[1.2.1] RoverScience Revisted (2.2.0) - Better, interactive science for rovers!

[akron]

1 hour ago, Identitools said:

What are the others strange looking parts?

Like @DStaal said, there is a bunch of parts from my mod, although most of mine are "orbital" science experiments, like the UV spectrometer which acts as the rover's mast here.

The drill in the Eve rover is from DMagic Science.

 

[CobaltWolf]

22 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Most of the other parts are from Probes Plus, linked in akron's signature.  (Though IIRC, at least one is from DMagic.)

Looking really good, by the way, @akron. 

On the tons-of-tiny-rovers thing, the one other thing I'd say is that as it stands the mod does push somewhat towards that - each rover provides very limited reuse (and typically in a fairly small area, once you begin searching), so the encouragement is to send lots of disposable rovers.  Which is one of your stated goals, after all - the question is what you want to aim for, exactly.  I can see a few tweaks that would bring the time-per-rover up, meaning that huge numbers wouldn't be as desirable, if you want.  It's all a balance question.

Regardless, this mod makes sending an automated rover vs an automated probe a more balanced (at the very least) question.  In stock, it's almost never worth sending a rover without a couple of Kerbals.

Well, realistically a rover only covers a small amount of area compared to a planet. That's why there's so much emphasis on landing in specific spots. I'm sure IRL planetary scientists would love to have dozens of rovers running around. But I also think, from a gameplay POV, that it would be more enjoyable to not have to spam stuff. I personally dislike having to grind science by repeating the same thing for every biome. Obviously, you can't (and probably shouldn't) stop players from doing many rovers if they want, but making it so it doesn't feel necessary would be good.

[blacsky33]

lot of new good stuff here , i think i will finally make a full unmanned career with the 1.2 stable release  , great job. 

[akron]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

Well, realistically a rover only covers a small amount of area compared to a planet. That's why there's so much emphasis on landing in specific spots. I'm sure IRL planetary scientists would love to have dozens of rovers running around. But I also think, from a gameplay POV, that it would be more enjoyable to not have to spam stuff. I personally dislike having to grind science by repeating the same thing for every biome. Obviously, you can't (and probably shouldn't) stop players from doing many rovers if they want, but making it so it doesn't feel necessary would be good.

Indeed. KSP's planets much smaller and the travel speeds are RIDICULOUSLY high, because of gameplay reasons. It is conceivable for a player to drive around a planet in one rover, but not in real life.

I don't think people realize that the Mars Curiosity rover has a top speed of around 0.03888889 m/s; approximately 30~90 meters per hour . Think about that when your Duna rover is doing 15-30 m/s downhill, lol.

[Darkstar One]

Two short questions:

• CTRL + R + S will open the RoverScience menu.

That combination does nothing on my setup (Windows)

 

The science loss penalty is permanent or is there a "decay" back to zero over time?

[theSpeare]

@akron how dare you!  Nah it's perfectly fine, you have every right to show off the beautiful parts you made. How is the orientation work coming along? As soon as that's done I'm gonna tweak the costs and other part values and then release it immediately with the latest dev branch.

@DStaal I don't really mind so much. If players are gonna put in the effort to send fleets of rovers then that's great. At the moment RoverScience already makes far more science per rover (three analyses can return quite a bit of science right?) than any traditional probe by itself; which is, i think, a great incentive to actually send rovers. In stock there's almost zero practical use for rovers rather than just landing probes as you have mentioned. Again in terms of balance it's not really at the top of my list; I'm far more concerned with the current upgrade costs, and if the upgrades are actually effective/worth-it for players who prefer that play style.

I imagine at the moment prediction accuracy should be the most sought-out upgrade. The mod was designed with risk/decision-making in mind so that every time a spot comes up (especially when it's distant), you look at the prediction and you think: "hmm... is it going to be worth it driving all the way there?"

I think I need a better system for prediction though. At the moment if you have 60% prediction confidence, the mod will just do a random roll and if you hit 60% the prediction will read what the actual potential is. Here's the could-be-better part: if you fail the 60% roll check, you will get a random prediction. I made this with the intention of misleading the player if they had low prediction confidence, but at the moment it feels more of a static mechanic rather than a dynamic interactive one. Any ideas?

3 hours ago, Darkstar One said:

Two short questions:

• CTRL + R + S will open the RoverScience menu.

That combination does nothing on my setup (Windows)

 

The science loss penalty is permanent or is there a "decay" back to zero over time?

Hi, sorry i missed a page while writing a reply. CTRL+R+S is a little bit finicky at the moment but it helps if you press down those keys in that order. (CTRL then R then S). Then it should work. I will be adding a button to the game's stock toolbar (which will appear only if you have the part). For the time being you may also assign the roverBrain to a custom action.

