[1.8.x] Impact! - impact science and contracts -v1.8.0

[DaveS]

Ok, After a bit of experimentation, I think it was actually coming from the Contract pack: Unmanned contracts mod. It has similar contracts.

[Angelo Kerman]

I was thinking of writing an impact experiment mod, and then I found yours. This is fantastic! No need for me to write one now. One thing I was going to do is perform soil analysis from orbit, similar to NASA's LCROSS experiment to find water. Right now, you need to fly the M4435 Narrow Band Scanner near the surface in order to unlock the biome. I was instead going to do a LCROSS experiment that would let you unlock the biome from orbit. Maybe that's something the flashometer could do. If you decide to do that, I can share what I've learned about unlocking biomes. I'd definitely recommend your mod, well done.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Angel-125

[DennyTX]

are impact's experiments nonrepeatable? i have placed seismometr on mun, did first impact, got data. transmitted it. did second impact. no data... it should be so?

[tomf]

Every impact should always place a new result into the seismometer. If the energy of the impact is less than one you made before it won't give you any new science.

Did the message saying that the impact was recorded appear on the right hand side of the screen?

[DennyTX]

yup. it appeared.

well, if i understand correctly the process going following way - if the first impact was 10 MJ and second impact will be 11 MJ - i'll get new data, if second impact will be 9 MJ - no data. right? so, if contract wants less impact than before, i need to place new seismometr?

[tomf]

The impacts are per body - if you do a 10Mj impact on the mun a 9MJ impact will never give you new science.

If you want more science you will have to go further afield

[tomf]

As promised months ago it is now possible to run experiments firing impactors into asteroids. Check the first post for details.

[Mlah]

Does the bangometer need to actually make contact with the ground? If I make a lander with the bangometer on to will it still record impacts or do I need to find a way to flip the craft around as I land?

[Ralathon]

Does the bangometer need to actually make contact with the ground? If I make a lander with the bangometer on to will it still record impacts or do I need to find a way to flip the craft around as I land?

Nah, it just has to be on a landed craft, no need for direct contact.

[Angelo Kerman]

Just wanted to say that I love the mod. Pathfinder provides optional support for it as well if it's installed; the geology lab can become a seismometer. Well done!

[CaelumEtAstra]

I have an idea! Why not integrate the bangometer science into the Double-C Seismic Accelerometer? It would eliminate the need for adding two parts (one for the seismic scan and one for impact) and provide a much more low profile and radially attachable part rather than a big inline part.

[jandcando]

I really enjoy this mod, but finding the kinetic energies of different craft and the velocity required can be a bit inconvenient. So I made a spreadsheet on Google Sheets so I (and you guys) can be lazy! If you want your own copy, you need a Google account. Or maybe you can download it as an Excel file or something. The charts are really just for show, but I think they are a little useful.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fsOyxH6uI9N7A1UvBmbaeFqlREtuqGRGjzUAsSM0b7M/edit?usp=sharing

[tomf]

New Version!

Now you can see what asteroid you are being asked to analyse before you accept the contract, and when you accept the asteroid is automatically tracked so it won't despawn leaving you with an impossible to complete contract.

Plus I have added the MiniAVC plugin so you can find out about the next exciting installment of Impact!

[waterlubber]

I don't think this is working on 1.0. I crashed a small probe within 1 km of the bangometer craft, and in the lower right it said "Recorded impact of 1.2 GJ", however, there was no science in my bangometer!

Edit: I hyperedited an identical craft, I think you need to be outside of physics range/space center when switching

Edited September 9, 2015 by waterlubber

[tomf]

I don't think this is working on 1.0. I crashed a small probe within 1 km of the bangometer craft, and in the lower right it said "Recorded impact of 1.2 GJ", however, there was no science in my bangometer!

Interesting, it looks like that is a bug and impacts within physics range don't register in a bangometer. For the moment I am going to claim it as a feature, if the impact is too close then the surface waves overwhelm the detector and stop it from being able to gather any useful data from the core.

Really it is a bug and I will try to fix it, hopefully next week.

[BadLeo]

Don't try to crash at to high a speed as it is quite easy to simply pass through the centre of an asteroid without triggering the KSP collision code.

What kind of high speed are we talking here, because I think I just did that, although I believe I was not that fast...

[tomf]

I'm not really sure, it is all down to the collision detection code in the game. It is going to be a probabalistic thing based on the physics frame rate, your speed and the size of the asteroid. I assume that the collision code is triggereed when a part is inside the clipping mesh of another. If you are going fast enough that in one frame you are approaching the ateroid and in the very next frame you are on the other side of it moving away then it isn't going to register.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I have to try this

[BadLeo]

I'm not really sure, it is all down to the collision detection code in the game. It is going to be a probabalistic thing based on the physics frame rate, your speed and the size of the asteroid. I assume that the collision code is triggereed when a part is inside the clipping mesh of another. If you are going fast enough that in one frame you are approaching the ateroid and in the very next frame you are on the other side of it moving away then it isn't going to register.

Oh, well... that explains. Because it was a class A asteroid that I had to crash into for a contract, so the speed might have been ok for a bigger one, but for that tiny thing it was too much. Thanks for the explanation.

I have to try this

Well, your craft is still destroyed. It's just the flashometer that do not register the impact. Not very fun to exploit... unless you're going crazyly fast, like a dozen km/s or more, than things might be very funny.

[tomf]

Well, your craft is still destroyed. It's just the flashometer that do not register the impact. Not very fun to exploit... unless you're going crazyly fast, like a dozen km/s or more, than things might be very funny.

Interesting. In my testing your craft was fine as the game had failed to notice the interaction altogether, that was at speeds of above a couple of hundred m/s.

[BadLeo]

Interesting. In my testing your craft was fine as the game had failed to notice the interaction altogether, that was at speeds of above a couple of hundred m/s.

Well, my craft was above 200m/s when it crashed. And I thought it would be fine... nevertheless, it got destroyed, but the flashometer, just 1km from the impact and surely with line of sight, didn't registered it.

[Sarxis]

Really fun set of experiments. Just did my first impact on the Mun at 2Gj. Thanks!

[Ollieshmollie]

Any chance you won't have to switch over at some point? I just got kOS and would love to automate this.

[Torgo]

I haven't gotten any contracts for Impact in my 1.05 game. The pieces are still there and work, but no contracts have been offered for experiments. Does it have to do with the new way contracts are handled in 1.05?

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

I don't know about contracts, but the science system has changed in 1.0.5, which means Impact 1.2.0 doesn't work properly. I've made fixes on my end that seem to work, and made a pull request against tomf's repo. I'll bring my updates into my career and see if the contracts need any attention.