Can we talk about Life Support?

[Pthigrivi]

It's probably called sandbox.

*shrugs* To each his own then. I happen to like working within a budget and problem solving with a limited kit of parts. Ive got my issues with the game sure, but I don't expect they're going to start over and personally tailor the game to me. Like I said I totally respect you guys I just don't know how constructive that is.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[regex]

*shrugs* To each his own then. I happen to like working within a budget and problem solving with a limited kit of parts.

I like it too. I was really looking forward to career mode but it just doesn't work very well at all. I was hoping for budgets, upkeep costs, individual programs to other planets, real milestones, time constraints (of which life support would be a great early-game limiter), things like that. Instead I got incomprehensible contracts to launch SRBs into orbit for testing and "strategies" that do nothing for me until I don't need them anymore. RP-0 with KCT has done pretty good with the system but it still suffers from the original (lack of) design.

Ive got my issues with the game sure, but I don't expect they're going to start over and personally tailor the game to me. Like I said I totally respect you guys I just don't know how constructive that is.

I don't expect the devs to turn around either; I think they actually think they've made a good thing. However, even while offering constructive criticism and suggestions, I can't separate myself from the fact that career mode feels like a bunch of unrelated features thrown at a wall in the hopes that they will work together. As a side note, the lack of "candied" language does not imply a lack of contructiveness; sometimes you've got to tear down the original to make it better. Whether my vision is better than the dev's doesn't really matter since they'll make the decision about their game, all I can do is express my preference in the Suggestions forum, like everyone else.

Your points about the game still being developed are noted, understood, and taken to heart (long before this conversation, BTW), however the history of development here suggests that polish (which is sorely needed) will appear slowly (if at all, in some cases) while new, half-finished features will continue appearing. This means the game constantly feels like a half-finished product devoid of a coherent vision, even if there is one.

[legoclone09]

For LS I think a Life Support resource and Kerbals need ElectricCharge would aork good, the Mk1 CM has 2 days of LS, Mk1-2 has 3 per Kerbal, the Hitchhiker has 10 per Kerbal, and so on. There would also be containers with the same model as the radial RCS tanks and also an inline one, just fuselage white with a green plant. The radial ones would have the plant as well. A Kerbal would need 4 EC/hour, so the pod's EC should be the life support amount x 4 and then rounded until, say 500 instead of 487.5 or something like that.

[Wjolcz]

I just realized that having LS would be a good mechanic countering the Lab Module. We should be limited by LS resources and not some data/science cap on the Lab. It would produce infinite science only by adding a greenhouse to the base, so the greenhouse should be somewhere at the end of the tree.

What I'm trying to say is that if LS was in the game the Lab wouldn't need all of those silly limitations it has now.

[pandaman]

A thought on LS methods...

Not sure if this has been suggested like this before, but maybe the stock system could use 2 resources, 'Electricity' and 'Supplies'.  Electricity - used to power the filtration and recycling systems.  Supplies - represents consumables like food and water.

If either resource runs out then the crew are naturally in imminent danger.

In the difficulty settings an options could be given to turn LS off or use one or the other, or both of the resources.  With additional settings for the effect of running out of course.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

2 hours ago, pandaman said:

A thought on LS methods...

Not sure if this has been suggested like this before, but maybe the stock system could use 2 resources, 'Electricity' and 'Supplies'.  Electricity - used to power the filtration and recycling systems.  Supplies - represents consumables like food and water.

If either resource runs out then the crew are naturally in imminent danger.

In the difficulty settings an options could be given to turn LS off or use one or the other, or both of the resources.  With additional settings for the effect of running out of course.

Give this a shot:

 

[Violent Jeb]

Just going to throw my hat in the ring.

 

I've tried a few LS mods and they work but inevitably it is just another part to click on your ship.

1 year mission, stick on part A
10 year mission, stick on part B
Extended mission, stick on reusable container C with collector D, and have a GREAT DAY

Ultimately, you end up with 3 or 4 more resources in the resource bar that you can watch. Either it drains too quickly, everyone dies and you redesign - Or it remains stable, and now you can ignore it for the rest of the mission.
It falls into "realism at the expense of fun"
and it's also just more data to run through that CPU Bottleneck, and "x+2" for part counts across the board.

Not only that, but I daresay the stock system is designed with the present value of crafts somewhat in mind. Adding massed parts which serve no genuine purpose but a small UI gauge and another failure parameter actually decreases the potential range of any craft. So LS will add a "not so complicated" matter of balancing LS demand, but add a relatively complicated matter of increased ship mass, making missions needlessly larger and more elaborate.

