Creating roles for space stations in KSP

[JimmyAgent007]

I dont like "Rocket Parts" at all. Too generic and feels like a magic wand. Bringing the specific parts to an off world VAB makes more sense. I can see the parts for things like fuel lines and struts but they still need to be hauled up from Kerbin. Cargo containers, Each size has a weight, and you can fill them with parts, or specific designs, I could get behind that if it felt realistic enough.

Id also like the ability to shed the casing off fuel tanks to make them lighter for void travel, or at the very least, build them that way in orbit.

[tater]

Yeah, I think you'd need to bring specific parts up to stock it. They could be disassembled to be shipped, and would be obviously "dry" if they were tanks like that. The goal is orbital construction that is not held together with clamp-o-trons, basically.

[John FX]

I use Karbonite which has an orbital particle collector. Fitting one of those (with the right converter etc) fills up my orbital refuel depot very slowly. I feel it has the right amount of automation (runs when not the focus) and delay (it takes a long time to fill up). I can`t just put loads of huge tanks up there and fill them instantly so it feels fairly realistic (for little green men making rocket fuel from vacuum anyway)

It seems to do what is required for a refuel depot but without needing an autopilot.

[tater]

It seems to do what is required for a refuel depot but without needing an autopilot.

One, an "autopilot" is a either a probe, or a manned craft with the onboard computer flying. Having Jeb fly is having Jeb fly (or Bill, or Joetry, etc), which should be a thing. YOU flying is neither Jeb flying, nor the probe flying, nor the onboard computer flying. There is a place for our astronauts to be AI assigned to a mission that they do themselves.

Two, what you suggest, quoted above doesn't need an "autopilot," because it replaces that (or having AI kerbals) with "magic," because that's what "orbital particle collector" means.

AI kerbals would be ideal for repetitive tasks. For the sake of safety, perhaps they would only be capable of missions from launch to docking and launch to landing at an established base (make a new part that can be deployed on a surface that has a landing light, battery, and radio beacon. When you deploy it, it uses symmetry to make an X shape (deployed like a flag, basically, and for AI purposes, perhaps only on airless worlds).

We'd then have huge base and station utility as you could schedule recurring resupply missions (launch one when onboard fuel or supplies are less than XX%).

[GregA]

Regarding "automation," it's not automation, it's a kerbal pilot actually doing his job.

I like retaining the option to fly as well. However IRL here in 2014, humans no longer fly any large airplanes, military aircraft, and certainly are not permitted hands on controls of rockets. If my Space Camp experience is anything to go by, the Space Shuttle simulator has a navigation and fly by wire system significantly more capable than MechJeb. Modern Boeing and Airbus planes are all fly by wire. The pilot merely directs the plane which way to go, and the plane figures out how to execute the maneuver. Since 911, these computers have all been programmed to keep these airplanes out of restricted air spaces, and without serious overriding of the security countermeasures in the flyby wire controls, it is not even possible to fly them in these areas.

Even the LM from Apollo had more "automation" than stock like Kerbal, with the LM's computers (if you can call them that) controlling the entire flight down to the last 2000 meters, with all horizontal and vertical motion eliminated when the computer finally handed control over to the pilot. In fact my reading of history of modern computers, the modern integrated circuit was developed entirely for the purpose of making fly by wire controls for NASA, for Apollo.

So while there seems to be a lot of sneering at mods like MechJeb from community as somehow "cheating" the game is actually less realistic without fly by wire controls... It is an attitude that seems entirely orthogonal to real space nerd sensibilities.

In my life experience the only place there is a direct link between pilot and control surfaces is in civil aviation. But even in those situations, modern avionics and navigation systems give more information than stock like Kerbal.

I make my rant with much respect to people who fly by the seat of their pants in Kerbal, but the only people who fly like that IRL are the pilots that fly for small little rinky dink skydive outfits. I knew a guy who flew his plane without a working altimeter once. I don't think I am engaging in any amount of hyperbole here.

I remember something my flight instructor told me once... "There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots."

If you think things like MechJeb make the game "easy" or boring, install a random part failure mod.

[razark]

I dont like "Rocket Parts" at all. Too generic and feels like a magic wand. Bringing the specific parts to an off world VAB makes more sense.

Yeah, I think you'd need to bring specific parts up to stock it.

