Life support?

[Chilkoot]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Do you or your kids allow revert to launch/vab?  Do you allow your Kerbals to respawn?  These are all options that one may or may not use, but by the logic you provided above you can simply launch without regard for whether or not the mission will succeed because you can simply "reset" and try again.  With no adverse or long-term effects.

Remember that when running with life support, it's typical to have 5, 10 or even more crewed missions running concurrently, as time matters - a lot.  Reverting a single flight is impactful for that flight, yes, but it doesn't negate the need to plan for an entirely new resource paradigm in general, any more than it negates the need to pack enough dV to make it to Moho and still lock in orbit.  You're just doing more planning for each flight, and permitting revert (or not) at the save level is a separate consideration.

Options are better, though developing those is always at the expense of other content.  I want to see LS baked in, but it is likely better suited for it's own game mode ("survival") which incorporates the LS-type resources, parts, nodes, etc.  I certainly don't agree with forcing it down everyone's throats, and it's probably too complex a thing to just have as a toggle somewhere, given how fundamentally integrated it needs to be from the beginning of each save.

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Chilkoot said:

Remember that when running with life support, it's typical to have 5, 10 or even more crewed missions running concurrently

Remember that when running with life support, it's typical for you to have 5, 10, or even more crewed missions running concurrently.  I never run more than 1 mission at a time (and I know others out there do the same thing).

[Chilkoot]

33 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Remember that when running with life support, it's typical for you to have 5, 10, or even more crewed missions running concurrently.  I never run more than 1 mission at a time (and I know others out there do the same thing).

Fair enough.  I also play with colonies, so I've constantly got resupply and resource movement things going on - otherwise there would be bodies lol.

I still fail to see though how revert flight on/off has anything to do with life support, which is what took us down this road.  Screw up dV/build: revert or accept the consequences.  Screw up LS planning: revert or accept the consequences.  What is the connection you're implying between life support and whether or not revert flight to VAB is enabled?

[Mickel]

The challenge as I see it is that we're not a 'space program'.  We're sort of running one and managing other stuff on the side and being a pilot, scientist and engineer.  The human race has, what, one permanently crewed space vessel in orbit of this planet?  If we were (as I'm sure many KSP players have or had) maintaining a Kerballed platform around Kerbin, one around Mun, another around Minmus, then going to Duna becomes really tedious if you have to constantly take your Duna flight out of time warp to launch and dock a resupply mission to an occupied station.  In a hypothetical 'real world', you'd delegate that to your likely eventual replacement, or subcontract it to a private space company (multiplayer options, but who'd want to be driving the food truck on a schedule?).  As Boss of the space program, you simply could not manage all that.  You're going to focus on the thing that carries the greatest risk to your prized little green assets or open up the next big opportunity.

So while the concept of LS is attractive to me (and there are elegant models and outcomes proposed here), the logistics of maintaining a presence in space are painful without some level of automation running in the background.

[Superfluous J]

17 minutes ago, Mickel said:

So while the concept of LS is attractive to me (and there are elegant models and outcomes proposed here), the logistics of maintaining a presence in space are painful without some level of automation running in the background.

The good news on this front is that they have plans of doing just that: Automated supply runs. From what I recall of what they said, you do the run once yourself to verify that it actually works, and then you can set it up as a route to run every X days or whatever.

[Periple]

2 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

The good news on this front is that they have plans of doing just that: Automated supply runs. From what I recall of what they said, you do the run once yourself to verify that it actually works, and then you can set it up as a route to run every X days or whatever.

Oh yes! Any stock LS system would need to synergize with the resource and automation system. It would also need a lot of tooling, QoL, and UI support. I also think it requires a really good mission planner, something that lets you lay out the whole thing in advance, with transfer windows, dV requirements, and even maneuvers at least at a rough scale. If you don't know in advance how long your mission is going to take so you can pack enough LS for it, I don't think it would be much fun at all and it would most likely get lots of people just quit!

[mattihase]

7 hours ago, Mickel said:

If we were (as I'm sure many KSP players have or had) maintaining a Kerballed platform around Kerbin, one around Mun, another around Minmus, then going to Duna becomes really tedious if you have to constantly take your Duna flight out of time warp to launch and dock a resupply mission to an occupied station. 

Perhaps the planned supply routes feature would alleviate this (regardless of if LS becomes stock)