There are mods that do this fine. Anytime I've used LS It only ever discourages me from using manned crafts and eventually uninstalling because i'd rather have higher performance crafts than extra UI to monitor.

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah I mean in general Im not too worried about adding on 3 new parts to a craft with 40-100 parts if it means adding gameplay, but I agree with you that making it challenging and not tedious or frustrating is the central challenge. I've been playing with USI LS and there are a few wonky things about it but its a great start at tackling some of these trade-offs. It has to be dead simple to understand so players don't feel like they're experiencing random failures, and just complicated enough that its not just "add x part".

If I were to take USI as a starting point and adapt it for stock Id say:

- Make LS units exactly 1 kerbal per day, so players could very easily see and estimate how much they will need.

- Simplify things by converting life support to waste at 1:1 by default with no loss of mass.

- Include a recycler as a separate part that reduces life support consumption at the cost of mass and power

- Use greenhouses to turn waste back into life support at the cost of weight, power, and fertilizer.

- Allow the large convertotron to produce fertilizer directly so long missions can support themselves with some effort.

[Wjolcz]

On 3/25/2016 at 7:29 PM, pandaman said:

A thought on LS methods...

Not sure if this has been suggested like this before, but maybe the stock system could use 2 resources, 'Electricity' and 'Supplies'.  Electricity - used to power the filtration and recycling systems.  Supplies - represents consumables like food and water.

If either resource runs out then the crew are naturally in imminent danger.

In the difficulty settings an options could be given to turn LS off or use one or the other, or both of the resources.  With additional settings for the effect of running out of course.

I don't want to brag, but there are at least two of my posts in this thread suggesting the same exact thing + a greenhouse for the end game/late game.

And I still think it would be the best way to implement this. Simple, yet challenging.

[pandaman]

55 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

I don't want to brag, but there are at least two of my posts in this thread suggesting the same exact thing + a greenhouse for the end game/late game.

And I still think it would be the best way to implement this. Simple, yet challenging.

Well, they do say that great minds think alike .

And yes I agree it's a simple enough concept for stock, whilst still being something you need to think about and plan for.

[John FX]

On 23/10/2015 at 6:00 PM, regex said:

I don't expect the devs to turn around either; I think they actually think they've made a good thing.

This is my thought too. I`ve often thought I did a good job on some effects but when I showed them to others in my team they pointed out areas that needed more work. I`ve also coded and the first code I write works, sure, but it is never the best solution.

No job is done right the first time, unless you want your final product to seem unfinished.

Back on topic though, I have always thought that I did not want life support until I started playing Realism Overhaul. Now it just seems right that I can`t use the early Gemini pod to go to the moon because there isn`t enough oxygen on it and it would burn up on re-entry anyway.

It really makes Kerbal Construction Time have more of an effect on gameplay and the game is a lot better for it.

[LorenLuke]

It's worth noticing that among all the sides each saying 'too difficult', 'not fun', 'too much mass/useless parts otherwise', and 'yeah, life support!' all generally agree on something. Electric charge is essential to life support. Moreover, it doesn't require the addition of any parts, build or mod-wise. Power is required for the reaction wheels and can secondarily go to the life support system. Personally I'd favor life support, and just have a food/waste system with provisions already available in any crew capable part. Resupply missions would just be hauling a Hitchhiker or other pod chock full of supplies and transferring resources. Pods and lander cans can carry equivalent of 18-24 hours supply per crew slot, whilst larger ones, the lab and Hitchhiker can carry more.

[Pthigrivi]

I know what you're saying about simplicity but if supplies are going to be a resource you really need tanks dedicated to them. Sending resupply missions with stacks of empty Hitchhikers doesn't sound like a better solution than having 3 or 5 life support tank options. It also matters for design freedom if you're going to Minmus or an asteroid and need more supplies than the pod holds but don't want to haul a whole greenhouse for 1 or 2 Kerbals. The other thing about the greenhouse-only strategy is that it is falls exactly into the "put a part on it" pitfall. You don't have to think about weight or logistical trade-offs or optimizing your ship design or mission profile to make it work, you just put a greenhouse on it. There's also the matter of creating a huge tech-tree bottleneck with no middle step. You've either gotten the greenhouse and can build space stations and can go interplanetary or you can't. Thats part of why having recyclers as separate part matters--using electricity to extend missions is that mid-tech-tree step before you get greenhouses. Adding them as separate part also adds clarity. Instead of sifting through different pod requirements and efficiencies you can just say "Oh I put this part on and it doubles my mission time."

