DMagic

@Loren Pechtel That's strange. Do the other scanners work? Have you tried turning on the biome overlays in the ALt+F12 menu to see if they actually show biomes below that latitude.

@KocLobster It looks like you aren't generating enough power. You probably only have enough power to run one scanner at a time. It's hard to get the optimum power generation when using the flat panels, since they aren't usually running at 100% The problem here is in the way that SCANsat tries to keep turning the scanners back on when you run out of power. You wouldn't want the scanners to shut off when they run out of power, otherwise you would have to restart them every time the vessel went behind a planet's shadow. But when you don't have enough power to run them even on the daylight side of the planet the scanner will keep flicking on and off. You can try to wait until the panels drift into an orientation that allows for you to shut off one of the scanners. But the only real option may be to turn on the Infinite Electricity in the Alt+F12 menu, turn off the scanners, then turn off the infinite EC again. Just turn on one scanner at a time and be careful about EC. Or you could just turn them both on and immediately leave the vessel. KSP doesn't have any way to track EC usage when the vessel isn't active. It's irritating, but I haven't gotten around to figuring out a good way to handle the issue. @Loren Pechtel It sounds like your vessels may be moving out of scanning range during parts of their orbit. Each scanner has minimum and maximum scanning heights. Check the SCANsat wiki for info about getting into good scanning orbits.

@akron Very painfully. The dish is made up of four segments, each constructed from one quarter of a 20-sided cylinder (so the triangle count for the dish itself is actually very reasonable, about 2500). Each vertex on each segment is then parented to an armature, with bones set to fold out. So each dish segment has four sets of bones. I only had to make one segment then clone it four times, but it was a lot of trouble (and I probably remade the entire thing three or four times). There is a whole other segment of headaches caused by Unity and KSP's handling of SkinnedMeshRenderers. For instance, the VAB icons will try to show the entire, unfolded dish, making the actual closed part just a tiny dot in the center of the icon (thanks @xEvilReeperx for the code in partIconFixer that I used to fix that). The VAB size calculation also does the same thing, so the Engineer's report thing thinks your vessel is about 400m wide (I'm not sure why it thinks it's so big, it should be around 100m wide), it's still a little broken, it thinks the part is about twice as tall as it really is. The dish texture is a problem too. The transitions between the different size texture mipmaps is easily visible because of the transparent mesh texture. I made the transition a little less harsh by manually editing the mipmaps, but it's still noticeable.

@TheReadPanda & @Corax I thought about transmitter and Remote Tech (and Antenna Range) support, but I didn't really want to spend the time to figure out how to set it up correctly. Specifically I don't want to allow the regular transmitter modules to handle deploying and retracting the antenna. I also need to figure out how to prevent it from being used after it is broken (and I should probably prevent it from being able to collect science when broken ), RemoteTech's method for breaking antennas in the atmosphere just involves removing the whole part, I think. @DarthVader That's the idea.

@lexmkr See the support thread for details about getting the log files. Try to get log files from a game session where these types of errors are happening. It sounds like something weird is happening to the contracts, but it's hard to say what. CapCom and CW+ doesn't do anything with the contracts until after they are loaded, so it shouldn't have this type of effect.

Version 14.9 is out; get it on Space Dock. It features improvements to the zoom map and to the slope display. It also fixes some issues with contract generation, attempts to properly detect the maximum elevation of planets not defined in the SCANcolors.cfg file, and adds support for the GeoEnergy resource. See the first post for the full change log. There are new buttons to directly open the zoom map; these are found on both the small map, the big map, and Blizzy's Toolbar when in the flight scene. The Color Management window button has been removed, a button added to the top of the settings menu can be used to open that window now. When opened directly, the zoom map will target the active vessel at 10X zoom; the map will still use the projection and map type settings from the big map. Use the vessel icon in the top-right corner to re-sync to the current vessel position and planet. The zoom level indicator in the middle is still used to sync to the big map settings and planet. There is also a new slider in the slope tab of the Color Management window. It is used to adjust the cutoff between the two slope color pairs. Lower the value to allow for lower slope values to use the upper color pair, this is particularly useful when using the slope map in the zoom map at high zoom levels. The difference between the default cutoff of 1 and a lower value of 0.2 is shown using the zoom map over the mountains to the South West of the KSC. Examples from the Mun; note that lower cutoff values can make the big slope map very noisy:

@Brigadier What are your SCANsat resource scanner settings? Depending on the settings, the resource selected, and the presence or absence of suitable scanners in orbit, this might be expected behavior. Does you behavior differ from what is described in the SCANsat wiki?

