Additional surface samples from ground scatter objects

[Bill Zarr]

Once you land on a planet or moon there's not a great deal to do, run the experiments, plant a flag, a few minutes and you're done.  There's little need to move from where you landed. Rather than just have one surface sample from a geological region (aka biome)  I think allowing scientists(or any kerbal?) to take samples from ground scatter rocks would be an interesting game play mechanic. There would be the default soil sample from biome X, then there would be rock samples obtained from the surface scatter locations.  Rather than just have one type of rock sample I think having several that are random might be best, that way you'd have to travel to a number of different rocks to get a variety of samples. Sort of like random science loot drops. This would give a reason to explore around the landing site and spend a little more time on the planets surface. Rovers would be useful for this. Perhaps high level scientists might get a low random chance to recover meteorites, including those originating on other bodies. ie rock sample 5 - granite meteorite originating on Duna, found on the Mun.

 

 

[Kerbart]

There are some practical obstacles to this, but yes, it would be cool, especially when tied to a contract. Obtain a surface sample from an orange rock in the East Crater of Mun.

• Not everyone has scatter objects
• Some players have a real low scatter object count, making the "required" ones stand out
• Might lead to science grinding

But working properly around these concerns could add an interesting game dynamic.

[sal_vager]

Contracts could spawn an object independent of the scatters, also I think surface samples should have mass.

[r_rolo1]

Well, I am 100% in agreement with the OP, but it would require that scatter objects would become material ( aka you can interact with them ) . The only other object in game that resembles what scatter objects would need to be are asteroids ( that are actually "potatoroid" rocket parts  ) and I shudder to think about how the game would deal with some hundreds of thousands of "rock scatter" parts on the phys load radius in planetary surfaces ...

[tater]

34 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Contracts could spawn an object independent of the scatters, also I think surface samples should have mass.

This is a much better idea than samples from random scatter.

[Bill Zarr]

Sadly the contract idea entirely misses the point. Adding a contract for take a rock sample from object at location X is just a minor variation on the take a surface sample at location X type contracts that already exist in the game, (no doubt a nice addition) but it doesn't make the basic science interactions any more interesting.

My suggestion was to change how taking surface samples works to make it more interactive and to require exploration. Something that would require you to move more than 1m away from the bottom of the lander ladder, and take more than 10 seconds. Something that would give a slight sense of actually exploring a planet and doing science. The random scatter is merely a convenient visual cue. There's no reason you couldn't have sample variation from locations that differ by 100m or something of that order. 

Contracts are a really bad fit for this. Chance of a random contract at the time you land, in the biome you want to do science in, at a suitable inclination etc etc is likely to be pretty low. And if past contracts are anything to go by they will be at locations that are just far enough apart to make it tedious by rover and inconvenient by lander/hopper. Contracts are like side quests, and I'm talking changing a game mechanic.

[Nemeko]

This are discussed some time ago

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/72635-very-wip-syndics-geologyrocks-mod/&page=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2jq4od/kerbal_rock_collector/

animations

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/126976-things-that-never-made-it-to-the-gamethings-that-were-added-later/#comment-2307896

And with the physic part you can appreciate in this video that physics appear very near the object when the object is landed from minute 14:20 (it supposed that reduce the lag when you are landing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3V6COGcLW4

I'm try to make a mod myself for this but is very complicated (for my) and i'm learning things about moding very slow

 

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by Nemeko