Edited March 27, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

I know what you're saying about simplicity but if supplies are going to be a resource you really need tanks dedicated to them. Sending resupply missions with stacks of empty Hitchhikers doesn't sound like a better solution than having 3 or 5 life support tank options. It also matters for design freedom if you're going to Minmus or an asteroid and need more supplies than the pod holds but don't want to haul a whole greenhouse for 1 or 2 Kerbals.

No, you don't. If a hitchhiker is full of supplies it shouldn't be able to hold crew. Think about how supplies are delivered to the ISS. The spacecraft docks to the station, the crew goes in, grabs the supplies and goes out. A good example: Dragon. It was meant to hold crew, but instead it holds cargo inside of the capsule. IMO additional "supplies" tanks are not needed. You should be able to repurpose what you have. I'm not against special parts with supplies in them. I just don't think they are necessary. We got plenty of different cockpits that don't really serve purpose apart from holding the crew and having IVA view.

 

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

The other thing about the greenhouse-only strategy is that it is falls exactly into the "put a part on it" pitfall. You don't have to think about weight or logistical trade-offs or optimizing your ship design or mission profile to make it work, you just put a greenhouse on it.

It really depends how balanced a greenhouse would be. If it's big, heavy and can produce food for only a small number of crew then you have to choose: go with a bunch of hitchhikers (with food in them) or one big and heavy greenhouse.

 

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Thats part of why having recyclers as separate part matters--using electricity to extend missions is that mid-tech-tree step before you get greenhouses. Adding them as separate part also adds clarity. Instead of sifting through different pod requirements and efficiencies you can just say "Oh I put this part on and it doubles my mission time."

I really need a real life example of so called "recyclers". How do they work? You throw the waste in and get some food from it? Isn't it a kind of greenhouse where you take the waste and use it as fertilizer to grow food?

Edited March 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Pthigrivi]

50 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

No, you don't. If a hitchhiker is full of supplies it shouldn't be able to hold crew. Think about how supplies are delivered to the ISS. The spacecraft docks to the station, the crew goes in, grabs the supplies and goes out. A good example: Dragon. It was meant to hold crew, but instead it holds cargo inside of the capsule. IMO additional "supplies" tanks are not needed. You should be able to repurpose what you have. I'm not against special parts with supplies in them. I just don't think they are necessary. We got plenty of different cockpits that don't really serve purpose apart from holding the crew and having IVA view.

Right but Hitchhikers are pretty bulky. Are we going to mandate all medium-long distance missions use a full 2.5m form factor? What if you're building a mining rig and would rather attach the supplies radially? At some point adding a few simple parts to give players some design options seems like common sense. 

50 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

It really depends how balanced a greenhouse would be. If it's big, heavy and can produce food for only a small number of crew then you have to choose: go with a bunch of hitchhikers (with food in them) or one big and heavy greenhouse.

Yeah, I've gone back and forth on greenhouses needing a secondary resource like fertilizer. Originally I thought the best way was just to balance it with weight and power requirements like you mentioned, Im still sympathetic to this view, but after playing USI LS I see why fertilizer helps. It just means if you want to make something truly self-sustaining you have to put in a little effort. It takes greenhouses out of that "add part x" territory and makes it part of a real ISRU strategy. If you have a station in orbit you just have to send up some fertilizer once a year or so, and if you have a base you can use drills and a converter to make things truly self-sustaining. You can also farm supplies to keep local tugs and research vessels going. Up to the point that you're going interplanetary things should be pretty simple, but if life support isn't adding this kind of late-game design challenge Im not sure its really living up to its potential.

 

50 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

I really need a real life example of so called "recyclers". How do they work? You throw the waste in and get some food from it? Isn't it a kind of greenhouse where you take the waste and use it as fertilizer to grow food?

Sure, they're basically an abstraction of this coupled with a CO2 scrubber.  It extends the life of the supplies you have on board, but it doesn't recycle everything so it can't make a vessel %100 self sustaining. I've imagined it being something like half the size of a materials bay and drawing like 2e/s or something. So its basically:

Tanks: add life support time

Recyclers: increase life support efficiency

Greenhouses: regenerate life support with some planning and effort

 

Edited March 27, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Wjolcz]

21 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Right but Hitchhikers are pretty bulky. Are we going to mandate all medium-long distance missions use a full 2.5m form factor? What if you're building a mining rig and would rather attach the supplies radially? At some point adding a few simple parts to give players some design options seems like common sense.

Ah, alright. Completely forgot about those. I guess radial supply containers would actually make sense. Though I would probably keep the supplies in hitchhikers anyway. Don't think a Stratus-V could hold much supplies (unless it's big), but definitely would be helpful to have more tanks that could store it. Maybe a Crew/Food/Mono/Ox/LF tweakable could help with that.

