Introducing For Science! - Major Content Update Out in December

[mcwaffles2003]

So Im just going to say I am happy to see that the science update is in sight and we have some data and hints on how its mechanics will function in overall gameplay. If you guys dont mind I'm going to reiterate some hopes of mine I have for how science will function and will put it in spoilers as to not to take up a massive block in the thread. A lot of this is collected from my older posts I made pre-launch. going over my hopes for what science will be, what experiments can practically do for us, and ways in which satellites will function in reference to science. To anyone that actually reads this over... you have my sincerest of apologies

 

I still really hope we get a useable compendium of the science data we gather and it becomes usable in gameplay in a significant manner:

Spoiler

I would like a use for science beyond progressing the tech tree

An in-game wiki whose contents are revealed as the relevant data is discovered. Each part should contain its own page  with details to its specifications and perhaps a bit of lore (company that built it, silly facts about it, the stuff in the tool tips, etc). Each biome should also have a bit of data about it as well as the celestial bodies as a whole. This could be done via having the whole wiki written out and each facet of it (whole pages and sections of each page) hidden until a condition is met, where the data then appears as if it were added in.

I feel this kind of in game reference would serve both as being useful and fulfilling to fill out. We wouldn't need to go to the internet to find things like the height/characteristics of an atmosphere for a planetary body since we could just send a probe to it with a barometer/thermometer and let it fall through the atmosphere while relaying the data back to the KSC. Upon data transmission we could look into the wiki and have something like the following graph appear:

Now I dont know how many of you have played with kerbalism since its 3.0 update came out where science is done in a continuous and gradual manner as opposed to the one click and its done way but I personally like it. I think this should be possible if the base game is going to have continuous monitoring of background resources anyway (I believe thrusting while warping/not focused was confirmed, correct me if I'm wrong) . This might be over reaching but I believe implementing a similar system of continuous data collection could be fun, challenging, and would allow for sensible impartial data completion. For instance, the graph above could partially fill out for the atmosphere heights where data was collected/transmitted. If you sent a probe to Eve and it burns up at 75 km down, you would only see the 75 km - 90 km portion of the atmosphere and the rest could remain blank. 

Another example, maybe once a gravity scan is done we could see something like a diagram of the boundaries of the SOI of the scanned body with the altitude of things like stationary orbits placed in tables

Parts, like engines that have been researched, could have wiki pages with a table of ISPs and thrusts for each acceptable fuel type or a list of compatible nozzles (if KSP 2 goes full KSPIE)

I feel this kind of dynamic info source could bring a new type of life to the game. A more earnest adventure of discovery. And maybe when every entry is filled out we can say that's when the game is finally "beaten" and all the accomplishments have been fulfilled or something. Ultimately creating a form of goal in a career mode (beyond filling out the tech tree), something to constantly strive for, where a form progress is traceable, tangible, and applicable.

I'm not a great programmer, but personally this doesn't seem like it would be THAT hard of a task to create and would bring a lot to the game. It would give players a "direction" without being a guiding hand, it would give us reference to know whats going on without giving spoilers to things we haven't attempted yet, and it would make science finally feel like we're doing something more than just filling out a dumb tech tree that when it is completed then science loses its entire appeal and becomes unnecessary weight to any future craft... All it should require is a written out wiki and a set of conditional statements for unlocking relevant hidden information.

As @Jaypeg pointed out on the last page, it looks like a time to gather may have been incorporated in and I am excited, and would be absolutely delighted to see if that is the case.

 

A summary of some of the experiments I hope to see in the game and how some of them might serve to be useful to us in game in an intuitive fashion:

Spoiler

Barometric and temperature sensors to attach to probes which can produce graphs like this as they gather data at different altitudes

Spoiler

A magnetometer to map a planets magnetic field

A micrometeorite detector to discover the comparative safety of an orbits region

A scintillator to map the strength of radiation belts at different altitudes

Spoiler

Space telescopes to discover new planets and star systems revealing planetary orbits and general information about the stars that they orbit with high tolerance assumptions about those bodies composition and atmospheric properties

SCANsat like sensors to produce global maps like these which would reveal terrain maps, biome maps, and somewhat inaccurate (very general) resource maps:

Spoiler

A multitude of core sample drilling experiments of varying mass and length as well as seismic impact experiments to more accurately prospect a regions resource density increasing the accuracy of the prior maps with greater and greater accuracy.

These last few could be done by having a perfect map established with layers of blurring masks over top of them with each experiment removing a certain radius to a depth of a set amount of the masks.

 

I can go on... but finally, a single screen with which to view all this data like an evolving atlas, with each body taking its own page, each stellar system its own chapter, the whole kerbal  cosmos, the book.