@JPLRepo Well, technically you can just delete the "loopingAnimName" line from the part configs; it just won't find the rotating animation and so won't try to play it, that's not the best way to go about it in the long-term, but it would work for now. Do TST telescopes allow for any internal controls, like rotating the telescope without rotating the craft? That would be nice and make sense in terms of these parts. Edit: Yes, the open/close animation should work, it opens the doors and extends the aperture from the telescope body.

@Brigadier Some use the DMagic agency (stock and other mod contracts can also use that agency though), but others just use a random agency. There are four Orbital Science contracts in 1.1: Conduct an orbital survey..., Conduct a scientific study of an asteroid..., Conduct a survey of the magnetic field..., and Study the source of the anomalous readings... Any stock contracts (satellite requests and waypoint surveys) that ask for Orbital Science parts are not affected by the update. @Deimos Rast Is it just the magnetic field surveys? There should only be one magnetic survey requested for the sun, a three star contract. There are also (I think) three star orbital survey contracts that ask for multiple science results, some of which might be in low orbit. I think that you can get a pretty big amount of science from the low sun orbit results, so those can be valuable contracts. @JPLRepo I might need to make a TST mode for those parts so that the telescopes don't rotate. It could be as simple as having one button to open the doors, and another to control the rotation; they are already two separate animations.

@SpaceNomad The contract times just aren't being updated when they are supposed to; I'll fix it in the next update. @lexmkr Did you update both CapCom and CW+? Did you delete all of the old folders (CapCom, ContractsWindow, ProgressParser)? CapCom doesn't save anything, so there is nothing to break when updating. It has an external config file to save your settings, but it stores nothing in the save file. CW+ stores the contract ids for your different contract lists in the save file. I'm not sure how either would affect the status of contracts, they don't do anything to the contracts, they just read some data from them. Do you have log files? Preferably from a game session where you are loading an existing save file that has its contracts screwed up. I can also look at the broken save file to see if there is something obviously wrong.

@Brigadier Just contracts from Orbital Science. Yes, if you finish all active contracts you will be fine. Contracts that are being offered when you update will be messed up, but you can wait them out or decline. By messed up I mean that the contract parameters will not load properly. Some of my contacts will just show no parameters, others show a few, but still won't be able to complete. The record of finished contracts will also show contracts with no parameters. That won't affect current contracts, but it does mean that certain contracts will be offered again. For instance, only one magnetic field survey is offered for each planet per difficulty level (so a max of three per planet), that will reset and those contacts will be offered again.

@Matuchkin Not that I think highly of my own texturing skills, it's basically what I consider the bare minimum in terms of quality and it's consistent and recognizable, but I really hate the gold mesh look. I know it's what actual satellites almost invariably look like, but I've thought it just looks boring in KSP. @smjjames Hmm. Its fragility is dependent on orientation with respect to the air stream, which I should probably change. Trying to tweak that was a real pain because it's so much trouble to test.

@Blue_Eagle7 You can always change things in the part config files. One thing I forgot to put in the change log is that I updated all of the parts to show the transmission % in the editor info window. @smjjames Then suffer the consequences.

@JPLRepo It's just a standard science instrument, for now, I've been continuing to mull over a more complete overhaul of science collection, but that's a long-term thing. The Telescope has transforms that would probably work for TST, the aperture is a separate transform, so depending on its rotation it could work with relatively few changes, which would be great. @Blue_Eagle7 Thanks. The science values weren't really adjusted for two-biome vs. full-biome support, there was never a full-biome version to balance against, and the existing parts don't help much either because they are so small and light. The science results are pretty high though, even when transmitting you'l be able to get a lot from a single planet, because the data levels are high though, it does take a lot of power to transmit. @smjjames Carry a scientist. The radio dish is fully repeatable, but the others are something that would benefit from some extensive infrastructure when visiting distant planets.

