we push that? Obviously they almost certainly WILL turn on all the lights, thereby using electric charge... Maybe they 'accidentally' change the ship's orientation? Sometimes briefly turn on the throttle a bit? Maybe extend some landing gear when they shouldn't - all those in the category of "Oooh, what does this button do?".

[Kerbart]

Thank goodness I don't have to program this myself or I would never dare to suggest it. You could use experience as a way to to control what kind of tourist contracts pop up:

• Zero star tourists: limited to Kerbin, suborbital and orbital flight
• One star tourists: Includes Mun and Minmus (flyby/orbit)
• Two star tourists: Duna and Eve
• Three star tourists: Moho and Dres
• Four star tourists:  Jool
• Five star tourists: Eeloo

That means that the game (or at least the contract system) has to keep track of your tourist pool. It also means that if you deplete your tourist pool by crashing a busload (literally!) on Duna you'll have to retrain the new ones before they're willing to embark on such a trip.

Obviously grizzled 4 & 5 star tourists will pay far, far more for their exotic trips than the newbies will.

[SpacePilotMax]

My original idea was to make tourists slightly less useless, but not to the point where you can run missions with them and a fly-by-wire. 

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, PilotMax said:

My original idea was to make tourists slightly less useless, but not to the point where you can run missions with them and a fly-by-wire. 

Sorry, that's what you get when you pitch ideas in this forum: people will go 'ooo but then I could also...!' and all bets are off where it will end.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

22 hours ago, Magzimum said:

But I could be ok with tourists on EVA, as long as they don't do anything useful while on EVA.

Same.

Maybe call it "Emergency Preparation Training" or something. Basically they've been trained to don spacesuits and leave the spaceship in an emergency situation, but that's it.

They should only have 1 unit of RCS fuel (as opposed to the usual 5) as well, just enough to get them over to a rescue ship.

[KSK]

On ‎07‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 1:22 PM, Tex_NL said:

Perhaps they could be able to plant a flag or pick up a souvenir. But that should be about it. They are paying customers, not a replacement for trained kerbonauts.

Agree with the sentiment but I also note that my paying customers level up from a trip in the same way that my 'trained' kerbonauts do...

#GreenSpamInACan.

 

[Hodari]

On 11/7/2016 at 8:22 AM, Tex_NL said:

Perhaps they could be able to plant a flag or pick up a souvenir. But that should be about it. They are paying customers, not a replacement for trained kerbonauts.

Yeah, that sounds like about the limit of what they should be able to do.  And that "souvenir" shouldn't count as a surface sample for getting science points either(since they'd want to keep their souvenir and not let you experiment on it) or at the very least, should give greatly reduced science value(since they don't know how to pick INTERESTING samples and will just grab whatever rock looks cool to them).  Planting flags could at least count towards completing contracts though and maybe getting to plant flags, collect souvenirs, or even do EVAs at all could also make the tourists pay you an added bonus in addition to the regular contract reward.

[Dire_Squid]

On ‎11‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 8:17 AM, Magzimum said:

There is a name for tourists that were trained at the KSC for their missions: they are called the Crew.

I am sorry to disagree, but a tourist cannot help in getting your spaceship anywhere, and cannot do anything useful - that's the whole point of tourists. They are about as useful as bringing a bag of dirt on your trip, except they talk much more. So I disagree with them controlling the ship without SAS or taking crew reports. If anything, they should make things worse, as proper tourists typically do.

But I could be ok with tourists on EVA, as long as they don't do anything useful while on EVA.

Hey yeah, instead of "Science" EVA, they should have "Feedback" EVA. It shouldn't give science, but maybe a funding bonus SO SMALL that it's negligible (but there), like, say 1 "kerbuck/fund" per feedback. It may be there, but the value is so low that, in the direct mission, it means nothing.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Dire_Squid

[Wyzard]

Tourists controlling a spacecraft would be pretty weird, since that's what crew are for.  And tourists going on EVA in orbit seems iffy since that's dangerous and even professional astronauts don't do it just for fun.  But tourists doing EVA when landed would make a lot of sense — I mean, if you were to pay a company like SpaceX to land you on the Moon, wouldn't you want to get out and walk around once you're there?  It'd be silly to just sit in the lander and look out the window.

