Orbital or Flying Science and Regions - A simple suggestion using buckets.

[Oak7603]

So we all know that regions are currently pausing certain science experiments as they change underneath the flying or orbiting crafts. There has been talk that is a bug anyway, and that the regional part will be removed, but I think it could stay as it is with the following idea.

This simple suggestion would be for the regions to have their own 'buckets' within each experiment so rather than pausing the experiment it just starts filling up the next bucket.

As a working example - the orbital survey experiment around Kerbin will cover the 7 regions, each of which class as a different experiment. As you orbit conducting the experiment, it starts over water, so the generated science points start to fill the 'water bucket'. We can arbitrarily assign 100 points to each bucket, so we could say that the bucket gets filled up to 58 points, and then the orbiting craft goes over the highlands. Rather than pausing, it now just starts filling the 'highlands bucket'. Again it manages to fill 15 points and then it goes over water again and starts to fill the 'water bucket' again. Eventually, after many orbits the buckets will get full and will complete the experiments for each region.

In a game where time can be fast forwarded, it would be easy to just send up an orbtiing craft, speed up time and all experiments will complete. I think this defeats the object of running the science so it could be that it only collects science when in no more than 3x time warp, or whatever number the desginers choose.

The bucket idea can work for other region specific experiments.

As a slight tangent, I also think that the science generated by orbiting craft should be non completing. The orbital survey experiment itself would be as once a planet is surveyed, they don't tend to change significantly, but there could be a science research exepriment (there may be one, I may just not have reached that point yet) that runs continually. Again there may be issues with time warping to generate science, so the same previous suggestion could be implemented.

[Jeq]

12 hours ago, Oak7603 said:

So we all know that regions are currently pausing certain science experiments as they change underneath the flying or orbiting crafts. There has been talk that is a bug anyway, and that the regional part will be removed, but I think it could stay as it is with the following idea.

This simple suggestion would be for the regions to have their own 'buckets' within each experiment so rather than pausing the experiment it just starts filling up the next bucket.

As a working example - the orbital survey experiment around Kerbin will cover the 7 regions, each of which class as a different experiment. As you orbit conducting the experiment, it starts over water, so the generated science points start to fill the 'water bucket'. We can arbitrarily assign 100 points to each bucket, so we could say that the bucket gets filled up to 58 points, and then the orbiting craft goes over the highlands. Rather than pausing, it now just starts filling the 'highlands bucket'. Again it manages to fill 15 points and then it goes over water again and starts to fill the 'water bucket' again. Eventually, after many orbits the buckets will get full and will complete the experiments for each region.

In a game where time can be fast forwarded, it would be easy to just send up an orbtiing craft, speed up time and all experiments will complete. I think this defeats the object of running the science so it could be that it only collects science when in no more than 3x time warp, or whatever number the desginers choose.

The bucket idea can work for other region specific experiments.

As a slight tangent, I also think that the science generated by orbiting craft should be non completing. The orbital survey experiment itself would be as once a planet is surveyed, they don't tend to change significantly, but there could be a science research exepriment (there may be one, I may just not have reached that point yet) that runs continually. Again there may be issues with time warping to generate science, so the same previous suggestion could be implemented.

I don't think regional orbit bucket would be more fun than just have one low or high orbit.  We would just need to watch and wait same ship orbit little bit longer. If there is no any additional task to require thinking  or planning then i want just it done and go.

Edited January 11 by Jeq

[Oak7603]

'Fun' is entirely subjective, for me the science adds adds an element of variety, and this is increased by using the regions. Rather than just a low or high result, there would be the regions as well as high and low. I think it's better to work some sort of complexity and longevity into the science, rather than reducing everything down to just high or low orbits.