I'd also be interested in any feedback regarding the mass of the new parts and the science value. I don't have a very good sense of how heavy large parts should be, so let me know if you think they are too heavy or too light. As for the science value, I didn't want to make full biome support for the new parts. For one thing it requires a lot of science results which I don't feel like writing. I also don't really like the idea of full biome support for orbital experiments in general. It's a hassle to collect all of the data, and extremely tedious if you aren't using Science Alert or For Science. There is an additional wrinkle when using non-repeatable experiments that require more than one sample to collect all of the science, it would require an absurd amount of trips to each planet to get all science. That's why I went with making two pseudo-biomes per planet. It's enough so that you can't just collect a few results and be done, but it's not overwhelming. It will screw up those science helpers, they will either think you have lots of biomes to cover, or think the experiments don't use biomes, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. At least the parts are big so right-clicking isn't quite so painful.

@CobaltWolf Correct, the canisters don't have any animation component.

@CobaltWolf It's a bit of a pain, in that, it requires very specific handling for those parts, and specific handling for how the transforms that you want to remove are named. That said, it might be feasible to add a feature like this to other plugin. It is basically an extension on how parts that allow for multiple samples already work.

@Delta_8930 They don't interfere, they interact. A few parts can be used as SCANsat sensors: The Multi-Spectral Imaging Platform can be used as a SCANsat biome/anomaly scanner The Anomalous Signal Scanner can be used as a SCANsat BTDT scanner, the anomaly detail scanner The magnetometer can be used as an Ore scanner from very low altitudes A few other parts can be used as SCANsat resource scanners for Community Resource Pack resources

@Svm420 The two telescopes are modeled after the KH-7 Gambit, and the KH-9 Hexagon satellites, which the NRO has been very open about recently. The radio dish is based on the Magnum/Mentor/Orion series of satellites, which the NRO and CIA have been a bit less open about. Some of the these satellites were launched on classified shuttle missions; later launches have used the Delta-IV Heavy (which has also been used for several KH-11/Hubble-type satellites) and Titan IV rockets, since those are the only options for such enormous spacecraft. The radio dish as it's shown in my part would probably, as @Dragon01 pointed out, never actually be stable by extending it like that to the side on the end of a long boom. But I don't like the idea of having a big dish like that come out of one end or extend directly from the side. It would limit design possibilities too much and get in the way too often. Also, those film canisters do act a bit like film return pods. If you transmit (which I rationalize by saying the parts have some limited on-board film processing capabilities) or collect data the canisters simply disappear; they will reappear if you reset the part.

Version 6.1 is out; get it on SpaceDock. Contracts Window + has been moved to a new installation folder and has two required dependencies, both of which are shared by CapCom. GameData/DMagicUtilities/ContractsWindow GameData/DMagicUtilities/ContractParser GameData/DMagicUtilities/ProgressParser This update fixes some issues with progress reports not updating properly, progress rewards display correctly, can custom contract notes display correctly.

Version 2.0 is out; get it on SpaceDock. CapCom has been moved to a new installation folder and has two required dependencies, both of which are shared by Contracts Window +. GameData/DMagicUtilities/CapCom GameData/DMagicUtilities/ContractParser GameData/DMagicUtilities/ProgressParser This update adds support for showing progress record reports; select the globe icon next to the Contract List Type bar to show progress reports. It also adds/fixes VAB/SPH support; the contract controls are disabled while in the editor, so you can't accept, decline or cancel contracts. It fixes most cases where contracts would not behave properly or wouldn't complete when accepted while in-flight without reloading. Some mod contracts may not work correctly until reloading, but stock contracts should activate properly. It also adds custom contract notes that specify which available parts will satisfy certain contract requirements.

