A way to do life support

[Drunaii]

The biggest problem with doing life support is how annoying it would be to manage, especially for interplanetary missions. Sure, it would realistic to have to bring along a hundred tons of food and water, but not very fun. On the other hand, some kind of life support would be nice to have, so we need a compromise.

Let's say that, for simplicity's sake, there's only one life-support resource, let's call them snacks. Each kerbalnaut would use some amount of snacks per minute, and each command pod would come stocked with a reasonably large amount (a few days' worth, say). Once they run out, the kerbalnauts' "snack meters" would start to drop (from 100%), and they would reach zero after an hour or so. The kerbals wouldn't die, they would just be in hibernation. Once another source of snacks was obtained, their meters would start to rise until they hit 100% again. The kerbals couldn't do anything unless their snack meter was at 100, so no EVA, no flying from the command pod, nothing. I think that the resource itself should be massless, just to simplify things (you don't want to have to account for consumables loss when planning maneuvers far in advance), but the tanks should be decently heavy. We can just say that the Kerbalnauts hate littering in space, so they store all of their trash in the tanks.

So, let's say you had an interplanetary mission to Duna. You would launch normally, then once your craft was on course, you could cut off the snack supply like any other resource, and the brave kerbalnauts would go to sleep. You would need a probe onboard to stay in control, so you can wake them up for their exploration time. Either that, or you could have all but one of the crew asleep in the hitchhiker pods, and that one lonely pilot in the command pod would eat snacks the whole way there.

[notfruit]

But what would the snacks be? Monopropellant flavored candy bars?

[Drunaii]

I was thinking of something more solid fuel-flavored, but they should probably have a wide assortment, can't have them getting bored.

[boomerdog2000]

Interesting, implementing life support in a similar way to how probes need electricity.

Just might work, might need some refinement , but a very original idea.

[TADBTD]

this thread is gonna be locked, its on the 'not to suggest list'

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/36863-What-not-to-suggest

[Chi]

Just because it is in the not to suggest, it doesn't mean he can suggest a way to do it. I mean, he's not saying that the devs should just do it, he's actually suggesting how to do it.

[TADBTD]

Then this should be a discussion

Not a suggestion

Edited October 6, 2013 by FEichinger

[astropapi1]

Yeah, he isn't just saying "I wantz lif suport! blegh!".

[Drunaii]

Ok, discussion might have been a better label, but it can't be changed now. I think this idea really could work, and, more importantly, wouldn't be too hard to implement, since it's basically electricity, just with more emphasis on storage than generation. And, for that matter, generation wouldn't be too hard to do, just have a hydroponics part (maybe ~hitchhiker size to feed one kerbalnaut). All it would need would be electricity (and a lot of it), but it could keep your watchful pilot happy and fed for journey, or sustain a base or station or something. Another plus would be a part other than the ion thruster that can actually use the capacity of one of those large solar arrays.

[TADBTD]

Yea, i understand, but like it still is on the what not to suggest list, and this is kind of saying "blegh" but not really

[TADBTD]

It would be useless, i would just shove a probe part And a few more RTGs and it would be useless. No real point to this, it would just be kind of annoying. The only thing that would make this better would be the sleeping animations, but thats it.

[Drunaii]

It would be useless, i would just shove a probe part And a few more RTGs and it would be useless. No real point to this, it would just be kind of annoying. The only thing that would make this better would be the sleeping animations, but thats it.

I disagree, it adds an element of challenge to manned missions. With the crew reports coming in 0.22, there's extra incentive to bring crew members along to do science, but currently there is no penalty. Sure, the command pods are a bit heavy, but they don't require any resources and they don't go dormant like probe parts. It would be nice to have a real challenge associated with bringing kerbals along on a mission, especially now that there are real benefits.

[dlrk]

I don't like this idea. It's too simplistic.

I like the Ioncross method, with O2 required and CO2 needing to be removed/disposed. With a food resource, it would be good too.

