Colonies?

[azazel1024]

I am sure most of you vets (I sadly only have maybe 20hrs in KSP, a wife and 3 kids sucks up a lot of my time and I only found KSP about a month ago thanks to my brother-in-law) have "colonies".

I am wondering what thoughts people have had for "colony modules". I have not tried out the Kethane mod, though I am seriously considering it at some point.

In terms of future functionality added to the game itself, what would you like to see either as optional or not?

First off, in the same vein as docking support added, I'd like to see a way to put together modules once they are landed. Something like a rover with a crane that can lift individual sections (so you can land one piece at a time or something) and then "put them together" either stacking or connecting to their sides to make colonies.

I can think of a couple of things from mods that would be interesting to add. For example zoxygen and power plus lights. Each kerbal inhabitting the colony modules would use a certain amount of zoxygen, power would be used to create zoxygen and power would also be used to power any external lights once the planet/moon was in darkness (maybe with light sensor lights that automatically turned themselves on when it was local night time). Battery modules that would store power during darkness and solar cells to provide power during the day. Maybe even a nuclear reactor (found by the side of the road?) to give constant power if you wanted.

I think it would also be interesting to have a fuel production module that produced fuel at a certain (very slow) rate using some power, and ONLY as part of a dirt side colony (not for use as a space station). You could refuel from the fuel production module, maybe either getting your rocket close enough to it or using something like a fuel truck/rover that could shuttle fuel back and forth.

Maybe each module or number of modules requires a certain number of kerbals to operate. Like 1 kerbal per 5 colony modules or something like that.

Those are the things I can think of that could make for some interesting colony building times (and incentives to build one, both from a "cool look at this", but also from an ability to refuel away from Kerbal or having to launch tons of rockets each carrying a little fuel out to your main one).

A last thought, it might be interesting to allow you to either have a vehicle assembly building module, or the ability to combine a number of "VAB sub modules" together to make a big VAB module on other planets/moons. Maybe as an optional thing or something. That way you can build rockets from the get go away from Kerbin, once you have an established colony there, build the VAB and now you can launch rockets from your colony. Maybe the VAB's ability to build rockets is limited in part counts based on the number of modules you have assembled to build the VAB.

Like say, a 10 module VAB on Duna is limited to only building rockets with 10 parts (but gets full fuel upon building, not using the fuel in your fuel generation modules in the colony). You also cannot add colony modules to rockets made in VABs that aren't located on Kerbin (so you can't build a VAB and then spam colony modules at that location). You could also easily put together rovers with it (since they don't take many parts), or small rockets. The big suckers would be limited...think of how many trips from Kerbin to Duna it would take to build a VAB large enough to make a 100 part rocket. YOUCH!

Just some fun thoughts for the day.

Anyway, some kind of colony building functionality (other than landing rockets and rovers like you can now) would be cool some time down the road.

[Vespasianus]

Shouldn't this be in the Suggestions forum?

Anyways, I think this is something that might be implemented in the future, but for now, the main thing is to complete the game's core features.

Just my 2 cents to the conversation.

Cheers!

[Jay_Em]

I love the idea of being able to launch different modules to other planets, which can then be assembled to make moonbases and so on. Perhaps even then lift them onto rover modules, so you can move your base around the planet for whatever reason. In terms of VABs on other planets, I'm not sure about going that far, but potentially being able to reattach parts to rockets once they are landed on a special landing pad or something would be great, so you can launch a rocket from Kerbin to the Duna base, then launch a service rocket from Kerbin to the Duna base with the parts you want to add to the first rocket.

Of course, KSP is still only very early in development so I'm not suggesting this be added in .18 or .19 or anything, I'm just saying I'd like to see KSP go in this direction after all the core elements are finished.

[sal_vager]

Hmmm, asking what people think about colonies, rather than just suggesting them, nah I think we'll keep this one here

Interesting thoughts there azazel1024, hopefully this will stimulate an in-depth discussion on the topic.

[Tauge]

I'd love to be able to build colonies. I would think that that would be a nice direction to take the game in career mode when the time comes. I mean Laythe (if it has the atmosphere Nova suggested), is begging to be colonized if not terraformed (Kerbiformed?). Minmus would be an excellent colony candidate, as it's a giant ice cube. Duna...well it is a Mars analogue. It would be a blast to do. Obviously, there's a dozen things that would need adding before such wonderment could be contemplated, but boy would it be fun.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Tauge
Deleting useless opinion.

[azazel1024]

I linked it over to the suggestions forum as I thought of that as soon as I hit post.

Jay_em, I love that suggestion of something like a service pad or something to add/remove modules to a landed rocket as well. That could be pretty cool (even if it is just working with the modules "on hand").

yeah, I wouldn't think this would be a suggestion for added functionality for at least a few updates. I think docking would be needed first, which I am kind of hoping maybe they'll tackle in .18 (or latest .19?).

