Mephane Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 It seems science is currently a 'pot of points' and no matter what way you drain it, you get it all.So far I assumed (never tested this) the reduction in science point yield due to transmission loss is completely lost. Do you mean that if, say, a sample is worth 100 points, but transmission only nets 40%, i.e. 40, the difference of 60 points remains in the science pool for that specific biome, instead of being lost forever? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godot Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 So far I assumed (never tested this) the reduction in science point yield due to transmission loss is completely lost. Do you mean that if, say, a sample is worth 100 points, but transmission only nets 40%, i.e. 40, the difference of 60 points remains in the science pool for that specific biome, instead of being lost forever?Yep, or to say it in another way:The efficiency percentage doesn´t only modify the scientific yield, but also the decrease in scientific yield for the next scientific result of the same kind ...so, with other words, if you have a transmission efficiency of 20% it also means, that the decreasy in scientific output also is just reduced by 20% (of the value of a return mission ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wallace Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Some people were complaining that there's no advantage to setting up a space station, but with it taking 73 transmissions to drain a Goo and Bay of all it's science, then I can see how it pays to stick around, however a simple goo+bay satellite could do the same, but there does seem to be an advantage to sticking around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephane Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Yep, or to say it in another way:The efficiency percentage doesn´t only modify the scientific yield, but also the decrease in scientific yield for the next scientific result of the same kind ...so, with other words, if you have a transmission efficiency of 20% it also means, that the decreasy in scientific output also is just reduced by 20% (of the value of a return mission )This is great news. I was worried that sending stuff would mean completely forfeiting large portions of the available science. I even started a new game in career mode where I brought back all experiment results to avoid what now turns out to be a moot problem, lol. Thanks for the heads-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majami Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Whatever the experiment you get the same total amount by recovering or transmitting.There's a total of gatherable science defined for each experiement, partly defined by scienceCap (the other variable must be in source code, as it's not in ScienceDefs.cfg. Let's call it scienceStock.When you experiment, you observe scienceStock*(baseValue/scienceCap)When you recover/transmit, what you really get is deduced from scienceStock. So no matter if you transmit/recover, only what you really get will be deduced, and the remaining science will be used for next observation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaoSs Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 (edited) Hi there guys I'm new to the forum. Have played some KSP ( starting with 1.9 ) and now i'm here to learn more about the game and give my 2 cent opinion . I must say i am a little disappointed on the current transmission system. It should never allow you to get 100% points from physical experiments, like surface samples, in any condition ( unless you can build a space station with laboratory modules and a 24/7 crew,dock with it and do the experiments there, then transmit the data) . Also from what i see the antenna has no range limit. It should be limited. having multiple antenna satellites orbiting different moons/planets and waiting for them to get in to perfect and time limited position when you can reach kerbin bouncing data from 1 satellite to another and transmit crew reports, observatory experiments and space station experiments Edited October 20, 2013 by HaoSs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preen Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 (edited) +1If you can transmit the full (or close) science value, and electricity is unlimited, there's no reason to return anything. When rockets and recoveries cost money, there's even less reason to return anything. Even if you score slightly less science by transmitting, you still get way more science per flight, and science for a given time period, than a return could. There are enough science pots to mine that the total amount of science in the system is many times more what you need to get through the tech tree. One probe zipping around in the Joolian system with a goo canister can get you through the tech tree.I'd rather the system were simpler and less repetitive, and more difficult tasks gave bigger rewards. How about you can transmit a data once for science, and return that data once for more science, and then it's done? Some tasks, like collecting a sample, would give drastically more science for a return than a transmission. The game would indicate to you when novel observations can be made, so you don't have to keep clicking your experiments to see if the biome changed (or you just can't remember if you've mined that area dry already). Collecting samples would be particularly valuable, to encourage people to use astronauts. Edited October 20, 2013 by preen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndOfTheEarth Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Not the first time I've wondered this, but do the numbers follow a particular equation for science return value? It looks asymptotic to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygun Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Makes me wonder just what methods we can use to earn money. Well selling rocket to emerging nations seems to be a popular option...