Unnecessary travels to biomes on Kerbin?

[EasyAce]

Biomes aer handy, logical and a nice addon to KSP. No doubt, I agree on that...

It is logical to test your spacesuit in the desert before going to the dusty Mün.

It is logical to do science on the ice caps to find it wheter or not life can survive in low themperatures, or how metal act in different pressure and temperature.

But I find myself bored with it...

I started a new career yesterday and love to see how my 101 Alpha One (basicly a pod with a solid booster rocket) evolves into 104 Alpha Four (liquid threestage rocket able to go to orbit and land on any desired spot on Kerbin).

But as I've perfected my 104, the fun ends and the grinding starts. To evolve further, I have to gather lots of science... and the only way to do this, as I have yet to discover solar panels and battery, is to go up and down - landing on mountains, landing in the desert, landing on the grasslands. All because I have to grind science. Then I unlock the Materials Bay... and I have to go to these biomes yet again.

It's repetitive... and no fun.

Now I look forward to "discover" the thermo- and barometer, just to yet again go to these areas. -irony

Squad has to change this... or are my thoughts totaly different from others on these forums?

Is it logical that Kerbals is not able to do science on Kerbin without going there in rockets?

Is it logical that they invent the thermometer after they invent the materialbay, rockets and goo?

My suggestion:

...is that they make it possible to do "science projects" on Kerbin without actualy going to the different biomes.

You unlock these projects when you discover the different Biomes on Kerbin, and you discover these biomes by scanning/mapping the Kerbin surface with a satellite.

In this way you should be motivated to first place a satellite in orbit, doing science on the lower and upper atmosphere and lower orbit. This science is enough to invent probes, solar panels and scanner.

Then you place satellites in orbit and scan the surface to discover the different biomes. Projects like "Research the desert/dus effect on your gear" is then being opened up for research in the research department.

These projects takes time to complete while you establish, build new rockets from newly opened part. (or you could just warp ahead of course).

When you complete, for an example the dust project, you invent the spacesuit and command pod and start sending your Kerbals to space.

When this is done, the whole game openes up for lot's of different approaches. I agree that my suggestion above makes the game more linear in the start, but it removes all the boring grinding at the start.

These projects can also be implemented together with space stations given you have one with the right science equipment.

And they should make a "drill". That should be a part that is implemented pretty soon as it is not very advances and should give lots of science about the planet history.

Am I far off... does this sound boring or non-kerbalish?

[KvickFlygarn87]

Am I far off...

Yeah, you are! The "Suggestion and development discussion" subforum is way down there!

[Superfluous J]

If you're not having fun, stop playing the game this way. Why are you bouncing around Kerbin when there are over a dozen other worlds that you can go to?

Personally I just use Kerbin as "bonus science" whenever I land. Take a crew report, eva report, surface sample, and be happy to get the extra points. Then I go do something fun.

[FenrirWolf]

Yup, Kerbin science is more of a bonus thing to me. Like I'll grab it if I don't feel like doing a more ambitious ship or if I'm testing a lander destined for other worlds, but wanna get a few points for my efforts too.

Kerbin also has the unique benefit of not requiring transmission to get loads of points, for surface stuff at least. I recently made a ship that primarily consists of a bunch of science parts that are all tied to one action group. Land someplace, open all the things, then hit the recover button.

[Traches]

You can fly by the mun on battery power no problem. Can land on it too, if you're careful and spam some batteries. Try setting up a polar orbit around kerbin, and get an EVA report above each biome. Then do the same for the mun. If that doesn't get you started, nothing will.

.23 has some pretty big changes to the science mechanics coming out, it's worth reading up on the planned changes.

[Tw1]

I see it as something you can do with the atmospheric planes you design. I don't mind goofing around on kerbin, so it hasn't been a problem for me.

