Kerbal Diversity.

[mcwaffles2003]

This reminds me of when the Halo devs moved from John being just an empty shell of strong guy who kills aliens to project yourself on to a fascinating character with depth, emotions, individuality to explore, and personality. I like when some things have all those but I also like when there are also blank slate characters as well.

So long as space and creative constructions remains the focus and this doesn't start becoming the sims though... then whatever.

Edited June 15, 2021 by mcwaffles2003

[Pthigrivi]

On 6/15/2021 at 4:10 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

This reminds me of when the Halo devs moved from John being just an empty shell of strong guy who kills aliens to project yourself on to a fascinating character with depth, emotions, individuality to explore, and personality. I like when some things have all those but I also like when there are also blank slate characters as well.

I think this balance is pretty achievable in KSP. To randomize crew appearance just gives players some visual cues so they can keep track of them individually and map on whatever story they like. I've had a few career saves with near 100 kerbals and Im constantly trying to sort out "Okay was it Wildous or Waldous who needed to get their flag star for a minmus landing?"

Speaking of which Im actually fine to remove individual kerbal skills entirely. It's fine at first but you'd be amazed how tedious it gets once you have several dozen crew. You spend half your time bussing people around KSOI instead of mounting new expeditions. 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[mcwaffles2003]

40 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Speaking of which Im actually fine to remove individual kerbal skills entirely. It's fine at first but you'd be amazed how tedious it once you have several dozen crew. You spend half your time bussing people around KSOI instead of mounting new expeditions. 

Wouldn't know, I normally fly probes. :p

[Pthigrivi]

4 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Wouldn't know, I normally fly probes. :p

Probes are a ton of fun. And I think even most people in KSP who ever go interplanetary are mostly doing one-off missions to Duna or if they're ambitious mounting an Eve or Jool-5 mission. I've dug back into an older save recently and I had 4 kerbals just returning from Moho, 4 on the surface of Eve with another 4 orbiting in a station, a couple dozen on stations and bases around Kerbin and its moons, 6 kerbals on Duna, 6 on their way to Dres, with probes just arriving in Jool for the first time and a wave of 18 kerbals in a colony caravan on their way. And this save took YEARS IRL to put together with pretty regular play. I think we're meant to understand that in KSP2 this would still be the early game with just a few fledgling bases started. This is why I think a lot of the really tedious stuff--leveling up crew individually, grinding out science, manual milkruns and all that just have to go if players are going to have time to get deeper into the game. 

[Ahres]

No one has mentioned it but in the 3rd-person Kerbal view at the end of the last Show and Tell, the Kerbonaut sprinting past has facial hair. So there's a decent amount of diversity that's already been shown considering all the combinations of gender, asymmetric eyes, glasses, hair styles, and facial hair. 

[kerbiloid]

Kerbals should have tattoos, scars, etc.

Edited June 16, 2021 by kerbiloid

[pandaman]

I am very much in favour of 'variety' in how kerbals look.  Whether its hairstyles, spectacles, variations in facial features or skin tone or whatever.  But I do feel that the range of skin tone variation should be relatively subtle and not be too far off the 'standard' BADA55 green.

I am all in favour of diversity and equality, in all areas of life.  But to me the term 'Diversity' here implies that an effort should be made to create a wide range of appearance characteristics, just for the sake of being seen to embrace 'Diversity'. 

If the game had humans instead of kerbals, then yes, I would be all in favour of representing humanity in ALL of it's wonderful diversity, but it doesn't, it has little green space travellers, called Kerbals.

That said, I will settle with whatever they do with kerbal apearances, and the variety thereof.  For me it is a game about space flight and exploration, my crews' facial features are not of great concern, but a little variety would be a nice touch.

[MechBFP]

1 hour ago, pandaman said:

I am all in favour of diversity and equality, in all areas of life.  But to me the term 'Diversity' here implies that an effort should be made to create a wide range of appearance characteristics, just for the sake of being seen to embrace 'Diversity'. 

I don't see where you are getting that from in the original post of this thread. Can you explain?

[pandaman]

1 hour ago, MechBFP said:

I don't see where you are getting that from in the original post of this thread. Can you explain?

From the original post no.   And I have very likely taken the the thread title 'out of context', my apologies to  @Minmus Taster for that.

I am just 'chipping in' with my thoughts on what can be a very sensitive  subject.  Although I may well be confusing posts I have read from this thread, some now deleted/edited, and some from other threads as being from this one...  It's easy to lose track sometimes.

[Guest]

I didn't notice this before, but I would say it's a meh for me. 

[ArtemisAZ]

My big issue with this is if we start making Kerbals more unique and individualized we end up growing more attached to them, the more we get attached to them the more we want to ensure they stick around and don't go poof, and frankly designing my ships to be safe or not explode immediately upon testing is something that's way out of the budget my dude.

Joking aside, I dig having some more variety of Kerbals and always welcome new dudes to add to my ever growing list of those lost in unfortunate unplanned aerospace-related incidents.

[Vanamonde]

Keep it on-topic, please. Some content removed. 

[Missingno200]

Oh good! A reason to practice racial discrimination in my favorite rocket building sim's sequel! Of course I'm kidding, I'm not soulless.

That (hopefully obvious and probably a little insensitive) joke being said, for the sake of space race RPs that will no doubt pop up in the near future thanks to MP, I suspect that selecting certain traits, IE:color, glasses, hairstyles may be one major way they will help determine whose who, in case they like the same colors or something. Whether or not thats put into play is another story, but I'm all for diversity of appearance as long as it doesn't affect the gameplay itself in any way other than players assigning their own uses to it.

