Please, indicate what biome I'm flying over, else EVA reports are laborious tedium

[Monger]

I agree with the TS. Just add a label to display the name of the current biome. It won't take anything away from the discovery aspect of the game, it just makes it more intuitive how the game works. Unless you read the forum and developer blogs, there is no way to know that i.e. lower and higher atmosphere are separate biomes, but the ocean shores are no separate biome, and Minmus currently only contains one Biome. There is no reason why it should remain a mystery through what kind of biomes you are travelling.

The thing about displaying discovered biomes and experiments was already discussed thoroughly in other threads, so no need to repeat it here.

[timeb]

I'm pretty angry at the people who think deliberate obfuscation/obstinate difficulty is a valid game design choice. What Biome you are in is not a hidden piece of data as you can immediately query what it is by making a crew report (it says where you are in the title). The fact that you have to go through that convoluted process each and every time to get that information doesn't make for 'exploration', it makes for poor usability.

I think the problem is in the semantics- Biome makes sense from a dev perspective, because you're generating different terrain, potentially weather, all that jazz- it's the terminology DF and Minecraft uses and it makes sense. However, from a KSP player perspective, it's more about geography (this is certainly reflected in the Mun's less diverse Biomes)- it makes sense for a Kerbal to identify that they are in water, in the mountains, at the pole, or read off what altitude they are and know whether that's considered atmosphere or space. It doesn't preclude certain areas being 'special' and giving different science either. So, a 'Location' readout somewhere would make a lot of sense.

[Eric S]

Again, this misses the point of the criticism, but perhaps the point wasn't clear before, so let me parrot what I said in my more recent post:

Your statement that I'm missing your point is missing my point. I do understand that it would be useful and I actually think it would be a good idea. Where we disagree is that I don't think it's necessary except for the extreme minmaxers, so I think your criticism of your critics is a bit harsh, overstated, and dismissive.

Let's look at what I quoted.

Any replies along the lines of "if it's boring don't do it", or "this is too easy" are completely misguided.

I'll admit that some of the people are disagreeing by thinking you're wanting something more than you are, but this hardly means that everyone that disagrees on those two issues is completely misguided.

What will you do, other than what I had to do, to get a second EVA report for the Mun? What about a third?

My first orbit of the moon, I got EVA reports from six biomes. This was without looking at a map on the web or even knowing how the biomes were broken down. It was basically "warp to just before an interesting feature, EVA, take reports until I'm past the interesting feature (so about 15-30 seconds worth), then warp to the next one and repeat." "Hey, there's a big crater, let's try that." "How about over here where the soil looks darker." Not every interesting feature was its own biome, but in 5 minutes, I had six reports and hadn't started feeling like I was grinding yet.

I'll admit that when I looked up how many biomes the Mun had I wanted to go back and get more, but not because I needed them for anything, but just because I wanted my collection to be complete.

So yes, while it would be useful, it's not necessary unless you feel you need to get them all or have a very low tolerance to anything resembling grinding.

[Superfluous J]

My first orbit of the moon, I got EVA reports from six biomes. This was without looking at a map on the web or even knowing how the biomes were broken down. It was basically "warp to just before an interesting feature, EVA, take reports until I'm past the interesting feature (so about 15-30 seconds worth), then warp to the next one and repeat." "Hey, there's a big crater, let's try that." "How about over here where the soil looks darker." Not every interesting feature was its own biome, but in 5 minutes, I had six reports and hadn't started feeling like I was grinding yet.

Interesting strategy. I'm planning something similar. I'm curious how much of the 10-12k total science needed to unlock the entire tech tree you were able to get in that single, non-grindy mission.

I think the problem with those of us who don't mind not knowing where every biome is, and those who want to know where every biome is, is what we consider important. In the current tech tree model, I consider unlocking parts to be important and with that in mind once I unlock that last tech node, science does nothing for me. I'll still do it to role play, but game wise it's no longer needed. It seems that the people who want a map the most won't consider their game complete until they get 0 science results from every experiment in every biome in the game.

And to clarify my position on this: I don't think a map is unneeded. I don't think it's unnecessary or it would be cheaty or anything. I think in the game's current state though the lack of a map is understandable and not an important thing to concentrate on.

Personally I'd prefer having to make my own map, in much the same way that you have to scan for Kethane or how ISA MapSat works. Don't tell me where the biomes are. Give me a tool to find them myself.