 

21 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah, I've gone back and forth on greenhouses needing a secondary resource like fertilizer. Originally I thought the best way was just to balance it with weight and power requirements like you mentioned, Im still sympathetic to this view, but after playing USI LS I see why fertilizer helps. It just means if you want to make something truly self-sustaining you have to put in a little effort. It takes greenhouses out of that "add part x" territory and makes it part of a real ISRU strategy. If you have a station in orbit you just have to send up some fertilizer once a year or so, and if you have a base you can use drills and a converter to make things truly self-sustaining. You can also farm supplies to keep local tugs and research vessels going. Up to the point that you're going interplanetary things should be pretty simple, but if life support isn't adding this kind of late-game design challenge Im not sure its really living up to its potential.

Yeah, that actually makes sense. Closing the loop with ISRU is a better idea than just infini-food for four.

 

21 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Sure, they're basically an abstraction of this coupled with a CO2 scrubber. It extends the life of the supplies you have on board, but it doesn't recycle everything so it can't make a vessel %100 self sustaining.

Yeah, okay. I see what you mean now, but I was thinking about this as a part of the built-in life support for capsules. The kerbals come on board with their "fluids" in them and all you need is electricity to keep that water rotation. Also heat, but that would also be provided by the electricity. So I don't think it really needs that level of management just to provide drinkable water. The electricity demand should simply rise with the crew on board. After all, you don't really add much to the system and the recycler runs on EC.

Edited March 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah, its kind of a question of what constitutes 'simple'. When I was first thinking about this last year I was thinking along the lines of TAC with multiple resources and using converters to make water and O2 and yada yada yada and things got crazy complicated fast. The only way I think it works gameplay wise is if things are kept really simple and abstract. With USI there are no resources on board, Kerbals just have a 15 day 'hungry' state before they 'go on strike' and won't eva or do anything until you resupply them. It works, and gives a softer consequence than permadeath, but Im not 100% sure its more intuitive than adding a small amount of life support to each module by default. Hard to say. To my mind its nice if new players have a sensible way of being introduced to life support requirements without getting overwhelmed or frustrated. Its nice if they have some leeway to get into orbit for a while or go to the Mun without having to worry too much about it. Once they are going to Minmus or looking for asteroids they should have a sense of "Okay I need to pack more food", and once they're putting up permanent stations and heading for Duna its time to get real and think about recyclers and greenhouses. There's more to it than all that, and all of this should really follow some better mission planning tools and mission time estimators, but I really do think it could add a lot to the game someday.

[Nich]

You do realize in tac recyclers don't pay for them selves until you have 9 kerbals for more then 8 years. Life support is pretty boring just make a rocket and add 6 years of supply's they are obligatory parts that are slowing my frame rate. I would prefer the mass added to my capsules. So a capsule with 10 years supply's weights 15 times a base capsule and defines the length of the mission.

[TeeGee]

I think the biology of Kerbals needs to be explored in a unique way with life support implementation. 

Be a little creative and create a system that is not as harsh as real life human life support but isn't totally arcade-y as to insult the players intelligence.

Lets look at Kerbal biology:

Mouths : To talk and I assume eat food

Spacesuits: Meaning they require atmosphere to breathe.

Crew pods have compartments labelled food, waste, water etc. 

So it is established (in-game) that Kerbals need to breathe and live in pressurized atmosphere, eat, drink, and excrete waste. Life support needs to reflect that. 

Consumption does NOT need to mimic humans at all, kerbal can be given metabolisms that even hibernate if need be, making them the perfect travelers. My point is that to preserve the fun factor, we don't need to be carrying around 50 tons of food and water on our 2 year journeys, there are ways of implementing life support in this game without being frustrating. 

In my opinion, I think life support can add tons of little immersion features into the game such as waste dumps that we can see every few minutes coming out of crew pods that crystallize and become dust in the vacuum of space. Maybe even show kerbals eating in the crew pods once and a while or even drinking liquids floating in the crew pods. Going to the toilet. Exercising. Sleeping. Even playing on gameboards with each other to pass the time. 

One of the biggest things I'd like to see is kerbals being spaced and seeing them swell in vacuum as they die. This would happen if crew pods are damaged etc and kerbals are located inside them.

Having kerbals sitting in their chairs while a resource bar depletes is very boring and I feel a missed opportunity to have some fun expanding the game a bit. 

Another thing Id like to see is a choking animation if kerbals are EVA and their suits run out of breathable air. Squad can add resource umbilicals for kerbals when they go outside to do work. 

We also need tons more audio feedback in this game, and if life support is included, it needs to have the same treatment as the rest of the game in the audio department.

