ec429
commented
4 years ago I like these ideas. Regarding (2), we already have some contracts that require experiments — look at FSO — so it shouldn't be too hard to add a "gather 360 days of station-medical-science" contract to gate manned-IP behind. Currently the main driver for stations is the crew endurance records, which push towards keeping a single expedition there as long as possible and then ignoring the station after that; station experiments with long durations (of which medical is one) would tilt towards regular crew rotations over the long term, which is good. Another contract idea: continuous habitation records. Assuming that the current endurance records are meant to be individual crew, it would be good to have separate records for keeping a station crewed continuously across rotations. But we'd probably need to fix a bunch of CC bugs to make either kind of duration record work properly; currently they appear to calculate from the date the first crew reached the station even if they went home immediately afterwards :(
I think Lunar station only needs to be gated behind 2nd generation; post-Skylab, an Apollo-served lunar station could realistically have been part of AAP if that hadn't had its budget noped.
Teykn
Elouda
7ranceaddic7
Bornholio
TNT599
norcalplanner
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(Note, this is an "Issue" thread that composes of ideas that I have. Feel free to criticize and/or add any ideas in this thread.)
Introduction: In a typical successful RP-0 career, people reach and complete the Moon Boots Contract (First Manned Lunar Landing). After this, though, most players experience some stagnation, as they typically set their eyes on sending kerbals to Mars. The intermediate that's between Moon Boots and Mars Boots are Space Stations. There are quite few Station Contracts however (3, alongside 5 resupply/addition contracts), which is only one of the problems. Stations serve very little purpose as well, only serving as a mid-to-long duration space habitat used to generate small amount of funds via contracts, where more funds can be earned more interestingly via lunar landing missions. They're not useful for science either, because of a lack of station experiments (in ROKerbalism), a large presence of science in other areas (other planets and moons), and the "science snowball" doesn't necessitate stations at all. Lastly, people don't seem to find Space Stations as interesting as other major missions/contracts that are done. Examples include: lunar probes, interplanetary probes, and manned lunar missions. It could be argued that Stations are only slightly more interesting then Commercial Satellite Contracts.
Some Proposals/Ideas: Here are some of the ideas that I have for improving Space Stations, and possibly improving other areas as well.
Add a LOT more experiments to be done on Space Stations. ROKerbalism only has experiments up to the Mature Capsules node, and there's a limited amount that can be done too (4 in Mercury, 12 in gemini, and 5 in Apollo, iirc.). Skylab, for example, has 75 experiments, not including the student experiments. This would solve 2 of 3 problems related to science I listed above, and it does not help solve the "science snowball" problem. Rather, it'd actually contribute to it. Currently I am working on finding information about the experiments done on Skylab, and after that I'll look into other space stations if possible (Salyut, Mir, and ISS).
Introduce Experiment-locking for Tech Tree Nodes and Contracts. Currently, the science snowball is a problem that has sparked some discussion. Some have questioned why science from measuring orbital perturbations (or any other unrelated experiment) can be used in engine nodes (or any other unrelated tech line), for example. Overall, the sci snowball pushes people towards rushing and being risky, rather than realistic approaches done IRL. What I'm proposing is for nodes and contracts to be able to be locked behind science experiments (if possible). For example, locking the basicCapsules node behind the Geiger-Muller radiation experiment. Another example would be locking manned interplanetary contracts behind crewed medical experiments on a Space Station. This would slow down the snowball, and provide a necessity to do specific experiments. This provides a realistic approach as well, since people IRL would like to understand the effects of long-duration manned missions before sending people to Mars. I have been told that this is possible via CC, but I have 0 experience with CC, so I will likely tinker around with that soon.
Add more Space Station Contracts. Currently, the 3 "main" Space Station contracts are all related to areas that humans have or wish to go to (Earth, the Moon, and Mars). The problem with only having one contract for each celestial body is that it does not incentivize players to improve their stations, and there is no incentive to make more stations. Additional Space Station contracts that should be added should be based off of real life Space Stations, the modules they had, the crew duration, and other miscellaneous details. Contracts based off of Proposed Space Stations can also work. The current First Space Station Contract works fine, being a contract that's based off of MOL (from what I can tell). What could come after is a more advanced "Second Generation Space Station" Contract based off of Skylab and Salyut, which have a science-experiment completion requirement, a crew requirement of 3 people, and a longer duration stay of either 60 or 90 days. Since there were multiple Salyut Stations, 2nd Gen SS contract should be able to be repeated. The last Earth-based Station that should come after 2nd Gen SS should be a Modular Space Station based off of Mir and the ISS. This would involve a contract series, with some contracts to bring specific modules/parts (Solar Panels, Radiators, structural parts, habitats, etc.). Other contracts would involve science, including a contract/experiment based off of Scott Kelly's Year-long stay in space.
I'm not that good with coming up with contract ideas, but this is what I could think of. I understand that the contracts still seem mundane. The Lunar and Martian Space stations though, I believe they should be locked behind the 3rd generation SS contract series, since we have yet to put a station around the moon.
Anyways, I hope you guys are open to the ideas that I proposed here. I'm interested in seeing an improvement to Space Stations, and I'd like to contribute if possible.