[Eric S]

Interesting strategy. I'm planning something similar. I'm curious how much of the 10-12k total science needed to unlock the entire tech tree you were able to get in that single, non-grindy mission.

I didn't have landing legs so I was kind of limited, but if I remember right, it was several hundred but not a thousand.

I think my next play through the tech tree is going to be a deliberately non-grindy play. No more than one radio return per experiment per biome per mission. So the only experiments that get doubled up on are the ones that I bring back. To be honest, I'm expecting that to at least cut my returns per mission in half on post-solar-panel missions.

[Specialist290]

Nice first post, welcome to the forum.

BTW I think you have the issue nailed. Nobody wants to cheat but nobody wants to have to repeat the same actions over and over just to see if it is the right time to do the actions...

The simplest solution to this (and I think part of what OP is asking for in the first place) is to list all biomes as "Unknown" at the beginning, then uncover them as you discover them. That way, you know whether or not you're flying over a biome you've already done some sort of research for, but not what an "unknown" biome is until you actually do something in it.

[allmhuran]

I'm pretty angry at the people who think deliberate obfuscation/obstinate difficulty is a valid game design choice. What Biome you are in is not a hidden piece of data as you can immediately query what it is by making a crew report (it says where you are in the title). The fact that you have to go through that convoluted process each and every time to get that information doesn't make for 'exploration', it makes for poor usability.

I'm glad there are still a few rational people on the forums.

[gendalf]

can someone at least make a mod for this - just a simple line of text with current location/biome.

maybe even with how much science does current location worth - for each of science part types and relatively (so like if you already have sent/recovered science from current location with this science part - it would display cheaper amounts)

Edited October 22, 2013 by gendalf

[allmhuran]

The simplest solution to this (and I think part of what OP is asking for in the first place) is to list all biomes as "Unknown" at the beginning, then uncover them as you discover them. That way, you know whether or not you're flying over a biome you've already done some sort of research for, but not what an "unknown" biome is until you actually do something in it.

Yes indeedy, that's the idea.

[Holo]

It's part of the game. You explore new worlds. Do you think explorers of Earth's poles were granted with a laminated map when they reached their destination? A silly red-white stick with a sphere on the top?

I imagine that real Apollo astronauts and mission planners got to see a map of the moon.

[Elemental]

I imagine that real Apollo astronauts and mission planners got to see a map of the moon.

They did.... and were able to scout out landing zones based on the landmarks they already were aware of.

I tried out the science system and one of my first thoughts was absolutely "How do I know where to do science?" some sort of zoning info (and I love the mapping sat to go get that info first!) would be a great help to know when I am wasting time doing science where I have done science before.

As for those who disagree and use the real world as an example:

In the real world I can tell the difference between a mountain and the ocean. A forest and a desert. I can not tell the difference on the moon features since I have never been there... but pretty sure I could if I was there.

What I can not do is read the mind of the KSP software as to what IT believes is different between biomes especially when it uses "high orbit" and "low orbit" without defining those terms.

[Eric S]

What I can not do is read the mind of the KSP software as to what IT believes is different between biomes especially when it uses "high orbit" and "low orbit" without defining those terms.

You think that's bad? wait until you start trying to define where "upper atmosphere" turns into "space near kerbin." I've had EVA reports return "upper atmosphere" as high as 68km, which makes sense. However, I've had "space near kerbin" come back from EVA reports as low as 30km.

Also, some moons have a "high orbit" that's lower than their tallest mountain peaks. There's just something wrong with lithobraking in "high orbit."

It may be that the devs are waiting on the development of something like ISA_MapSat with biome detection abilities to reveal biomes without being directly over them and doing an experiment, but I haven't seen a dev as much as hint at that.

While I don't consider this a major omission, serious shortcoming, etc., I do think it would be a nice addition, either as a science part that maps it or just as a "you are over an unidentified biome"/"you are over biome X" status.

[Khobai]

It's part of the game. You explore new worlds. Do you think explorers of Earth's poles were granted with a laminated map when they reached their destination? A silly red-white stick with a sphere on the top?

You do realize the entire earth was accurately mapped by the time NASA starting launching rockets right? Its not unreasonable for kerbals to know where the different biomes of their planet are...

