Age effects

[GarwelGarwel]

As kerbals grow old, their health should be affected negatively. It will encourage periodical recruitment of new astronauts and will somewhat balance the benefits of experienced crew members. In a way, it is already achieved with accumulated radiation dose, but ageing should take place whether the kerbal is on a mission or not.

Options:

• MaxHP is reduced steadily based on the kerbal's age. Pros: easy to implement, transparent, predictable. Cons: boring.

• MaxHP reduction rate will be randomized and can change over time. E.g., a kerbal can have a good health for the first 10 years of service, but then their health will start quickly deteriorating. It can be a result of random events. Pros: more challenging, gives one more dimension to gameplay (you'll have to select the kerbals taking their ageing rate into consideration). Cons: may look unjust, too much micromanagement.

• As the kerbal ages, a chance is growing of negative health events (conditions) affecting him/her. E.g., they can develop diabetes or cancer, which will signifacntly reduce their maxHP or other characteristics. Pros: the deepest and most realistic option. Cons: may look unjust, requires too much design for questionable use, harder to balance.

[GarwelGarwel]

More ideas:

• Kerbals may be of different age at the time of recruitment. I'm not sure how (or whether) I can show their age in the recruitment screen.

• Tourists may be of different age, and may have different health conditions.

• Deep Freeze should pause ageing.

• Radiation effects may be reduced for old kerbals.

• Top-level technologies and astrounaut's center may allow for slowing down ageing.

• Kerbals will retire or die of natural causes at a certain age or certain max HP.

[wile1411]

Thought of some other options that could work in conjunction with the HP effects mentioned above.

• Somehow limit the number of missions they can be launched on within a year as a specialist.

Young would be unlimited, very old might be 1 mission a year. Might be difficult to code restricting a player from selecting an old Kerbal for a mission. If they are in the roster, they will be listed as a tourist and can still be launched.

Another option is the length of time a kerbal would be listed their specialist role. eg, for an old Kerbal, they might only be a pilot for a week before going back to a tourist.

Could be useful when mixed with the deepfreeze mod with roleplay...

• Launch the lvl-5 'Grandpa/Grandma Kerman' frozen with the rest of his young crew as a 'last hurrah' mission.
• When required, thaw out that experienced soul for special short tasks.
• Worry about how long it will be before you need to get them back before they complain they're 'too old for this stuff' and go back to being a tourist.

[GarwelGarwel]

Another idea (based in part on the comment above) is to increase kerbals' exhaustion thresholds to simulate their lack of stamina in older age. That is, they'll still be alive but will get tired (and become "tourists") sooner.