Perhaps, Kerbal SHIP Experience?

[moeggz]

One of the new features that I'm really excited about is Kerbal Experience. Having the ability to know where a specific Kerbal has been is a cool way to boost immersion and attachment to our Kerbals. My idea to expand this into Kerbal Ship Experience includes two ideas:

• New Hangar Building
  
  • While the ability to recover a spacecraft for full price is great for spaceplanes, it seems rather immersion-breaking to, after recovering a vehicle on the runway, sell it for 100% funds and then build a replica. Instead of the ship being liquidated into funds after a successful mission I propose the inclusion of a Hangar Building. After landing at and only at KSC, the player will be presented with three options when he mouses over the altimeter: 1.) Exit to Space Center, 2.) Recover the vehicle for funds. Those two already exist, the third new option I propose would be 3.) Park. The game then goes to the normal overview of KSC. But the ship you just parked is placed in the hangar. If you wish to Launch a new ship you do so from the VAB or launchpad as before, but if you wish to launch an old ship you click on the Hangar and a list of ships appears. You pick the one you want and it is loaded on the launchpad or runway fully fueled. This eliminates the absurd selling of all a reusable spacecraft's parts to just rebuild it.
    

  [*]Kerbal SHIP Experience

  • If you right click on a ship in the hangar, it tells you the same things about the ship that are recorded for Kerbals. This is just because I think it would be fun, to not only know your Kerbal's history but also your ship's.
    

So that's my idea. Just a suggestion, SQUAD I love your guys's work as is, I just personally think this would be cool. Anyway's I'd like to hear the communities thoughts on this. If you have a suggestion for the suggestion please let me know!

[Javster]

For one, you can just go to space centre, can't you?

[moeggz]

For one, you can just go to space centre, can't you?

Yes. But then if you want to use the launchpad or runway that you landed on you must either use the ship you landed (unfueled) or recover the ship and liquidate it. You can't just park a ship and use it latter as is or refueled, which is what I'm suggesting.

[Tangle]

I agree with this idea- Plus, if a ship was used by the same pilot a lot, maybe the pilot could develop a feel for the individual kinks of that craft?

[Norpo]

Hm, this is interesting. I like it, especially considering the fact that it promotes re-usage of ships.

It could also be applied to other things, perhaps? Reputation maybe? A ship that toured the solar system would probably be a heckuvalot more impressive than a ship that just got into orbit. Any implementation could be open to abuse, though.. For example, what constitutes a "ship"? Does debris count? Would a giant ship grant more rep than a tiny probe?

Anyways, I like this idea. Though, it'd be nice if it also applied to ships that stuck around in space and went to new places through refueling, instead of only landing back at the KSC. It could get complicated though, especially when you consider the fact that crafts can be docked.

Also, I agree with Tangle above: it'd be nice if individual pilots could get used to crafts.

[moeggz]

I like this idea. Though, it'd be nice if it also applied to ships that stuck around in space and went to new places through refueling, instead of only landing back at the KSC. It could get complicated though, especially when you consider the fact that crafts can be docked.

The Experience would apply to ships in space also. I was just saying that to refuel and relaunch on Kerbin, you have to get to KSC. If you landed on the other side of Kerbin for instance, you have to either recover the vehicle as is done now or find a way to get it to KSC if you want to reuse it and keep it's exp. Pairing pilots with specific ships is an awesome idea! As far as the complications go the exp. would be tied to the controlling part of a craft, and wherever it's been is on its history. So a probe core would get credit for where it goes, but the jettisoned first stage does not as it is not controllable.

[mrmcp1]

This is a good idea, I think that like the buildings will be in the new update upgradeible. It should have a limit on the amount crafts that can be stored e.g. the lowest tiered hanger could store 1 craft and the next could hold 2 as so on. It should also give you options to re-outfit the craft e.g. if you park a cargo SSTO in the hanger you could before launch you could place a satellite in the cargo bay so that it would still be useful.