My suggestion for life support would be for Kerbals to consume O2 and Food and produce Waste and CO2 at a set rate per kerbal. Recyclers and scrubbers would be available for CO2. I suggest O2 modules of varying amounts be available, as well food and CO2 recycling/scrubbing modules. These could be combined into complete 'crew support modules'.

The life support capacity could be measured in Kerbal-hours.

[Chi]

True, it would add more challenge to the game. Maybe having difficulty options that enable or disable these type of simulations would be nice for the career mode. Easy would not have life support, medium would have the "snacks" thing, and "hard", which could be also called something like "Kerbalistic" just for fun ("realistic", get it? Yeah, I suck at jokes), would have realistic life support: oxygen, food and water. I know there are mods for adding life support, but I'd like to see them in the "stock" game.

[Drunaii]

I don't like this idea. It's too simplistic.

I like the Ioncross method, with O2 required and CO2 needing to be removed/disposed. With a food resource, it would be good too.

My suggestion for life support would be for Kerbals to consume O2 and Food and produce Waste and CO2 at a set rate per kerbal. Recyclers and scrubbers would be available for CO2. I suggest O2 modules of varying amounts be available, as well food and CO2 recycling/scrubbing modules. These could be combined into complete 'crew support modules'.

The life support capacity could be measured in Kerbal-hours.

I like the realism of that approach, but ultimately they boil down to the same thing, you have modules that store some resource that the kerbals consume at some rate. In Ioncross, there are multiple resources, but if they are combined into one 'crew support module', then there's little difference. Fundamentally, the only difference is whether the kerbalnauts die when the life support runs out. I think they shouldn't, since I like the idea of rescue missions for frozen kerbsicles, and hibernation would necessary for long journeys anyway.

Honestly, I'd be fine with having the system you described implemented in stock, but there are usually cries of 'Too complicated!' when things like that are suggested, so I wanted to offer a simpler solution.

[Juanfro]

I think a food-water sistem would be nice to have.

Food could be dehidrated compressed snacks so you could carry enough for a long mission without having to worry much about space and weight. Then, used Food would became waste.

Water could be used to hydrate the snaks and it can be recicled, So you would only have to carry a relatively small quantity of it.

All the parts you would need are one deposit for food, another for water and a water recycling part.

[Supernovy]

Ok, discussion might have been a better label, but it can't be changed now.

Or can it? (Title changed.)

On topic, I've never heard the idea of not killing Kerbals when their life support runs out. I like it, though I think the snacks should have mass so that you can dump waste, and to make it a little harder than using probes.

[dlrk]

I like the realism of that approach, but ultimately they boil down to the same thing, you have modules that store some resource that the kerbals consume at some rate. In Ioncross, there are multiple resources, but if they are combined into one 'crew support module', then there's little difference. Fundamentally, the only difference is whether the kerbalnauts die when the life support runs out. I think they shouldn't, since I like the idea of rescue missions for frozen kerbsicles, and hibernation would necessary for long journeys anyway.

Honestly, I'd be fine with having the system you described implemented in stock, but there are usually cries of 'Too complicated!' when things like that are suggested, so I wanted to offer a simpler solution.

For the crew support module, I'd suggested it be modifiable. For example, their could be several sizes, each of which could hold X volume, which would equate to X Amount of O2, X Amount of food, X amount of Co2, X amount of waste, and or recyclers and scrubbers.

Since some people do feel that this is too complex, I suggest there be different levels of life support complexity.

I'd suggest a compromise between Kerbal's dying w/o life support and hibernating. If life support is running out, a minimal mode can be activated, which keeps the Kerbal's alive, but prevents maneuvers and controls.

[softweir]

I'm sorry, but Life Support is on the What not to suggest list. This doesn't just mean "don't suggest life support", it means "don't make suggestions about how it could be implemented".

Please take care to read that list AND all the other stickies at the top of the Suggestions forum.

Many thanks!