Pollution suggestion

[fervour]

In career mode I thought it would be cool to have a cap on pollution emitted into the atmosphere of Kerbin, perhaps a penalty if one emits over this cap in the form of money. One could expand on this idea. just putting it out there.

[ravener]

what pollution are we talking about? LFO doesent emit anything really, monopropellant doesent leak in ksp, we dont have spills if we crash and the co2 from an srb is negligible in comparison to the coal plants and cars we have. the eco system on kerbin can sustain our little space program.

[jwenting]

oh god, no "eco" nonsense please. CO2 isn't a pollutant anyway, it's fertiliser.

SRBs do pump out a load of toxins in the form of all kind of semi-combusted complex carbohydrates, but those are indeed no problem given the limited number used.

Same with liquid fuel engines.

If you want to recycle waste, make your boosters and stages so they can parachute down and be recovered, rather than crashing and dumping plastic and metal bits all over the sea floor (and land).

[ravener]

also notice the abundance of trees and the lack of animals. my theory is that the kerbal space program is the main suply of co2 for the plant life on kerbin thrugh srb's and thrugh production of rockets.

[peadar1987]

oh god, no "eco" nonsense please. CO2 isn't a pollutant anyway, it's fertiliser.

SRBs do pump out a load of toxins in the form of all kind of semi-combusted complex carbohydrates, but those are indeed no problem given the limited number used.

Same with liquid fuel engines.

If you want to recycle waste, make your boosters and stages so they can parachute down and be recovered, rather than crashing and dumping plastic and metal bits all over the sea floor (and land).

Fertiliser and pollutant are not mutuallly exclusive terms!

[jwenting]

please wear a gas mask then, as your airt you breathe out pollutes the air I breath in

[thereaverofdarkness]

Pollution is only a major problem on Earth because we have hundreds of millions of people using machinery that is known to pollute, and they are ignoring its polluting effects. Rockets don't pollute the air and ground much, and not very many people are using them. I don't see the space program becoming a pollution problem down on the surface. It is a space pollution problem, however, and that is already simulated in-game.

[horndgmium]

It's not intended as a pollution problem... it's intended as a max emissions cap and you get penalized for being a space redneck with rockets polluting everything. Like rednecks with trucks.

PS I have one, so I mean that in the most endearing of ways.

[Sirrobert]

It's not intended as a pollution problem... it's intended as a max emissions cap and you get penalized for being a space redneck with rockets polluting everything. Like rednecks with trucks.

PS I have one, so I mean that in the most endearing of ways.

You lauched to many rockets in this game about launching rockets! Now here's a fine in the game that you got for playing the game.

Makes sense...

[horndgmium]

You lauched to many rockets in this game about launching rockets! Now here's a fine in the game that you got for playing the game.

Makes sense...

You misunderstand... you'd have to pick engines with better ISP, or research ways to minimize pollution.

Haven't you ever played a game on hard mode?

[Dwight_js]

You misunderstand... you'd have to pick engines with better ISP, or research ways to minimize pollution.

Haven't you ever played a game on hard mode?

I can see how you are framing it - "pollution" is another restriction that you have to keep in mind, like money. But the problem I see is that an emissions cap is fundamentally different as it gives you a hard limit on how much activity you can engage in. With the other constraints in the game, like money, if you maximize the usefulness of your launches then you get rewarded with more money, and the ability to make more launches. With the cap, there is nothing but punishment. The more you launch, the sooner you have to stop launching and wait for the allotted time-period to elapse without being able to do anything in the meantime. I think you would have to solve this problem before it could be implemented in the game.

[tetryds]

Crashing rockets or spamming debris at Kerbin should have fines, not launching rockets.

[horndgmium]

I can see how you are framing it - "pollution" is another restriction that you have to keep in mind, like money. But the problem I see is that an emissions cap is fundamentally different as it gives you a hard limit on how much activity you can engage in. With the other constraints in the game, like money, if you maximize the usefulness of your launches then you get rewarded with more money, and the ability to make more launches. With the cap, there is nothing but punishment. The more you launch, the sooner you have to stop launching and wait for the allotted time-period to elapse without being able to do anything in the meantime. I think you would have to solve this problem before it could be implemented in the game.