Version 1.2 is out; get it on SpaceDock. Warning: Contracts from previous versions (anything before 1.2) will not load correctly; complete or cancel all contracts before updating - Otherwise use the Contracts tab of the Alt+F12 This version adds three new related parts and a new contract type that uses those parts. It also, as the warning above implies, makes many changes to how existing contracts save and load data, unfortunately breaks existing contracts, but should not affect any other active, offered, or completed contracts. There are lots of behind-the-scenes changes in this update, so I'm looking for any new bugs that show up in old systems, new or old bugs for the seismic sensors, and any bugs with the new parts. See below for the complete change log; here are some of the updates. Thanks to @Dragon01 for the suggestions and feedback that led to these parts and new contract type. Three new large science parts: 1.25m, single-camera telescope 2.5m, dual-camera telescope Grossly over-sized radio signals intelligence dish All based on real-world surveillance satellites New contract type Asks for one of the new parts Similar to magnetic field surveys; long mission duration Asks for a specific orbit using the stock orbit parameter Is a prerequisite for anomaly survey contracts Focused more on Funds rewards, rather the Science-focused magnetic field surveys Extensive new contract configuration options Based on the stock Contract config file Adjust rewards for all contract types Adjust numerous parameters for each contract type Limit of active contracts Number of science reports requested Specific parts asked for Duration of contracts Many more Fixes for seismic sensor parts Removed minimum distance check for seismic hammer Fixed most cases where the hammer pushes through the surface and fails the distance check Reduced the size, cost, mass, and decouple strength for the seismic sensor pod; increase its crash tolerance The RPWS was moved in the tech tree so that the wait for magnetic survey contracts isn't so long, and its science reports made slightly less valuable Some images of the new parts: Changes:

@nightingale No, I think you are right. The bool that I was thinking of was one that was added to the Science Data object at some point in the last few updates.

For that specific event the bool at the end is used to differentiate standard science transmissions/returns from the science lab and M700 resource scanner. Those two parts don't behave the same way when transmitting science so something in the event is needed to tell the two apart. The value is true for the science lab/M700 and false for all regular experiments. The protoVessel just lets you know which vessel the results came from.

