[mod idea] Sub-Biomes

[Yakky]

I am, alas, not a coder, but I wanted to propose an idea for a very simple/quick mod that would help motivate more use of rovers and surface exploration. Anyone wanting to develop it, please feel free. I also proposed it as a feature suggestion here.

The idea to chop up surface biomes into procedurally generated sub-biomes that are of a size and scale that makes it reasonable to get from one to another by driving, walking, or hopping over the surface of a celestial body (i.e. characteristic size of a couple km). This would motivate rovers and in general more surface-based exploration, which currently is not very interesting in the game because it takes forever to walk or drive from one biome to another.

Sub-biomes would work like the randomly-generated zones in scanning or survey contracts, except they would be procedural rather than random (for stability across games and missions) and every point on the surface of a celestial body would be assigned a sub-biome. A small region would be labeled as "Zone XYZ within Biome ABC" and would offer some incremental new science points.

Sub biomes would only apply, and would only be discoverable, on the surface. They would not affect airborne or space-borne scientific research. This would give a strong incentive for driving around to see what you could find. I envision some sort of screen notification when you cross into a new sub-biome on the surface. No info would be given when up in the air or in space.

Now, clearly you wouldn't award full science points for exploring a new sub-biome or it would throw the science element of the game completely out of whack. My thought is that doing science in a new sub-biome would generate a small incremental amount of science, maybe 15-20% of the science points that were obtained for the first science research in that biome. So for example, you land on Duna, do an EVA Report, and get full points. Then you drive a few km to a new sub-biome, do another EVA Report, and get maybe 15% more points. Maybe the points would decline a bit with each additional sub-biome so that you reached a point of diminishing returns after driving to 3-4 of them, so you get 15% for the 2nd location, 10% for the third, 8% for the 4th, etc. The exact percentages could be adjustable via a cfg file. If you wanted to keep the total science points in the game "the same" (i.e. not dilute the value of science too much), you could also slightly reduce the baseline surface science awards to compensate.

Anyway, that's the idea. Anyone interested?

Edited July 30, 2015 by Yakky

[SmallFatFetus]

Hm, that sounds cool. I wonder if biomes (they really should be called regions, theres no life to warrant "bio") are hard coded? I am not well versed with plugins so I won't be much help but I would download this if someone made it.

[Astrofox]

The problem with biomes is that they're pretty much color images telling where "X" biome is supposed to be, which means that you need to create biome maps with Kopernicus, and apply some sort of a Kopernicus MM config that overrides the main biome color map.

This means that if you want to apply biome regions, it probably cannot be procedural.

In other words, download the latest version of Kopernicus and take a look at the Eeloo biomes example in the KopernicusExamples folder, you will probably get the idea of what goes on there.

[tater]

Instead of bothering with geomes/regions (I agree that biome needs to be dumped for obvious reasons), why not have new science predicated upon:

1. Science already done at that area. The game knows that you get X (where X might be 0) points for a surface sample at a particular spot, right? If X=0, then the game generates contracts. Yeah, it requires going to the contract office, but heck, Squad called it Mission Control, and this would be the first time it actually fits as a name---Mission Control gives to a mission to go to area X, Y, and Z and get more data.

2. The skill level of the scientist. Perhaps the number of alternate locations for science generated by the contract is the science skill level of the scientist plus a random number between 0 and n? Make pilots and engineers have a low chance, and scientists a higher chance. Perhaps science skills a multiplier? New Locations would be a random number between 0 and 2 multiplied by science skill.

[nightingale]

The problem with biomes is that they're pretty much color images telling where "X" biome is supposed to be, which means that you need to create biome maps with Kopernicus, and apply some sort of a Kopernicus MM config that overrides the main biome color map.

This means that if you want to apply biome regions, it probably cannot be procedural.

In other words, download the latest version of Kopernicus and take a look at the Eeloo biomes example in the KopernicusExamples folder, you will probably get the idea of what goes on there.

Sure, it could be procedural, why not? Once the image is loaded, I can just go play with the data in memory and use some algorithm to change everything that's "pink" into 15 other shades of pink in contiguous regions. Of course said algorithm wouldn't be easy - but it's certainly doable. Or you build the sub-biome system on top as your own thing, but then you have to be responsible for providing all the "content" to make it actually interesting.

I think that's my problem with the idea though - no matter how you implement it, sub-biomes just seems like "more biomes". Right now, biome diversity has two roles:

1. Exploration - Seeing parts of the celestial body that are distinctly different (somewhat arguable that they are distinctly different...)
   
2. Science (points) - strip mining the biomes for all the science... already gets pretty boring after 10-15 landings...
   

I think to make this really interesting I'd personally want to expand on the exploration angle - landing in a sub-biome makes it visible on some sort of map (SCANsat style? overlay?). Or some sort of level of detail system where you don't get high resolution in the tracking station for that area until you land (not my idea, I'm sure I read it on this forum somewhere). But those could work without sub-biomes just as well.

[Raven.]

Sure, it could be procedural, why not? Once the image is loaded, I can just go play with the data in memory and use some algorithm to change everything that's "pink" into 15 other shades of pink in contiguous regions. Of course said algorithm wouldn't be easy - but it's certainly doable. Or you build the sub-biome system on top as your own thing, but then you have to be responsible for providing all the "content" to make it actually interesting.

I think that's my problem with the idea though - no matter how you implement it, sub-biomes just seems like "more biomes". Right now, biome diversity has two roles:

1. Exploration - Seeing parts of the celestial body that are distinctly different (somewhat arguable that they are distinctly different...)
   
2. Science (points) - strip mining the biomes for all the science... already gets pretty boring after 10-15 landings...
   

I think to make this really interesting I'd personally want to expand on the exploration angle - landing in a sub-biome makes it visible on some sort of map (SCANsat style? overlay?). Or some sort of level of detail system where you don't get high resolution in the tracking station for that area until you land (not my idea, I'm sure I read it on this forum somewhere). But those could work without sub-biomes just as well.

I did a mod about a year ago that created 140, hard coded biomes for Kerbin into the game (here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88605-WIP-Kerbin-Science-Initiative-140-Biomes-for-Kerbin). Essentially, it tested the limits of the biome system in Kerbal. Now, unless things have significantly changed since a year ago, having a large number of biomes, or sub-biomes, has several, extremely annoying issues.

The idea of a procedurally generated biome map is a nightmare in my own head, for several reasons:

1) A big issue with large number of biomes is the game getting confused between biomes, especially around border regions. A lot of this has to do with the colors used in the biome map; similar shades of colors representing each biome has smooth transitions from biome to biome, contrasting shades of colors will cause the current biome to erratically jump from biome to biome, thus causing the wrong biome to be displayed while on in a border region. With procedural generation, it will be very difficult to control this shading.

2) Another issue is science reports. For every possible biome you add, you need to have associated science reports added to a cfg file. Part of procedurally generated biomes will also include procedurally generating science reports to go alongside the biomes.

3) Another thing to consider is generating biomes that make sense. When I did the 140 biomes, I had to make sure that the biomes made sense for the location where they were at.

[Gaalidas]

Wouldn't want an arctic biome spawning on the equator would you? So, if I may return to a line in the first post and answer it... "simple" may not be a very accurate way to describe this idea and/or mod.

[Astrofox]

Why not an Arctic circle at the equator, after all, we had Pol (or Bop's) surface at the flagpole for a while.

But in all seriousness, that is kind of a problem...