Kerbal inventories

[MadBender]

As the career mode comes closer there will be increasing need of various EVA activities. And for these activities, kerbals will need various things and equipment. Here are my thoughts about how this may be implemented.

The obvious solution is to make inventories for kerbals. These may be made of cells like in Diablo or list of items like in Fallout.

It may be limited by weight or size or both and the limit may be individual for different kerbals. Items' weight will slow down kerbal's movement speed (until full stop) and reduce efficiency of their jetpacks.

When you control a kerbal, there will be a special key that opens the inventory and you can pick the item and use, equip, deploy, drop, give it to another kerbal or put it to some container. Two latter options basically mean opening another inventory and interacting with it.

If a kerbal dies, his inventory stays (if there was no high speed impact) and can be picked up by another kerbal. I would like it even better if dead body stayed too and you could loot it and then bury or return to Kerbin (and stack behind the VAB)

Command pods will have bigger inventories that can be filled in VAB or on the launch pad (in career mode this will cost money). Kerbals can use these inventories in IVA mode, so IVA becomes somewhat useful. If the ship has several command pods, you can transfer items between them without kerbals having to go EVA and carry these items (like the fuel is transferred now).

There also may be various boxes, containers and cargo modules that can be used in EVA.

If inventory capable part is destroyed, its inventory may stay or be destroyed too, depending on impact velocity.

What can be stored in the inventory:

• Parts (small debris can be picked up and disassembled to parts)
  
• Tools (can be equipped)
  
• Flags
  
• Ground samples and whatever else kerbals can pick up on the planets
  
• Scientific equipment
  
• Jetpack fuel. This will be a part of inventory and kerbals must resupply it from a limited amount in the command pod. Or they may take it from monopropellant tanks. This systems allows kerbal to become lighter when he spends fuel and also allows sharing fuel between kerbals.
  
• Other types of fuel. Fuel can be taken from tanks and poured into other tanks, so we have refuelling without docking or fuel lines. Good for rovers and small things.
  
• Jetpack itself may be part of inventory. So kerbal can choose between different jetpacks (for example, big one with more dV or small one which is more powerful and allows to move faster) or go without jetpack and run faster and carry more other items. There also may be a parachute that can be taken instead of jetpack (so there will be no need for command pod saving system)
  
• Oxygen, food and water (if there will be life support someday)
  

This is my vision of how inventory system can improve the game and add more possibilities and variety to it. I think the developers already have something similar in their plans or may be deep in the game code, but I didn't see any detailed suggestions on this subject. So here's mine. Tell me what you think about it.

[Alguien]

I like the idea, cool work well in tandem with different suits with different atributes and inventory space, I.E.: you have to choose between the standar space suit with more inventory space or the duna special suit than can resist sandstorms but has less inventory space

[Littlelion]

Great idea!

[Mr. Scruffy]

I´d make it a tad simpler. One slot for each:

- Left hand

- Right hand

- Gear

With the latest possibly adding more slots (gears with intergrated tool-belts / backpacks). The gear would also include the jetpack and its fuel, if applicable. So you can have one item (tool, or hose or whatever) in your left hand, another in your right (but need at least one hand free to climb ladders - also you´d need both hands to use certain items) and, depending on your gear (suit), may store additional items.

So the gear is kind of the central, new element, as the kerbels needed to be fitted out with them and a variety should be attainable. Thinking of balancing temperature (and possibly radiation?) tolerance levels, carry-on-items, and jetpack(/-fuel/-power) and of course cost, mostly.

Also, we´d need tools in the game and an interface allowing us to choose which tools (and change-gears) to bring. Capsules would need to have a maximum item-count and possibly a new item-container-part would be nice to have, too.

[MajorSystemError]

Heyyy! For once a non-idiotic suggestion in the suggestions thread! I never even considered the idea of inventories, but if we are apparently going to be able to mine resources/fix ships in vanilla, this makes sense. Carrying around a few tools would be neat. My only issue is a personal one based on my ever advancing age and ever decreasing memory...."Hey Jeb, we're up here at the satellite we're supposed to fix, did you bring the wrench? Uh....whoops, left it on my desk at KSC! *facepalm*" Sure opens up a lot of possibilities for repairing/making things off-Kerbin though. I like it.

