[0.24.2] Snacks! A simplistic approach to life support

[tgruetzm]

I like the ideas of making Kerbals less responsive, as long as I can find a way to do it without depleting other ship resources. I'm not sure how I feel about a distressed Kerbal wasting other resources when they are hungry/grumpy/angry that they have no snacks.

As of yesterday I had absolutely no KSP modding experience(with the exception of tweaking a few parts here and there to fit my tastes). I am however a software developer so I expect I'll get up to speed quickly. Last night I was able to get a basic plugin working that did nothing more than slowly drain Snacks from a command pod. It's a start and I'm excited to see where this goes.

Edited August 12, 2014 by tgruetzm

[dbmorpher]

How about pressing random buttons and activating random stages?

[tgruetzm]

How about pressing random buttons and activating random stages?

Hmm, that's an interesting thought. Activating stages would likely not improve the Kerbal's chance of survival so I don't think I'd want to take that route, but I like the idea of pressing random buttons. I'm thinking maybe toggling certain features on parts. As your punishment for snack depriving the Kerbal, your Kerbals revolt and start disabling things in an attempt to get you to turn around or replenish the snacks.

[SirJodelstein]

More detailed ideas for grumpy Kerbal behaviour:

* Delayed steering/throttle reaction. Controls work, but only with a delay of maybe 2-5 seconds. Anyone who has tried to fly a Remotetech-Probe with delay knows how irritating that can be.

* scaled steering/throttle reaction (from 0 to full throttle in half/double time to represent angry/traumatized Kerbals)

* random pases of of input denial. Lock all control inputs for several seconds. "Gilbin Kerman has momentarily passed out"

* random steering inputs for several seconds. "Doodming Kerman has passed momentarily out lying on the 'yaw left' control"

[Cydonian Monk]

I really, really like this idea, for the times when I want a more casual life-support. Especially the grumpy kerbals and costing the player rep.

I could see this resulting in hilarity and frustration if combined with something like "Dang It!" The kerbal needs to EVA to fix a leaking fuel tank, but once outside: "Lemby Kerman cancels Fix Leak: Grumpy."

And perhaps recently un-grumpy kerbals eat snacks at twice the rate?

[passinglurker]

I think it would be best to start with the rep penalty and see if players want more trouble then that after they try it lest feature creep sets in and the dev turns this into a kerbal sanity simulator.

[tgruetzm]

* Delayed steering/throttle reaction. Controls work, but only with a delay of maybe 2-5 seconds. Anyone who has tried to fly a Remotetech-Probe with delay knows how irritating that can be.

* scaled steering/throttle reaction (from 0 to full throttle in half/double time to represent angry/traumatized Kerbals)

* random pases of of input denial. Lock all control inputs for several seconds. "Gilbin Kerman has momentarily passed out"

* random steering inputs for several seconds. "Doodming Kerman has passed momentarily out lying on the 'yaw left' control"

These are awesome ideas. The control delay might get annoying if it were continual, but the idea of the Kerbals occasionally denying you control or accidentally yawing left could result in some fun gameplay. Glibin, fails to shutdown the engine on time and as a result you're on a collision with the Mun. I think as long as this is the occasional brain fart/passing out causing it, it would cause enough frustration yet still allow you to accomplish something.

[tgruetzm]

I added the following to the initial post. I'd like to accomplish this for the first release.

Phase I plan:

-Snacks are added as a resource to all crewed modules. Empty spaces have significantly higher snack capacity.

-Kerbals randomly consume snacks throughout the day. They may eat more or less on a particular day, but the idea is you'd be able to roughly calculate if you have enough for a mission.

-Kerbals that do not have snacks will cause a daily reputation penalty multiplied by the number of snackless kerbals.

-Kerbals without snacks will occasionally pass out and odd control inputs may be processed while Jeb prys Bill off of the controls.

[Monkthespy]

Maybe Kerbals with a higher stupidity are more likely to put in control inputs or pass out? And Kerbals with more courage can last longer without passing out maybe? Be an interesting idea.

[biohazard15]

I really like idea of "casual" life support - one resource, no deaths.

I do not like idea of delayed\disabled\forced controls, though. This a) can become irritating, can become dangerous if you doing something like landing or docking (to supply ship, for example), and c) probably will mess with MechJeb.

Instead of that, there should be rep\science\funds fines. For example, you pay 100 funds and 10 rep points per hour for every kerbal that is starving ("easy" setting; make it 5x for "medium" and 10x for "hard"). This will not break anything, and definitely will not break gameplay, but it will add mechanic that can be appealing for these who don't want to go all-realistic.

One very important thing that there should NOT be any new resources (except Snacks) and there should be only one new part type - Snack container (several sizes). All manned pods should get snacks (through MM config); Kerbals on EVA should get enough snacks to sustain them for 24h Earth time (or 4 Kerbin days).