Though, the science system itself can feel a little grindy. 23 may be the first step away from that, letting you review your collected science in the R&D labs. Hopefully, in future, we get more things where actual data can be collected, more than just flavour adding text.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Tw1

[KerbMav]

You are suffering from "I am already level 40, but there are still quests left - but they are so boring ..." - move on! The moment you get decouplers the universe is your playground!

Just shoot a pod of Goo out of Kerbins SOI into Kerbols orbit, do the same with the materials bay, sling around Mun and Minmus, pick up the biomes on Kerbin as you circularize/burn for the moons/return home.

[Spatzimaus]

You can fly by the mun on battery power no problem.

If you send manned pods, you don't even need batteries. After all, what do you have on those craft that actually requires power, at present? The lights and such use incredibly little, and the batteries will recharge whenever you use the engines, so electricity is a non-issue until you start building unmanned probes. Sure, you'd need power to transmit data, but other than Crew Reports (which transmit at 100%) you should be bringing it back with you.

Honestly, here's how I did things:

1> Launch straight up and down on a suborbital trajectory a couple times. Get enough science points to unlock a few essential bits, like adding more science-generating parts.

2> Do an orbit in a small craft with a mystery goo container. As you pass over a new biome, do a Crew Report, a quick EVA and report, and check the goo. Then land. You don't need to hit every single biome; four or five should be enough. Sure, you'll need to relaunch for each new biome you find, but it doesn't take long to get to Kerbin orbit.

3> Go and land on Mun. Like Kerbin it's got a lot of biomes, and they're easy to locate. You'll get far more points from a single Mun landing than you would from trying to collect samples and such at all Kerbin biomes. I did eight or nine Mun trips in the end, each to a different biome, and each trip gave me ~500 science. I didn't bother with flybys, either; my first trip there was a landing.

4> At that point, you should have enough points to send manned vessels to Minmus, Ike, Duna, and Gilly and return safely (mainly requiring LV-Ns and Mainsails). Assuming you stick a couple goos, a materials bay, and the four basic sensors on your craft, even one trip to each of these should be enough to unlock the rest of the tree.

So yeah, power is a non-issue in career mode so far, mainly because there's no real benefit to doing an unmanned trip yet.

[magnemoe]

Yes, You get decouplers from testing on pad, next off is orbit, optional suborbital if you don't make it.

I like to focus on the lower part of the tree, struts and sas in nice but no need for 2.5 meter for simple mun missions.

this give you more science parts who give you larger return:

Second time I did the tree, went suborbital, orbit including high, mun flyby, minmus lander, rover landing on Mun with mapping of multiple biomes.

Final mission, improved rover lander with better wheels, docking port for docking with 2.5 meter transfeer stage in Mun orbit to do three landings all and map all biomes.

Follow up probe mission to Minmus to get gravitation data.

[3mon]

So yeah, power is a non-issue in career mode so far, mainly because there's no real benefit to doing an unmanned trip yet.

It is an issue if you plan on transmitting your science instead of doing return trips. Although you can use additional pods for extra battery and torque.

[maltesh]

If you send manned pods, you don't even need batteries. After all, what do you have on those craft that actually requires power, at present? The lights and such use incredibly little, and the batteries will recharge whenever you use the engines, so electricity is a non-issue until you start building unmanned probes. Sure, you'd need power to transmit data, but other than Crew Reports (which transmit at 100%) you should be bringing it back with you.

.

Actually, in the game as it currently is, there is typically more science available to any particular experiment in a biome than you can get back from a single experiment's return-and-recovery, and transmitting does not "waste" science; The total science obtainable to an experiment from a location remains the same whether you use repeated transmissions, multiple recoveries, or any combination of both.

As a result, if your aim is to scrounge science with as few missions as necessary, repeated transmissions of science will generally serve your purposes better than recoveries, once you have power generation methods available.

In 0.22, anyway. Indications are that at least some of the above will wind up changing in 0.23

[Spatzimaus]

It is an issue if you plan on transmitting your science instead of doing return trips.