5 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Well, realistically a rover only covers a small amount of area compared to a planet. That's why there's so much emphasis on landing in specific spots. I'm sure IRL planetary scientists would love to have dozens of rovers running around. But I also think, from a gameplay POV, that it would be more enjoyable to not have to spam stuff. I personally dislike having to grind science by repeating the same thing for every biome. Obviously, you can't (and probably shouldn't) stop players from doing many rovers if they want, but making it so it doesn't feel necessary would be good.

This is pretty much why I was a little bit disappointed when the stock science system first came out. The whole biome thing is neat but felt very mechanical and not very interesting by itself. I thought about how much I liked building unmanned rovers and got upset that there really was no need for actual rovers, but just probes. Cue RoverScience! I hope I've accomplished some ways of making rovers actually viable (interesting).

Edited September 23, 2016 by theSpeare

[DracoSilverpath]

Hm, for the prediction system...I don't think its terribly useful at the moment in any meaningful way, to be honest. What I might do, would be, if possible, is to have multiple sites pop up at the same time at a bit greater distance(with a minimum spacing inbetween if possible so they don't appear ontop of eachother), the prediction would dynamically change as you get closer to each, giving you a better idea as you go as to what might be better. Instead of the random prediction on a prediction fail, perhaps make it show a growing/lessening percentage of the actual value that's there, and have it increase to the total amount as they grow closer to the spot, and the more they upgrade the prediction module, the quicker it would get to the actual total, which in turn would mean less driving to nodes they don't want.

I hope that makes sense?

[Identitools]

Semi related question : with all the rover science we are going to do (i personally wait for 1.2 and mods to update), is anybody have suggestions about how we can spend all that science besides tech and upgrading the rover?

I have some others mods that can eventually bring science and i don't like having researched all of the tech tree just by reaching duna. For example i had found a mod that can "upgrade" some parts bethaviour (not the porkjet one, an much older one) but i can't find it. This is the kind of mod i search, bringing more uses to science.

[DStaal]

34 minutes ago, Identitools said:

Semi related question : with all the rover science we are going to do (i personally wait for 1.2 and mods to update), is anybody have suggestions about how we can spend all that science besides tech and upgrading the rover?

I have some others mods that can eventually bring science and i don't like having researched all of the tech tree just by reaching duna. For example i had found a mod that can "upgrade" some parts bethaviour (not the porkjet one, an much older one) but i can't find it. This is the kind of mod i search, bringing more uses to science.

The one you're thinking of is Kerbal Research and Development:

Another option would be to try some different tech-tree mods, that require more science to unlock.  (Community Tech Tree adds quite a few nodes, for instance.)  Though that may require even more mods to add parts to those nodes... 

On the balance and upgrading discussion: The one I notice (and again, this is with minimal actual play time) as being 'odd' is probably the distance upgrades.  From what I can tell, this mod will generate one science node of a random value within the current search distance at a time - so why do I want a larger search distance again?  It just means I have to drive further once I find a node.  For all it's illogical and unrealistic, it might be worth flipping that around: as you upgrade you get smaller search distances.  Or take in DracoSilverpath's suggestion and generate multiple nodes at once, in which case a larger distance means you can find more nodes (and more likelihood of one of them being a high value node).  I do like his 'accuracy based on distance' idea as well - it gives you some feedback on what increasing the accuracy actually does, and allows you to make intelligent trade-offs, vs just having to drive up to each node.

[theSpeare]

@DStaal Science Spots that are generated far away from your rover have a distance bonus multiplier. This simply means that driving to Science Spots far away will be rewarding, however since it's only a multiplier you might just be getting multiplying a small value (this is where prediction comes in handy). Another benefit to range adjustment is being able to adapt to any terrain (perhaps you're in a small crater, or next to a steep slope).

I think this one is my fault; I haven't really emphasized this on the readme. Maybe I'll just have it written down on the RoverScience console.

@DracoSilverpath I kinda like this idea. I might use this as inspiration and implement something similar. Thanks for the idea. I think in general I need to make the prediction accuracy upgrade way more interactive.

[CobaltWolf]

14 hours ago, Identitools said:

Semi related question : with all the rover science we are going to do (i personally wait for 1.2 and mods to update), is anybody have suggestions about how we can spend all that science besides tech and upgrading the rover?

I have some others mods that can eventually bring science and i don't like having researched all of the tech tree just by reaching duna. For example i had found a mod that can "upgrade" some parts bethaviour (not the porkjet one, an much older one) but i can't find it. This is the kind of mod i search, bringing more uses to science.

I've run into similar issues. I usually have to play with science down to 10% and I still progress too fast. I think there are other mods that can force it to be even lower.

[Identitools]

48 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I've run into similar issues. I usually have to play with science down to 10% and I still progress too fast. I think there are other mods that can force it to be even lower.

