The upcoming supply lines in KSP 2 could require the player manually perform the route and operations involved periodically to "requalify" the technology and kerbals involved. To keep it real

[darthgently]

Additionally, depending upon how well the supply line works under manual control will determine the odds of it working ok when operating as a background supply line.  If the player wastes a bunch of fuel to dock the tanker with orbital, then the supply line will tend to waste the same amount of fuel, etc

Edited May 30, 2021 by darthgently

[Single stage to ocean]

This could get complex, but why not have routes that need occasional recertification(flying it yourself, paying funds, etc.)? I kind of dislike KSP 2 at times because it is too futuristic, because how are they going to nerf Orion drives enough that players don't start adding them to their SSTAs? Anyway, I'm off topic, so mods, feel free to delete.

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, Single stage to ocean said:

This could get complex, but why not have routes that need occasional recertification(flying it yourself, paying funds, etc.)? I kind of dislike KSP 2 at times because it is too futuristic, because how are they going to nerf Orion drives enough that players don't start adding them to their SSTAs? Anyway, I'm off topic, so mods, feel free to delete.

I think you just restated what I described.  Not sure.  But yeah, the player would need to prove the viability of their skills, craft, and such to operate the route before it would be considered viable for being a background "supply line".  Additionally, they'd need to requalify, or recertify, as you put it, to keep it viable.  Maybe the more they put off recert, the more the route breaks down, parts fail, kerbals die, etc

[Single stage to ocean]

No, you said about having an option to either manually control or not, and the automated performace will depend based on how you do it, lets say you take 100 tons of fuel out of 3000 tons available to dock to a tanker, in KSP 2 it will take that much automated, also 100 tons of fuel. I prefer a system where to discourage automated, there is a difficulty setting that changes the percent of fuel wasted, eg to dock a tanker at 10% setting it takes 10% fuel, at 50% it takes half the fuel to dock.

I want to see KSP 2, but I am worried about the nerfing. They need to nerf stuff enough to prevent wacky uses of it, eg. orion drives being added to SSTOs, or Orion drive powered SSTAs turning every planet they go to into a nuclear hellscape. KSP 2 makes thing a challenge because of lower Delta-V, but if KSP 2 adds Orion drives that is an instant 7.5x better than the Nerv. They need to nerf these OP things so that there is a reason to use lower tier engines, not use Orion drives for everything. Maybe a Kerbin+Solar system rescale and other solar systems would reduce the OPness, but still, it is difficult. Maybe the fancy engines use lots of EC and need to be cooled, not to mention that their fuel must be mined somewhere, not gotten magically in the VAB with a slider.

[darthgently]

9 hours ago, Single stage to ocean said:

No, you said about having an option to either manually control or not, and the automated performace will depend based on how you do it, lets say you take 100 tons of fuel out of 3000 tons available to dock to a tanker, in KSP 2 it will take that much automated, also 100 tons of fuel. I prefer a system where to discourage automated, there is a difficulty setting that changes the percent of fuel wasted, eg to dock a tanker at 10% setting it takes 10% fuel, at 50% it takes half the fuel to dock.

I want to see KSP 2, but I am worried about the nerfing. They need to nerf stuff enough to prevent wacky uses of it, eg. orion drives being added to SSTOs, or Orion drive powered SSTAs turning every planet they go to into a nuclear hellscape. KSP 2 makes thing a challenge because of lower Delta-V, but if KSP 2 adds Orion drives that is an instant 7.5x better than the Nerv. They need to nerf these OP things so that there is a reason to use lower tier engines, not use Orion drives for everything. Maybe a Kerbin+Solar system rescale and other solar systems would reduce the OPness, but still, it is difficult. Maybe the fancy engines use lots of EC and need to be cooled, not to mention that their fuel must be mined somewhere, not gotten magically in the VAB with a slider.

No, that is not what I said.  And you were right the first time, you are off topic

[darthgently]

10 hours ago, Single stage to ocean said:

No, you said about having an option to either manually control or not, and the automated performace will depend based on how you do it, lets say you take 100 tons of fuel out of 3000 tons available to dock to a tanker, in KSP 2 it will take that much automated, also 100 tons of fuel. I prefer a system where to discourage automated, there is a difficulty setting that changes the percent of fuel wasted, eg to dock a tanker at 10% setting it takes 10% fuel, at 50% it takes half the fuel to dock.