[Blizzy]

I´d make it a tad simpler. One slot for each:

- Left hand

- Right hand

- Gear

thats actually NOT simpler, and requires way more code

the easiest way to do it, is to give the kerbals a weight maximum, and to make each object or tool add certain weight to the total

[Beeman]

A fully-featured inventory might be a little too deep for KSP. Something like the kerbal attachment system would be perfect, however. Maybe have an attachment point on your back for medium parts or objects with some kind of robotic components for rovers to handle larger things. Maybe have smaller attachment points for each hand, useful for grabbing tools and such for EVA repairs and maintenance.

[MadBender]

Fully-featured inventory will be needed anyway for pods and containers, so no actual reason to make another system for kerbals.

Also not sure if there is real need of assigning object to each hand. Having one object at a time in one hand on in both hands (depending on the object) is much simpler solution that works in many games

[Ernest3.14]

A fully-featured inventory might be a little too deep for KSP. Something like the kerbal attachment system would be perfect, however. Maybe have an attachment point on your back for medium parts or objects with some kind of robotic components for rovers to handle larger things. Maybe have smaller attachment points for each hand, useful for grabbing tools and such for EVA repairs and maintenance.

IMO, a small inventory (10 items or so? depends on how career pans out) is simpler than an attachment system: You would just have a list of a couple objects, instead of different nodes for different objects to attach to.

[Beeman]

But we've already got nodes and things attaching to each other by them. We've also already got a very fantastic mod featuring winches, attachments and the like.

Besides, it's not like astronauts have pockets. They get into their suit and go do what they need to do using giant tools made to be worked with their cumbersome outfits. So having the ability to grab just one or two tools at a time while maybe hooking one onto your suit's pack makes more sense than having an actual inventory for storing multiple tools.

That said, I wouldn't dislike having a deep inventory system. Just seems a bit out of KSP's scope.

[MadBender]

I suggest a basic and universal abstraction that allows to put objects into other objects (kerbals, boxes, bags - does not matter) and manages some common logic (inventory management, mass calculation, container destruction, etc). Attachments may be made later as next version of this system when tools that kerbal has in his inventory will be actually visible on his model, attached to proper places.

Real astronauts use pockets and tool bags. One such bag was lost on ISS.

[jeti140973]

Great idea, but I would like it even simpler. A kerbal can only hold ONE item. If they need to carry more, make a toolbox container that counts as one item itself. You can then travel to your destination with the toolbox, attach it to something, take the tool you need and go to work. Then replace the tool before you take another. I think that would make for more interesting gameplay instead of the huge-pockets idea.

[EmissionGeneration]

Personally, I don't want to see Inventory like in Diablo or any Game similar to that. What I would want, is a Tool bag as Jeti said. Not all Kerbals would have this, and if your building a Space Station, or Moon Base, then you will need to add it to the Modules itself, if you forget, well I guess you are sending a supply craft to them. When you need to use it, the Kerbal should go get it and then he can go on his way and do some work cause they are lazy little green bastards!

I really hope they start adding some EVA chores in the game soon, it would definitely add a new atmosphere to the Gameplay.

[Beeman]

I'd be okay with a tool bag or something like that where you can only use one tool at a time. I get the impression that might've been what squad had in mind all along. I seem to remember(though I could be completely wrong here) harvester or someone mentioning in a devlog a while ago something to do with repair kits. Just a brief mention, no useful details or anything.

So maybe it'd be another science tool or....set of science tools you attach to the side of a rover or station or whatever then interact with it from there. Maybe there'd be internal tool parts as well in case something breaks on the inside of a station or base.

[Levelord]

thats actually NOT simpler, and requires way more code

the easiest way to do it, is to give the kerbals a weight maximum, and to make each object or tool add certain weight to the total

The game already has an inventory system in the form of flags. The game remembers which Kerbal has what flag equipped down to the type of unique flag decal per mission and remembers if a Kerbal already deployed a flag. Kerbals can even retrieve flags placed by other Kerbals. Not to mention EVA fuel.

If it's already been done with flags, it's not that much of a big leap to add other items to the Kerbal inventory. Plus it would add a use for the astronaut training facility to train certain Kerbals into certain roles.

*Flight Commander

*Medic

*Flight Engineer

*Field Scientist

Flight commander:

Medic

Flight Engineer

Field Scientist

[ravener]

If it's already been done with flags, it's not that much of a big leap to add other items to the Kerbal inventory. Plus it would add a use for the astronaut training facility to train certain Kerbals into certain roles.

*Flight Commander

*Medic

*Flight Engineer

*Field Scientist

*pack mule

[daniel l]

Raiding corpses now that is morbid:0.0:

[betaking]

you should be able to put the tool bag in a module, like an airlock or something.