Would a random* part accident mod be good?

[AletzN1]

In real life there have been tons of mistakes in the space flight field.

many are engineering mistakes, some were situational mistakes or plain random.

would a mod for KSP that simulates this, be realistic, not annoying and fun to have?

i think it could be implemented like engine overheating, and deadly reentry has.

one mechanic that i could see being implemented would be part stress.

wadyya think?

[Legendary Emu]

I think this is a good idea. It would be interesting to have a situation like Soyuz 5 or Gravity.

[TerLoki]

It's certainly a neat idea, but I'd like it as a mod or an option that can be toggled. Some people have enough trouble on missions without random parts breaking, so it should be optional. But yeah, I might be up for trying something like that.

[Stratoroc]

no thank you. things explode enough as it is. if I finally punch something in the orbit I don't want to scrap the mission and restart yet again.

[maccollo]

Personally I think it would be terrible. Even in real life, these events happen because somebody made a mistake. That means it could have been prevented. But this would be something like a random number generator.

Arbitrary punishing events in games that the player has absolutely no control over is generally rage inducing and awful.

Example: Tripping in Brawl.

It's exactly the same. You are randomly punished by a random number generator.

You know how frustrating it is when you try to build something large and parts that shouldn't break break anyway?

This would essentially be that, except now it's 100% random.

My two cents anyway.

Edited March 2, 2014 by maccollo

[problemecium]

I'm pretty sure random part accidents are a stock feature. Pretty sure...

[Tex_NL]

Sure, some people will love it but I am definitely not one of them.

Let's say you have a ship design you have thoroughly tested and you're on your way to a distant planet. After hours of game play you're about to touch down and suddenly BOOOOOMMM. A part explodes and your ship crashes: RAGE QUIT!

People will start whining all over the forum and SQUAD gets the blame their ships are failing for no apparent reason.

If part failure would ever be incorporated into the game it should be predictable and avoidable, not random. Deadly Reentry and the current engine heating are perfect examples of this.

[Daemoria]

Part failure should be due to environmental conditions that are actually simulated in KSP. Stuff like solar flares shorting out unshielded electronics, and debris impact (kessler syndrome!) should cause structural failure. That said, I'm all for more ways for parts to fail, currently they are either 100% good, or they are doing their best fireball impression.

[SpaceGremlin]

Last time I played FSX with random failures on I was on my final approach for landing when it slammed me with a double engine failure. I was too low and too slow to save the aircraft. Being so irreversibly screwed by the RNG was not fun.

Besides, missions in KSP go awry with enough frequency as it is. I was testing an SSTO today and one of the engines wasn't bound to the cutoff action group. Induced a spin that I had to recover before pushing to orbit. I can laugh at my own stupidity in such situations, but a sadorandomizer screwing with me would give me an aneurysm.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm pretty sure random part accidents are a stock feature. Pretty sure...

I don't think so. Parts never fail of their own accord in stock KSP, something has to happen to them.

[Raptor831]

I guess I wouldn't mind having some obstacles to overcome on a mission (Apollo 13 anyone?), but it'd need to be a mod or something toggle-able. And maybe not insta-death inducing. I mean, to have a random catastrophic engine failure and the whole ship goes up at once is kinda game-killing. The Kraken gives us enough "We have a problem..." moments, not to mention the design errors (whoops, I don't have the fuel to return to Kerbin from the Mun...again).

Basically, any failure needs to be survivable and recoverable for it to be fun. Otherwise it's just a randomized way to kill more kerbals.

[YukiCruentus]

My problem with this is that it would make me take a design that should be fine and go back to the drawing board over something that wasn't my design. I can understand some mod that has wear'n'tear in it causing some things under high pressure to degrade eventually and fall apart but having something that suddenly goes mmmm this explodes would annoy me to no end cause the shuttle is tried and tested but I got a bad dice roll.

[AletzN1]

Notice the "*" in random*

I didn't meant actually random, it would be more situational.

Like engine overheating, part overheating, structural stress, etc.

But not an actual explosion of the part, just something that lowers down it's functionality.

Something you can survive and fight against.

Something that is very minor in the short term, but HUGE in the long term.

There is a reason they did Launch Escape Systems in real life....

[Red Iron Crown]

Maybe you shouldn't have described it as random if it's not. Sounds like you're describing part damage, where there would be more states between "working correctly" and "exploded". Is that what you mean?

[sal_vager]

Occasional random part failures, or maybe reductions in stats as they break down (so you aren't quite stranded) would in my opinion be great

As an addon, we'd be free to use it or not, so there'd be no harm to players who don't like the idea.

I suggest you take a look at Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited 3, the failures were rare, and survivable, they made you think "how am I going to get out of this?" instead of "oh my god, now I have to quit/restart!"

[Raven.]

A completely random failure, no, absolutely not. This just simply irritates the player. If it is random, then make as sal_vager suggested: very rare.

However, the other things pretty already occur in stock KSP to some degree. Engines overheat, especially the big ones. And connections between parts fail if there is too much sheer force on the rocket. FAR and Deadly Re-entry compound this even more so, and these two mods are very good options for those looking for a challenge.

Me personally, I think the difficulty curve is just about right in KSP.

[Aknar]

Here was the thread for this mod idea : Random Failures mod. There are a 2 skeletons of this mod so far, 1 from Regex (https://github.com/jbengtson/ksp-partfailure), who doesn't have time to devellop this mod and passed it on to anyone who will do it, another from HoneyFox who got furthur (RandomFailures). I'm currently asking him where he is at with this, if he is still actively working on it.

Check out what has been said about it, how it could come to look and the diffrent failures and their chances of failing in chart form.

Originally Posted by Greys

Point is, failure itself isn't fun, overcoming failure is; so you have to provide ways to recover and reduce the chance of there not being a way to recover.

Originally Posted by Kerbart

It's great when the random failure results in glorious heroics.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Aknar

[Nahim]

Yes but in a Buzz Aldrin way were you could spend science point in prevent these events from occurring, and sub events that a manned mission could put a Kerbal in an repair routine. :-)

[Kerbart]

I think it's great. Personally I think it'd be a disaster, but at least it would quiet all the requests to add this to the game because. I think my quote was embedded in something along those lines. Heroics because of random failures are great. But I suspect that 95% of those failures will just add frustration. Of course, I'm wrong most of the time so consider this an endorsement for success.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Kerbart

[John Crichton]

Good idea because it can happen IRL too. Having said that, in real life you can also fix stuff (mostly), so I really only want to see this option if there is also a possibility to recover.

Imagine spending 15hrs to design a craft and fly it to Tylo...just to see something go wrong (out of your control) you can't recover from. That would be good for gameplay!

[softweir]

"If it is a mod, then yes". I am sure some peeps would love such a mod, but it's not for me. KSP is tough enough as it is - force me to endure random failures and I'd uninstall it!

[rhoark]

I'm working on a mod that will simulate systems at a much lower level. Creating possibilities for failure is a big part of the reason for doing it, but they will be completely traceable to designer or pilot error.

[Aknar]

I'm working on a mod that will simulate systems at a much lower level. Creating possibilities for failure is a big part of the reason for doing it, but they will be completely traceable to designer or pilot error.

What would be the aim of your mod? What exactly would it do?

[rhoark]

It will replace the stock resource system with one in which different substances can mix in the same container and flow is determined by pressure gradients. Engine nozzles, combustion chambers, and pumps will be separate parts.

[Nuke]

if totally dice roll random, no. if doing something stupid (exceeding a part's design tolerances), yes.

if you go over the design tolerance of a part, then the odds of that part failing should be proportional to the amount you went over the tolerances.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Nuke