[tgruetzm]

I assumed and understand that forced controls would be something that the community would be divided on. Originally I was highly opposed to it as well, but I think I have a plan that will impose "Kerbals passing out" without being obtrusive to gameplay. The big difference from forced controls, would be that it would be extremely intermittent and of short duration(and maybe only one control, yaw for example would be affected). It would be a very unlucky day that a Kerbal would pass out on a critical maneuver, but not impossible. But hey, this is probably a feature that will need an optional setting.

I plan to take the minimalist approach to parts to one higher level. My plan is NO new parts. I'd like to implement a system by which you can store large numbers of snacks in uncrewed crewable modules. My goal is an uncrewed hitchhiker could store maybe 5 times more snacks than a crewed one. Essentially a hitchhiker(or other uncrewed modules) would become the cargo transportation solution.

[Bomoo]

I do like snacks! Would love to use this in my games.

[biohazard15]

I assumed and understand that forced controls would be something that the community would be divided on. Originally I was highly opposed to it as well, but I think I have a plan that will impose "Kerbals passing out" without being obtrusive to gameplay. The big difference from forced controls, would be that it would be extremely intermittent and of short duration(and maybe only one control, yaw for example would be affected). It would be a very unlucky day that a Kerbal would pass out on a critical maneuver, but not impossible. But hey, this is probably a feature that will need an optional setting.

I plan to take the minimalist approach to parts to one higher level. My plan is NO new parts. I'd like to implement a system by which you can store large numbers of snacks in uncrewed crewable modules. My goal is an uncrewed hitchhiker could store maybe 5 times more snacks than a crewed one. Essentially a hitchhiker(or other uncrewed modules) would become the cargo transportation solution.

It would be ideal if you make controls lock toggleable through config, so those who don't like it could just turn it off.

Variable snack quantity and using Hitchhiker and crew pods for snack transporting is an interesting ideas, but it will complicate things (both gamer-side and developer-side), and this is what you definitely do not need in a casual life support mod. All resources have respective containers in stock; snacks should also get containers. Three parts (in 1.25, 2.5 and 3.75 size) will be sufficient; it will also allow to avoid potential problems with mods, because you can just add snacks through MM config instead of balancing "empty\crewed" amount for every pod out there.

[Monkthespy]

Oh my god, I have an idea. Every time a Kerbal takes a snack resource, a bag of chips or a bottle flies out the crew hatch (if it isn't obstructed) as a funny gag thing. They might act like shell casings in other mods, barely any collision and disappear after a few seconds. It would be hilarious to see a bag of Doritos or Gatorade just fly out the crew hatch.

[passinglurker]

I'm going to stand by my belief that all that is needed is the rep penalty. The problem with forced controls is I can bypass it by keeping my kerbal out of the command pod and in a hitchhiker can all the time except for crew reports and fly the ship by probe instead.

[tgruetzm]

It would be ideal if you make controls lock toggleable through config, so those who don't like it could just turn it off.

Variable snack quantity and using Hitchhiker and crew pods for snack transporting is an interesting ideas, but it will complicate things (both gamer-side and developer-side), and this is what you definitely do not need in a casual life support mod. All resources have respective containers in stock; snacks should also get containers. Three parts (in 1.25, 2.5 and 3.75 size) will be sufficient; it will also allow to avoid potential problems with mods, because you can just add snacks through MM config instead of balancing "empty\crewed" amount for every pod out there.

I'm currently highly opposed to the idea of adding new storage containers. I think that by itself new storage parts complicates things. Would a Kerbal really store their snacks in an external compartment? They want them in the habitable space for... snacking! I think I can come up with an elegant solution for this, but if it turns out to be awkward/difficult to use I'll revisit it

[Vespene]

I like this too. Though the think life support should be a part of the game, I find oxygen, waste and all those things related to life support kinda cumbersome. Having only one life support resource would be a happy balance between the two sides of the argument. Air and water recycling are pretty much a given in any modern spacecraft, so why bother with the details?

While kerbals dying is pretty hardcore, immortal crews would still be too easy. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of grumpy kerbals. How about when a kerbal runs out of snacks, he falls unconscious? He would drift in space and will need a resupply to get him running again. In some ways, the crewmen would act similar to batteries without power or engines without fuel.

Good luck with the mod, and let me know if you need help with model assets. I'm a professional 3D artist.

[BFGfreak]

Maybe Kerbals with a higher stupidity are more likely to put in control inputs or pass out?

Honestly I think it should be the opposite since several mods already penalize Kerbals with a high stupid rating. I'm thinking that a stupider Kerbal should forget to eat a snack on occasion or forget that they're hungry resulting in them being less grumpy.