ALMOST forgot:I really hope they don't stray too far away from BADA55 as a color, and the signature black hair. I'm fine with hues going 32 shades in any direction(even combining them for a total of 32,768 shades+the original) but it just wouldn't be the same if they were some radical new color that wasn't BADA55 in the slightest. Same with the hair, but I'll give that infinite more leeway, as long as the original hairstyles remain intact somewhere. Given what we've seen though, it doesn't look like they're going too far out of the way though, which I'm glad for. Also the skin materials sounds like a horrible, yet VERY intriguing idea that I want to see in some action before I decide truly.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Missingno200
Forgot sentiments

[sunnypunny]

different shades of green would be cool but straying too far from the original skintone could be immersion breaking imo. they're meant to be little green creatures and making them too anthropomorphic can be detrimental.

moreso than skin tones i'd like to see gender diversity e.g. non-binary kerbals / a third gender option.

[strider3]

Really?? Spare me.

[Missingno200]

3 hours ago, maj. M.AL. funqt10n said:

different shades of green would be cool but straying too far from the original skintone could be immersion breaking imo. they're meant to be little green creatures and making them too anthropomorphic can be detrimental.

moreso than skin tones i'd like to see gender diversity e.g. non-binary kerbals / a third gender option.

Ehhh... frankly not a fan of that. They were supposed to be agendered but ended up male/female because of the male names of the original kerbals. The 2 are good enough, since more arguably doesn't add anything of value.

[sunnypunny]

18 minutes ago, Missingno200 said:

Ehhh... frankly not a fan of that. They were supposed to be agendered but ended up male/female because of the male names of the original kerbals. The 2 are good enough, since more arguably doesn't add anything of value.

agendered sounds good but yeah the names would have to be more alien-like and it would have to be done more explicitly, otherwise the default male gender gets ascribed due to cultural values.

[Missingno200]

6 minutes ago, maj. M.AL. funqt10n said:

agendered sounds good but yeah the names would have to be more alien-like and it would have to be done more explicitly, otherwise the default male gender gets ascribed due to cultural values.

Yeah, and now you know why they added female Kerbals. Still don't see the point of adding any more genders. Thankfully, all of this should be implementable by modding in the event if it is not there, so you needn't worry too much if you still want the full "spectrum" of culturally appropriated genders and then some. (56 is not a spectrum, that is a value you can store in a 6 bit number. I don't take this stuff too seriously, if you can't tell. I'm trying a more easy going approach to life.)

Somehow, I doubt these plant like sentients(and potentially sapients) would realistically have more than 2, especially if they're simple enough for their success to be accidental. Given that they may even be fungal based, somehow I doubt they even need one gender. Mushrooms don't have male/female dichotomies right?

Edited July 2, 2021 by Missingno200

[sunnypunny]

18 minutes ago, Missingno200 said:

Yeah, and now you know why they added female Kerbals. Still don't see the point of adding any more genders. Thankfully, all of this should be implementable by modding in the event if it is not there, so you needn't worry too much if you still want the full "spectrum" of culturally appropriated genders and then some. (56 is not a spectrum, that is a value you can store in a 6 bit number. I don't take this stuff too seriously, if you can't tell. I'm trying a more easy going approach to life.)

Somehow, I doubt these plant like sentients(and potentially sapients) would realistically have more than 2, especially if they're simple enough for their success to be accidental. Given that they may even be fungal based, somehow I doubt they even need one gender. Mushrooms don't have male/female dichotomies right?

genderless green aliens are fine by me (probably more in keeping with the sci-fi tradition too) but you'd have to remove the hair and other secondary sex characteristics as well otherwise we start gendering them. ideally everyone could choose to play with anywhere from 0 to infinity genders to suit themselves, but in the end they'll just pick what the majority wants which will probably be 2.

[Missingno200]

1 minute ago, maj. M.AL. funqt10n said:

genderless green aliens are fine by me (probably more in keeping with the sci-fi tradition too) but you'd have to remove the hair and other secondary sex characteristics as well otherwise we start gendering them. ideally everyone could choose to play with anywhere from 0 to infinity genders to suit themselves, but in the end they'll just pick what the majority wants which will probably be 2.

Probably, and thats okay. As for the haircut, anyone can have a buzzcut so I suspect that's what most of mods for agendered or atypical kerbals will go for. Glad we agree.

[Bej Kerman]

On 6/15/2021 at 9:10 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

This reminds me of when the Halo devs moved from John being just an empty shell of strong guy who kills aliens to project yourself on to a fascinating character with depth, emotions, individuality to explore, and personality. I like when some things have all those but I also like when there are also blank slate characters as well.

On one hand, you've got the Kerbals being pretty samey, leaving room for imagination and such. On the other hand, you've got the Kerbals being petty unique, making it easier to tell them apart and having a more potent personality.

[Mahnarch]

Since Kerbals are plants it would seem like the feminine Kerbals would have flowers growing out of their heads, like barrettes, but, alive.

 

Masculine Kerbals would prune said flowers - using 'Dollar Prune Club'.

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[kerbiloid]

The BadS Kerbals should follow the baboon color scheme, much more intuitive than the orange suits.

[Bej Kerman]

On 7/2/2021 at 8:46 PM, maj. M.AL. funqt10n said:

genderless green aliens are fine by me (probably more in keeping with the sci-fi tradition too) but you'd have to remove the hair and other secondary sex characteristics as well otherwise we start gendering them.

This has not been an issue since 1.0 dropped with female Kerbals.

On 7/2/2021 at 8:46 PM, maj. M.AL. funqt10n said:

ideally everyone could choose to play with anywhere from 0 to infinity genders to suit themselve

As far as facial features are concerned, genders are not anything but a weight that shifts some values. I'm utterly confused as to what you mean by this.

[Vanamonde]

Some posts removed. Keep it polite, please.