 

Being a bit more specific about how some of these mechanics could work:

Spoiler

All of the data to be found in a compendium would already exists in tables in the game. I think it would just largely be UI development based around how that data is displayed and accessed. Effectively the entire compendium would have all the tables/maps/etc already there but just at the games start everything would be presented as blank. Every time you complete an experiment one of those blank spaces would simply reveal the data that was hidden before. This is easy to to with written data in a table form, but for maps I was thinking something like this.

The top image would be the real data while the bottom is a representation of what the user could see given some whacky satellite scanning strangely rectangular portions of a sphere:

Originally, the portion of the achieve UI that would hold this map wouldn't be seen until the body is discovered. Not even a blank page, just no page. Once the body is discovered (possibly with an orbital telescope) it would show up as a grey sphere representing the player knows something is there, but there is no clue as to what it is. In the bottom image to the right of the red rectangle is the portion with maximum blur. This is what the body would be covered with using a level 1 scan (advanced telescope from a distance or perhaps a crew report from orbit). Inside the red square would be a level 2 scan (Orbiting probe with a low tech camera). Inside the yellow box would be a level 3 scan (Orbiting probe with a more high tech camera). Finally, the green square, a level 4 scan (which wouldn't show up as a box but perhaps a 20km radius circle around where a site was prospected. Just make it so if you do a level 3 scan in a region that has only had a level one scan it bypasses the level 2 masking layer as well.

It's not a perfect representation, but I think it gets the point across. All I needed was the hard data (top image), then layer copies of that image with a simple blur mask overlayed that I made in photoshop in 5 minutes. Something similar is done in SCANsat and the amount of layers or the ways of uncovering them can very to the devs preference. Furthermore, just have tabs on the page for what kind of map data you would like (altitude, biome, resource) and represent them accordingly.

Another example from an image I posted earlier:

Once again, the top image is the full data that would be unknown to the player, stored as a table (not an image) of data points that is then graphed out. The bottom image is a representation of what a player might see (without the printed explanations). Basically the game would record through which portions of the atmosphere the probe was recording what data, and upon transmission that data would unlock the according sections of the spread sheet and allow them to be graphed.

I could be wrong, but I don't see how these things would eat up a sizable portion of dev time compared to the rest of the game that has been built but it would add an insanely immersive science simulation aspect to the game that would have us all digging through data and actually doing science. To top it off, if you don't wanna dig through data... just avoid going to that portion of the game, just like how if you only play sandbox you will never have a reason to go to the control center

 

Now as I remember, Nate already said some systems like this were in the works back in 2020:

I hope that this is still true.

Edited October 22, 2023 by mcwaffles2003

[asmi]

14 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

If things are royally busted on launch and its a repeat of February, I worry it'd be the last straw for the wider community. Sucks to say this, but its gonna be a sink or swim moment for many.

I've heard the same thing about first patch. And then the second one. And the third one.

The reality is any big update is going to bring bugs. That's just the way it is, so expect a couple of hotfixes until it stabilizes enough for long-ish career plays. And no, it won't be "a sink or swim moment", just like none of previous ones was.

[The Aziz]

5 hours ago, TRAPPIST-1E said:

I just have to ask, where has Wernher von Kerman gone?? and who is the "Keri Kerman" replacing him??!!?!?!?

Keri Kerman --->

Edit: Gene is gone too???

I think that was Curie Kerman, but in the noise I may have misheard it

[Dakota]

33 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I think that was Curie Kerman, but in the noise I may have misheard it

Her name is Keri!

[The Aziz]

*facepalm* again

Of course I didn't read the main post

 

[Pat20999]

15 hours ago, Royalswissarmyknife said:

1.5 Is this week!?!?!?!

Nope, Nate misspoke lol at least after Monday.

[Pat20999]

10 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

I understand that reference!!!

***

Also AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH SCIENCE UPDATE HYPE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH 

But I have two minor nitpicks: first off, I really hope those science reports are temporary. I was really hoping KSP2 would have better reports than "you did the experiment" etc.

Also, no Gene Kerman? 

I think KSP1 was focused on 20-century style rockets and KSP2 is more focused around 21-century style rockets.

5 hours ago, RevanX_LSR said:

would really like to see surface bases with actual purposes. something i wish was in ksp1

I think it never was accurate and that colonies are more realistic, I mean it is actually a colony but without the building feature.

[The Aziz]

14 minutes ago, Pat20999 said:

KSP2 is more focused around 21-century style rockets.

And they use interface from the 90's 

[Periple]

8 hours ago, Turbo Ben said:

If I'm honest, all I thought while reading this is "I'll believe it when I see it". The cynic in me is telling me it's just a marketing push in the run up to Christmas.

Promising and then not delivering is not a viable marketing strategy. There’s no way they would do that on purpose. If it turns out that they can’t deliver then that would be rather bad.

