Surface scanning module energy consumption

[ScottyDoesKnow]

Answered: single panels just suck.

Can anyone confirm that the surface scanning module drains power? I have a small rover that seems to draw power when it's doing nothing, just sitting with brakes on. Only thing I can think of is the scanner, but it doesn't say anything in the description and has no way to disable it that I can see.

Edited May 14, 2015 by ScottyDoesKnow

[vicwarrior]

Probes consme power slowly.

If your rover uses a probe to control it then that is your culprit.

Remember to always bring power sources along probes.

[ScottyDoesKnow]

It's an OKTO2 with 4 panels on the sides facing outwards. The usage of just the core seems to be higher than the panels can produce except for sunrise and sunset, which wasn't a problem before.

Looking it up, the OKTO2 is supposed to take 0.03, and the panels are definitely generating more than that.

[Geschosskopf]

Ore concentration is constant per biome (you can verify this by using the NBS). The surface scanner reports the concentration of the biome it's currently in and tells you all you'll ever know about it, even if you come back later with the NBS. Thus, you only need to run it once per biome, you don't need to run it constantly.

Otherwise, probe cores, lights, and SAS all consume electricity just sitting there, so disable the SAS and lights if you don't need them at the moment. Also, where is this rover? If it's further out from the sun than Kerbin, you'll see a very noticeable drop in power at Duna and especially Dres compared to before 1.0, and further out they don't do much good at all.

But to really settle the question, 1st turn off everything (except the probe core, which has no switch). Then right-click on the solar panels to see how much juice they're really making. If this turns out to be more than what the probe core needs, then you've got something else going on. What could it be? Well, there are the wheels. If you've got a sticky key on your keyboard, it could be the wheels are trying to turn and thus consuming power. But I suspect the problem is that the panels aren't producing nearly as much juice as you think they are.

[ScottyDoesKnow]

You're right Gesch, looks like they nerfed the hell out of the panels when they changed em to be more efficient with heat. When the sun rises on Eve (closer than Kerbin), I get 98% sunlight and produce 0.01. Sitting in the same place all day, pointing horizontally towards the sunrise, the max it gets is 0.04 at 77% sunlight.

The biome thing doesn't seem to be true. I have two rovers a ways apart in the lowlands biome on Eve, and they report 5.28% and 6.18%. How are the ore percentages calculated, anyways? On the planet view it says ore is 2.5%, threshold is 80%, and then I'm in one of the still bright areas getting those numbers. Image of the rovers with the biomes debug turned on:

[Geschosskopf]

You're right Gesch, looks like they nerfed the hell out of the panels when they changed em to be more efficient with heat. When the sun rises on Eve (closer than Kerbin), I get 98% sunlight and produce 0.01. Sitting in the same place all day, pointing horizontally towards the sunrise, the max it gets is 0.04 at 77% sunlight.

In real life, ground-mounted solar panels aren't as effective as the same panels in LEO because the atmosphere blocks some of the light. I've never noticed that happening in KSP but, as Squad changed both the atmosphere and solar panels, it wouldn't surprise me if that was now part of the game. Eve's got a very thick, dense atmosphere so would block rather more light than Kerbin's. Maybe enough to explain this, even with Eve being closer to the sun.

If that's not the cause, then maybe it's temperature. I believe Squad actually made solar panels work less well at higher temps. Eve's surface temp as I recall is pretty Hellish, or at least should be, so that might be it. What sort of temps are you getting there these days?

The biome thing doesn't seem to be true. I have two rovers a ways apart in the lowlands biome on Eve, and they report 5.28% and 6.18%. How are the ore percentages calculated, anyways? On the planet view it says ore is 2.5%, threshold is 80%, and then I'm in one of the still bright areas getting those numbers. Image of the rovers with the biomes debug turned on:

OK, ore distribution and what the scanners say...

If you look in Gamedata/Squad/Resources, there's a file called Ore.cfg that explains a lot. First off, it says that the default abundance for all planets is between 1% and 15%, although it has a "variance=50", whatever that means. It also specifically excludes Kerbol, Jool, and the oceans of Eve, Kerbin, and Laythe from having any at all. Dunno how asteroids work---they're not mentioned in the file and I hear they can be made almost entirely of ore.

I would assume that your different surface readings in the lowlands are due either to some accuracy limit of the ground sensor (and thus a reason to get the NBS further up the tech tree), or that discontiguous regions with the same biome name are treated as separate biomes and thus can really have different values. I recommand asking Roverdude (the code author), who is quite forthcoming on the details. However, in my own experience so far, the NBS always shows the same value for the same biome name, even in discontiguous areas, so I currently suspect it's a limit of the ground sensor.

Anyway, the big, clamshell orbital scanner is wildly inaccurate and easily confused. At best, it can point you to a general area that might be better than the others, but don't for a minute believe the concentrations it reports there, because I'm guessing the most any biome can ever have is 22.5 (15 + 50% of 15). When the orbital scanner says there's more there, what it's really saying is that area has more of the high-concentration biome than other areas of the planet.. For instance, in the sandbox game I'm currently testing such things in, the highest value on Kerbin is 7.5% in the shores biome. But the orbital scanner shows like 80% abundance on most of the islands. Why? Because the islands are mostly shore and are surrounded by water which has zero by definition.