I can imagine tourism contracts having additional objectives after landing:

• EVA on the surface.
• Take a souvenir rock: like a surface sample, but without the science.
• Visit a base: the tourist must enter a specific craft that was already on the surface when the contract was generated.
• See the sights: like the "investigate anomaly" contract type, but instead of doing an experiment at each waypoint, you just bring the tourist there.

As far as tourist experience levels go, I like the idea of higher levels corresponding to more-advanced contracts, though I'd worry that it'd lead to a situation where you've "run out" of tourists below a certain level so all the tourism contracts you're offered are for things you can't do yet.  Maybe tourists should mostly offer contracts to do things at their current level, but with a chance of wanting something more advanced (which will raise their level) or below (because it costs them less).

And maybe some tourists should be inspired to join the space program — i.e. show up as applicants in the astronaut complex — and if you hire them, they keep their experience from when they were tourists.    (That'd actually make the applicant list somewhat useful; as it is, I've never hired a kerbal, because I just rescue them from orbit instead.)

Edited November 23, 2016 by Wyzard
Better explanation of sightseeing contract objective

[Wyzard]

…and it turns out that Tourism Plus already does some of what I suggested, and a bunch of other things I didn't think of.  I have a contract available right now to bring 15 kerbals to orbit for a 40-day "space camp", and when they return, some will join the space program.  I also have contracts to bring kerbals to asteroids, and to space above specific landmarks on Kerbin.

[Martian Emigrant]

On 2016-11-07 at 2:23 PM, Kerbart said:

Thank goodness I don't have to program this myself or I would never dare to suggest it. You could use experience as a way to to control what kind of tourist contracts pop up:

• Zero star tourists: limited to Kerbin, suborbital and orbital flight
• One star tourists: Includes Mun and Minmus (flyby/orbit)
• Two star tourists: Duna and Eve
• Three star tourists: Moho and Dres
• Four star tourists:  Jool
• Five star tourists: Eeloo

That means that the game (or at least the contract system) has to keep track of your tourist pool. It also means that if you deplete your tourist pool by crashing a busload (literally!) on Duna you'll have to retrain the new ones before they're willing to embark on such a trip.

Obviously grizzled 4 & 5 star tourists will pay far, far more for their exotic trips than the newbies will.

I have had 2 and 3 stars tourist before. And always thought it was a shame that they don't come back for another one.

Yes, there should be a "Pool" of tourist. You know "Professional tourists". That always come back for more trills.

On 2016-11-07 at 8:22 AM, Tex_NL said:

Perhaps they could be able to plant a flag or pick up a souvenir. But that should be about it. They are paying customers, not a replacement for trained kerbonauts.

IMO: Tourist shouldn't drive the ship or fly on EVA.

I like the idea of a tourist going out of the ship. It's just another contract. But if you hit space he is on a tether.

I like the idea of tourist walking on the Mun. But have them do random tourist stuff.

"Bailor is out of radio range". Kaching we have to find him for extra money.

Ascent ship can't make proper orbit: "Bailor filled his suit pockets with 150kg of Mun rocks".

Scene: Lander on the Mun. Crew in a line to plant a flag. In the background 5 tourist jumping up and down.

Scene: Herding cats. While you walk a tourist back to the ship the other ones are all walking/jumping away from the ship in different directions.

Extra money to carry Bailors rock collection.

One of the jumping tourist just crashed the solar panels. Extra hardship for all. Extra cash for the program.

You would have to "Manage" your tourist. For fun and profit.

 

ME

 

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Kerbart]

9 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

I have had 2 and 3 stars tourist before. And always thought it was a shame that they don't come back for another one.

I'm not commenting on how you run your program, but don't you think there's a reason they don't come back?

[Martian Emigrant]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

I'm not commenting on how you run your program, but don't you think there's a reason they don't come back?

They get more than they paid for.

I am sure you have seen it before yourself.

You are at a point in your space program that you have a ship that can do the Mun and Minmus, both.

You have been accumulating tourists as you run other contracts.

You pack them all in. I remember having a bus of 15 tourist once. The Kerbin only with the Mun landers and the Minmus landers.

When you offload all those nice Kerbals they all have gained experiences along with your crew.

I haven't checked but now (With 1.2) they should benefit from the flag planting too.

 

ME

[whale_2]

I've made this, everyone is welcome to discuss and try: