[Bug?+Suggestion] Immortal Astronauts

[Xiaomaoxin]

At the attached regular save point I started Project Gemini EVA and Docking Extended Duration II which failed on reentry. However the astronauts survived which I think is a little unlikely. When I tried it again it failed on docking, and again the astronauts survived, which in that case is not as obviously unlikely since they may make it back of course.

Which brings me to a suggestion. Missions including orbital activities should probably include minor failures not resulting in casualties.
E.g. the astronauts in the failed reentry should of course have a 100% chance of dying and an accordingly extra high prestige penalty, but with the failed docking it would be nice to have varying degrees of failing and definitely a continuing mission profile:
- horrible docking or EVA or similar failure resulting in mission ending and astronauts dead and really big prestige hit
or
- not being able to achieve the docking as mission goal but the mission sequence continues, keeping up the tension with deorbit burn, reentry etc making it possible that the astronauts survive (or die during another failure in those phases). Maybe with a small added chance of the additional steps failing due to higher stress levels. All of this resulting in a lesser prestige penalty since at least the astronauts made it back to earth.

I know that astronauts can die (X-15 Mission went wrong) but it should really be connected to the various mission stages as described above. I don't know if what I experienced was a bug or if it is based on the way astronaut survival is calculated but there should be no chance of surviving a failed reentry. However failed launch for example could go either way (maybe even depending on research and investment in rescue modules etc?).

To realize this each stage of a mission would just need properties for "failure", "degree of failure", connected "chance of all or some astronauts dying" and "mission continues yes or no" plus an accordingly varying penalty to prestige.

As a side note: I have not yet been able to figure out if long time researchers or astronauts with a lot of missions gain experience. Do they? If they don't maybe they should (like components getting higher reliability from successful missions). If they do there should be a message about them gaining experience at some point during the mission or season result I think. Along with the suggestions above it should really help with immersion if you have a long time favorite astronaut that you have seen getting better over the years failing a docking or experiencing other problems during the mission but making it back to earth safely.

Maybe all of this is a little complicated to implement but especially with plans for shuttle missions in the next parts with a bigger human component and multiple experiments that can fail without endangering the mission things like this should probably be included in some form.

Edit: After some more mission failures in critical mission stages like deorbit burn and reentry with surviving astronauts: The absolute minimum should be a no survival property for failures in certain mission stages. Everything else I wrote would be nice to have and is probably optional, but astronauts surviving failures at those mission steps really hurts immersion and should be prevented.

[N_Molson]

From what can be seen in the mission scripts :

- Astronaut death on given mission steps is a WIP, not a bug. It works but the very numerous scripts have to be "refined" (and beta-testers are working on this). Basically a special flag (an instruction) must be added to each mission step where that behaviour is wished.
- There is no experience system so far.
- Prestige points can be distributed along the steps of the mission, again there is script editing in progress.
- From what I read on the forum, minor failures are probably going to come later.

[Xiaomaoxin]

Sounds good