[Pat20999]

36 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

And they use interface from the 90's 

Maybe a retro-futuristic thing?

The Dev’s don’t mention it but this basically confirms artificial gravity, during the space creator day we saw it combined with the science update.

[stephensmat]

Science brings us to where KSP1 essentially is now, with updated graphics and such. Over at KSP1, it was the modders who made colony parts and extra planets.

Everything after this is brand new territory. Gotta be honest, the colonies system is the only other thing on the Roadmap I'm crazy for. The rest is just icing.

Besides, we've said it a hundred times. If they get the bugs fixed at a foundational level, then the next update comes faster.

[gotBurner]

Wonderful news, anxious to see you make this what was promised. Can be a great Christmas gift! Let's Go! 

[LarcasanKerman]

can´t wait

 

[Periple]

1 hour ago, stephensmat said:

Everything after this is brand new territory. Gotta be honest, the colonies system is the only other thing on the Roadmap I'm crazy for. The rest is just icing.

I’m most looking forward to resources, it’s too bad they’re last in the roadmap!

[RayneCloud]

Here we go.

[Astroneer08]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Turbo Ben]

3 hours ago, Periple said:

Promising and then not delivering is not a viable marketing strategy. There’s no way they would do that on purpose. If it turns out that they can’t deliver then that would be rather bad.

They've spent the last 4 years promising and not delivering and I haven't seen anything to make me think things will be different this time. I hope v0.2.0 can be the first step to delivering on promises, but I'm passed getting hyped, I need to see results.

[Periple]

14 minutes ago, Turbo Ben said:

They've spent the last 4 years promising and not delivering and I haven't seen anything to make me think things will be different this time. I hope v0.2.0 can be the first step to delivering on promises, but I'm passed getting hyped, I need to see results.

Aren’t we all! I was just saying that I don’t believe they are or have been intentionally deceptive, because that just doesn’t work. It’s clear they’ve had major problems delivering and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that they’re now in solid enough shape that they’ll ship on schedule and without game-breaking bugs!

[TheArturro]

Quote

The Science collection and transmission interface gives you the heads-up when there's an opportunity to take measurements or collect a sample. The research inventory gives a detailed view of all Science collected during a flight with clear information about what's been learned and what conditions need to be met to claim Science rewards. 

This sounds great. I really missed this feature in KSP1 and had to rely on a mod (ScienceAlert was it?). 

I'm cautiously optimistic. 

[Heretic391]

I'm curious how the CPU parallelization across all cores will work on those new 7950x3d  CPU etc. Pretty excited about the performance optimization, really want to get back to building even larger space stations.

[LunarMetis]

I'll withhold my judgment until the update actually comes, but I'm happy to see you guys still making tons of progress even after all the mountains of backlash! Much love!

[pk9sp]

Awesome! Looking forward to it

[Stevie_D]

The science does sadly sound rather a lot like the old science mode but with a time delay tacked on. And the "find Points of Interest for science" just sounds like the anomalies from KSP1  being turned from easter eggs into an addition to science. One of the main gripes about science in KSP 1 was the fact it was so monotonous and not very involved or interesting. It was a glorified repeating fetch quest. Having various things to do for different types of experiments was what most long-time players were hoping for.  I would say that, hopefully, the devs did their market research, knew that, and that's what they've been working on and they're just holding out on us for part of that "interesting things to come" quote... but then again, Nate thought the community loved wobbly rockets for 4 entire years of game development... And continued to do so even after it was pointed out from witnessing it happen in the earliest videos a year or so before release. So that's why I understand most folks will be cautious at hearing news of this update.

The key element, however, isn't the new content, it's in fixing the game-breaking bugs and making the game playable as a basic function. You can add all the shiny new parts and modes you want but if the core game isn't fixed into a playable state then no one can fly missions to enjoy the new content in the first place. Everyone who plays KSP will accept bugs, just not bugs that make playing the game impossible. Shadowzone posted a video just a couple days ago showing how virtually impossible it still is to complete even a simple mission. Matt Lowne I hear doesn't even want to touch docking ports because of their dangers.

So I dearly hope that the devs have fixed more than just the wobbly rockets, but 2 or 3 of the other deal-breaking bugs as well. Because to release a big update like this with announcements and media hype and then have it release and still be unplayable would then be 2 heavy kicks to the teeth within the game's first year. That will do the game's reputation even further damage and only solidify the huge amount of negative reviews. 

No-one wants that. So I really have my fingers crossed for you devs. If you want to turn things around it has to start being proven with actions - not words. 

Everyone in this community wants this game to be great, so hopefully in December we are all pleasantly surprised.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Stevie_D
Typo

[Pat20999]

I think points of interest als means biomes

[Strawberry]

There was an image on the steam announcement that wasnt on the forums for some reason