[PLUGIN+PARTS][0.23] SCANsat terrain mapping

[nubcaker]

The fact this mod works with RPM, makes it all even better. I'm using this for my planned mun/Duna bases. Gotta know where to get around.

[Trann]

Unless it's been suggested before,(TL;DR in the middle of the night...) and before if forget it, would it be possible to add a layer to he map that shows what areas of the current body is the illuminated side?

I'll second this: burning a landing trajectory with the map up only to find I'll be setting down on the night side isn't fun.

I love this mod. Fabulous work.

[BigP0ppaJ]

I love your mod. Both the idea of it, and the implementation is pretty slick.

I think you're really on to something here. This addresses one of the really unfulfilling things about the current science system. It's just "get a device to a place and click a button." So it's sort of an achievement-based system, but it's not actual "Science". We as the players don't learn anything from activating the goo container in a Munar crater. But this mod gives science points for doing actual exploration and discovery. And in the process, we get cool maps that are helpful for future exploration.

Here's my request if you get time: Unmanned probes were made fairly useless in 0.23, and you fixed that here. But rovers have always been useless, aside from just being able to say "I built a rover and drove it on the Mun." I think your system here would be a cool way to encourage us to explore with rovers. If you made a sensor that, similarly to the Been There Done That, only worked at very low altitudes, but maybe if it had a horizontal scanning radius of a kilometer or so. So it would be attached to rovers and you could get science points for scanning a large percentage of a particular biome. So for example, that would encourage me to drive a rover through the Munar Canyons, if I could get science points for doing it. Even better if the scanner actually made a useful map. I'm not sure what it should scan in order to be useful, because I don't know what all data Squad has put into the landforms. Is there anything beyond just the altimetry and biomes to scan?

Thanks again for a great mod!

[pdub]

I've noticed that the SAR sensor requires a tech called 'experimentalScience', but that isn't the name of a node in the tech tree, and so it seems like I can't unlock the part without editing the cfg. Has anyone else run into this, or am I mistaken?

Edited January 3, 2014 by pdub

[dlrk]

I'm not sure why, but I closed the UI, and now I can't open it again, any ideas?

[Virtualgenius]

Cant get this to work map portrays only grey scale and the scanner i have on just says no data I am either doing something wrong I have the scan map up but portrays no data

[nhnifong]

One more vote for the night and day overlay!

[B787_300]

nhni is that STK i spy?

[synik4l]

damny, thanks for all your work on this. I just gave this a try. been wanting to check out the anomalies. but had no clue where they were or how to find them. Thanks to this I can easy go now. Appreciate it man. Move it to the showcase soon man this needs to be seen.

[Nelien]

Thanks a million for this amazing mod!

One thing I've noticed though, which I'm thinking might be a bug since it's so easily exploitable:

Running "Analyze data" and gathering science can be done multiple times and you always get 100% of the data. It doesn't work on the same flight, but, for example, if you launch a vessel with a scanner, run "Analyze data", you get 20 Science on Kerbin if you've got 100% low res data, and then recover the vessel; you can repeat the process indefinitely and you'll always get 20 Science. The Science Archives doesn't track the progress either. It displays the entry correctly but it always shows the progress as 0%.

Strike that! I was silly and used the Mission Control Extended "Revert" button rather than recover, which essentially kept the record but didn't give me the science. Silly me not looking carefully . Nothing to see here! Everything works as intended.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Nelien

[xZise]

Hi, I love this mod. It generates amazing maps

But I have a question about the SCAN MapTraq®. What is the exact purpose? Does it only provide the data to craft without any of the other scanners but itself doesn't do anything else? Because there is this Analyze data option and I guess it is only there because you treat it like a passive scanner? Or should happen something there.

Fabian

[Nelien]

Hi, I love this mod. It generates amazing maps

But I have a question about the SCAN MapTraq®. What is the exact purpose? Does it only provide the data to craft without any of the other scanners but itself doesn't do anything else? Because there is this Analyze data option and I guess it is only there because you treat it like a passive scanner? Or should happen something there.

Fabian

I think it's rather useful, it uses less electric charge than any other antenna, and it allows you to use any of the features of the other antennas except for actually scanning, so in other words, viewing the big map, (biome/slope/altitude), get accurate long/lat location data, get biome data you're over (very useful for those science tests, no need to stare at the planet to guess the biome), preview trajectories (again, very useful for science scans: see a biome you want to be over? is the trajectory passing over it? just timewarp), etc..

I almost always bring it with me to any vessel.

I have made some changes to it though to make it even more useful. I've made it a LOT smaller, 20% its original size, and a third lighter. It's only a satNav device really, shouldn't take up much room on a space ship . I've also made it cost no electric charge. The power needed to run a simple device like that should be negligible in the grand scheme of things.

Here's my ModuleManager config (needs MM 1.5 or above):

@PART[SCANsat_Tracker]
{
  @rescaleFactor = 0.2
  @mass = 0.01
  @attachRules = 0,1,0,0,0

  @MODULE[SCANsat]
  {
    @power = 0.0
  }
}

Put it in a text file and make the extension .cfg (name can be anything), then put it anywhere in your GameData folder. Assuming you have the ModuleManager 1.5+ dll somewhere in GameData too.