I can understand that position. An older version of the mod had the requirement to bring specific parts, but the parts basically had to be built into the delivery vehicle.

The abstraction can still work as you need X tons of "parts" to build a craft that weighs X tons, so you can handwave it as being "I'm bringing these specific parts for this design". It just requires a little bit more roleplaying.

[tater]

Up to a point I do not disagree with generic "parts" being brought up as cargo. I'd say that extant crew pods would have to be intact, though I could imagine a new set of "space only" parts being added that can ONLY be built at an orbital (or airless world) construction facility. In fact I'll outright agree it makes sense.

I think you'd need limited categories that would be built via "parts" vs subassemblies. Tanks, structural parts, and certain space-habs could be constructed in-situ, while engines, SAS, batteries, etc would be brought up. I suppose the closed cargo pod makes the most sense from a rendering standpoint. The orbital facility (Orbital Construction Yard (OCY)?) might have something that looks like a mobile processing lab (maybe the next size up?), but perhaps with some robot arms, floodlights, and a large cargo door, etc on it. You'd attach cargo pods to it, with maybe "raw materials" being one (metal stock, etc), the other would be "subassemblies." Note that these pods could be used as cargo pods for any constructed ships as well). In the case of your abstracted idea, the subassemblies parts would contain, say 10 tons of subassembly parts (unnamed parts). When you build with the orbital yard, you'd be given the "space" parts list. Tanks, structure, etc would be different/abbreviated to reflect built from stock material and would deplete stock cargo pods based on dry mass. The subassembly parts would be removed as total units from the subassembly cargo pods. as you go. You might try an LVT30, then decide to instead make a lander with 3xLV909. In the former case your 10 ton supply pod would be incremented down by 1.25t, then changed when you alter the design to 1.5 down. It would only finally remove the stuff after the design was completed. You'd get a warning if you took a part that was beyond your storage of parts.

I'm actually fine with that as our design process is not realistic anyway. You could assume that whatever design was planned ahead of time, and the "subassemblies" required were what was in the cargo pod.

So you've entirely changed my mind. Sold!

[tg626]

One science lab weighs as much as 17 Materials Bays or 23 Goo Containers, so it's very possible to get a large majority of Mun's Materials/Goo science with a single mission that hops to all the biomes on the planet instead of your mobile lab strategy. Mobile labs work, but aren't perfectly implemented.

and multiple landers and all the parts that build them - unless you dock the labs to the lander and then discard it after "doing science", and even then my strategy was conceived as a way to save √ on the parts.

[tater]

My take-away from this is that aside from global changes in the science/tech paradigm, the following things would maximize the use of extra-kermin bases (either orbital, or landed).

1. Resources. We know we are getting fuel/oxidizer at some point (water?) that we can capture/extract.

2. Construction facilities in orbit. Many of us want this, I think, and ideally a different flavor of part than we have on the ground to make it even more novel (I like the cryo tanks in a truss framework look, myself). Engines, etc can be stock (as outlined above).

3. AI kerbals. I play KSP because I like flying. I'm perfectly happy to dock, land, etc. I'd still like AI kerbals to do some stuff, like deliver cargo pods or fuel to a station. This should be added for no other reason than to add "life" to KSP. Some people want more kerbals at the space center… but my goal is to get out of the space center and into SPACE. I'd like to swing in to dock and find that there is another craft docking at the same time, or EVA kerbals moving a pod to the Orbital Construction Facility… it would feel less like it's just me, 1 thing happening at a time.

[razark]

So you've entirely changed my mind. Sold!

I changed someone's mind on the internet?!? Does that mean I win? Is this a new record?

3. AI kerbals. ... I'd still like AI kerbals to do some stuff, like deliver cargo pods or fuel to a station.

I'd love to see Kerbals actually do something. Let me design a ship, select a crew, and tell them to fly it. Free me to go do things I've never done before, and let them handle the supply runs to the space stations, or deliver a lander into Munar orbit. If the game can track what I've done, I should be able to have AI Kerbals do the same thing. I couldn't tell them to go make ten landings on Duna and collect all the science if I have never made a Duna landing, but if I reach a stable Duna orbit with a certain class ship, then my pilots should be able to do the same thing without me needing to babysit the entire operation.