Post-Mission Rehabilitation and Job Satisfaction

[404james]

While this isn't a problem at the moment, I was thinking that, when kerbals become able to gain experience, there ought to be some system in place to prevent players from just using the same kerbals on every mission, building up monstrous amounts of experience, or at least make it less optimal to do so. one way I think this could be done may be to require, or at least have incentives, for giving kerbals some time on kerbin between missions, proportional to the time spent in space. (a kerbal wouldn't ask for a vacation after a twenty minute aircraft flight, but he'll certainly need some R&R after a three year interplanetary tour. Perhaps it wouldn't be required, but if they spend too much time in space, you may find yourself on the receiving end of angry letters from spouses, notices of resignation, and eventually lawsuits.

Perhaps a kerbal could have some sort of 'job satisfaction' meter that would be affected by that kerbal's family life (visible before hiring), personality, salary (as if), and time spent in space. doing things that they've never done (landing on a new planet, working with new people, etc.) could help, so if you keep him satisfied with novelty, you won't have too much risk. it could be helped much better by letting the poor guy get a vacation every couple of missions.

Thoughts?

[LethalDose]

I'm not sure this needs to be a attribute/statistic/meter. I'd be totally happy with a post-mission "recovery" cool-down, e.g. "a Kerbal can't fly for 1 week after recovery", or "A kerbal must cannot be assigned to a mission for an interval of duration equal to 1/2 the duration of his previous deployment".

If it had to be "statified", I'd use a combination of an endurance and fatigue attributes. I've posted thoughts about an "endurance" attribute previously (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60206-Making-kerbals-matter-without-letting-them-fly). There could be a fatigue attribute or meter that starts at 0 and starts to accumulate at deployment. The rate could be:

• Set as a constant
  
• Dependent on the craft's situation, e.g. fatigue accumulates faster in a spacecraft orbiting Jool than while on the surface of the Mün
  
• Dependent on the amount/quality of life support, e.g. Kerbals with "good" life support (Room to move, a bunk, CO2 scrubber) accumulate less fatigue/day than kerbals with "poor" life support (strapped in the capsule's flight seat, not room to move).
  

Fatigue is reduced at some rate while the kerbal is at the KSC. When Fatigue > Endurance, then Kerbals, can't be assigned to missions.

There are lots of possible methods of implementation for this, and the "proper" implementation depends on the play style the dev's want to encourage. Really, though, I'd implement this kind of system in a stepwise manner during development, as follows:

1. Implement kerbals with stats. DONE
   
2. Implement a system to make stats matter.
   
3. TEST TEST TEST
   
4. If/when the rules encourage unfavorable play styles, implement new rules (e.g. fatigue or deployment cool-downs) to discourage that play style.
   
5. go back to step 3 until unfavorable play styles are uncommon.
   

So, basically, take the design a step at a time and don't implement systems or restrictions that aren't necessary. Which means lets actually find out if there's actually a problem, and then try to correct it.

Edited December 4, 2013 by LethalDose

[404james]

Here, your post, removed for brevity.

Disclaimer: I understand, and, to a point, agree with what you're saying, and I agree that my suggestion may be a bit much. however, in the interest of continued dialogue, I will continue to argue in favor of it. I have included this preface so as to prevent this from becoming a more heated argument.

That said, I would say that your proposition (regarding specific solutions, rather than your suggested path of implementation, with which I agree,) lacks one crucial point, that being choice. I built my suggestion around the idea of allowing players to continue using the same couple of kerbals, mission after mission, but with the risk of some sort of penalty, either in the form of a risk of losing that kerbal in the case that he decides to quit, monetary risk, in the form of lawsuits, or some other risk. The player could instead choose to regularly rotate crews, so long as they are willing to deal with less experienced crews.

On another note, it may be a good idea to approach this issue from an additional direction: perhaps, if a kerbal that has been hired as an astronaut spends too long (depending on their personality) with out any missions, they will become irratated and quit, though not before making their complaints known.