EDIT: Oh right, and no, "Analyse data" doesn't do anything. I've seen the scienceDef.cfg and only the Hi res altimetry, low res altimetry and Biomes scanners give science. I'm guessing it's a leftover from the ScanSAT module in the code.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Nelien

[TheBedla]

Hi all, I've been experiencing a "phantom torque" problem with these scanners. Every time I activate a Biome or Altimeter scanner, the vessel starts spinning. I also see a little wobble with undeployed scanners, but not that much.

I run RemoteTech and Deadly Reentry, but I suppose this combination is quite common; has anyone else seen this?

[federicoaa]

I think it's rather useful, it uses less electric charge than any other antenna, and it allows you to use any of the features of the other antennas except for actually scanning, so in other words, viewing the big map, (biome/slope/altitude), get accurate long/lat location data, get biome data you're over (very useful for those science tests, no need to stare at the planet to guess the biome), preview trajectories (again, very useful for science scans: see a biome you want to be over? is the trajectory passing over it? just timewarp), etc..

I almost always bring it with me to any vessel.

I have made some changes to it though to make it even more useful. I've made it a LOT smaller, 20% its original size, and a third lighter. It's only a satNav device really, shouldn't take up much room on a space ship . I've also made it cost no electric charge. The power needed to run a simple device like that should be negligible in the grand scheme of things.

Here's my ModuleManager config (needs MM 1.5 or above):

@PART[SCANsat_Tracker]
{
  @rescaleFactor = 0.2
  @mass = 0.01
  @attachRules = 0,1,0,0,0

  @MODULE[SCANsat]
  {
    @power = 0.0
  }
}

Put it in a text file and make the extension .cfg (name can be anything), then put it anywhere in your GameData folder. Assuming you have the ModuleManager 1.5+ dll somewhere in GameData too.

EDIT: Oh right, and no, "Analyse data" doesn't do anything. I've seen the scienceDef.cfg and only the Hi res altimetry, low res altimetry and Biomes scanners give science. I'm guessing it's a leftover from the ScanSAT module in the code.

I use the BTDT antenna because it basically the same but also gives you the location of the near anomalies.

[Nelien]

I use the BTDT antenna because it basically the same but also gives you the location of the near anomalies.

True that! But it consumes twice the power (obviously you can turn that off like I do) and I feel like it's not the "proper tool for the job". So unless I'm using it on a rover or plane I rather use the tracker.

[Spider0804]

Where is the plugin data stored?

I play KMP and I would like to be able to share my maps with my friends.

[Mihara]

Where is the plugin data stored?

I play KMP and I would like to be able to share my maps with my friends.

Damny is a bit clever about it. The maps aren't exactly stored. They are generated in real time whenever the map is redrawn. What is stored is data about which points of a planet your satellites have scanned with what, and that is kept directly in the save file, since there isn't that much of it.

As such, it's impossible to do without save file editing. If you are up to that, though, you need to copy the entire "SCENARIO {name = SCANcontroller ..." block.

[Spider0804]

So I just give them the "Map =" data to put in their text file?

Kethane seems a bit harder to copy over, I see the seeds but not the save data.

[Mihara]

So I just give them the "Map =" data to put in their text file?

The entire SCENARIO block would be best since that leaves less room for error, but yes.

Kethane seems a bit harder to copy over, I see the seeds but not the save data.

Kethane also keeps the data the same way in "SCENARIO { name = KethaneData". The cells you have or have not scanned are in the "ScanMask" variable.

[ThreeWholePunch]

Is there a way to accurately read the coordinates of an anomaly?

At the moment I am just magnifying in, then hovering over the anomaly, then taking a shot at that coordinate being correct. I am usually always of in my landings.

thanks.

[xZise]

I have made some changes to it though to make it even more useful. I've made it a LOT smaller, 20% its original size[...]

Okay I was just wondering because of that analyze date thing. And that it sticks out makes placing it quite hard for such small purpose (it is basically a "computer" like the command modules, MJ or Kerbal Engineer).

Fabian

[lewisd]

Absolutely loving this plugin. Doing altitude/biome scans of other planets/moons to get science in career mode is just awesome.

One question though. Does the BTDT (love the name) scanner give science? I haven't been able to get it to, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. I flew over a monolith, 6km above it, according to the "SCAN instruments" panel, which did lock on to the monolith and say that no structures were found. However, when right clicking on the scanner and picking "analyze data", nothing happened.

[federicoaa]

Could you add an arrow in the BTDT scan window to point to the near anomaly? This way we can reach them easier (especially with some monoliths that are partially clipped under ground)

[Spyker]

Hi all, I've been experiencing a "phantom torque" problem with these scanners. Every time I activate a Biome or Altimeter scanner, the vessel starts spinning. I also see a little wobble with undeployed scanners, but not that much.

I run RemoteTech and Deadly Reentry, but I suppose this combination is quite common; has anyone else seen this?

I also have this problem, but mine seems worse. I have a satellite with the altimetry and biome sensors and also a BTDT together with a Kethane scanner. Whenever I focus on the satellite or reduce the warp to 1 it starts spinning uncontrollably. This happens without any sensor being activated. When I do manage to activate the sensors they all work perfectly, but keep on spinning.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Spyker

[federicoaa]

Hi, another suggestion. Could you add support for Blizzy78 Toolbar?