 

[pandaman]

Some very good and interesting points there @TeeGee.  Its apparent that kerbals have broadly similar biological functions to humans, but there no reason it has to be 'the same'.

[Pthigrivi]

20 hours ago, Nich said:

You do realize in tac recyclers don't pay for them selves until you have 9 kerbals for more then 8 years. Life support is pretty boring just make a rocket and add 6 years of supply's they are obligatory parts that are slowing my frame rate. I would prefer the mass added to my capsules. So a capsule with 10 years supply's weights 15 times a base capsule and defines the length of the mission.

Yeah I think this kind of game balance is really critical to getting LS right. In the OP Ive listed some break-even points for different parts that I think make more sense progression wise. I tend to agree that capsules should have some capacity for LS storage, but Im not sure it makes sense to be able to put 15 tons of LS storage in an MK1 lander can. I know people are worried about part count, and we should absolutely stay vigilant but this only like 6 or 8 parts total, and you'll probably only need 2 or 3 on any given vessel. Given that vessels aren't bogging down until they get above a few hundred parts and Unity 5 is likely to double that 2 or 3 parts doesn't really seem like a huge worry to me. Im much more concerned that Life support would be fun and challenging and not just another thing to worry about.

[Rath]

I want food and oxygen.  Maybe water too, so if you had a massive laythe base, it might be more worthwhile to drive a river to the ocean, than to try and drill for it.  I think that all LS needs to be an option.  

Thjs system would require 5 LS tanks (each size and radial).  A scrubber would slow oxygen consumption.  Greenhouses would need power, and make food and air.  There could be 1.25 and 2.5m versions, where only the super heavy 2.5m one, in large quantities, could result in a closed cycle.

[hellblazer]

TAC life support    

Water and food add a lot of mass (as it should) which restricts the length of the mission. You have to decide on how long and how many kerbals to take.

I personally like building a space station and sending up supplies. Then unloading the waste, waste water and Co2 into the supply ship. De-orbiting the supply ship and letting it burn up.

• It has water, food, oxygen, Co2, waste, waste water, and electricity.
• Resources are needed all the time, even when flying another vessel, or sitting at the Space Center or Tracking Station.
• Kerbals can die if they go without resources for too long. The defaults are: 360 hours without Food (60 Kerbin days/15 Earth days), 36 hours without Water, 2 hours without Oxygen, and 2 hours without Electricity.
• Kerbals produce waste resources: Carbon Dioxide, Waste, and Waste Water. Currently Carbon Dioxide can be recycled into Oxygen, and Waste Water can be recycled into clean Water. Also can filter Oxygen out of IntakeAir, or split Water into Oxygen and Waste (hydrogen). 
• Filling up with waste resources (Carbon Dioxide, Waste, Waste Water) has no effect. Any excess is dumped overboard, and you lose the opportunity to convert them back into good resources.

And you can use only a few tanks (low part count) for the food, oxygen, water in one and waste, waste water and Co2 in the other. Procedural parts allows you design the size. 

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by hellblazer

[Mr. Scruffy]

Hellblazer: That is all fine and dandy for a mod, but looks way to heavy for stock, imho. At least for now. I think if LS is going to be added to the stock game, its first iteration at least should be as simple as it gets, while still adding something meaningful to the game. It all boils down to the old "complexity vs. depth"-principle: Getting the maximum of the later for a minimum of the former.

[tater]

All LS boils down to mass, and what % is expended vs what % is recycled. Sure, water, O2, food, etc are all recycled at different rates, and CO2 is scrubbed with different mass inputs over time, but it can be distilled down to a daily consumable mass vs the base mass of a LS system. Having to track many components is sort of a waste of time, IMO, as long as the mass numbers come out about right.

Complexity is added in that LS instantly makes time meaningful in KSP. You need to think about manned missions as running with a timer going. The biggest issue with LS (which I usually use) is the total inability to plan long missions in stock KSP. As is usually the case, everything is connected...

The so-called "Mission Control" building is really a contract office. The Tracking Station is really what real life Mission Control is (monitoring flights in progress). The current "Mission Control" should be renamed to "Mission Planning." It should then include at least some way to estimate mission requirements/duration. I'd like a map mode where you can place a virtual craft in orbit someplace, and some TIME (say current day plus 100 days), then make maneuver nodes for it, and add up the dv. Set a dot in LKO, drag a node to Duna encounter, and not the flight time and dv. Add a braking burn, it gives that dv, plus total. All the elapsed time stuff lets you know how much LS you will likely need. Otherwise you have to spam any mission with way more than you need.

Edited April 2, 2016 by tater