Life Support system?

[Tachtra]

Some Mods in the first game enable lifesupport, aka you have to feed your Kerbals for them to stay at work.

Do you think this feature will be in the sequel too?

[GoldForest]

28 minutes ago, Tachtra said:

Some Mods in the first game enable lifesupport, aka you have to feed your Kerbals for them to stay at work.

Do you think this feature will be in the sequel too?

I doubt to the extent of any of the really popular mods. 

If they do do life support, it will be very basic. 

[tseitsei89]

5 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I doubt to the extent of any of the really popular mods. 

If they do do life support, it will be very basic. 

If they wont do proper life support, a big part of the game will become quite obsolete... I'm talking about base building here. Base building mechanic is THE thing that can be the source of interesting and meaningful long term projects but without life support it is just "slap down any building with kerbal in it". 

I REALLY hope they implement a proper life support system

EDIT: At least requiring food and oxygen generation and some kind of reasonable space requirements (i.e. Kerbals cant live in a pod for longer than 1 or 2 days). That is the bare minimum IMO

Edited August 31, 2019 by tseitsei89

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, tseitsei89 said:

If they wont do proper life support, a big part of the game will become quite obsolete... I'm talking about base building here. Base building mechanic is THE thing that can be the source of interesting and meaningful long term projects but without life support it is just "slap down any building with kerbal in it". 

I REALLY hope they implement a proper life support system

IIRC correctly, they said it would be basic life support. No need to constantly worry about food, heat, or waste. 

KSP 1 never had Life Support, and it took Squad a long time to even put in reentry heating effects. With life support, I feel it would make KSP 2 unfun for a lot of people because now you're constantly micro-managing everything. 

I say leave life support to the modding community. 

If they do add life support, do the bare minimum. Make sure the spacecraft has power to run the oxygen and heaters. No food. 

[theJesuit]

Hopefully a basic but not too basic form 

ie. Air / BadAir

Consumables / Organic Slurry

So two resources: simple, but more than 'we threw a pass at it'.  it gets breathed/ eaten/ absorbed whatever with a 'waste' product out.

(i.e. see kerbalism simplex living_

Modders then have the ability to adjust the amount, even mod in what they are made from so Water + Carbs + Proteins + Vitamins = Consumables; Nitrogen + Oxygen = Air

Peace.

[tseitsei89]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

IIRC correctly, they said it would be basic life support. No need to constantly worry about food, heat, or waste. 

KSP 1 never had Life Support, and it took Squad a long time to even put in reentry heating effects. With life support, I feel it would make KSP 2 unfun for a lot of people because now you're constantly micro-managing everything. 

I say leave life support to the modding community. 

If they do add life support, do the bare minimum. Make sure the spacecraft has power to run the oxygen and heaters. No food. 

How would you balance the new base building mechanics with this? It seems (to me) that building big bases on other planets (or in orbit) and collecting resources there will be a big part of the new game...

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

How would you balance the new base building mechanics with this? It seems (to me) that building big bases on other planets (or in orbit) and collecting resources there will be a big part of the new game...

Collecting resources has been confirmed to be a big mechanic of Colonies, but they know people will make 25+ colonies since the game is so huge. You really want to spend your time making sure those 25+ colonies don't die? I don't. 

Life Support shouldn't be in the stock game at all in my honest opinion, but I know a lot of people like it, so either make it super simple or make it to where we can turn it off. 

[tseitsei89]

5 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Collecting resources has been confirmed to be a big mechanic of Colonies, but they know people will make 25+ colonies since the game is so huge. You really want to spend your time making sure those 25+ colonies don't die? I don't. 

Life Support shouldn't be in the stock game at all in my honest opinion, but I know a lot of people like it, so either make it super simple or make it to where we can turn it off. 

I dont want to be sending constant resupply flights to all 25+ bases BUT that is why I would make the colonies self sustaining by collecting resource on the planet. But achieving that self sustainability should (IMO) require more than just slapping down a hitchiker can with a kerbal in it.

Option to turn it off is of course great and much needed to make the game fun for as many people as possible

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, tseitsei89 said:

I dont want to be sending constant resupply flights to all 25+ bases BUT that is why I would make the colonies self sustaining by collecting resource on the planet. But achieving that self sustainability should (IMO) require more than just slapping down a hitchiker can with a kerbal in it.

Option to turn it off is of course great and much needed to make the game fun for as many people as possible

I doubt Colonies will be self sufficient on their own. You will have to go out and gather the resources on your own I feel, but if I have 2 colonies, and I ignore colony A because I'm working on colony B for three years in game time, colony A shouldn't have any ill effects because of me neglecting them. 

Basically: Colonies won't grow without your direct help, but won't die without help. 