I want to see KSP 2, but I am worried about the nerfing. They need to nerf stuff enough to prevent wacky uses of it, eg. orion drives being added to SSTOs, or Orion drive powered SSTAs turning every planet they go to into a nuclear hellscape. KSP 2 makes thing a challenge because of lower Delta-V, but if KSP 2 adds Orion drives that is an instant 7.5x better than the Nerv. They need to nerf these OP things so that there is a reason to use lower tier engines, not use Orion drives for everything. Maybe a Kerbin+Solar system rescale and other solar systems would reduce the OPness, but still, it is difficult. Maybe the fancy engines use lots of EC and need to be cooled, not to mention that their fuel must be mined somewhere, not gotten magically in the VAB with a slider.

Automated supply lines are already planned for KSP 2.  It is very grindy to manually run, or even via kOS script, every single fuel, resource, or life support delivery.  It is not challenging after the first few runs and sucks time away from exploring further out into the system.  But it is true that if things are overly automated then what is the point?  So I merely suggested that the player has to justify the math behind the automated supply line periodically by grinding through it.  And the degree of efficiency they achieve will affect the degree of efficiency the automated supply line will run within.  I think you should put your more wide ranging responses to this thread into your own thread as they range fairly wide from this thread

[Vanamonde]

Thread moved to the KSP2 sub, since that's what it's about. 

[TLTay]

I'm voting no on having to run the mission again unless I change something on the ship etc. If I can do a fuel resupply run with X ship, carrying Y tons of fuel, the game should allow me to change out Y tons of fuel for zero to Y tons of ore, snacks, Kerbal poo, whatever, in the same form factor part without having to run it again. This would avoid me having to redo a mun base 1 to mun base 2 monoprop resupply for the 15th time while my interstellar ship using a torch drive is en route to Gargantua black hole or something.

As far as Orion goes, the massive size, energy consumption, heat generation, catastrophic effects, inoperability in atmosphere, etc should make it a very unlikely candidate for common uses. Not to mention cost and the infrastructure needed to build and support one. It looks like a truly massive undertaking to get to that level. If anything is at risk of being OP, it'd be the torch drive... but that's end game stuff. 

Edited May 30, 2021 by TLTay

[jimmymcgoochie]

I disagree with the OP idea of having to refly it manually- that would make it a boring chore that detracts from doing more interesting and important stuff. I would think that the act of actually flying that mission (in the background) would be enough to keep whatever crew is flying it up to scratch to keep on flying it.

Re. @Single stage to ocean's point about using high-tech parts for low-tech freight runs- the cost of producing the necessary resources to build, fuel and operate said high-tech parts would be deterrent enough to avoid using metallic hydrogen torch drives to do a grocery run to the Mun, plus by that point you'll probably have moved on from doing stuff near Kerbin to getting resources from across the solar system (or systems!) so it could well be a moot point.

[darthgently]

Just now, jimmymcgoochie said:

I disagree with the OP idea of having to refly it manually- that would make it a boring chore that detracts from doing more interesting and important stuff. I would think that the act of actually flying that mission (in the background) would be enough to keep whatever crew is flying it up to scratch to keep on flying it.

Re. @Single stage to ocean's point about using high-tech parts for low-tech freight runs- the cost of producing the necessary resources to build, fuel and operate said high-tech parts would be deterrent enough to avoid using metallic hydrogen torch drives to do a grocery run to the Mun, plus by that point you'll probably have moved on from doing stuff near Kerbin to getting resources from across the solar system (or systems!) so it could well be a moot point.

The main idea behind reflying would be something changed (incorporating other feedback here).  Like maybe the player chooses to "recertify" it because they know they can do it better and get more efficiency, or they had an engineer upgrade the engines on the tanker, or something changed.  Also, the game could require a refly/recert just as the military requires periodic recertification of pilots and testing of equipment; but this isn't as big a deal to me.  I'd just want the cost of the background supply line to reflect my player skills, my kerbals levels, and my craft designs and when those change I'd want to be able to recalibrate the background cost of the supply line.  I'm not married to the idea of the game forcing it, but having the supply line cost based on player achievements and having the choice to re-evaluate that cost would be a good thing

[mattinoz]

I've always thought this was great scope to give Kerbals themselves a bit of autonomy in the game. Link supply lines to Kerbal training. Player Trains the first crew who can then fly on their own if a cabin has more seats than required for the flight then Kerbals who fly along become trained.  

Then you'd only need to re-run if something happened to enough crews that capacity dropped off. Which could be because of accidents or you raided too many of the trained crew roaster to assist set-up another supply line. 

