Open-source tech program

[Valiant]

trying to use the best strategy to max my rep so i can get better contracts. I've unlocked the whole tech tree on a stock game.  open source tech program converts "field work" to reputation. Can someone please tell me what field work is?

[Zhetaan]

23 hours ago, Valiant said:

trying to use the best strategy to max my rep so i can get better contracts. I've unlocked the whole tech tree on a stock game.  open source tech program converts "field work" to reputation. Can someone please tell me what field work is?

It just means science points from doing actual experiments, as opposed to the science points that you may receive from completing contracts.

[Valiant]

On 2/25/2022 at 9:02 AM, Zhetaan said:

It just means science points from doing actual experiments, as opposed to the science points that you may receive from completing contracts.

Thanks for the response although this does not seem to be the case. I've went out and collected buku science without any contract and got no rep for it.

[Zhetaan]

On 3/1/2022 at 2:35 PM, Valiant said:

Thanks for the response although this does not seem to be the case. I've went out and collected buku science without any contract and got no rep for it.

Hmm.  Well, it doesn't seem right that it would reference field work (as opposed to contracts) and then not convert field work.  Perhaps 'field work' refers to things such as part tests and experimental surveys--these are things that generate science because of the contract, but are not counted as part of the science reward for completing the contract.  To put it another way, if you have, for example, a contract to test some part on the pad, then the test itself will often generate science over and above the listed contract reward.  I must offer my apologies because I did not test this myself.  I'll take a closer look later today and report on what I find; I have a test install of KSP that I can use for this.

In your mission summaries (these would be both the report after you recover a vessel, and the contract completion report that you access from the toolbar) does it show a number in parentheses next to the science total?  That would document the effect of your strategy.  I ask because it may be that the devs decided to leave actual experiments available as a source of science points if you needed them (this would be from before they made the changes to the mobile lab, mind), though it boggles the mind that they would not have been thinking of these experiments as field work.

I'll look at the cfg files as well when I run the test rig.

There are couple of other possibilities to consider, as well.  How high is your reputation?  One important difference between science and rep is that science is a running total that cannot go below zero, whereas reputation asymptotically approaches the endpoints on its -1000 to 1000 scale.  If your reputation is sufficiently high, then you cannot gain more.  (The same is true in the other direction:  the general public becomes inured to your indiscriminate and reckless disregard for property and the lives of your Kerbals, and your reputation cannot go below -1000, either.)  In other words, the more reputation you have, the harder it is to get even more.  I think that the game would take the many disparate sources of science, add them up, and only then convert the total into reputation points, but if it does each conversion individually, you might be gaining thousandths of a point and thus seeing no practical change.

What this means for your strategy is that if you already have a high reputation, converting science points into more rep may just be a way to get rid of excess science points. and nothing else.

Another alternative is to ask whether you committed 100% to the strategy?  You mentioned unlocking the entire tech tree, so I assumed that you also had a level 3 Administration Building, which you need for 100% commitment.

I'll have an answer within twelve hours, I hope.

Edit:  Did it in eight!  Anyway, the strategy configuration file is very clear:  'field work' consists of ScienceTransmission, VesselRecovery, and Progression.  ScienceTransmission is straightforward.  VesselRecovery covers, I think, both experiments recovered with the vessel and the vessel itself (for those times that you bring back the first vessel to fly by, orbit, or land on a body).  Progression is the internal name for World's Firsts rewards.

I also ran a short career save with the strategy turned up to 100% and with a number of experiments in different situations.  The vessel recovery window showed the science value of each experiment, but the bottom of the window showed zero science gain.  The notification window (the one with the green checkmarks for completed contracts and blue globes for World's Firsts--it's the first button on the toolbar) showed the correct subtractions of science and additions of reputation as I expected, and my actual science total did not change after the mission.  Perhaps that was the problem?

Edited March 2, 2022 by Zhetaan

[AlchemistZ7]

I've used the same strategy to increase my reputation. The field work science has definitely yielded rep points for me. Two things to note:

1) it seems to take exponentially more rep points to raise actual reputation score the higher you go, similar to xp requirements for leveling up in other games. 

2) Rep yield is rounded down. Say you have the commitment set to 50%. You go do some field science worth 100 science points. The strategy will take 50% of that (50 points) and give you 1 rep point for each 53.965 science taken (0 points) 

• Takes 5 – 100% Science gains from field work
• Yields 1 Reputation for each 59.63 – 48.30 Science

So to get reputation from field science you should collect your science in big batches to avoid loosing all your rep gains to rounding. The mobile science lab is good for that, since you can regularly send back batches of 500 science at a time.

[magnemoe]

How do reputation scaling work as in the function for it? 
I assume its an exponential function a log like relativistic speed version energy there reputation is energy and speed is reputation. 

[Zhetaan]

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

How do reputation scaling work as in the function for it? 
I assume its an exponential function a log like relativistic speed version energy there reputation is energy and speed is reputation. 

Technically, that would be an asymptotic function, not an exponential.

Anyway, according to this post, it's probably an algorithm, which is to say that the results change based on arbitrary rules that don't necessarily relate well to a mathematically-precise continuous function.

I'm interested in finding out a bit more about it myself, so I think that I'll look into it a bit more deeply.  I won't have much time to do so until the weekend, though, so don't expect an answer from me for at least two days.

 

[Zozaf Kerman]

I’m not a hundred percent sure about this, but maybe field work is how the game decides what levels up the characters? 

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, Zozaf Kerman said:

I’m not a hundred percent sure about this, but maybe field work is how the game decides what levels up the characters? 

That would be nice, but leveling up has more to do with where the Kerbal has gone than science done.  Like orbiting Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, the Sun etc, landing on planets and moons, being present when a flag is planted.  I think first EVA might count, not sure.  These are all (I think) only for first time a given Kerbal has done it; that is they only get the "flag" bonus once per planet/moon.  I do know that launching some kerbs to orbit and land on the Mun and plant a flag, then to orbit Minmus (landing and flag optional I think), then to solar orbit and back to Kerbin will get them all to 3 stars.  I might have missed a step in there and I think the landing and flag can be Mun or Minmus

[surge]

It is barely scaled mathematically, and mostly hard coded:

// Schedule, ratings and modes:
// orbit kerbin = +1,    LAUNCH, KE_CIRC, MU_INT, MU_TCM
// flyby mun = +1,       MU_TCM
// orbit mun = +1,       MU_CIRC, MU_ESC
// flyby minmus = +1,    KE_INTMIN, KE_TCMMIN, MI_TCM
// orbit minmus = +1,    MI_CIRC
// land on minmus = +1,  MI_LAND, MI_LAUNCH, MI_ESC
// plant flag on minmus = +1 (remove flag), N/A
// escape kerbin = +1,   KE_ESC, SU_RETURN
// land on kerbin,       KE_BRAKE, KE_LAND

...from an old version of a "tourist" rocket that flew around just to get these points. Please ignore the KE_, MU_ stuff after the commas; they are internal state indicators.

1 point = about 1/3 of a "gold star"/level up, apparently?

If you want to get max points for minimal effort, plant a flag on the Muen, orbit Minmus, leave Kerbin SOI, return safely. It will give your kerbal 3 stars. Enough for most Kerbals to repair things, fly properly, etc... and basically be proficient.

Instead of bumbling around like little green idiots.

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by surge
couldnt resist the joke