Duna atmosphere biome?

[kurja]

Sent a probe to Duna and noticed that while aerobraking at <20km the science instruments are telling me I'm still in space. I have the Kerbal Engineer installed, no other mods. Has anyone else noticed this, a bug maybe..?

The materials study seemed to work allright, telling me that it's in the upper atmosphere, just the little instruments were saying they're in space.

[Snark]

Did you try that before or after your velocity dropped enough that you're no longer in an escape trajectory?

I've noticed this behavior around for a long time: if you're still going so fast that you're on an escape trajectory, it doesn't matter whether you're physically in atmosphere or not, the instruments think you're in space. Once you drop below escape velocity, then suddenly it counts as atmosphere.

For example, prior to 1.0 you couldn't use a pressure meter in vacuum. It wouldn't let me take a measurement until my speed dropped below escape. Now that they've relaxed that requirement, I'm not surprised that they'd give a reading of "space."

It's not clear to me that this is a bug-- may be by design. The point of having different science results for different situations is to add a level of challenge/difficulty to the game (e.g. you don't get science for landing until you are up to the challenge of landing without going splat). High-speed flybys are easy, and making them so that they just happen to graze the atmosphere isn't any harder than going by in a vacuum. Being able to brake until you're captured is more of a challenge, so it makes sense to me that they'd want to say "you don't get credit for being in atmosphere unless you've successfully managed capture."

Whether it's a bug or by design, though, it certainly has potential for confusion-- i.e. isn't clear to the player why it's saying space. Seems like there should be some sort of custom error message displayed, for cases where you're physically in atmosphere but on an escape trajectory, to let the player know what the deal is.

[kurja]

On escape trajectory, I wasn't going to land, just getting a capture.

If it's by design it's not working correctly since some experiments show 'atmosphere' and some don't.

[Snark]

Yeah, looks like they missed a spot when they updated which science instruments work where.

Try letting your aerobrake continue until you've slowed to a closed orbit and see if it works then.

[n0xiety]

Well it would be strange to be able to take a temperature scan from the atmosphere while you are burning in the atmosphere because of your speed. I mean that wouldn't be an acurate measurement anyways so i think this is actually how it should be.

[Coga19000]

Well it would be strange to be able to take a temperature scan from the atmosphere while you are burning in the atmosphere because of your speed. I mean that wouldn't be an acurate measurement anyways so i think this is actually how it should be.

It doesn't matter anyway ; it is not to hard to get a closed orbit and still encounter reentry hearing, so if they actually had this in mind, you should still be unable to perform science.

[kurja]

Well it would be strange to be able to take a temperature scan from the atmosphere while you are burning in the atmosphere because of your speed. I mean that wouldn't be an acurate measurement anyways so i think this is actually how it should be.

What's strange is that the game is telling me I'm in space while my craft is surrounded by re-entry flames, whether or not the game should be giving me points for making the measurements is a different matter. And ofc what's even more weird is that the game allows me to measure the temperature of space around a celestial body while I'm inside the atmosphere

If you think it would be silly to measure the atmosphere's temperature during re-entry, think of it as a measurement of the craft's temperature or something. Apart from radiation sensors, temperature meters only measure their own temperature anyway, if you want to be technical about it.

[Snark]

I can think of three reasons why a particular behavior (about anything) would be implemented in-game:

1. Because it's realistic, and realistic is good.

2. Because it's a conscious design decision for gameplay reasons.

3. Because... um... it just kinda happened because we forgot about this edge case and this is what it ended up doing.

I see folks here making #1 comments and #2 comments, but I suspect that what's actually going on is #3.

Pre-1.0, the instruments were at least consistent with each other, so I'd guess it was a conscious game-design choice to make a gameplay decision that trumps realism. Now the instruments are inconsistent, which is bad, and seems likely to be an oversight by Squad rather than a deliberate choice. The only question is whether they should all say "atmosphere" or all say "space" when you're physically in-atmosphere but on an escape trajectory.

Personally, my own preference would be to just say things act like they're in atmosphere if they're in atmosphere, regardless of trajectory. It's what a player would expect. If for gameplay reasons you want to put some sort of limitation (e.g. "this instrument only works at speeds under X", then say that in the part description and give a "speed is too high" error message when someone tries it.