[TLTay]

1 hour ago, mattinoz said:

trained crew roaster

The name for my first Orion drive ship has been found.

[Pthigrivi]

17 hours ago, darthgently said:

The main idea behind reflying would be something changed (incorporating other feedback here).  Like maybe the player chooses to "recertify" it because they know they can do it better and get more efficiency, or they had an engineer upgrade the engines on the tanker, or something changed.  Also, the game could require a refly/recert just as the military requires periodic recertification of pilots and testing of equipment; but this isn't as big a deal to me.  I'd just want the cost of the background supply line to reflect my player skills, my kerbals levels, and my craft designs and when those change I'd want to be able to recalibrate the background cost of the supply line.  I'm not married to the idea of the game forcing it, but having the supply line cost based on player achievements and having the choice to re-evaluate that cost would be a good thing

Yeah I think you should certainly be able to recertify or upgrade a run if you wish but I’d prefer that you didn’t have to do it. Ive found in very big saves where Ive set up bases on multiple planets and landed and returned from the rest that these kinds of resupply missions gobble up a stupendous amount of time. You might run a fuel tanker from Minmus to LKO 20-30 times before your first vessel reaches Jool. These tasks are really only fun the first time and the repetition is a huge hindrance on progression. Its the same reason I think there should be no requirement for crew rotation. Its just too many boring missions pulling your attention from more interesting things. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[darthgently]

Totally agreed, mostly.  But it could be a difference in the game settings that would make us both happy.  For example, I'd enjoy the game forcing me to do it manually if only the chance to do it more efficiently (which would lower the cost of all future runs on that link) if it has run over N times automatically prior; where N would be in the triple digits.  So I'm not talking about every 5 time.  And there is not reason that N couldn't be any number between 0 and never in the game settings.  I know if I've opened up more tech tree and built a better tanker or skycrane I'd want to upgrade and re-instantiate links in my logistics.  I could even see contracts to upgrade older craft in the field via engineers and construction techniques, then the upgraded craft triggers a manual recert if the craft is part of a supply line.  But "force" is too strong, as I see it as just another difficulty setting

[Starhelperdude]

On 5/30/2021 at 7:47 AM, Single stage to ocean said:

This could get complex, but why not have routes that need occasional recertification(flying it yourself, paying funds, etc.)? I kind of dislike KSP 2 at times because it is too futuristic, because how are they going to nerf Orion drives enough that players don't start adding them to their SSTAs? Anyway, I'm off topic, so mods, feel free to delete.

orions can do that IRL and it would be dumb if they couldn't do it

and orions aren't even THAT high-tech when compared to othr stuff

[K^2]

19 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah I think you should certainly be able to recertify or upgrade a run if you wish but I’d prefer that you didn’t have to do it.

Mhm. I think the only reason to re-cert should be if you want to replace the ship, whether because you want to upgrade the tech used, replace it with better-built one, or just because you feel like it.

Having to re-fly the routes that work fine and you are happy with would get really old really fast. It has bad game design written all over it.

[mcwaffles2003]

We're about to have potentially 100's of supply routes running by late game. This sounds like a horrible idea and subverts the point of making automated milk runs in the first place...

[Guest]

<snip>

Edited June 20, 2021 by Guest

[NHunter]

9 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

• Yes, the efficiency and transit time should be determined by your qualifying flight
• No to mandatory recertification
• Yes to optional recertification e.g. when pursuing higher efficiency.

Agreed. Though, perhaps, the efficiency should be additionally affected to a small degree by the level of pilot (if automated mission still uses a kerbal) / probe core level (if it's unmanned unkerbal'ed) with highest levels copying your last certified performance and the lower ones having some extra fuel wastage. Not too much to really matter if your mission has some safety margin, but if your rocket is using Stayputnik (or whatever KSP2 analogue it will have), you better give your resupply mission more than a few m/s dV or extra fuel.

And, of course, if you radically change your vessel (e.g. you go from 10tons to 50tons LKO launch vessel), the resupply mission will need to be recertified.

Edited June 1, 2021 by NHunter

[Guest]

<snip>

Edited June 20, 2021 by Guest

[NHunter]

44 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I'd expect that if you wanted to change the vessel in any way at all, you'd need to recertify. 

Dunno... I'd imagine there should be no meaningful difference if the cargo ship is the same, except the container contains not X kg of cargo1 but Y < X kg of cargo2. (yeah, you have more dV, but whatever). Swapping of cargo type as long as the mass of resulting ship does not exceed mass of the ship in certified profile should not require recertification.