Chapter 1: Radio and Plasma Wave Science Chapter 2: Magnetometer Chapter 3: Telescopes and Imaging Systems Chapter 4: Laser Ablation Chapter 5: Core Drill and Biological Experiments Chapter 6: Neutron Reflections and Subsurface Water Chapter 7: X-Ray Diffraction and Surface Composition Yet another Curiosity rover inspired instrument is featured next in the continuing science explainer series. The Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction, or CheMin, is one of Curiosity’s two analytical laboratory instruments (along with the Sample Analysis at Mars suite), mounted inside the rover’s body. CheMin is a portable, re-usable, powder X-ray diffraction laboratory which can be used to definitively identify the composition of a sample from the surface of Mars. Diffraction Before getting into the CheMin instrument and X-ray diffraction we can quickly go over diffraction in general and how is applies to visible light. Diffraction of a wave is one of three boundary interactions that can occur when a wave encounters an obstruction. Reflection changes the direction of the wave by bouncing off of the object, such as a mirror. Refraction is the change in direction, speed, and wavelength caused by moving from one medium to another, as when light passes through the boundary between air and glass in a prism, bending the various wavelengths of visible light to different degrees. Diffraction is the bending of a wave around the edge of an obstruction. The amount that the wave is bent is dependent on its wavelength and the size of the opening in the obstruction. If the opening is significantly longer than the wavelength, then there will be little change in direction; too short and the wave simply won’t pass through the opening. A simple schematic example of reflection, refraction and diffraction is shown on the left. Diffraction here is shown as the deflection of an incoming ray of light when it encounters the edge of an obstruction. On the right is an animation detailing how light bends around a small opening. The subsequent constructive- and destructive-interference can be seen in how the waves impact the surface on the right. One way to use diffraction to our advantage is through a diffraction grating (which was discussed briefly in the telescopes section). These are a type of filter created with a periodic structure that diffracts incoming light into multiple directions based on wavelength. The back of a CD is a good example of a simple diffraction grating. Light reflected off of the CD passes through the regularly repeating pits that are formed in a spiraling pattern across the disc. The spirals in that pattern are similar in size to visible light waves and so they bend light to varying degrees, resulting in the reflection of a rainbow pattern. X-Ray Diffraction Visible light diffraction is great, and provides a convenient way to separate light by wavelengths, but what if we want to look at something considerably smaller than the wavelength of visible light? If we want to know how the atoms are arranged in a sample we need something with a much smaller wavelength, something similar in size to spacing between the atoms themselves. X-Rays are just the right size for this, encompassing the range of about 0.01 nanometers to 10 nm, or 0.1 Angstroms to 100 Å, which are the preferred unit of measurement when discussing X-Rays and atoms; a single Hydrogen atom has a diameter of about 1 Å. While not getting too deep into the details, the basic idea is that the atoms in a molecule make up a diffraction grating for X-Rays. When the molecules are arranged as ordered, repeating crystals, they form a regular, diffraction grating that can be used to analyze the molecule itself. X-Ray Crystallography To take the idea of a repeating crystal structure all the way to its logical end, you come to the situation where you have many copies of one molecule, freed from all contaminants, and ordered in such a way that every molecule is arranged in exactly the same way within a single crystal. When this is the case you can study not only simple molecules like salt, or organic compounds, but much larger, incredibly complex things like proteins (with thousands to tens-of-thousands of atoms) or even virus particles (with potentially millions of atoms in each molecule). First let us go over one of the main drawbacks of using X-Ray light as an analytical tool. With visible or UV light you can easily bend and focus the light after diffraction. This allows for the creation of a simple image, as in a camera, or for collecting or isolating single wavelengths of light. With X-Rays, which are of a much higher energy, it is very difficult to bend or focus the light. Very low angle mirrors can be used to some degree (as in X-Ray telescopes), but for X-Ray diffraction the general idea is to not bother with trying to focus anything. Instead of focusing X-Rays, they are simply collected after being diffracted by a sample. This is accomplished by placing a sample within a very narrow, tightly collimated X-Ray beam. The beam strikes the sample (with most of the X-Ray photons passing right through, which are usually blocked by a thick metal beamstop), and any diffracted photons are then picked by a detector, which is placed directly behind the sample. Only X-Rays that are diffracted to a small degree can be detected, depending on the size of the detector and how far away it is from the sample. A modern X-Ray source like the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Labs (seen on the left) uses a ring 1km in circumference to store electrons accelerated to near the speed of light. When the flight path of these electrons is bent they emit something called synchrotron radiation; photons which can be in the X-Ray range under the right conditions. The beam of X-Rays is tightly collimated and sent down into an individual hutch, shown in the middle. The X-Rays enter from the back-right of the image and travel to the sample, in the center. The goniometer on the left side of the center holds the sample in place and allows for rotation in any axis, and a nitrogen stream (coming from the silver cylinder) keeps the sample frozen. The detector is the large white CCD array on the left (for scale, the yellow gantry is about 2m high, and the detector is about 0.75 -1m from the sample table). The diagram on the right shows a simple schematic of X-Ray path through the sample and to the detector. With a well ordered crystal, as described above, the result is a series of dots where X-Rays