[Suggestion] More options for progression in Science Mode

[zarakon]

I like the main idea of Science mode.  It gives you a path of progression from limited simple parts up to the fancy stuff, but with less restrictions than full-on career mode.

The problem is, doing science experiments is not a particularly fun part of the game for me, and probably not for a good number of other people as well.  I don't like designing ships around the science parts, biome exploitation is time consuming and repetitive, and "timewarp for science" research labs are silly.

My suggestion is to expand the scope of activities that can count toward unlocking parts.  Bring in some elements of Career mode - instead of just experiments, make it possible gain science by World Firsts and Contracts.  The simplest thing would be to just set up conversion factors to translate the Funds and Rep rewards of existing contracts into pure Science, and remove all deadlines and penalties.  Balance it such that experiments are still useful, but not required.

Not only would this give more options for progress, but adding those options in the form of Contracts and World Firsts would give more objectives and more sense of reward.

[Stoney3K]

I would support this. The science career can be quite a boring grind for the first 2 or 3 tiers until you reach a tipping point, when you unlock the lab and solar panels and you can mine thousands of science points without a lot of effort, making the late tech tree very easy to unlock.

Having more variety in the experiments and activities you can do to get science would really make the science career more rewarding. Especially when that's combined with a penalty for using the mobile lab too often or a more challenging tech tree in the late game.