Science Over Time

[RocketBlam]

We know that many, if not most experiments done in space and on other planetary bodies takes place over time. If you have the Kethane plugin, this is a good example: A satellite sits over a planet and maps it out over a period of time.

All of the experiments in KSP now are instantaneous: You do the experiment, and that's it. I think it would add something to the game to be able to set up experiments, or surveys, that take place over time and return a small amount of science every day, or month, or whatever. They might even return a small amount of science every X number of days indefinitely.

[Algiark]

Indefinitely? How about definitely. First time, this amount of science. Second time, half that amount. Third, quarter that, and so on until basically there's no science left. Prevent infinite science farming.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Yep I think it's needed. One argument is that it doesn't add to jame play because you can just accelerate time and that is kind of true, but there are many situation when you're say dropping through atmosphere and you can click and grab all the science. I've seen Scott Manley do it in the interstellar quest videos. A timer, like the one used to transmit data would help reduce that science spam.

You have to be careful how you balance it, you want to be able to collect since as you parachute down like real craft have done on Mars and Venus.

It also opens up interesting options for science collection using life support (space labs that collect science slowly over itme).

[Kodiak42]

First I would like to start off by saying that science isn't exactly a resource that you need indefinite amounts of, and I usually have a problem with exhaustible resources, but the need for science is also exhaustible.

As for experiments that take time, that's sort of what the lab does, but time warp doesn't really work with the lab. Most of our current experiments are exposures (the goo container and materials bay), logs, and samples. Logs should be instantaneous, and samples shouldn't take too long. Only exposures would make sense to have a sort of time period, I can really only see a long period exposure giving you a little bit of science over time, but would eventually be exhausted, and even the total amount would be small (relative to something like logging atmospheric data on another planet).