Condensing science reports

[Pthigrivi]

So this is a suggestion in light of the (super exciting) Breaking Ground DLC, but I think would help out in vanilla as well. We don't know a lot about what's coming, but its fair to guess there are a whole lot more experiments coming our way, and even now its a little tedious cycling through 6-8 different readout screens when we're collecting science. I'd love if it were possible to condense all that onto one clean dialog box. 

First off, I don't see a special reason why recovering any individual experiment at Kerbin couldn't yield 100% of its value. You could of course process that to get more, but I don't see a strong reason to incentivize multiple collect-and-return missions to the exact same site for diminishing returns. Just resolving that helps clean up the UI quite a bit:



We could further reduce science grind by making all samples non-transmittable (process only), and making all other data non-processable (transmit only). If we went down that road we could combine all of our current experiments as line items on one dialog box and place larger buttons at the bottom to store all, transmit all, or process all. If worthless, repeat experiments were automatically dumped you wouldn't even need a reset button:



There are surely a number of other less invasive ways to streamline things. Just a thought on how to keep everything as easy to use as possible. Pretty pumped about the new DLC!

 

Edited May 7, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[Pthigrivi]

Oh and the other big one to reduce clicking and grind would be a stock "new science available" indicator, and honestly a "Gather science" standard action group button up by the lights and brakes wouldn't hurt either. Better too would be if the "store all" button automatically stored everything to a experiment storage unit if one was on board. With all that you'd really only have to click two buttons each time you entered a new biome and you wouldn't be pulled out of the experience by sifting through menus while you're trying to fly or drive. All this seems especially important if we're spending more time scouting surface features and placing deployable experiments. To my mind the more we consolidate the fuss the more we can focus on the fun stuff. 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[MechBFP]

I agree with this. Doing it the first time around for the flavour text makes it okay, but after that it is just tedious clicking.

In my opinion some science should HAVE to get processed by the mobile science lab to get anything from them, making them more useful than a somewhat cheaty free science printer.

[Loskene]

Yes.

Clickety-clack, send the damn science back.

[Pthigrivi]

14 hours ago, MechBFP said:

I agree with this. Doing it the first time around for the flavour text makes it okay, but after that it is just tedious clicking.

In my opinion some science should HAVE to get processed by the mobile science lab to get anything from them, making them more useful than a somewhat cheaty free science printer.

Yeah and I don't think we need to ditch the flavor text entirely, it would still be there if you clicked on that experiment bar. I guess we'll have to wait to see how they're handling things with the new experiments so who knows about rejiggering the processing mechanic. The main thing for me is just getting it all in one dialog box with master buttons to boil collection down to 2 clicks if you were in a hurry and didn't feel like fussing.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[sumghai]

I concur with all of the OP's sentiments, especially consolidating all experimental reports (including flavor text) in list form.