How would I go about making a Kerbal use electricity?

[Ako_Vendetta]

I'm hoping to make a simple mod that has a requirement that Kerbals consume electricity. Would this be something I can mod in a cfg file, or will I require developer tools? Thanks for any advice, just looking for the simplest way to do this.

[PringleMan]

You would need to write a plugin. The easiest approach would be to make all command pods consume electricity. Then, upon losing all electrical charge, make the plugin kill the kerbals after a set amount of time. The plugin could also be written to kill a kerbal on EVA once they ran out of fuel, since there is no built-in electricity in the EVA suits.

This would be the easiest approach, though the solution itself will vary in coding length depending on how you go about it. Most importantly, this does not require changes to the parts themselves other than a code block for electricity consumption, something that you can copy and paste from something like the lights or anything that consumes power. No additional transforms need be added to the pods.

[Greys]

Are you talking about Kerbals in command pods as PringleMan is, or Kerbals on EVA?

[Ako_Vendetta]

That's essentially what I want to do, is a very simplified life support system without having to micromanage oxygen levels and stuff. I figured simply having each Kerbal draw something like 0.01 electricity from whatever vessel it is occupying would suit my purpose, but I'm thinking doing this may be beyond my tools and knowledge of modding KSP (only had the game a week, but I have some experience writing mods for other games over the years.).

Thanks for the reply!

[PringleMan]

That's essentially what I want to do, is a very simplified life support system without having to micromanage oxygen levels and stuff. I figured simply having each Kerbal draw something like 0.01 electricity from whatever vessel it is occupying would suit my purpose, but I'm thinking doing this may be beyond my tools and knowledge of modding KSP (only had the game a week, but I have some experience writing mods for other games over the years.).

Thanks for the reply!

Yes then in that case you can edit the CFG of a pod to consume electricity extremely easily, but for it to have an effect on the kerbals themselves you will need to write a plugin.\

Luckily in your case such a plugin is really just a basic script that passes a t/f statement on power level, starts a timer, and then sends the kill code for the kerbals. The only thing you will need from the API is the code to kill the kerbals, but you could ask any of the LS modders for how they implemented it, I am sure they would love to help you.