Distant Solar Science MOD

[GarrisonChisholm]

Good evening.

Pursuant to my thread suggesting Distant Solar Science be added to the game;

I would like to request that a Modder with the skills which I do not have undertake to add Distant Solar Science to the game.

Easy; Add a single new region beyond High Altitude to Kerbol, multiplying all science rewards by 1.5 & calling it Interstellar Medium.

Hard; Implement the 3 zones I suggest in the above thread (Kuiper Belt Objects, Heliopause, & Interstellar Medium), with science values in those zones multiplied by 0.8, 1.2, & 1.5.

The ranges for all zones would be dependent upon whatever outer-most, Non-"Planet 9" planet the player has installed (Eeloo, Plock, etc.), so the Mod would need to detect this distance and then set the additional solar zones as some multiple of this (suggested range multiplier 5 for Easy, and 1.1, 3, & 5 for Hard).

Any further discussion about any unique difficulties unforeseen by myself in the execution of this Mod would be welcome.

Edited April 12, 2016 by GarrisonChisholm

[GarrisonChisholm]

I thought I'd share my investigations of this idea, as amateurish and unschooled as they are.

Upon learning that simply "adding" additional altitude zones to a body is not as simple as I had surmised (thank you @GregroxMun), I first tried pillaging the FlyLow/FlyHigh zones from Kerbol, reasoning that with 0 atmospheric density they would suit and the frequency of using those atmosphere zones for Kerbol would be much lower for the average player (well, at least for "me").  However, this caused the horrendous issue of not being able to go faster than x4 Physics Warp for in atmospheres.  - Idea #1 kaput.

I next decided to only use 2 Space zones for Kerbol, Planetary Space & Interplanetary Space.  However, this caused the mess of screwing up every contract that asked for High/Low solar missions, because now "high" space would be 2 billion Km away.

Additionally, the main issue I am having is that the PC I am forced to use is a glorified Word-perfect machine, and loading and re-loading to test results and trouble-shoot typos and mistakes is untenable.

So, in short, no progress to report.  If any occurs in the future, I will post it here.

[richfiles]

8 hours ago, GarrisonChisholm said:

...not as simple as I had surmised...

Additionally, the main issue I am having is that the PC I am forced to use is a glorified Word-perfect machine, and loading and re-loading to test results and trouble-shoot typos and mistakes is untenable.

It's okay... try not to think about the load times... They end eventually... 

Thank you though, for at least trying. At least we know what the game's limits are now. What about the Asteroid Day mod. It's able to figure out that the sentinel probe is in an orbit between planetary orbits. Can we create a system that specifies collecting ANY Kerbol science in ranges of orbits sin a similar matter, using whatever system Asteroid Day is using?

[GarrisonChisholm]

I'm afraid I don't know.   I'm not a modder or coder, I'm just a hack.  When I managed to replace "America" with "Hittites" back in Civilization 1 i counted it a masterstroke of creativity and problem-solving.

Perhaps others will be able to offer more worthy insight...  ?

[GarrisonChisholm]

Felbourn

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Posted 17 hours ago · Report post

 

This can be done but you'd need to create a special plugin for it. The game defaults to fixed altitudes for biomes:

public class CelestialBodyScienceParams
{
    public float flyingAltitudeThreshold;
    public float FlyingHighDataValue;
    public float FlyingLowDataValue;
    public float InSpaceHighDataValue;
    public float InSpaceLowDataValue;
    public float LandedDataValue;
    public float RecoveryValue;
    public float spaceAltitudeThreshold;
    public float SplashedDataValue;

    public CelestialBodyScienceParams();
}

 

A fantastic insight- thank you Felbourn!!  Maybe this will be our key, and someone more learned than I can put it to use.

Edited July 28, 2016 by GarrisonChisholm
Adding Commentary after pasting

[GarrisonChisholm]

Upon experimentation by @ShotgunNinja, thanks to @Felbourn 's insights, we have found that it is possible to 'trick' the science system into delivering science at new regions, however this has the unfortunate side-effect of the game not recognizing new additional biomes, for example meaning Science Alert would not register them, and the game would never "tell" you that you were in a unique region of space.

Over the weekend I had thought of another work-around, though I'm unsure of its repercussions.  What if a second body was placed at the heart of Kerbol, of diminutive size and zero gravity, with its atmospheric layers clamped down to near zero, but its Low Space would be our Kuiper Belt region (~ 1Bkm to 2Bkm), and its High Space would be our Heliopause/Interstellar Space (~2Bkm+).  What repercussions would this have, and could this give us new Science *and* Biomes both?

I am a theorist at best, and a certain amount of silicon intimidation and the immense load-times for testing and re-testing mod changes make me an impractical executor of such an attempt.  However, if someone would happen to hit upon a "Ghost Body" solution to creating additional space science *and* biomes, the "prestige" of the developed mod would rightly be their's.  I hope someone is able to poke around with this in Kopernicus and test it out.

As a last point, in searching for my own thread, I see that @NERVAfan first proposed this concept a couple years back.  I hope we can find a solution that will give birth to all of these Voyager dreams.

[GarrisonChisholm]

*tap*

 

I've been away for a good while (family), but maybe there is a new batch of brains which might conceivably breath life into these ideas yet.  If not, the sands of time will swiftly settle 'or it again, I'm sure.

All my best to everyone!...