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Diminishing return on science from one planet.


Enceos

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Is there a mod which adds a cap to biome hopping?

The logic is that in real life the discovery factor of each consecutive experiment is always smaller than that of a preceding one. The first samples and analyses give the most data about a planet. We don't need to land in each biome to make conclusions about the planet's geological composition, activity and certain weather patterns. So for example, after visiting any 6 biomes on one planet, there should be little left to research in all the other biomes.

Edited by Enceos
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This is already partially taken into account by the biome-specific and body-specific science experiments. This mostly applies to atmospheric and space science, but it can apply on the surface as well. 

I would not mind a type of exponential decay for some surface based science - a barometer might not give you much new data when you move it into a new biome. However, things like trace gases, seismic scanners and most of DMagic's experiments really would give you valuable new data which you couldn't get anywhere else on the planet. 

If you are getting too much science, turn the science slider down. I rarely play with it above 50% with DMagic's mod installed, and in stock scale games I have turned it down to 30% and still had no problem exploring. 

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That would make for a good small mod, and I agree with the change.  I took a quick peek, and it's actually not easily possible with the way the current code is structured to do this in a mod though.  Perhaps for a future release, someone will add a hook or two in to allow this behaviour to be overridden. :wink:

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13 hours ago, MaxL_1023 said:

This is already partially taken into account by the biome-specific and body-specific science experiments. This mostly applies to atmospheric and space science, but it can apply on the surface as well. 

I would not mind a type of exponential decay for some surface based science - a barometer might not give you much new data when you move it into a new biome. However, things like trace gases, seismic scanners and most of DMagic's experiments really would give you valuable new data which you couldn't get anywhere else on the planet. 

If you are getting too much science, turn the science slider down. I rarely play with it above 50% with DMagic's mod installed, and in stock scale games I have turned it down to 30% and still had no problem exploring. 

Yeah I have my slider on minimum. It still would be nice to cut down biome hopping, less grind, more realistic. But with the right coding it should be possible to exlude some experiments from the diminishing equation.

Edited by Enceos
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I personally disagree with the linear/exponential drop-off. Once we gained a lot of knowledge from the first samples, each new biome advances our knowledge about as much as any other. AND this discourages thorough exploration of a single planet. Say, once you got science from Duna's Highlands, Lowlands, Midlands, Craters, Midland Sea, Poles, Polar Highlands, Polar Craters (all within some 100km distance from each other), you'd be really hard-pressed to ever bother with each of three canyons, two basins and Northern Shelf, which are each half the planet away. BUT you should have a reason to go to Duna and beyond instead of just strip-mining Minmus of all the science and finishing the tech tree without sticking your nose out of Kerbin SOI.

So, instead of constantly dipping returns, I'd suggest another approach: First return of given experiment from given planet gives huge returns, then each consecutive biome with the same experiment gives the same, considerably smaller amount. Say, first measurement from given body, any biome, is 150% of current value, and each consecutive repeat in another biome is a fixed 40% of current value. Visiting the last biome yielding exactly as much as visiting the second one.

Edited by Sharpy
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1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

I personally disagree with the linear/exponential drop-off. Once we gained a lot of knowledge from the first samples, each new biome advances our knowledge about as much as any other. AND this discourages thorough exploration of a single planet. Say, once you got science from Duna's Highlands, Lowlands, Midlands, Craters, Midland Sea, Poles, Polar Highlands, Polar Craters (all within some 100km distance from each other), you'd be really hard-pressed to ever bother with each of three canyons, two basins and Northern Shelf, which are each half the planet away. BUT you should have a reason to go to Duna and beyond instead of just strip-mining Minmus of all the science and finishing the tech tree without sticking your nose out of Kerbin SOI.

So, instead of constantly dipping returns, I'd suggest another approach: First return of given experiment from given planet gives huge returns, then each consecutive biome with the same experiment gives the same, considerably smaller amount. Say, first measurement from given body, any biome, is 150% of current value, and each consecutive repeat in another biome is a fixed 40% of current value. Visiting the last biome yielding exactly as much as visiting the second one.

It has not been implemented yet, I'm glad you joined the discussion about the diminishing returns on science. I even think that the first samples should give 300% of science, I believe you will agree with me that the first landings on the Moon, Venus and Mars gave the most amount of data about the planet, only when new experiments were brought to the surface in the following landings did we find out anything new. The purpose of this proposal is to limit the biome hopping. People will decide for themselves if they just want to grab science from the planet or do it in style by visiting vastly different biomes and taking pics of their travel.

I believe it should be possible to accommodate the settings to a user's preference. For some a linear drop-off will be fine after the first samples, for others a capped reduction in science return to all remaining biomes, for the third party it could be set so that after the first samples the next X number of biomes will yield 40% of science and all the remaining will yield 20%.

Edited by Enceos
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