48 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

As an aside, I'd imagine many/most automated supply missions will be uncrewed.

The possibility of crewed resupply mission should not be discounted. Especially if it's profile is something like that:
Launch -> rendezvous with station -> unload cargo -> land at launchsite on the body you've launched from

[Guest]

<snip>

Edited June 20, 2021 by Guest

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I'd expect that if you wanted to change the vessel in any way at all, you'd need to recertify. 

It's all speculation at this point, but I'd imagine that setting up a supply line works something like this:

1. Fly a mission from A to B.
2. Upon arrival, select "Certify supply mission" from the post-mission report.
3. This presents you with a summary of resources required at origin and resources transferred to destination, plus the frequency of transfer windows.
4. Select the frequency ("every N transfer windows"), and click "Approve"

After this, your game state will update automatically according to the information you just approved: required resources will be deducted from the origin, and transferred resources will be added to destination whenever the mission is flown. If there aren't enough resources at the origin to fly the mission, an alert will be raised so you can do something about it.

Presumably there's also a view of all your automated missions and their status, with the option to suspend or restart them.

Recertifying a mission would simply involve performing steps 1-4 again, at which point you'll be offered the option to replace an existing mission between the same endpoints instead of creating a new one. (Or not, in which case you'll just have to cancel the existing mission yourself.)

– As an aside, I'd imagine many/most automated supply missions will be uncrewed. Traffic will most likely be primarily from hubs to outposts; if they're crewed, you'd have to set up a return mission to fly the pilots back or else they'll all pile up in the outposts until you run out. Since they've confirmed recycling is in (i.e., you can dismantle your supply ship back into primary resources), this is only an issue with crews.

This, but with a small difference: Standard Certification Kontainer.

If you use a S.C.K. as your cargo during the certification mission instead of moving exactly 32 LF, 15.00000009 Oxidixer, 122 Monoprop, 50 tons of Iron Ore, 230 Snacks and 12 units of EVAfuel (damn I forgot to drain the capsule, again) every time and needing to manually refly it for every small change you know have a "1 SCK capable" supply line, what you put in that container (within weight limits) is up to you. 

Now, if your colony A needs more cargo transfer capacity with colony B you can either decide to just be lazy and build another 10 of your MK 1 cargo ship or build a new and improved MK 2 that is able to transport double the cargo (I'm pretty sure that cargo capacity doesn't scale linearly with the cost and materials needed to build a ship).

 

Bonus Round: 

We already seen a bunch of standard containers in the trailer:

[Pthigrivi]

I think its easy to see how this could get really complicated, and we’re probably presuming a lot already about what they have planned. The important thing to me is that its wieldy, understandable, and relatively realistic and robust. I think those are hard to combine. First thing is I’d love to see a dedicated window for resource transfers rather than all the right-click menus just as a general improvement. Perhaps your proof vessel could inform max values for transfers on each leg in a special supply run manager? One screen sets your load-up at point A and another sets your transfers at point B? Minus  fuel spent en-route? It gets tricky if you’re dropping stages or make rendezvous as part of your proof run, but maybe this could be accounted for somehow? The question is are these set leg by leg? Can you do round trips or multiple stop runs?  It seems like so long as they’re saved leg by leg you could stitch those legs together as you liked.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[darthgently]

Some great replies here.  My only interest in bringing up the concept was to revel in the drop in grindiness that supply lines will give us, but at the same time keep it "real", entertaining, and challenging, but requiring some kind of periodic tweaking of the supply lines.  As another angle, has there ever been a supply line in all of history that worked flawlessly every shipment? 

Maybe configurable levels of logistics snafus would be interesting.  "WTfrak!  I ordered 10t of fertilizer, not 10kt!".  Or "Your shipment of snacks collided with an asteroid, better luck next time".

 

5 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Maybe? I'd just expect that for the most part you'd need different types of ships for different types of cargo. You couldn't use a liquid H₂ tanker to transport uranium, for example, or vice versa.

For sure, it would just necessarily involve more hassle because you have to set up the return mission. The example you're describing might well be two separate missions, one outbound, the other inbound.

The enemy of good logistics is "hauling sailboat fuel".  Trucker don't like driving empty trucks.  Typically you try to get a "backhaul".  Ideally, every vessel unloaded, would be loaded with something else going somewhere else.  But at some point a craft has to end up back where the first started to do the next run.  Unless you plan to send out new craft every time.  Imagine the trucking industry using disposable, one-time use trucks