I suppose being some certain amount under the pollution cap could let you get some award for saving the environment. Also I was thinking of more a money (ifthat ever happens) fee rather than time. OR maybe you couldn't buy like really inefficient engines until you do a couple of launches under the pollution limit. Maybe if you get a total limit for like a year so it's not per launch? Although you could technically just time-warp through that from space...

[LostElement]

I don't like the idea. KSP really doesn't need a Eco in this.

[Psycix]

This is not realistic.

People traveling to their work by car every day pollute orders of magnitude more than all rocketry on Earth, so why would Kerbin be different.

A rocket may burn a lot of fuel, but that is nothing compared to the amount of fuel burned for daily use.

Implementing this would cause unnecessary negative publicity for spaceflight.

[Sirrobert]

You misunderstand... you'd have to pick engines with better ISP, or research ways to minimize pollution.

Haven't you ever played a game on hard mode?

More efficient engines wouldn't do crap on a polution cap if each launch adds to the polution you put in the air, it would only delay when you reach the cap.

Which you would still reach if you are building anything in orbit.

Maybe it's amount of fuel burned? Nope, still ganna hit that cap FAST if you want to launch some big rockets for your station. Or maybe for that interplanetery stage you are assambling in orbit.

You want a station around Duna? Well better timewarp 10 minutes between launches, or you'll hit the polution cap.

Or is it going to result in a cap per lauch? Then you are just limiting players to a weight cap on their rockets, and have no extra effect. If you limit me to weight on my rocket, for one I will hate you for deceiding what I can and can't do, and second, I'll just launch the same rocket in multiple parts.

These things are not a hard mode. They are an artificial limit to how much you can play

[jwenting]

You misunderstand... you'd have to pick engines with better ISP, or research ways to minimize pollution.

Haven't you ever played a game on hard mode?

I don't want my games to be polluted by religious nonsense about "global warming", which is exactly what you're suggesting.

Already ditched an RTS game that turned out to be just a front for Islamic fundamentalism, supposedly well balanced the only way you could win was to turn your entire population into Muslim fanatics and declare Holy War on the rest of the world. Don't want crap like that, or "emission caps", "carbon credits", etc. etc. in my games...

[Specialist290]

Let's remember we're discussing the merits of this feature as a game mechanic, not religious beliefs or the validity of the actions of those who follow them.

[jwenting]

Let's remember we're discussing the merits of this feature as a game mechanic, not religious beliefs or the validity of the actions of those who follow them.

the one inevitably invokes the other. If pollution is considered "a bad thing" then there's some political/religious ordered penalty to be involved else why have it in the game in the first place?

[Sirrobert]

the one inevitably invokes the other. If pollution is considered "a bad thing" then there's some political/religious ordered penalty to be involved else why have it in the game in the first place?

Polution has nothing to do with religion dude.

And global warming is a real thing.

But let's just stick to the game part of this discussion

[Luis]

As a gameplay mechanic, it doesn't really do anything that the introduction of money doesn't already do. They are both effectively a tax on each launch that is roughly proportional to the size of the rocket and which consumes a resource that slowly replenishes. The difference is that using money as a constraint allows you to potentially turn a profit on each launch, whereas pollution can only ever increase with each launch. So money encourages you to build smarter, more sucessful rockets, whereas pollution just discourages you from launching at all. This seems less fun to me.

[xvdBanksbvx]

While i do like game play mechanics that are analogous to real life, the build up of chemicals in the atmosphere from repeated rocket launches goes a bit to far in this case. Penalties for atmospheric explosions or crashing of nuclear rockets might make an interesting mechanic though.

[tetryds]

This would only be valid if the ships ran on Cesium.

The size of the rockets and ammount of fuel it burns relative to the Kerbin size would have absolutelly no impact on the planet.

We got issues on Earth because that's billion people doing this at the same time, continuously.

So, instead of you launch 5 thousand ships everyday, the effect is completelly ignorable.

As I mentioned before, crashing the rocket at the planet surface should have penalties, not launching them.

[darthvader15001]

On 12/9/2013 at 12:44 PM, horndgmium said:

Haven't you ever played a game on hard mode

no

[Bej Kerman]

6 minutes ago, darthvader15001 said:

On 12/9/2013 at 5:44 PM, horndgmium said:

Haven't you ever played a game on hard mode

no

Haven't, no.