Discussion on Some Future Aspects of KSA

[ZSPD.]

1. Fuel Tanks and Food Systems
When we mention KSP, we often think of those little green guys, and we often leave them on some planets during flights. But we feel fine because they are green and can photosynthesize. However, in KSA, the kitten astronauts in the real solar system (which I believe will be preserved in the future) don’t think that way—they need water and food! So, to accommodate their needs, maybe we need a new component—a cargo tank! It has 4 slots, each can hold a stack of items (like a stack of 30 bottled waters or 30 hamburgers, which need to go into the tank's light blue slots—1 cold slot, with a corresponding light red hot slot, plus ordinary neutral slots or insulated slots (yellow)) or a module (like a single carton containing 16 bottled waters). At the same time, we can add a 'Hunger' bar and 'Hydration' bar on the astronaut’s detail panel, which decrease over time. Players need to press the eat button and choose specific foods to feed them. Each food item has weight and restores a certain amount of hunger/hydration. I personally prefer a modular design. If an astronaut's hydration or hunger drops to zero, unfortunately, they will die.

2. Component Introduction
The component descriptions in KSP seem quite funny. I hope KSA, as an educational game, won’t do the same. For example, when introducing a liquid hydrogen-oxygen tank, use a description panel and an info panel. Description panel: 'The 3M-class LH2/LOX tank contains liquid hydrogen (fuel) and liquid oxygen (oxidizer) to power rocket engines. The shell is made of steel and represents the hard work of our cat scientists.' Info panel: provide the maximum capacity of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks (units can be L/LBS/KG/T) as well as the total weight to enhance professionalism and allow users to understand basic rocket principles. The same applies to other components, like engines—describe specific impulse, internal plumbing, etc.

I believe KSA can become a legendary game of its era, just like KSP!

 

[ZSPD.]

I also suggest adding a kitten animation panel so the kitten can do some actions, like waving hello.

 

[ZSPD.]

Besides that, expired food will rot, but you can slow down the rotting by putting it in the cold slot.

 

[OnetimeYapper57]

The current plan is for a custom solar system at 2 to 2.5x the scale of KSP (1/5-1/4 real scale). The real solar system might remain an option, but it won't be the default.

I keep going back and forth on how I feel about life support, but I do think that keeping it simple would be best. All the player should have to worry about is that their kittens have enough of a single, generic "Consumables" resource that represents food, water, air, and everything else that their crew needs. The rest can be handled without player input.
(The reason I have very mixed feelings on life support is because it feels important and including it feels like a logical step, but it's either too complex and punishing to be fun or simple and unobtrusive enough that it could be removed with little consequence, and in that case, why add it?)

KSP already sort of did what you suggested, in that it had quantitative mechanical information and qualitative flavor text in two separate sections. I think the UI could be refined, but the flavor text doesn't need to be formal, just informative.