Upgrades (Kerbal training + buildings)

[whistlehead]

Training

Just looking at the KSP wiki page on planned features, I notice that there's one which says "Crew tasks: Have the crew take charge of controlling the craft (provided they can handle it)".

I was just thinking about how this might be implemented, and I reckon the best way to do it would be to have some kind of training system for Kerbals. Training a Kerbal would require your astronaut complex to be at a certain level (see next suggestion) and would cost a certain amount of money - maybe even as much as building a small spacecraft. Training might endow your Kerbal with progressively more impressive MechJeb-style abilities, maybe progressing from circularisation to Hohmann transfers to aerobraking to *gasp* landing! And, most important of all, upgrading a kerbal would give them a shiny new spacesuit colour.

I do, however, realise that this quickly starts to stray over the line into autopilot, which the wiki page informs me isn't happening. However, the reason I think that this isn't as potentially game-breaking as full-blown autopilot is that if you manage to kill that kerbal - they're dead. You're not getting that training back. Which provides a bit of an incentive to keep the little green guys alive! Also, by having talents assigned to individual kerbals, each of them can only be on one craft at once, so for every 'autopiloted' ship you'd need to train another kerbal at great expense. Or successfully return your other kerbal pilots.

Another feature which I feel would fix any game-breaking tendencies would be only allowing a certain number of autonomous manoeuvres per kerbal per launch. After each kerbal's manoeuvre limit is reached, they have to be returned to Kerbin before they can perform any more (It's tiring stuff, this spaceflight business). This would be upgradeable - more well-trained kerbal could perform a few more actions per launch.

What this means is that you still have to do most of the grunt work - or train a LOT of pilots. And you'd have to bring them all back - or pay to train more - before you can launch the next semi-auto mission. For example, with a kerbal with level 1 endurance you might decide to automate a Münar capture, but you have to aim for the SOI in the first place and you have to do the orbital manoeuvres. Or maybe you can do the capture for yourself but you hate circularising. What you can delegate depends entirely on how much you've upgraded your kerbal.

It should also be possible under this system to upgrade a kerbal's Science ability, maybe as a simple multiplier (let's say they're sending back more detailed notes or something). This gives you a reason to pile loads of kerbals onto one ship!

Here's a very crude mockup of a RANDOMLY SELECTED Kerbal's stats screen:

In other words, Jeb here is able to do any type of manoeuvre you want, but only three manoeuvres per launch. He also adds a slight multiplier to science collected - say 5%. And all of these stats are upgradeable inside the Astronaut complex. You'd hover over the boxes to show what that box allows the kerbal to do when unlocked.

As a little bonus to the system, some kerbals could come with better skills right from the start - but cost slightly more to hire.

Building upgrades

I'd also like to see building upgrades implemented. I see this as being something along these lines:

VAB/SPH: In the VAB you might start out with, say, a 20 part limit. You might then upgrade this to 40 parts. Then to 80. Then 160. And so on. The SPH would be similar.

Runway: I'd like to see length/width upgrades, but I have a feeling that this might be a little tricky to implement without blowing up anything that's already there. Unless it came up with a "You must recover vessel X before upgrading"

R&D: The R&D facility might give a slight science multiplier for each upgrade - or maybe upgrading would be necessary to reach the next level of the tech tree.

Astronaut complex: The astronaut complex would give access to the training mentioned above. It would also be able to house more kerbals at any one time.

Observatories: I've seen a lot of debate on how these should be implimented. Upgrades would seem to be the simplest system. Upgrades would simply unlock planets on the map, one or two at a time. Until discovery planets would still exist but not appear on the map until you hit their SOI. So it would be theoretically possible to shoot for planets without upgrading, but a little tricky...

Less importantly, it would be nice to see visual upgrades to building too, representing how advanced they are, though this would obviously require multiple new exterior models for everything and interior models for the SPH and VAB so might be time consuming to no real end. It would be nice though. Starting out would be in slightly tumbledown, rickety buildings, e.g. a corrugated iron hanger for a SPH and a dirt strip (island-style) for a runway. The observatory (if implemented) could just start out as one guy with a telescope! As noted above, this might cause problems with collision meshes and destroying what's already there, so the aforementioned message would be absolutely necessary.

How do I think this would add to the game?

I think what I've suggested would add an extra layer to the money system of the game (when it's implemented) without being overly complex, make the game simpler to play BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT IT and without being game-breaking, and (less importantly) create a visual reward of sorts for committed players.

One last thing

The system I've suggested does allow some leeway for the possibility of an 'easy mode' in which facilities are fully upgraded from the off (as they are now). The starting budget in my easy mode would be higher too, and everything else is the same. But that's slightly besides the point of this thread.

TL;DR

- Kerbals can be upgraded in piloting skill, endurance and science -at cost.

