Habitation - notthebobo/USI-LS GitHub Wiki

Updated for v0.9.0.0

This page has three sections:

What is Habitation?

Kerbals need a certain amount of living space to stay happy, which is called Habitation. Even if a Kerbal has all the requirements to live off Kerbin, it's still not Home. In order to prevent them from getting homesick, you can station them (even briefly) in a well-built vessel designed for Habitation, and/or move them to a different vessel. A Kerbal will count down its time in a single vessel against that vessel's Habitation rating, but this is reset each time it transfers to a different vessel - even if just stretching their legs in the rover and returning! A Kerbal will also count down how long until they get homesick. If they are away longer than the BEST Habitation rating they've ever seen, they will become homesick. This value never resets until they return to Kerbin.

By default a Kerbal is willing to live about a month away from Kerbin before he gets homesick and wants to return. However if he's placed in a well built vessel, he can be tempted to forget about Kerbin for longer periods. If you then move your crew to a smaller, less well built vessel, they'll get upset much more quickly and they'll long to return to the well built vessel.

The Habitation value is tracked as two values:

  • A max number of days for the current vessel before a crew member gets upset. There is a counter that tracks against this number that is reset every time a crew member enters a new vessel.

  • A total maximum number of days a crew member is willing to be away from Kerbin. The max value for this counter will be set to the largest "current vessel" Habitation value that a crew member sees. The max value will only change if the crew member visits a better vessel than the best they've visited so far. The counter for this value never resets until the crew member returns to Kerbin, no matter how many vessels they transfer to.

Habitation Values

Habitation is calculated in Kerbal-Months. A part with 1 Kerbal-Month will rather obviously support a single kerbal for one month, or 30 days. Please note this is for Kerbin days. You can also think of one Kerbal-Month as 180 hours.

Every part that can hold crew will provide one Kerbal-Month per seat, so a Mk1 Command Pod provides 1 Kerbal-Month, while a Mk1-3 Command Pod provides 3 Kerbal-Months.

In addition, some parts provide bonus Kerbal-Months. For example, the stock PPD-10 Hitchhiker Storage Container provides a bonus 21 Kerbal-Months (in addition to the 4 kerbal-months provided by its 4 seats) and is excellent for building bases. If you use MKS, other parts provide bonus Habitation.

Finally, special modules can provide Habitation multipliers. The only stock module which provides a Habitation multiplier is the PPD-12 Cupola. Kerbals get less cranky if they have huge windows to view the awesomeness of space. Every vessel has a base Habitation multiplier of 1. Any additional multipliers provided by parts are added to that to get the vessel's final Habitation multiplier.

The Kerbal-Months provided by your habitat space is calculated by adding the number of seats and any bonus Kerbal-Months, then multiplying that sum by the vessel's total Habitation multiplier value. For example, the PPD-12 Cupola has a Habitation multiplier of 1.76. If a vessel has two Cupolas, its final Habitation multiplier is 1 + (1.76 * 2) = 1 + 3.52 = 4.52.

Description Value
Base Vessel multiplier 1.00
+ Cupula 1 multipler 1.76
+ Cupula 2 multipler 1.76
Equals 4.52

Note the power of Habitation multipliers. If a vessel had four PPD-10 Hitchhikers, it would have 4*25 = 100 Kerbal-Months of Habitation. Adding two Cupolas adds 2 Kerbal-Months', but also multiplies *all* the Kerbal-Months' by increases the ship's total Habitation to (100 + 2) * 4.52 = 452 Kerbal-Months.

Please note that all Modules that provide extra Habitation time or a Habitation multipliers will need to be activated through the right click menu once you have launched the craft.

Habitation Example

A crew member launches from KSC in a small rocket with a single pod. They initially have a Current Vessel max value of 30 days and a Home max value of 30 days. Each day they spend on that small rocket will be counted against both counters.

He docks after 2 days on to a station with 1 PPD-10 Hitchhiker and 1 PPD-12 Cupola. The base has a total of 68.9 Kerbal-Months (kmo) of Habitation:

25 kmo (4 seats + 21 bonus) for the PPD-10 + 1 kmo (1 seat) for the PPD-12 = 26 kmo for the seats

The PPD-12 has a multiplier of 1.65 so total multiplier = 1 (base vessel) + 1.65 (PPD-12) = 2.65 multiplier

Total kmo is 26 kmo * 2.65 = 68.9 kmo

Our single Kerbal can spend 2,067 days on this station; the the max value for both Current Vessel and Home counters will be increased to 2.067. The Current Vessel count for the current vessel will be reset to zero and start counting anew, however the count for Home will remain at 2 days and continue to increment.

If the crew member then transfers to a small Mun Lander (with a Habitation value of 45) after being aboard the station for 10 days, then the Current Vessel Max will drop to 45 days, the count for the current vessel will drop to 0, but the Total Time counter will be at 12 days and continue to increase with the max remaining that of the largest vessel they've visited (the 2,067 from the station).

Habitation Parts

There are two (2) USI-LS parts that add Habitation and there is one (1) part with a multiplier.

Part Multiplier ElectricCharge per Second ElectricCharge per Hour ElectricCharge per Kerbin-day
Viewing Cupola 0.5 0.0125 45 270