Maybe we'll have stock mapping soon ... (pure speculation)

[fishlips13]

Speculation maybe, but I have my reasons.

In yesterdays dev blog, Harv was talking about science and experiments. One of the things he mentioned was "a system to allow experiments to output different results based on where you are on the planet". Now this on it's own doesn't mean much but if you extrapolate the way in which the game handles the data, one could envision the game checking the position of the craft relative to the planets' CoM and determining attributes valid for that location. Among those might be gravity, temperature, etc, but it's not out of the way to envision co-ordinates and terrain heights along with it, and if that's the case then that implementation couldn't be too far from doing the same, but in space!

I know what your going to say. I'm tying vague possibilities together to form a very whimsical whole.

And I would have to agree with you! In all likelihood the science stuff for landed craft will be tied to the planets texture and read based on the 'tile' of the surface your on (or closest to). But then, that still stores information about the planet in location coherently (the same cannot be said for the mish-mash way MapSat derives its data). So, whats stopping the next inevitable step towards storing terrain it in a way we can access it easily, maybe using a ray cast to the surface through he CoM, finding the closest 'tile' and reading it's beautiful terrain data, say from a mapping satellite?

I've been hoping, along with many others I imagine, for a long time for KSP to add mapping and in my eyes this is a lot closer than we've been before.

But I can dream can't I. Haha.

[Rage097]

Try ISA Mapsat.

Assuming it's updated and won't break the game.

[nimiety]

By dev blog do you mean the KSP weekly or something else that was posted? I noticed in the KSP weekly for this week it mentions "There is enough to talk about there for a full dev blog entry, so stay tuned for something later. " I'm wondering if I missed something or not lol. I'm very much looking forward to all of these additions and a way to actually map out the planets would be amazing. Since they're procedural it'd be nice to be able to get a complete view of the planet before trying to pick out a landing zone and all of that.

[Blue]

I was more thinking that different terrain resulting in different data would come from landing in say an alien highland vs. lowland or crater basin, crater rim, mountain, sea, pole, near deceased Kraken, etc.

[PeaMatt]

Terrain mapping tools would be a welcome addition indeed. Might try the mod myself someday

[Jean Deaux]

I'd love to have an integratted mapper just so I don't get the "Remove all your mods before reporting a bug" reminder.

[Brofessional]

Any sort of integrated mapping system will have to be simplified from what we have now. Leaving your game running for 8 hours is not a good solution for the official game.

The easiest way would probably just be to make the mapping field ultra-wide so you only need to make a few orbits to map the surface.

[Karriz]

Any sort of integrated mapping system will have to be simplified from what we have now. Leaving your game running for 8 hours is not a good solution for the official game.

The easiest way would probably just be to make the mapping field ultra-wide so you only need to make a few orbits to map the surface.

That would be a solution, or perhaps allowing the mapping to run while flying another mission. After all it shouldn't involve any physics engine calculations.

[regex]

I'm curious: What, exactly, does a mapper do for your game? Is it just something extra to do? To me it seems like a completely useless feature.

[Sma]

I'm curious: What, exactly, does a mapper do for your game? Is it just something extra to do? To me it seems like a completely useless feature.

Yes, something extra to do, but just like in real life you can use it to map out a landing site, one that doesn't have too much of a slope to it. Of course you could just google and find maps already made, but where is the fun in that?

[Brofessional]

The more practical application is mapping for resource deposits, with the Kethane mod.

[regex]

Yes, something extra to do, but just like in real life you can use it to map out a landing site, one that doesn't have too much of a slope to it. Of course you could just google and find maps already made, but where is the fun in that?

What kind of resolution are you talking about? It's not like you can't go into the Space Center, double-click on a planet, and check out possible landing sites. I get the "something else to do" angle, not trying to derail you guys. I just don't see the appeal. vOv

The more practical application is mapping for resource deposits, with the Kethane mod.

Yeah, I use Kethane, I'm more curious about just mapping for mapping's sake.

