Stock Scanning Modification

[Wheffle]

I'm not a huge fan of the insta-scan ore survey, but seeing as how more detailed information requires more precise scans, I can live with it. However, I kind of get annoyed at the polar orbit requirement.

Is there any way to get rid of the orbit requirement at least? Maybe even a way to overhaul how the surveyor works, like have it only map the side of the planet it can see?

[KerbMav]

This will not get around the orbital requirement for a complete scan, but it will scan whatever your ship is flying over.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96859-1-0-2-SCANsat-v11-0rc6-Dev-version-May-1

[Wheffle]

SCANsat updated! I've been keeping an eye on this to see what they do with the new version. It says there's an option to disable the insta-scan, so I might give it a try.

EDIT:

So I might use SCANsat, but ideally I'd want to start with the simpler stock system.

My main issue was that the polar orbit requirement for the surveyor forces you to, well, make a polar orbit. If I wanted to scan a whole planet in detail, yes I would get into a polar orbit, but sometimes I am only interested in scanning equatorial regions. With stock, this puts me in an awkward situation of having to get a scanner into a polar orbit first to get the general scan, and then putting it back into an equatorial orbit for a narrow-band scan (or juggling two satellites or something weird like that). I dunno, maybe the survey isn't imperative? I haven't tried the narrow band without first doing a survey yet, so I'm not sure if it's a requirement.

I nice quick fix (retaining the easy-mode surveyor) would just be to eliminate the polar orbit requirement for the big-dish quick scan.

Anyway, if anyone knows of a simple fix like that, I'd love to hear about it. I usually lean towards using smaller mods that only tweak the stock systems and keep things simple. Otherwise I might eventually try to dive into SCANsat.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Wheffle
extra info

[Wheffle]

Alright, so I've had time to try out resource scanning with both stock and the latest version of SCANsat (v12 I think).

I'm pretty torn. I really enjoy the simplicity of the stock system and the way it encourages you to make scouting flights/rover missions to further investigate mining sites using the narrow band scanner and ground truthing. But, I really just can't get over the insta-scan of the surveyor. There are several reasons for this that I won't get into here.

SCANsat is really awesome, but at this point it doesn't seem to integrate well with the stock system. The stock parts retain their separate functionality, while SCANsat seems to kind of contrive reasons you'd want to use them (this may change in future versions). The primary thing I was looking for was a replacement for the stock initial survey, but without doing the survey the way the stock game wants you to, the narrow band scanner doesn't function at all. Another option would be to delete the stock parts and just scan resources using SCANsat, but... man, I just really enjoy using the narrow band scanner and running surface resource scouting missions.

I don't know. I'm weird.

Anyway, for me the absolute best thing would be some sort of stock tweak that would make the orbital survey more reasonable. Are there any such mods on the horizon? In the meantime, I'll probably keep an eye on SCANsat to see what else they come up with. It may be that the current version is more of a quick fix to get it running for 1.0.

EDIT AGAIN

So, I actually picked up modding and made my own solution, just in case anyone else looking for something like this is interested.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Wheffle