I already addressed that that in the earlier post. Basically, right now it's not worthwhile to transmit anything other than crew reports; everything else you should bring back with you. And if you're bringing it back, you're not using energy.

The problem is the way the diminishing returns work for data. A certain research item might give 20 SP the first time, 7.2 the second, 2.5 the third, and so on for a total of ~30 science points if you just park the craft in one biome and take the same data point over and over again. If the sensor in question only has a 40% transmission efficiency, you'll get ~12 points out of that series of transmissions, which is clearly less than you'd get for just bringing back the 20-point initial data and never transmitting. Even the 60% efficiency sensors would result in less science if you spend energy to transmit them. So for a returning vessel it's only worthwhile to transmit data types that have 80 or 100% efficiency, like crew reports, but these also provide far less science than the various sensors you'll get later on. (Also, the last five sensor types all have such low weights that there's little downside to stacking many of them on each vessel. Goo is heavy, and the science bay is bulky, but the thermometer and such are practically weightless and take up almost no room.)

Therefore, the only times transmitting those other science types would be worthwhile would be:

1> if you're sending a vessel not designed to return AND you have no intention to send a manned mission to that body at some later date. (For instance, the probe I dropped into Jool's atmosphere, or the one I crashed into the Sun.)

or

2> A rover on a multiple-biome planet/moon other than Kerbin (at present, that's only Mun), where you might not want to go to the effort of sending multiple trips.

Otherwise, you're better off going manned and returning with the data intact; not only do you get more science from the single trip, but you also leave the door open to collect the full smaller amount for a second or third trip to the same location.

[Stazi]

I already addressed that that in the earlier post. Basically, right now it's not worthwhile to transmit anything other than crew reports; everything else you should bring back with you. And if you're bringing it back, you're not using energy.

The problem is the way the diminishing returns work for data. A certain research item might give 20 SP the first time, 7.2 the second, 2.5 the third, and so on for a total of ~30 science points if you just park the craft in one biome and take the same data point over and over again. If the sensor in question only has a 40% transmission efficiency, you'll get ~12 points out of that series of transmissions, which is clearly less than you'd get for just bringing back the 20-point initial data and never transmitting. Even the 60% efficiency sensors would result in less science if you spend energy to transmit them. So for a returning vessel it's only worthwhile to transmit data types that have 80 or 100% efficiency, like crew reports, but these also provide far less science than the various sensors you'll get later on. (Also, the last five sensor types all have such low weights that there's little downside to stacking many of them on each vessel. Goo is heavy, and the science bay is bulky, but the thermometer and such are practically weightless and take up almost no room.)

Therefore, the only times transmitting those other science types would be worthwhile would be:

1> if you're sending a vessel not designed to return AND you have no intention to send a manned mission to that body at some later date. (For instance, the probe I dropped into Jool's atmosphere, or the one I crashed into the Sun.)

or

2> A rover on a multiple-biome planet/moon other than Kerbin (at present, that's only Mun), where you might not want to go to the effort of sending multiple trips.

Otherwise, you're better off going manned and returning with the data intact; not only do you get more science from the single trip, but you also leave the door open to collect the full smaller amount for a second or third trip to the same location.

Actually, repeated transmissions will yield almost the exact same amount of science as returns. The difference ends up being in the decimals, so if you have the means to do it there's no reason to not transmit data at this time. Can't find the topic on it but someone already debunked the "returns > transmissions" thing.

[allmhuran]

To evolve further, I have to gather lots of science... and the only way to do this, as I have yet to discover solar panels and battery, is to go up and down - landing on mountains, landing in the desert, landing on the grasslands. All because I have to grind science. Then I unlock the Materials Bay... and I have to go to these biomes yet again.

I totally agree that the science implementation is monotonous in its current form. I've suggested the removal of diminishing returns, retransmission and transmission loss entirely, since this is a triumverate of evil grindy gameplay. But I also think that to really make it interesting there has to be more to it than "go to place X, press button", and certainly more to it than "go to place x, press button over and over".