[Jodo42]

I'm curious: What, exactly, does a mapper do for your game? Is it just something extra to do? To me it seems like a completely useless feature.

Knowing approximate terrain height and slope can be extremely important when picking a landing spot, especially on bodies like Eve and Tylo, where you've got a lot of gravity or a thick atmosphere to fight, and a couple extra kilometers can save you a 1000m/s dv, or others like Pol, Gilly, Bop, and Minmus, where finding a place that isn't at a 40 degree slope can be tricky. And finally, yeah, it's something extra to do - which is always good in a sandbox game. It adds a bit of realism, and a lot of us like to try to run semi-realistic programs. So it's just one more feature, and it'd probably be easy to code, so why not?

[fishlips13]

Try ISA Mapsat.

Assuming it's updated and won't break the game.

Neither, lol. I used to use it all the time. Every terrain update was a new adventure, finding interesting crags and peaks. Unfortunately, whenever I try to use it my machine just laughs at me and grinds to a halt, no matter how much a try to hack it to make it work.

By dev blog do you mean the KSP weekly or something else that was posted?

I was talking about the KSP Weekly (24th September). It's more of a personal habit to called it a "dev blog" because most developers call it that. The part I was referencing is in Harvs "what I've been upto" section.

Any sort of integrated mapping system will have to be simplified from what we have now. Leaving your game running for 8 hours is not a good solution for the official game.

The easiest way would probably just be to make the mapping field ultra-wide so you only need to make a few orbits to map the surface.

The way I understand it ISA MapSat uses iterative raycasting to calculate the distance from the ship to the surface through a specified area below the craft. The game was never designed to do anything so vicious and the mod does an excellent job hacking together the data to make a nice map. Unfortunately, as hacks tend to go it's complicated and CPU/RAM intensive, so it can easily blow up in your face with very small bugs if unmaintained (ring any bells?) and limits the use of time acceleration because that's just so much more strain on the already heavily loaded system.

Why I'm so excited/hopeful about what Harv described for science is, if the game is storing data about locations on the surface coherently for specific 'tiles' it's not unfeasible to store a ton of terrain data in an easy to access format that doesn't involve all this interpolation about heights and distances ISA MapSat uses. The theoretical mapper in question could say "Hey wheres the closest tile between me and the orbited bodys CoM? Oh it's that one! Hey, gimme your terrain data." Pop. And suddenly a pre-parsed map of that tile is now displayed in the game, no additional processing required because it was compiled back at Squad HQ. And lets say your higher up taking a bigger picture of the planet. ISA would have to do a tonnnnn more calculations because there's more map to be made. This system would just ask neighboring tiles to the one queried to hand over their data too. Cheap, simple, replicable, robust, and time acceleration safe (within reason).

But alas, I'm rambling. I'm just excited at the potentiality of it all!

[Sma]

What kind of resolution are you talking about? It's not like you can't go into the Space Center, double-click on a planet, and check out possible landing sites.

I haven't used it much myself, been waiting for RT2 to come out so have just been testing various things, but as far as I understand it the resolution is dependant upon you're orbital altitude and how much time you spend orbiting. The closer you are the higher the resolution will be, up to a certain point anyway. One of the biggest images I've seen is 2592x1296 Not sure what that equates to as far as km/m per pixel though. It is how ever enough to determine which landing sites are better than others. I think some people have also generated bump maps from it to use in 3d rendering of Kerbin and other bodies from the game.

As for going into the the Space Center and checking out a planet it's not quite as detailed as a height map would be, plus if it's on the dark side of the planet you can't really see it. This is where the the gps part comes in, you put it on your landers/rovers and pick a spot that looks good on the map. Then you if you use mechjeb or some other auto pilot program you can put the coordinates for you're chosen landing site and get to exactly where you want to land, depending upon the margin of error the auto pilot may have.

[Cal'Mihe]

Its also an indirect way to track your progress. I seem to recall the mapping of the far side of the moon was a big achievement.

[Specialist290]

I'd like to point out that, as a real world cartophile who can get lost in his own little world staring at a map and imagining what the places it portrays are like, "mapping for mapping's sake" can indeed be an enjoyable experience in and of itself.

