Earn Science by Protein Folding

[captainawesome]

I've just recently upgraded to 0.23 and discovered the science element now added. I haven't played with it too much, but I'm guessing that you gain science over time based on some parameters. In any case, I really like the concept. My suggestion is that instead of just gaining science, you could gain it by running a low-priority thread simulating protein folding or any similar project. The science you gain would be based on the amount of folding data processed. For slower computers, a handicap multiplier could be given based on the computer's CPU speed/memory. Another multiplier could be used to account for time warps. The benefits to real science are both nominal and obvious but there is also the likely possibility it would boost the psychological reward value of earning science for those players within the achiever gamer-type spectrum.

[technicalfool]

Hah, science came in with .22 and is categorically not done "over time" (as much as I'd like there to be an element of this), but increases as you do certain things, like getting back from orbit in one piece, or performing an experiment around Mun.

Donating CPU time to a real scientific project in order to gain in-game science is an interesting idea, but I can see there being difficulties. For one, the people who want to do this or are interested in it will probably already be running programs for their choice of projects using BOINC or similar. For another, well there's the rub: Who gets all those CPU cycles? Does Squad pick an approved partner, or do they include a BOINC client and let you choose your own? If they include a BOINC client, do they expect players to even know what "distributed computing" and its ramifications are, and do players want their electricity bills spiked by all their CPU and GPU cores running at constamax, which is what running BOINC tends to do?

If there's a way of talking to BOINC through an API and modding this into the game though, it could be interesting to see how many people try it out.

Edited January 30, 2014 by technicalfool
Because Mun != Moon