[tseitsei89]

2 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I doubt Colonies will be self sufficient on their own. You will have to go out and gather the resources on your own I feel, but if I have 2 colonies, and I ignore colony A because I'm working on colony B for three years in game time, colony A shouldn't have any ill effects because of me neglecting them. 

Basically: Colonies won't grow without your direct help, but won't die without help. 

Take a look at USI LS and USI MKS/OKS mod packs for KSP 1 to see what I kind of mean. Lots of good mechanics there, of course it is not perfect either but the core idea is good IMO. You can make a completely self sustaining base but that takes lots of time and effort. (And there is a system to automatically do trivial resource delivery flights in the background too.)

[GoldForest]

3 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

Take a look at USI LS and USI MKS/OKS mod packs for KSP 1 to see what I kind of mean. Lots of good mechanics there, of course it is not perfect either but the core idea is good IMO. You can make a completely self sustaining base but that takes lots of time and effort. (And there is a system to automatically do trivial resource delivery flights in the background too.)

We're not sure automation is even in the game. 

The only automation that we know of is that spacecraft can continually thrust while you are away. @Snark did an interview and that was one question that came up. 

Basically: 
Spaceship A heading to Solar System B will continue to thrust
While
Spaceship B is under your control flying to Duna to bring supplies to Duna Colony C. 

[Guest]

I think LS should be a design problem not a micromanagement one.

The big part should be in designing and deploying the LS and resource gathering system, not in running endless supply missions or drive every truck or drill for every mine.

That's why the biggest part of LS should be the necessary living space and energy consumption for your crew (things that you can design directly in the VAB) alongside a simple and generic "supplies" consumable mass and an equally simple and intuitive set of parts that makes possibile to make a station or a big ship fully self-sufficient.

[tseitsei89]

Just now, GoldForest said:

We're not sure automation is even in the game. 

The only automation that we know of is that spacecraft can continually thrust while you are away. @Snark did an interview and that was one question that came up. 
 

We dont know. We also dont know if life support will be in the game but we are discussing here what we hope would be in the game.

Supply flights wouldnt need any "real" automation either. IIRC the supply flights in USI mods are not actually flown at all. game just checks if you have sufficient resources (including fuel etc.) and a predetermined launch vehicle in the base and then teleports it to the goal base with appropriate time delay simulating flight time.

6 minutes ago, Master39 said:

I think LS should be a design problem not a micromanagement one.

The big part should be in designing and deploying the LS and resource gathering system, not in running endless supply missions or drive every truck or drill for every mine.

That's why the biggest part of LS should be the necessary living space and energy consumption for your crew (things that you can design directly in the VAB) alongside a simple and generic "supplies" consumable mass and an equally simple and intuitive set of parts that makes possibile to make a station or a big ship fully self-sufficient.

Yes of course micro management is not wanted.

And yes we definitely need a way to make a base self sufficient without any user input.

However IMO it shouldnt be "easy" and quick like just slapping few lightweight parts on top of a ship. It should require planning and multiple launches and orbital/on planet assembly.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

However IMO it shouldnt be "easy" and quick like just slapping few lightweight parts on top of a ship. It should require planning and multiple launches and orbital/on planet assembly.

I never said "lightweight", I said simple.

The whole point is to make the ship bigger and heavier to make orbital assembly and orbital shipyards more usefull and make ground bases different from fully autonomous colonies.

[Snark]

5 hours ago, Tachtra said:

Some Mods in the first game enable lifesupport, aka you have to feed your Kerbals for them to stay at work.

Do you think this feature will be in the sequel too?

I asked them this, point blank, at the session at Star Theory the other day.

The answer was kinda noncommittal and mostly "no comment".  They didn't say "yes"... but they didn't exactly say "no", either.

So my read on that is that there's a good chance there may be something related to that, but that it's likely to be limited and/or they haven't fully made up their minds yet.

 

4 hours ago, tseitsei89 said:

Take a look at USI LS and USI MKS/OKS mod packs for KSP 1 to see what I kind of mean. Lots of good mechanics there, of course it is not perfect either but the core idea is good IMO. You can make a completely self sustaining base but that takes lots of time and effort.

My take on it, based on what I've seen and heard, is that they're very probably not going to make something like MKS.  They're very explicit that they want the game to be about designing and flying rockets.  They'll add a bit of depth with colonies, but they're very clearly focused on their priorities and they don't want to take the players focus away from that.  "We're not building Kerbal Cities: Skylines" was one relevant quote.

I've played MKS before, and it's an impressive tour de force, and I can see why some folks would like it a lot.  But it wasn't my personal cup of tea because it took much of the game's focus away from designing and flying rockets and made it much more about logistics.

And that's exactly what Star Theory has said they don't want to do.  So although they haven't actually provided much detail about how colony mechanics will work, my expectation is that it will deliberately not be super "deep" that way.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'd like to see a simple life support system.

