A slightly long first post, apologies, but some ideas I hope. Kethane is definitely the most useful candidate for a reward system before Squad implement career stuff, since it has the most utility. It's always been bizarre to me how a magic beam in orbit can detect the deposits, but then we use gravimetry to find candidate deposits of lots of minerals here on Earth so there's precedent. These only expose candidates though, and false positives are common so the certainty of a deposit size and location being immediately visible doesn't seem right. The idea is the same for any resource (H2O, CO2, whatever). The real payoff though is exploring these candidates (including the false ones, yay!), and this is where I see this plugin coming in handy as follows: From orbit, find candidate sites for resource Send probe to collect sample either by: Kerbal on EVA (high payoff, since they can select better samples than automated rovers) Rover (limited by available fuel/part endurance) Lander (limited to immediate vicinity of lander) Impactor and supporting orbital observer (depending on deposit type and depth) - probably out of scope here but mentioned for completeness Initial analysis in situ on-board the lander (if it survived, and your kerbal did too if applicable ) On Kerbin (better payoff than lander as implies better equipment) Each extra step gives higher proportion of accessibility to resource in question and/or eliminates false positives, e.g. A Kerbal returning a sample to the lander for analysis (but leaving them behind as too heavy) and an unmanned probe return samples to Kerbin might have the same benefit, but nothing beats a Kerbal returning a load of samples to Kerbin that have already been identified as extra interesting thanks to pre-analysis in the lander. Most of these would likely require collaboration with Kethane development, but makes for a much more interesting (and realistic) exploration/exploitation experience. The science work seems to be done (drill, collect, analyse, return), only the resource level modification stuff and candidate site creation is properly new to Kethane. I'd also like to see the Kethane developers depend on this mod for all these cool goodies instead of the other way around The final benefit of these analysis tasks (again with increasing return as above) is knowledge of other bodies - e.g. atmospheric composition, clarification and assistance in landing site selection etc, all of which are crucial to advanced missions and cannot easily be accomplished from ground-based observations. This is likely something Squad are already looking into, but masking these details from the player to make them viable would likely require modifications only they can make (new features, GUI elements etc).
sumghai Any chance of a part with four 2.5m faces? I appreciate the Node exposes four small faces and two 2.5m faces, and various connectors can be used to join these 1.25m portals up to other 2.5m faces, but for aesthetic and strength reasons more 2.5m faces throughout would be great; adding 1.25m CBMs etc together just to attach a 2.5m face at a a right-angle doesn't look quite right, and reduces rigidity (in my experience 2.5m CBMs are stronger than 1.25m ones, but that may be confirmation bias at work ). A simple cube with four 2.5m faces and two of the existing 1.25m portholes should be fine, and gives the option of blanking the unused 1.25m sides with windows or cover panels as for the node. I think two axes of 2.5m faces is enough, and since IVA will need doing there's another reason to exclude a six-faced 2.5m part (or include it exclusively, but I like the option of blanking or windowing the unused faces). I can put a tapered 2.5m module directly onto a Node's 1.25m port and it does look nice, but this isn't possible in orbit, only VAB, so isn't practicable. I don't think a long module would work (ala Node with four 2.5m faces), and the part would almost certainly not have any advanced features (Monoprop, reaction wheels etc) being a connector node and useless without anything attached, hence my suggestion for a cube-like device. Something like th e first image, but with the faces flush, or the second if you can stand the hideous colouring: I'm at work or I would have provided a better mockup, apologies. I Appreciate you work and enthusiasm on this, I'm already hard at work replacing the old MkI and MkII-based station with the MkIII modules, in orbit as opposed to a fresh build - something I never imagined I'd attempt when I first built the thing so of course a lot of kludging is going on.