Project Concept - Vehicle Status Audible Feedback

[Meatsauce]

Hello Folks!

I've become addicted to KSP like the next person, and my history with model rocketry & aviation as a hobby is giving me too many ideas. I have built rockets and subsystems in other games (most notably in garrysmod); with KSP, I really would like to attempt vGUI for cockpit views. This is not a possibility just yet I am to understand. This unfortunately was my first idea at attempting to mod for KSP.

Something old - I actually have much better EGP3 avionics screens, but this shows you the first concept. The entire rocket was just teeming with avionics, mission data, and other fun status stuff. I even included an audible alert system.

Which leads me to my second, presumably do-able concept; how about a sound mod based on game events & conditions? And no - not a rocket sound mod; but a computer of sorts - detection based with soundplay as audible cues for events.

Those of you familiar with aircraft technology will know all about 'bitchin betty' - and audible alerts. I'm thinking - why should this be tough in KSP?

The core list of ideas / events / triggers;

1. 'Altitude' - Warning when approaching ground level 'Tone' followed by 'Vocal Alert - Altitude'

2. Radar Altimeter Call-Out - Mod calls out 2000,1000,500 ...100...50...40...30... (would be epic when landing on the mun) 'Vocal'

3. Master Caution - Triggers on rocket failure events 'Klaxon' 'Whoop Whoop'

4. Rate of Descent - overspeed warning if rate is greater than ship surviveability 'Whoop Whoop' - Vocal 'Rate'

5. Altitude -vs- Orbital Speed Alert - tone or ping to indicate orbit conditions (based on table of oV & alt) 'Beep Boop'

6. Vehicle Radar - Pings when nearby object is detected - rate effected by distance 'Ping - Pong'

7. Stage Fuel Warnings - 75, 50, 25, 10% Trigger values - Vocal 'Fuel Levels are at Seventy Five Percent'

8. ...

I figure I could grab the altitude, vertical & ground speeds, and deltaV and use them to trigger sound events. I have a good library of opensource sounds that could be useful or I can produce my own.

My questions;

1. What do you think of this concept?

2. What would the community think would be the best way to implement this?

In truth, I have yet to invistgate the variables and SDK so my idea may not even be possible. Either way, I feel it would be a good test to see if I can produce some content for KSP. Of course, if anyone wants to help for shared bragging rights, I'd love to collaborate.

Any thoughts, feedback, concerns, comments, or notifications of next of kerb are welcome.

[Ninja]

The game framework is not really in place yet to consider mods any more serious than just parts packs. That is the only real mod framework in place and even that is constantly being changed and updated.

For what you are talking about it would require alterations to the way the code works and as yet I don't think the ability to register trigger points is in place. Most likely in a future update the frame work will be laid probably with the introduction of the more complex UI system for orbits that is a planned feature.

You could probably do basic sound packs though for when decoupler stages are triggered, engines ignited, parachutes ejected etc

[Meatsauce]

The game framework is not really in place yet to consider mods any more serious than just parts packs. That is the only real mod framework in place and even that is constantly being changed and updated.

For what you are talking about it would require alterations to the way the code works and as yet I don't think the ability to register trigger points is in place. Most likely in a future update the frame work will be laid probably with the introduction of the more complex UI system for orbits that is a planned feature.

You could probably do basic sound packs though for when decoupler stages are triggered, engines ignited, parachutes ejected etc

Thank you for the insight! If there was some output values to grab; that seems like half the battle.

I'm curious if a dev could have a say.

[DrLuke]

HarvesteR said that any form of scripting language (most likely either Lua or Python) will be implemented in the final version, but it's just not worth the time to add the API now, as too many engine related things are changing, which would constantly break the API.