[jonathan_92]

How about the ability to build a runway? My first laythe landing site as it turns out would be perfect for a colony complete with a runway for spaceplanes! I think mining might be a cool feature too based of of the kethane mod. Maybe you could mine materials, then make parts using 3D printers (which are totally a thing, google them). I think an ET VAB is the best option for colony building, but you ought to be able to manually dock and connect modules too if you so choose. Had a huge debate about this in a different thread, I think to satisfy everyone we need both. An ET VAB/ SPH shouldn't be hard to do in the near future imo. I'm thinking some kind of large inflatable structure that is then reinforced with a light truss system. That way it can be decompressed to roll the craft out. Fuel obviously could be mined with the existing version of the kethane mod, but vanilla-ized. Inflatables also bring about the possibility of floating airship colonies. Maybe placed in the upper atmosphere of Eve, kerbin, Jool or Laythe. Could be fun!

[Tauge]

I don't think extra-kerbin VABs will be coming, but to build a science station on any other planet and the supply it with Kerman would be fun. There's just so much possibilities of awesome if/when colonies come and they wouldn't have to take it to some high degree, unless they wanted to..

[opticalshadow]

Currently there are a few people who have built colony structures around these forums. hueg buildings that are made so the kerbals can walk though them with empty pods to serve as various rooms. some people have landed sevral large buildings next to each other to form little muner towns.

the problem is, after so many structures the game crawls. though since we got iva and eva now, down the road i could see squad doing more with structures and such, it s a natrual progression to space travel themes.

[your mom]

Planned Features:

Take on Missions to attract interest in your Space Program. Or use the Mission Planner to create your own missions.

Manage your Space Program. Hire astronauts, train them, research and improve parts.

Fly out to Moons and other Planets

Build Space Stations, and SURFACE BASES ( dont know how to do bold yet ) on other worlds.

And a whole lot more

I don't know if this is still fully planned....

[air805ronin]

I would love to see colonies. This is largely because of how I play the game currently. I spent about 3 weeks getting my piloting down, and really doing the same maneuvers over and over. I eventually found myself doing the same things over and over and wanted a little variety. To this end I tried two mods. Orbital Construction and ISA Mapsat. Whats interesting about these? Well..they give a functional purpose to all my launches, and lets me build some long term goals. For instance I made 10 flights to my lunar orbital construction ship to deliver fuel and parts so I could build a ship without having to build a heavy lift stage to get it into orbit.

Similarly I enjoy getting to the new planets, but once I used ISA Mapsat my flights had a kind of purpose to them. I could run a mission to map each moon and planet. It gave me a target to hit that gave me a product I could reuse.....maps.

I'm about to try out the Tosh cart mod. which I hope will give me some fun stuff to do on planet, because running a kerbanaut around is a little slow. Hoping to use them to discover the mapped anomolies. I'm also eyeing the kethane mod.

Believe it or not all of this has a point related to colonies. I think colonies could be really interesting if we can get a working instance of docking. With docking people could have multiple flights to establish their colony and link it all together. If a certain set of prefabbed small structures are delivered and connected together you would get a certain capability such as refueling or construction or even science research (to unlock new parts, an item on the projected feature list) . Delivering crew could enabling the location of minerals (maybe with the aid of a satellite) and using a "computer aided foundry" to fabricate parts. Maybe the connecting of parts could be done through a rover with a mechanical arm as suggested by Jay_em.

Alternatively, the parts could also be constructed in orbit to form a space station. Built part by part like our real space station. This could also be used for refueling or construction or science research.

My personal dream is that colonies, mining, orbital and colony based refueling and construction, and different kinds of satellites all make it into the core game maybe with an unlockable science tree so you have a natural progression. The number of truly awesome mods that are coming out are great as independent pieces, but I think they also could be brought into the game proper to give the "campaign" mode a logical sense of purpose.

Edited October 2, 2012 by air805ronin

[9911MU51C]

I want this in the game badly. they should have a campaign mode where you build and you can have separate colonies on planets and run their populations and resources etc

[stargazer1235]

Space colonies would be very fun. Squad has already taken the first steps. Adding EVA's and new planets and moons to explore but they are still a long way off. KSP has a lot more content that needs to be added before we start to see the beginnings of space station and colonies. You might have to wait another year before we start putting colonies on the drawing board. Definitely docking has to be added. On the brighter note, this is the reason we mods. There are plenty of mods hanging around where they give you the opportunity to build a space colony. I wouldn't bet seeing vanilla space colonies until well after the career mode is implemented.

[azazel1024]

Just so much promise. I like the idea of science stations as well once campaign/research/progession is added in. Maybe new propulsion technologies are unlocked this way or something. I missed that it was a planned feature. That is nice to know that they have at least considered it and think it might be workable eventually.

Best I have done. No crew tank/module, so you can't enter it, but its got a couple of lights (hard to see in the daytime) and asthetic satellite dish. A couple of small modules and a ladder to climb. If/when I do the remote tech mod, something like this could be more usable.

Err, hmmm, picture might have to wait till later. Uploading isn't working from my work computer for some reason.

Anyway, a little thing with legs that took me a good 15 minutes to flip upright when it landed on its side off my crew capsule when getting to the Mun.

[9911MU51C]

I'm trying to figure out the remote tech mod it would add some reason for making space stations and mun bases