[allmhuran]

Pish posh, I sent jeb on a 20 year mission for my first career launch and he's currently piloting my second career launch craft to Eve. He's Jeb man, he can take it.

Now Tomgel on the other hand... man, I wouldn't trust that guy to launch a champagne cork.

[404james]

Pish posh, I sent jeb on a 20 year mission for my first career launch and he's currently piloting my second career launch craft to Eve. He's Jeb man, he can take it.

Now Tomgel on the other hand... man, I wouldn't trust that guy to launch a champagne cork.

You raise a good point, actually. Perhaps there could be a tag for certain kerbals, such as Jeb, with nothing to loose, who are in it just for the thrills. They would be easier to keep satisfied, and more willing to tolerate unfavourable conditions, but there may need to be some trade-off for those benefits.

[allmhuran]

Hah! I was just being silly, but that sounds good to me.

[404james]

Hah! I was just being silly, but that sounds good to me.

I have always found that people being silly about things is one of the better ways to discover new ideas.

[LethalDose]

Disclaimer: I understand, and, to a point, agree with what you're saying, and I agree that my suggestion may be a bit much. however, in the interest of continued dialogue, I will continue to argue in favor of it. I have included this preface so as to prevent this from becoming a more heated argument.

That said, I would say that your proposition (regarding specific solutions, rather than your suggested path of implementation, with which I agree,) lacks one crucial point, that being choice. I built my suggestion around the idea of allowing players to continue using the same couple of kerbals, mission after mission, but with the risk of some sort of penalty, either in the form of a risk of losing that kerbal in the case that he decides to quit, monetary risk, in the form of lawsuits, or some other risk. The player could instead choose to regularly rotate crews, so long as they are willing to deal with less experienced crews.

On another note, it may be a good idea to approach this issue from an additional direction: perhaps, if a kerbal that has been hired as an astronaut spends too long (depending on their personality) with out any missions, they will become irratated and quit, though not before making their complaints known.

So, instead of restriction of options, your preference would be choice with risk of penalty, and, typically, I'd say that's a fine option in game design. However, in this game, the devs have stated a desire to minimize random elements in design, and risk is inherently random. Therefore, the proposed concept is incompatible with dev's stated design goals.

I think your statement that what I proposed "lacks one crucial point, that being choice" is also incorrect. The counter-point being that the choice is "Do I take the inexperienced crew on this mission and have my veteran ready for the next one, or assign my experienced pilot now and rely on the rookie later".

Finally, having game effects based on kerbals' personalities... I think is a bad idea. Personality would be a real nightmare to model and communicate to the player... it's probably way beyond the scope of what the game should be trying to do anyway.

So, /shrug. As you pointed out, these are differing points-of-view on minor points. Regardless, I don't think the game would be improved by the addition of the mechanics you described in the response post that I addressed above (kerbals quitting on personality or risk of XXX for using a kerbal too much) and would prefer not to see kerbal fatigue implemented in that fashion.

Further, I don't see disagreement as escalation. As long as the discussion remains productive, there's no problem.

[Sirrobert]

My Kerbals live, and die, for science. Every minute they are on the surface, they are just waiting for the next lauch

[karl Sagan]

You raise a good point, actually. Perhaps there could be a tag for certain kerbals, such as Jeb, with nothing to loose, who are in it just for the thrills. They would be easier to keep satisfied, and more willing to tolerate unfavourable conditions, but there may need to be some trade-off for those benefits.

They dont gain the experience? they always just stay at their normal stats but don't take fatigue damage.

[tetryds]

i belive that "fatigue" could just be not gaining experience from further tasks within that same mission

you would then bring him back for a break, until he is ready for another launch

also, sending Jeb as leader, along with Kim Kerman and Denis Kerman can teach a lot to the rookies

[LethalDose]

i belive that "fatigue" could just be not gaining experience from further tasks within that same mission

you would then bring him back for a break, until he is ready for another launch

also, sending Jeb as leader, along with Kim Kerman and Denis Kerman can teach a lot to the rookies

This would be a great implementation of fatigue.

[Dun Kirk]

ah you could sell you famous space faring kerbals