How would you want to see life support handled?

[Mononucleati]

I think ksp should have different difficulty levels, with different life support options which you can choose when you start a new save: some people really like realism, while others want an easier game, so I think they should be able to customize the game based on their tastes.

[vger]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought of it. If only ONE thing gets implemented for life support, it should be snacks.

[Jouni]

First, I find it silly that kerbals can survive for years in small command pods or even EVA suits, so some kind of life support would be nice.

On the other hand, KSP is not a game about resource management and logistics. Some people would enjoy that, but they can have mods for more detailed resource management. For the rest of us, one kind of life support resource is probably enough, in the same way as we have just one kind of liquid fuel.

Another requirement is that by the time we can reasonably start building manned space stations, we should have the parts required to make them self-sufficient. At least I don't want to see the crew of my LKO station to die, because I forgot to launch yet another resupply ship while time-warping a transfer to Jool. So maybe there should be some kind of life support generator that transforms electricity into life support. Then we would also have some use for the rather pointless big solar panels.

[vger]

I'd love to see self-sufficient space stations, even if life support becomes a thing. But it might be too far outside the dev plan. I seem to remember them saying that interstellar travel will NOT happen, because it would require conceptual methods of space travel, which is a place they don't want to go. KSP is meant to be realistic, more or less. So a space station that can survive without resupplying might be delving too far into the realm of sci-fi. But gosh, a space station with biodomes attached to it would look so flipping cool.

[Amaroq]

O.P., why is this not a Poll?

My personal answer is: I'd be perfectly happy with a "Life Support" variable -- for my personal older career save, I'd basically overloaded "Electricity" for it by vastly increasing the electricity requirements for all manned pods. My story-explanation was that the electricity is being used for scrubbing CO2 back to O2 and for reclaiming & sanitizing waste byproducts.

[JiWint]

Snacks only.

That's why some capsules don't have any snacks,just some stickers about that

[CaptRobau]

I think keeping it as simple as possible is the way to go. I'd like to combine life support with crew space though. It's a bit ridiculous that Kerbals could live for years in a small tin can. To solve both a lack of life support and crew space, I suggest the following:

Make all crew pods and crewed parts like the Hitchhiker and the Science Lab produce a 'Life Support' resource from ElectricalCharge. Kerbals consume Life Support of course. The twist is that a pod with 3 crew will only provide 1.5 Kerbal's worth of life support, or a 1 man pod 0.5 Kerbal's worth. All these pods will have an internal Life Support supply though. This way without building large ships you can still go on short missions. Mercury, Gemini or Apollo-type missions to orbit or the Mun/Minmus. But this won't do if you want to support your Kerbal's for a long time, for example an orbital space station or a manned mission to Duna. In those cases you'll have to add a Hitchhiker or two to support your crew. This also adds more electrical management to the game, as running out of ElectricalCharge means you won't be providing any Life Support to prevent/slow down the drain.

[Pthigrivi]

Honestly I think you can go all the way with this. O2 could come from tanks, with scrubbers that draw current. I love the idea of snacks, with a few different size packages and greenhouse module high end of the tech tree. Waste heat is a big deal in the real world, and maybe could be included in a kind of hard-mode along with re-entry heat?