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patupi Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 As has been said by others, a transmission limit might be useful in the future, especially if it is limited by transmitter type. IE the antenna only has transmission bandwidth to get the first 30% of a science output (maybe 30% or 50pts, whichever is more... or some other arbitrary number), but more advanced antennas get better transmissions, up to 80% or 90% (200pts cap alternate?). That would first push you to get the better transmission system, especially if these antennas are not on the same tree node, or even branch, as the science packages. Plus if there is a solid number cap as well as the percentage (the 30% or 50pts I mentioned above) then the low grade antennas would still get most or maybe all at local bodies with low science points. IE Kerbin.The science display could even show the loss as actual figures : Return science value:150 Transmittable science value:45 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Expwnential Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Alternatively... you can go to Jool and run an atmospheric analysis for 2400 science. None of this math needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygun Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 Squad could just expand the EVA science, crew report and soil sample part a lot more while toning down the numbers for the science that can be transmitted by unmanned probes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaoSs Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 well, for the first release i think its OK. lets just hope squad is reading the forum and has a BIG board where all the good feedback/ideas are noted and discussed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levelord Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Also from what i see the antenna has no range limit. It should be limited. having multiple antenna satellites orbiting different moons/planets and waiting for them to get in to perfect and time limited position when you can reach kerbin bouncing data from 1 satellite to another and transmit crew reports, observatory experiments and space station experiments The Voyager Probes left the solar system and they didn't need relay satellites to get their messages back to Earth. Electromagnetic waves theoretically can travel to infinity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlayMp1 Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 The Voyager Probes left the solar system and they didn't need relay satellites to get their messages back to Earth. Electromagnetic waves theoretically can travel to infinity.QFT. I understand that one's initial thought at hearing "infinite range transmissions" is "preposterous! I can't get my house's WiFi signal at work, why should you be able to transmit complex scientific data across an entire solar system?" However, these transmissions are just light waves, almost certainly radio waves - and you know that light can travel indefinitely until absorbed or reflected by some medium. Since space is a nearly perfect vacuum, light can go a really friggin' long way, which is how we can see quasars 13.7 billion light years away.tl;dr: limited range is far more unrealistic than unlimited range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 While it is true that radio waves will travel indefinitely until they hit something, the signal from an antenna will become weaker the further it goes because the same energy is distributed across the surface of a larger sphere, as it radiates outwards in all directions. The strength of the signal at the receiver end is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, so it falls off very quickly with range. At some point the signal would be too weak for the receiver to pick up. You can get around this with a directional antenna, but then you need very careful alignment at one or both ends of the transmitter/receiver pair.KSP doesn't model this (yet) but I think it would be nice if it did. It could give a reason for using the larger antennas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martijn404 Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 So from a physics point of view, the more advanced antenna's should have a more economic power usage; more and faster upload speed for less power consumption. That shouldn't be too hard to change in the CFG's. Personally I will change the percentage of uploads for some types; spamming the same test over and over again is no fun IMHO. So EVA report will go to 100%, others to at least 50%. The surface sample will go to 1% though, making a return to Kerbin absolutely necessary to get any value out of the sample. (The yield should be a bit higher as well compared to other tests; i mean researching the stuff Apollo brought back took over a decade! But that's another discussion entirely). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotary Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 While it is true that radio waves will travel indefinitely until they hit something, the signal from an antenna will become weaker the further it goes because the same energy is distributed across the surface of a larger sphere, as it radiates outwards in all directions. The strength of the signal at the receiver end is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, so it falls off very quickly with range. At some point the signal would be too weak for the receiver to pick up. You can get around this with a directional antenna, but then you need very careful alignment at one or both ends of the transmitter/receiver pair.KSP doesn't model this (yet) but I think it would be nice if it did. It could give a reason for using the larger antennas.RemoteTech does (did, for the moment) exactly this. It's a brilliant mod adding so much regarding the remote-control/radio aspect, I'm just waiting till it includes the science part in the release that is about to be published.. It's one of the very few (if not the only) mods that actually bring use to the launching of manned stations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CG-23 Sailor Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 For starters, there should be two entirely different types of Science reports. One affected by transmission rates and benefiting from return for full value, and another that is completely unaffected and ALWAYS gives full science value.(Yes I know there are some that give full value now, like crew reports, but that's not based on the type of science)1) Benefit from return:Any physical science experiments, Mystery goo, Materials Bay, Surface samples and the like. All of these would benefit from having a sample of the material returned for more in depth analysis and only get a portion of the science for transmitting. As the material being tests is limited by on board instrumentation rather than a full lab workup back on Kerbin.2) FULL science value with transmission: Any non-physical experiment, those gathered from instrumentation readings and measurements. The science with these IS JUST DATA, there is nothing physical to return. It is actually rather stupid to have a pure data measurement experiment transmit only partial value and require return for full value. There is nothing physical to return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KerbMav Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Hi Marty! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.johnson841 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Not sure if this necro was deliberate due to back to future day or unintentional...- Sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanamonde Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 This is a very old thread, and the information in it is not so current anymore. The thread will be closed now to prevent confusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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