[passinglurker]

I'm currently highly opposed to the idea of adding new storage containers. I think that by itself new storage parts complicates things. Would a Kerbal really store their snacks in an external compartment? They want them in the habitable space for... snacking! I think I can come up with an elegant solution for this, but if it turns out to be awkward/difficult to use I'll revisit it

One idea would be just to make the snack resource really light or even weightless the only containers that can hold it would be already heavy pods, labs, and crew cans so it wouldn't be too unbalancing(no real need to think too hard about it but for the OCD out there just imagine that the weight isn't changing as the snacks are eaten because they are not dumping the wrappers and waste overboard cause no one likes space debris or having to say you lost your ship to an orbiting cheese stick wrapper going in the opposite direction, and emphasis on imaging this there is no need to add a second waste resource)

I'm still not a fan of the kerbals going crazy and mashing buttons while hungry. A kerbal costing you rep you can crash into the mun to shut him up but a kerbal randomizing the controls can result in a unfixable situation which can result in a permanent rep drain when you accidentally use up the last of your fuel accidentally flinging him out of kerbins SOI.

[tgruetzm]

I'm still not a fan of the kerbals going crazy and mashing buttons while hungry. A kerbal costing you rep you can crash into the mun to shut him up but a kerbal randomizing the controls can result in a unfixable situation which can result in a permanent rep drain when you accidentally use up the last of your fuel accidentally flinging him out of kerbins SOI.

I don't quite envision it as the Kerbals randomly spazzing out pressing every control continually. I'm thinking that a passed out Kerbal would continually press left until someone jabs and corrects him. So if you're doing a burn with a snack deprived Kerbal, you might start turning left. If you're paying attention you can fix it by (jabing the kerbal) applying the opposite control and he would stop applying the left control.

I'm not sure exactly how/if I'll implement this part. I'm going to play around with this a bit tonight and see if it adds anything fun to the gameplay.

[Vespene]

I think initial imput lag would be the way to go when controlling a resourced deprived kerbal. Let's say you press to turn the craft left or right... the ship would not respond until 5 seconds into it, because the kerbal is either asleep or rebellious. A few seconds after you stop moving the craft, he'll go back to unresponsiveness. This pattern would slowly worsen until he stops responding all together, requiring a snack resupply to revive him.

Taking control away is less frustrating than sudden actions you don't control.

[passinglurker]

I don't quite envision it as the Kerbals randomly spazzing out pressing every control continually. I'm thinking that a passed out Kerbal would continually press left until someone jabs and corrects him. So if you're doing a burn with a snack deprived Kerbal, you might start turning left. If you're paying attention you can fix it by (jabing the kerbal) applying the opposite control and he would stop applying the left control.

I'm not sure exactly how/if I'll implement this part. I'm going to play around with this a bit tonight and see if it adds anything fun to the gameplay.

It doesn't matter if he is spazzing on his own or only spazzing when you give him orders having hungery kerbals effect the controls just sounds like a round about way of saying "they are effectively dead, but not actually dead dead, but since he is useless he might as well be dead". I think if this is supposed to be a stab at making a simple nonlethal life support mod then the bare minimum of the life support game play itch should be what is aimed for, and the kerbal sanity checks just sound to me like feature creep. basically there should just enough to encourage a player to take life support and crew accommodations into account with the least number of parts and mechanics as possible. Afterall the whole point of this thread is that the other life support mods were not simple enough for you right? once you have the foundation worked out and released on a permissive license your or others can expand on it with other compatible mods that gradually ramp up the complexity and difficulty to the users liking.

[tgruetzm]

I made some really good progress on this tonight.

I have the following working quite well:

-Snacks added to all command modules

-Double snacks added to all non-command crew-able modules

-Snacks are randomly consumed(this was quite a bit more effort than I thought. Mostly to handle unloaded vessels out of physics range)

-Reputation decreases during each snack time where kerbals have none

There's still quite a bit of polish and fine tuning to do before an initial release, but so far I think this is going to be very simple yet interesting addition to the KSP mod arena.

[biohazard15]

Would a Kerbal really store their snacks in an external compartment?

Um... yes? The idea of resupplying capsule with other capsule is kinda goofy. Hitchhiker is heavy, expensive and comes lately in a techtree. Besides, real resupply vessels (Progress, ATV, Dragon) are all unmanned storage pods.

[passinglurker]

Um... yes? The idea of resupplying capsule with other capsule is kinda goofy. Hitchhiker is heavy, expensive and comes lately in a techtree. Besides, real resupply vessels (Progress, ATV, Dragon) are all unmanned storage pods.

buuuut... the mobile lab is available early enough to participate in all you of your snack resupplying activities. Besides you are not resupplying anyone till you get docking ports which also come frustratingly late. And if snacks are just considered part of the crewpod and the trash is not thrown out to prevent debris related accidents like I suggested then the snacks themselves are effectively weightless meaning the hitchhiker can makes a perfectly acceptable storage unit that is no more heavy or inconvenient than an equivalent LFO fuel tank. Finally if he releases this on a permissive licence there is nothing stopping you from expanding it with your own space fridge parts.