Could we have combinations, permutations and discoveries (like Gem Tower Defense) or is that too complicated? Could we have some aspect to the actual collection of science data that requires active player participation, and if so, what would that be? These are difficult questions to answer.

However, believe me when I say that you can totally earn bucketloads of sceince without needing solar panels and batteries. See my sig for a 3676 science first launch video or see here for a 5528 science first launch album:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Some people have said that this shows science is broken because it's too easy. I disagree, and contend that it shows science is broken because it is much more fun doing it like this than it is to repetitively grind it out.

[KerbMav]

Some people have said that this shows science is broken because it's too easy. I disagree, and contend that it shows science is broken because it is much more fun doing it like this than it is to repetitively grind it out.

Picturing myself in this vessel it almost feels like a roller coaster ... just a bit faster but longer.

Broken is the wrong word - it is not ideally designed. You get to much science for simply being in orbit of something. EVAing over Kerbin alone, then the Mun and even just doing stuff in space nets quite a bit.

.23 will change the transmission efficiency, which is a good first step - but as your tour shows (although I do not know how much science you got for your landings) that returning from a "simple" expedition alone (without any science gizmos) already gives a lot to fill the tree with. Maybe actually landing (and returning) on other bodies should yield yet even more (relatively) then a flyby?

[Vlk]

I maxed out my science points, and i wasn't even close to the jool-system, and didn't go to the kerbin poles. In fact, i was hopeing for a longer science-carrier (meaning slower science gathering).

[pizzaoverhead]

To evolve further, I have to gather lots of science... and the only way to do this, as I have yet to discover solar panels and battery, is to go up and down - landing on mountains, landing in the desert, landing on the grasslands

The starting engines have alternators in them, so thrusting generates electric charge. Yes, this is even more gamey.

If you send manned pods, you don't even need batteries. After all, what do you have on those craft that actually requires power, at present?

Reaction wheels. If you run out of power on a craft with no way of generating it and no RCS, you're stuck pointing in that direction unless your engine can gimbal.

[boxman]

You arent being forced to visit all these biomes. You could easily gather enough science even by doing a few science experiments near space center, then during a atmospheric flight or suborbital flight. After just a few missions like this you should have enough to for example do at least a lunar flyby.

My problem was exactly opposite of yours.. It was just way too easy to get to the next tiers.

[rosenkranz]

Actually, trying to land a rocket on a mountain top sounds very kerbal to me.

However, to answer the OP, I'd say it's a matter of strategy. If you try to fill out the tech tree evenly or try to go big early, that will definitely cause some grindy game play. If you go smart early and get to at least the first solar panels quickly, the grindyness is considerably lessened.

Of course if you're scott mannly you could go big and smart right out of the box but I think most players aren't quite that talented. Thankfully, you can go a long way on 1.25m tanks and engines with a little practice.

I know that I've not touched most of Kerbin biomes. Now, I have hit the Mun's biomes pretty hard. There's a potential of almost 10k science on the Mun alone with stock science parts. Even so, if I can get at least 60-70% of that I'll be happy cause there is still Duna and Eve as fairly easy next steps. I'll likely max out the tree before I'm done with those. Everything else will be gravy.

[EasyAce]

So I am doing something terrible wrong...

People are writing how easy this is... why Am I then using hours to get parts just to safely travel to the Mün and back?

I won't go to the Mün when there is no certainty to bring those nice little Kerbals back alive

101 Alpha One - first rocket, kerbed pod and a solid rocket booster.

- crew report at launch, transmitt.

- launch, crew report "flying at Kerbin", transmitt - end of battery

- top altitude, crew report kerbin high altitude

- parachute

- land in water

- crew report

- recover

102 Alpha Two - second rocket, two stages, liquid and solid booster, goo canister

- analyze goo at launch pad - transmitt

- launch

- analyze goo "while flying" - transmitt - end of battery (solid booster don't recharge batt)

- battery recharges with liquid engine

- analyze goo at high orbit

- parachute, land on grassland.

