Kerbal expereince and autopilot, or: how to make Kerbals actually matter

[chaos_forge]

Currently, KSP has a problem: There are very few reasons to send a manned mission over an unmanned one. Currently, the only reasons we have to bring along kerbals are EVA and crew reports, and the science lab and that's it. The proposed kerbal experience system was an attempt to solve this problem, but its main feature, increases to thrust and ISP, were discarded as unrealistic. This leaves the kerbal expereince system as providing only benefits to science, funds, etc. This has two problems:

1) We already have the Admin facility to modify how we recieve funds, science, and reputation, so this system wouldn't be adding anything new.

2) This system doesn't really give sandbox players any reason to send manned missions

Thus, I propose a new kerbals-as-autopilot system. Say there is a certain set of things that can be automated, such as landing, docking, executing a manuever node, etc. Then, if you, say, perform a docking with a kerbal in the capsule 10 times, then that kerbal is able to perform docking manuevers, automating the process for you. So, we get a reason to actually care about how experienced our kerbals are, and those who want an autopilot system can get one while simultaneously making sure you only get access to an automated procedure if you are experienced in it. Thoughts?

[Starwhip]

Ehh, except for the fact that I am a docking autopilot now, yeah, I guess that's a reasonable idea.

I've flown ships so many times now that I really don't notice the time that passes while docking anyway. It only takes me like 10 minutes or so.

EDIT:

What I meant to say, and kind of didn't express very clearly, was that I don't want to just leave my ship doing something while I go eat a sandwich or whatever. That's almost like watching a movie, or Twitch.tv. I feel that it robs from the "in control" aspect of KSP. And who doesn't enjoy that one time in fifty that you forget about your retrothrusters and crash?

Edited October 23, 2014 by Starwhip

[Red Iron Crown]

The proposed kerbal experience system was an attempt to solve this problem, but its main feature, increases to thrust and ISP, were discarded as unrealistic. This leaves the kerbal expereince system as providing only benefits to science, funds, etc.

False premise. There are many ways to make kerbal experience matter without resorting to funds, science, reputation, or magically making spacecraft perform better.

I honestly don't think we'll see an autopilot in stock KSP. It's a tremendous amount of development work to reimplement (have a look at MechJeb's source code, it's huge) and it would be difficult to buy as it's open source with many contributors.

[mattinoz]

This is why I think it should be a co-pilot system more than an auto-pilot.

So every mission has a commander (player) kerbal but if there are more seats than you can fill them with skilled kerbals to handle various tasks for you.

So as a task became valid it would popup as a button over the reliant kerbals window, hit the button to engage (or speak to command would also be cool).

Some you could interrupt others you would initiate and have to wait to complete but the wrap speed control would always be in your hands.

To me mechJeb gives the flight range of skills a Kerbal co-pilot could have but no one Kerbal should be able to do it all.

Divide that up to a skills tree and add science, engineering skills.

[Laie]

I honestly don't think we'll see an autopilot in stock KSP. It's a tremendous amount of development work to reimplement (have a look at MechJeb's source code, it's huge) and it would be difficult to buy as it's open source with many contributors.

I don't think anyone expects the whole Mechjeb. I certainly don't. But I'd love automation for the more mundane tasks. "Mundane" also means that the programming won't be very difficult, either.

There's already another thread dealing with this very idea, a bit more fleshed out than this one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97837-Experienced-kerbals-piloting-their-ships-keeping-them-steady

Edited October 24, 2014 by Laie

[micha]

Currently, KSP has a problem: There are very few reasons to send a manned mission over an unmanned one.

Personally I disagree with this premise. In fact, I think it's exactly the other way around - without life support requirements (as per the current stock game), why would you ever send a probe? Kerbals can perform loads more science than a probe can (Crew and EVA reports, soil samples, use the Science Lab to reset one-shot experiments, extract science from experiments for storing in the command pod for later retrieval, etc).

So personally I would love to see more reasons to send probes. Yes I play with ScanSat, but that's not stock.

Having said that, I also think having the Kerbals able to perform basic maneuvers would be cool. I haven't played with MechJeb so don't know what that's capable of, but if a (Pilot) Kerbal could follow a (set of) Maneuver Nodes (ideally even while in the background) that would really raise the bar and really make KSP feel like a Space Program with multiple simultaneous missions and the player being Misson Control (with the option to fly manually).

So why would the player fly manually? Well, because (Pilot) Kerbals just aren't very good - at least initially. But as they gain experience they would get better. This has been suggested MANY times by various people, so not claiming this as my idea. The point being, the beginning player would pretty much have to fly manually because otherwise most missions would be doomed to fail, but later in the game the repetitive tasks could be handed over to experienced Kerbal Pilots.

How does that tie into probes? Well, probes would execute maneuvers perfectly (within the limits of physics). On the other hand, probes cannot do a lot of the science, and perhaps probes would get much less reputation. Now you have a compelling reason to use Kerbals (MOAR SCIENCE and rep) and probes (cheaper, and can maneuver perfectly).

The main issue here is it's easy to "cheat" - simply build a rocket with both Command Pod and a probe core. But it's up to the player, as always. Currently nothing prevents a player from installing MechJeb either..