There's no real explanation for it, other than some people just enjoy it, just like some enjoy collecting stamps or watching C-SPAN even if they don't actually care about politics.

[ZenithRising]

I would totally love to see this, especially in conjunction with all the science stuff coming down the pipe. I sent a fleet of probes to Laythe recently to try and determine the salinity of the water, but I could only collect four data points and I tracked it in a google spreadsheet. More of this kind of exploration and experimentation, tracked in-game, would be awesome.

[Geschosskopf]

I'm thinking mapping satellites would be a bit down the road. Mapping's main practical application is in preparation for actually landing on another planet, regardless of any "science" value just making the map produces. But landing on another planet requires a rocket to go there, and I get the impression from what the devs have shown so far that to start with, you won't have such a rocket. All parts that let you get to orbit will be locked up until you do enough suborbital science to acquire them, then you have to do a lot of LKO science to be able to get even to Mun, let alone further afield.

So, speaking as a recovering former indy game dev myself, I figure when we see 0.22, doing career mode will be like the 1950s. This will serve to test the basic system. Going beyond that will probably be the subject of later development, somewhere in the midst of which HOPEFULLY mapping capability will become vanilla.

[kingdead42]

So, speaking as a recovering former indy game dev myself, I figure when we see 0.22, doing career mode will be like the 1950s. This will serve to test the basic system. Going beyond that will probably be the subject of later development, somewhere in the midst of which HOPEFULLY mapping capability will become vanilla.

How long after this update comes out that someone posts pictures of a manned landing and return from Laythe using 1950s tech?

[fishlips13]

When I say "soon" I imagine something in the next half dozen updates. I don't doubt for a second that the practical application of career mode will come first (as it should) and that'll dominate the next few updates. I'm casting my gaze far away on the horizon where imagination more than science has dominion. If anything I'm hoping the new data for science will let us maaaybe fiddle with some things and add such a mapping system through a mod. We'll see. That's as far as my hopes go for the immediate future.

[Geschosskopf]

How long after this update comes out that someone posts pictures of a manned landing and return from Laythe using 1950s tech?

Given this is what the plain vanilla guys do every day, I figure 6-8 hours tops including video edit.

But now you see the real issue here. What's the point of having to unlock parts if you don't have to pay cash for each instance of them you use in each of your rockets? If an unlocked part is freely available in unlimited quantity, then just spam some science until you've got the part(s) you want and then ignore the whole system. And then you're right back in sandbox mode. Thus, I figure to make career mode really different from sandbox, there will have to be budgets to go along with science.

So, while most folks here can probably go anywhere they want with starter tech and enough struts, think about the sheer number of weak, inefficient engines you'd need, each one carrying a hefty pricetag. And then there'll be the inevitable failures you also have to pay for. If you don't start with much money, you'll probably have to follow a long, slow path. Do some science which brings in just barely more money than the rocket cost but unlocks a part that brings in a bit more profit on the next science mission, repeat. Going like this, it will take a long time to even scrape together the cash to get to Mun, let alone Laythe.

[Sma]

Thus, I figure to make career mode really different from sandbox, there will have to be budgets to go along with science.

So, while most folks here can probably go anywhere they want with starter tech and enough struts, think about the sheer number of weak, inefficient engines you'd need, each one carrying a hefty pricetag. And then there'll be the inevitable failures you also have to pay for. If you don't start with much money, you'll probably have to follow a long, slow path. Do some science which brings in just barely more money than the rocket cost but unlocks a part that brings in a bit more profit on the next science mission, repeat. Going like this, it will take a long time to even scrape together the cash to get to Mun, let alone Laythe.

Eventually that is how it will be in career mode. All the parts already have quantities, and maybe prices (I haven't looked in a while), although they're all set to 9999 I believe. I doubt it'll be implemented for 0.22 though.

[Tw1]

Mapping would be a science activity of its own. IRL, we didn't have complete maps of the other planets before going to them, just rough ones from the photos.