- Eva, dig, crew report, eva report, goo - recover

103 - Alpha three - third rocket, first with legs, going orbit

- launch, orbit, crewreport, eva report, goo etc - transmitt - end of battery

- return, recharge batt while retro

- land, dig, goo, crew rep, eva rep - recover.

104 - Alpha four - first rocket with extra batteries, no way to recharge.

So far so Good.

Then it ends. I just continue to grind the biomes of Kerbin, because the next tech is 90 science... and I gather 25 science pr biome I visit.

I visit 4 biomes to unlock the next science module, the material bay... and then I have to visit the same biomes again.

I am impressed how bad I am in this game if it is only I that have this experience.

And to those who tell me to stop playing because I write this questionable criticism... I enjoy this game!

I just met "the first wall" that reduces my motivation to keep on going further, and thought I had to ask if there is only I that hope for a change in this.

I understand that I am one of the very few (or the only), so I write that down and wont mention this again.

Let's grind Kerbin.

[VirtualCLD]

Actually, repeated transmissions will yield almost the exact same amount of science as returns. The difference ends up being in the decimals, so if you have the means to do it there's no reason to not transmit data at this time. Can't find the topic on it but someone already debunked the "returns > transmissions" thing.

Let me know if you can find that topic, because the last one I read went into a bit of math and was quite clear that repeated returns are much greater than repeated transmissions. You stop getting science points after 4 or 5 runs of the same experiment and they showed that 4 or 5 returns was huge compared to the 4 or 5 transmissions.

[maltesh]

Most likely, said tester stopped because it starts to get tedious after five transmission sessions.

The materials bay can easily still be extracting science after more than ten transmissions.

Transmitting does not waste any of the potential science you can extract from the location using the experiment.

Many extra-Kerbin locations have more science than can be returned from a single experiment-and-return trip.

Absolutely nothing prevents you from going to a location, spam-transmitting back as much science as you feel like transmitting over and over again, and then redoing the experiment to mop up the last dregs of science left, and returning the results of that last experiment to Kerbin.

[jsfalconero]

I think you're probably not being ambitious enough. Try taking your 104 on a Mun flyby. You don't need to land, or try for science spam, just fly by, read the materials bay and the goo can, take a crew report and an EVA report then fly home. Without batteries it's not worth the risk trying to transmit all that data anyway, so just point at the Mun (at the right time naturally) and do your burn (maybe do some science transmission during the burn) then turn everything off and coast... Maybe you even set up a free return from the Mun. That should be well within the capabilities of a ship at this point in the tech tree. If that mission doesn't net you at least 100 science I'll be shocked. Then maybe a Minimus flyby, or pick up solar panels and go for a landing somewhere or send out satellites or probe landers or probe landers on Duna or Eve or who knows where. You can do it, you've just got to be willing to take that first giant leap (and then not forget about space exploration entirely, the Mun may not be made of cheese but it's probably worth going back anyway, but that's entirely off topic )

Edited November 21, 2013 by jsfalconero
Spelling and Grammar, I are good at theem.

[Jarin]

Let me know if you can find that topic, because the last one I read went into a bit of math and was quite clear that repeated returns are much greater than repeated transmissions. You stop getting science points after 4 or 5 runs of the same experiment and they showed that 4 or 5 returns was huge compared to the 4 or 5 transmissions.

Returns decrease faster, as you basically "mine out" the available data. The total "science resource" available in any given point for any given instrument appears to be a fixed value. Transmissions can retrieve it all; it just takes significantly more transmissions than returns.

Found this reply in the science thread I made a while back. Hope it wasn't my misunderstood data that caused the confusion. o.o

[numerobis]

You get more science from N returned experiments than from N transmissions, but in the limit as N goes to infinity, it converges. So as soon as you get RTGs or solar panels, you no longer have any reason to go home. The wiki discusses this at length.