Single resource, and if you run out your kerbals simply go into hibernation, and will wake up when resupplied.

[Guest]

Some form of life support is confirmed to be in. I'm hoping it'll be optional and extremely basic and non-lethal; it is not my idea of fun to go do a long mission then return to another one only to find dead kerbals, or to run routine resupply missions, or again end up with dead kerbals months into a mission because of a slip-up.

If it turns out like that, I won't be buying KSP2 at all.

[tseitsei89]

26 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

Some form of life support is confirmed to be in. I'm hoping it'll be optional and extremely basic and non-lethal; it is not my idea of fun to go do a long mission then return to another one only to find dead kerbals, or to run routine resupply missions, or again end up with dead kerbals months into a mission because of a slip-up.

If it turns out like that, I won't be buying KSP2 at all.

I'm quite sure it can be turned off. Otherwise it would be a horrible game design choice

[Tachtra]

How about a difficulty, you can enable when starting a new game, independent of which mode you seek to play?

Just a Button you press and features like feeding, water or anything else will be enabled. It would be fine for the more advanced players who seek for a challange.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Tachtra
Missing content

[DStaal]

From the little bits they've said and the impressions people have had, here's what I think they're thinking:

Life support in the sense of 'you need to do this on all your ships to keep your Kerbals alive' won't be a thing.  However, there will be a colony sustainability/growth mechanic that's life-support like - To have a working colony you will need to have food storage areas, farms, recyclers, etc.  Kerbals themselves may be workers in that system, and may have some effect on the system - but the point of the system is really to map colony stages and growth, in a 'you need X level of complexity for a stage Y colony, which has Z abilities' sort of way.

(Again, this is my synthesis impression of comments I’ve seen - nothing specific, just overall impression.)

[Jacke]

6 hours ago, Snark said:

I've played MKS before, and it's an impressive tour de force, and I can see why some folks would like it a lot.  But it wasn't my personal cup of tea because it took much of the game's focus away from designing and flying rockets and made it much more about logistics.

In the now-defunct mod Better Than Starting Manned, there was a very simple life-support system that still had a big impact.

You has Life Support Resource and depending on the command module (and the presence of a Life Support Module), your Kerbals consumed that resource at a varying rate.  Along with Electric Charge (in BTSM solar panels were moved to higher tech), Life Support was the big limiting factor in BTSM.  As well, Electric Charge was needed to power parts but especially life support.  This radically changed KSP.  I liked it, but that challenge was limiting.

There wasn't a resourcement management UI (like for Electric Charge with either of the mods Fusebox or AmpYear) so you had to calculate out mission phases very exactly.  Wasn't too difficult early on, but later it go very tricky.  For example, with the Lander Can 2-Kerbal, it has enough resource for 2 Kerbals for *2 hours* tops.  So an Apollo-like design Mun mission had to be flown very efficiently to stay within that.

I can't see a stock life-support system being more complicated that what we had in BTSM as it would definitely dominate the game.  If it does go in, I think it'll have more generous margins.  It'll not be that much of a limitation except for long duration missions.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Jacke

[shdwlrd]

I liked how USI:LS worked, but I hated the logistics side of it, and the planner was broken. For any type of life support to work and to keep the game exploration and building rockets based, you will need to relegate the logistics to a background function. That can apply to general resource collection and transportation too. 

[magnemoe]

As I understand KSP2 come with an rater simple life support system, think snacks.
Also colonies will be self supplied and can probably supply ships with life support at least if set up for it. 

[Francois424]

If it has to have one, I'd rather it be optional.
And for me to use it, it would have to be basic...

Like: Kerbal need Water and Snacks.
You can grow snacks from a greenhouse + Solar Power(lighting) + Water.  So to grow food, you need more water.
Something easy and nice like that.  Plus who doesn't like greenhouse domes on a large mothership ?

Now comes the question about how to make sure to have enough water on very long trip to the Outer System's edge or Interstellar trips without freezing your crew.
I guess it gives new life to Asteroid mining (which was quite useless to me in KSP1, too few resources,  tho they could be loaded with water.

Not opposed to the idea, but like with ORE vs Many many resources, if you're not careful, you turn ppl away.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

I liked how USI:LS worked, but I hated the logistics side of it, and the planner was broken. For any type of life support to work and to keep the game exploration and building rockets based, you will need to relegate the logistics to a background function. That can apply to general resource collection and transportation too. 

Exactly.

My concern with this is that it would quickly lead to a raft of complications and new gameplay features that would drastically change KSP. The actual spaceflight might gradually fade into the background as the late game becomes all about setting up the automated logistics for your growing interstellar civilisation. 

That could be a pretty cool game but I would much rather have them spend the effort on spaceflight. If I want something else I'll play Galactic Civilisations.