- Building can be upgraded to give access to kerbal upgrades/bigger rockets/moar parts

If you've got this far, thanks for reading and please feel free to share your thoughts.

Regards,

Chris

Edited November 19, 2013 by whistlehead

[Unfawkable]

I'm not sure about the piloting part, I don't think I'd use auto-pilot even if it was so miniscule, but I would love to see Kerbals giving science bonuses if they are trained.

[tetryds]

I belive a trained kerbonault should have only 3 bonuses:

- a bit more reaction wheels torque

- better EVA and IVA reports scientific vaule

- structural bonus for reentry, when its added

even those wouldnt be very realistic, but training a kerbonault won't affect the player so there is not much that can be done

[TimMartland]

Although I think that, instead of an autopilot, the kerbals should just get bonuses to small things (e.g keeping a craft steady - you can use your orange jumpsuits at the start but the newbie kerbals will wobble around like nothing and need training) I agree with the upgrade part of the idea.

[allmhuran]

I like the concept a lot.

The execution is difficult... if the game did not respond to my control input exactly as I had entered it I would consider it to be a bug. For example, I don't want to be adding left yaw and have the plane start yawing to the right because I have a poorly trained Kerbal. This would just be frustrating (extreme example).

But I'm sure there are certainly ways that this kind of mechanic could come in. As suggested above, one possible way would be to have a better trained kerbal improve the tuning of SAS, or have a well trained kerbal give you "sas-like" functionality even when SAS isn't actually turned on.

[whistlehead]

I would not even consider making kerbals bad at piloting (or at least, worse than they are now)!

While I take the point of SAS-type stabilisation, I think that could be problematic, especially with large space stations. I know I wouldn't like to have a stability system you can't turn off.

Extra structural stability on re-entry actually sounds pretty good; I hadn't thought of that.

Personally, I still rather like my original idea as an optional, non-OP autopilot and an extra layer of budgeting vs ease, but of course I would

[Nobody]

As to the effects of the piloting skill I don't think a lack of levels should make them worse than they currently are but instead make them more effective. Boosting the torque from reaction wheels or making them draw less power.

Other skills I would like to see are

• Mechanic: Allows for repairs to be made to damaged parts with more serious damage requiring higher skills. This would naturally come with the ability to load spare parts as cargo so you can replace things like broken solar panels.
  
• Geology: Bonus Science from ground samples and when resources are added a higher rate of extraction and easier location.
  
• Command: Allows a kerbal to order more kerbals to follow him for group tasks such as righting a flipped rover or moving your ship wreaked crew to the rescue craft.
  

[Horn Brain]

I think kerbal skills should be exclusively used on automated missions once we can design and assign missions. Things like: Fly this vehicle to this space station, dock, transfer all of your fuel into the station, undock, reenter and land at KSC. Each of these activities requires certain skills or certain levels of those skills or you can't assign him that mission. You should have to fly the requested mission yourself with the same vehicle once to prove to the game that it's possible, but then the game just does it for you automatically. This would be easier to implement because you don't have to install an autopilot or anything, you just build up your kerbals' skills by taking them on missions and then they are valuable to you because you can use them to perform simple tasks like maintaining a fuel depot in LKO.

[append] I should also say that it would be nice to be able to watch the missions in real time, but that would require a fully functional autopilot. Ideally, you could even have these missions ongoing while you fly your own missions manually. It would be cool to be doing some construction at your space station and then see the automated fuel tanker rendezvous and dock while you're working. It would be fun and give the feeling of being immersed in an actual functioning space program, where every kerbal is running around doing its own little job. It may even cause unplanned F.U.N.* if, say, you find yourself directly between the tanker and its intended docking port when it comes in for a rendezvous...

*Fiery, Unplanned Necrosis

Edited November 22, 2013 by Horn Brain

[peadar1987]

I'd like to see it implemented as small bonuses for having well-trained/experienced Kerbals on board (I wouldn't mind if you had to train the Kerbals yourself, if they gained skills from doing actual missions, or both). You could have:

-Science bonus for a scientifically skilled Kerbal

-Increase in control authority for a skilled pilot (+5% reaction wheel torque, +5% RCS thrust or something)

-Reduced power consumption for a Kerbal skilled in engineering

-Increased durability for your spacecraft for a Kerbal skilled in repair.

I'm all for increased personalisation of Kerbals, different hairstyles and facial hair (and female Kerbals, he whispered under his voice) would really enhance my enjoyment of the game, and a unique skill set for each one would be a huge bonus. I'd love to plan my crew for a dangerous mission, do I take my best scientist to maximise the returns? What if power is at a premium? Would I be better off sending an engineer? No weight allowance for any extra parachutes or landing legs, maybe repair would be a better option... And all of that is useless if whoever I put in the pilot's seat doesn't have the skills to wring every last drop of authority from the controls