[LethalDose]

I'd like to state support for the OP: I'd like a small, simple readout that gave me information about my location, like:

"Low atmosphere over Kerbin's Coasts"

or

"Space near Duna"

or

"Southwest crater on the Mün's surface"

It's information that we obviously CAN know now, by going EVA and asking for a report. But there's no reason this information should require getting out of the ship to access.

Providing that information isn't being "Spoonfed", its improving the user interface.

[peadar1987]

I agree. Your fuel and electricity already show up on the HUD. Squad could have made it so the only way to find your battery's charge was to right click, or to find your fuel level was to exit the spacecraft, EVA over to the tank and read a hard-to-interpret dial, but gameplay is so much better the way they've implemented it now.

Kerbals can clearly tell what biome they're over, otherwise EVA would reveal nothing, it's not too much of a stretch to let you know in real-time.

[Kasuha]

I didn't read the whole thread so maybe someone has already pointed it out...

What about you just mount one extra scientific instrument on your ship (something that works in vacuum) and every time you want to know what biome is below just run it and read the biome name in the result window? You're free to discard the result every time to keep your "biome measurement tool" ready and loaded. All it takes is one action group.

[allmhuran]

I was doing the mission on tier zero so no scientific instruments, but even using that solution, it would require going in and out of time warp to use the instruments every 15 seconds.

[SunJumper]

In Allmhuran's case, I don't think the use of mapping would have helped his tier 0 missions, as the future mapping parts wouldn't be in tier 0 anyway. A readout would be useful, however orbiting crafts would still pass over the smaller biomes quite quickly. I'd like to be able to overlay the biome/etc map over the sphere of the Mun/Kerbin, rather than have it on a flat map...

[LethalDose]

I didn't read the whole thread so maybe someone has already pointed it out...

What about you just mount one extra scientific instrument on your ship (something that works in vacuum) and every time you want to know what biome is below just run it and read the biome name in the result window? You're free to discard the result every time to keep your "biome measurement tool" ready and loaded. All it takes is one action group.

The only instrument that works like this (differentiates biomes from vacuum) is the gravioli detector, which is at the last or second to last tier of the tree. That seems like a long time to wait for functionality that is basically equivalent to looking out the window.

[Dun Kirk]

I agree, it'd be nice

*text appears* 10K over midlands of the Mun 16:00hrs

at present a stupid amount of the game is in the wiki and not in game.

[Jimbo Jambo]

This has my support. I currently use goo and material experiments to identify biomes, but it seems this will no longer be possible once experiments are made non-repeatable. In fact, I think non-repeatable experiments make this even more important. Imagine failing an atmospheric skim mission because you wasted your experiment not realizing that high atmosphere still counts as "space near..."

I didn't read the whole thread so maybe someone has already pointed it out...

What about you just mount one extra scientific instrument on your ship (something that works in vacuum) and every time you want to know what biome is below just run it and read the biome name in the result window? You're free to discard the result every time to keep your "biome measurement tool" ready and loaded. All it takes is one action group.

That's not much better than doing an EVA report, which is exactly the problem: not that EVAs are particularly hard or don't give enough information, just that they are time-consuming and laborious. Besides, EVA reports technically don't even require a spacecraft to perform, whereas this is is a whole extra part that needs to be attached and may or may not even be available right off the bat. I suppose you could attach something like this to a probe, but then you really might as well just give the probe a built-in "observe surroundings" ability.

[BSimmons4Prez]

I came here essentially looking for the same concept; all i wanted was an indicator somewhere that showed the current biome I was flying over. Nothing more than that really. I still have to get there to do whatever science needed. I found that VOID currently does do this.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/void/

You can see in the included screenshot that just to the right of my LIGHTS/GEARS/BRAKES buttons is a HUD that includes the Biome. I disabled all the other windows that VOID comes with, but there is useful info in.

[KaBob]

I love the idea of using a satellite to generate a biome map. I hope this gets added (which is why I'm bumping it) because it is a bit silly to have to do a random science experiment and discard it just to check the biome.

[John FX]

I have only read the thread title and I wholeheartedly agree that the biome should be an optional information display for the player somehow.

Not a mod, not a part. Just there displayed on the screen optionally.

[HeadHunter67]

Do you think explorers of Earth's poles were granted with a laminated map when they reached their destination? A silly red-white stick with a sphere on the top?

Do you think they had to check several times to know if they were in a polar biome? Or do you think it was readily apparent?