photons that have been diffracted by the sample constructively interfere to produce a strong signal. Through lots of complicated math, and by recording diffraction patterns with the sample rotated through many different orientations, it is possible to reconstruct an image of the sample itself. For small molecules, such as a simple salt, these images clearly show the arrangement of individual atoms. For larger molecules the resulting image is frequently less clear, usually resulting in something resembling long, bending tubes indicating the presence of electron clouds. When studying proteins or other biological samples it is possible to take advantage of the relatively small number of basic elements and components involved to gain a complete image of the sample. This illustrates the progression from a single diffraction pattern, obtained from a protein crystal in one orientation, through mathematical transformation (a potentially years long process a few decades ago; now taking as little as a few minutes) to a 3D model of electron density. The diffraction pattern in the upper left is the so-called Photo 51, Rosalind Franklin's data from a DNA crystal that led to the discovery of its double helix structure. On the bottom left is a modern data set from a protein crystal; the white shadow on the diffraction pattern is from the beamstop, which prevents the full X-Ray beam from impacting and damaging the detector. Taking advantage of the relatively small number of components in a biological molecule (21 amino acids, a handful of modifications to the amino acids, DNA, RNA, and some lipids) and the tight constraints on how those components can be arranged, a model of the protein structure can be obtained. It is difficult to overstate the value that such information has provided to the life sciences over the past 100 years. Powder X-Ray Diffraction Big, well-ordered crystals are nice, but are rarely obtainable outside of laboratory conditions or isolated situations. For samples collected in the field you generally end up with ground up rocks, sand, or dirt. These samples are composed of many different compounds all mixed together. In many cases, though, the small particles are actually fairly well ordered crystals made up of individual minerals. Remember the part about taking a single crystal and collecting images at different orientations? Taking a power X-Ray diffraction pattern is much like rotating a single crystal through all orientations while collecting a single image. There are small particles of the sample that are oriented in essentially all possible directions. This generates a diffraction pattern that accounts for all orientations at the same time. The result is that the nice, individual spots seen from a crystal diffraction give way to smeared concentric rings. Results from 2 samples taken by Curiosity’s CheMin instrument. The characteristic ring pattern is a result of all possible orientations of the material being sampled at the same time. The shadow from the beamstop is visible along the bottom. This obviously adds a kink in trying to work from the diffraction pattern to an image (and makes it basically impossible in the case of large molecules), but for the purposes of sample identification that isn’t actually necessary. Rather than trying to identify samples based on X-Ray analysis and nothing else, we can take advantage of all capabilities allowed for in a laboratory environment. Samples can be collected, purified and identified by various other means. Then we conduct powder X-Ray diffraction analysis on our purified, identified sample. This allows for a kind of fingerprinting analysis. Take a sample from the field and match its powder X-Ray diffraction pattern to the known pattern collected in the lab. With this data in hand we can say definitively (or as definitively as possible without bringing samples into a full lab) what the surface of Mars is composed of. Minerals can be precisely identified, which tells us a lot about how the planet was formed, its history, its interior composition and activity, and about the presence of water, as many types of minerals only form, or only display certain characteristics, in the presence of water. The Instrument Now we can come back to the instrument itself; Curiosity’s Chemistry and Minerology X-Ray Diffraction. First off, the instrument needs samples to study. The choice of what to study is based on results from many of Curiosity’s remote sensing instruments: ChemCam and its laser ablation function gives a basic idea of what a sample is composed of, the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer also provides data on elemental composition, the DAN instrument provides data about the presence of water or hydrated minerals, and Curiosity’s many cameras show us what possible samples actually look like and give an idea of what they could be. To actually obtain a sample there are two options, use a scoop to pick up loose material, or drill into a rock. Once a sample is collected a small amount of it is sieved then delivered to a sample holder. The instrument has a sample wheel which contains a few reference standards, and 24 re-usable sample containers, each a thin cell with two X-Ray-transparent windows. For powder X-Ray diffraction the center of the beam actually targets one edge of the detector, as there is no need to collect the entire data set. The X-Rays are generated in a vacuum tube (not that unlike that found in an old CRT TV) and focused onto the sample cell. X-Rays pass through the sample window, the photons that are diffracted by the sample strike the detector and produce diffraction patterns as seen above. An exploded view of CheMin on the left. Samples are loaded from the top, sent to the sample holders in the wheel, and dumped from the bottom. X-Rays are generated in the large green cylinder in the middle. In the top right is a close-up view of a pair of sample containers. Each is composed of a small space enclosed by transparent windows on each side; two different window compositions allow for readings to be taken under different conditions. A diagram of the sample wheel is shown on the bottom-right. The red cells contain standards for calibration; the green cells are for samples and can be re-used up to 3 times. We’ll move back to some of the orbital instruments for the next chapter in the series. There are quite a few instruments to go over: solar particles, soil moisture, radiometers, asteroid/comet sounding, and maybe a section on asteroids in general.