Wow 10%? Do you have a lot of science mod/experiments? I think the best of both worlds would be completing the tech tree around exploring the jool system (and i play with OPM), and then using the leftovers to... i don't know. The strategies are useless, we always end up with too much rep/money/science.

That just made me think, what if we need a lil bit of each 3 to make the rover upgrades?

[theSpeare]

Update 2.1.4 - New part models (and textures) by @akron

New part models
Model and texturing by KSPForum akron. Wonderful work and wonderful guy. Thanks! The old placeholder is now removed, please take care with your currently deployed rovers.

MiniAVC Implementation
Added MiniAVC support. Will compare with GitHub pushed version file.

Initial Minor Balancing Pass
Changed so that amount of times analyzed does not increase for generated science that is too low. There will be more balancing to come as discussion continues in the forum page.

EDIT: front page has been updated with new images showing off these parts

Edited September 25, 2016 by theSpeare

[ygr3ku]

If we upgrade the Rover Brain, let's say for distance and decay (it's just an example), the upgrade applies to the current item/rover/part only or will it be available upgraded for the future rovers that we build?

Like ... if I upgraded the current rover, then I end the mission, the next rover I build will have the Rover Brain upgraded(with all I upgraded before) or will it mount with default version, later to be upgraded again, as in the first time I launched it? Do upgraded part save somewhere, later to be used as upgraded part? I'm not sure I made myself clear, but I hope you guys get the idea of my question (english not my first language).

Ty.

[theSpeare]

4 hours ago, ygr3ku said:

If we upgrade the Rover Brain, let's say for distance and decay (it's just an example), the upgrade applies to the current item/rover/part only or will it be available upgraded for the future rovers that we build?

Like ... if I upgraded the current rover, then I end the mission, the next rover I build will have the Rover Brain upgraded(with all I upgraded before) or will it mount with default version, later to be upgraded again, as in the first time I launched it? Do upgraded part save somewhere, later to be used as upgraded part? I'm not sure I made myself clear, but I hope you guys get the idea of my question (english not my first language).

Ty.

Once you upgrade, every rover (future, past and present) will carry the upgrade. This is for KSP 1.1.3.

[ygr3ku]

2 minutes ago, theSpeare said:

This is for KSP 1.1.3.

Thanks for your reply. I know is not working (yet) in 1.2, but that will be the same idea in 1.2 too, right? It will still carry the upgrade?!

Also, if I'll have 2 rovers on 2 different bodies (Mun and Minmus for example), and I upgrade the Mun one, the Minmus one will be upgraded too, or after one upgrade, the upgrade applies only to future new built rovers?

[theSpeare]

In 1.1.3 all upgrade values are saved in your persistence/quicksave files under a "scenario". Every rover brain will read from this scenario. This means that once you upgrade, every single rover no matter where they are or when they were built will carry the new upgrade values.

In KSP 1.2 I will be most likely changing the system to use the stock mechanic "PartModuleUpgrade". This will move the upgrades to the Research and Development building. Once you research the appropriate node, it will only upgrade rovers that have yet to be built. This would be a more realistic approach, where hardware technological upgrades are only really done with newly built parts.

It's not 100% certain I will be switching to this system, because the current system allows me the benefit of tweaking the costs and debugging a bit better. Furthermore, I wanted these upgrades to be another choice for using your science. By integrating the upgrades to the science tree you are just getting everything as you go.

[The-Doctor]

@theSpeare can you make this work for Kerbals where they carry an exploration pack? Also allow it to work with manned rovers? Please, this would make forming bases and outposts actually make sense 

[theSpeare]

Hi @The-Doctor, it should already be working for manned rovers? There's nothing stopping you from slapping the Rover Brain part onto a rover with a seat on it. As for Kerbals carrying an exploration pack, this is on the back of the queue as I would like to do something else specific for Kerbals. For now I'm focusing completely on rover science.

[SpaceBadger007]

Hello everyone, just though I would pop in and show off a mars mission I did using your rover science part @theSpeare, its awesome so thank you for making this mod (and akron for making the part look awesome!). I will show the future mission of the rover exploring duna, but for now here is the deployment.

http://imgur.com/a/jjb9l 

[theSpeare]

16 minutes ago, SpaceBadger007 said:

Hello everyone, just though I would pop in and show off a mars mission I did using your rover science part @theSpeare, its awesome so thank you for making this mod (and akron for making the part look awesome!). I will show the future mission of the rover exploring duna, but for now here is the deployment.

http://imgur.com/a/jjb9l 

Love it! Can't wait to see the future mission album

[SpaceBadger007]

So I made an album on the rover, roving around. There will be more in the future, and this is just the beginning! 

Here is the Album!  http://imgur.com/a/34vsG

Also, post below some names for the rover because at the moment ROVER - 1 is pretty bland!

[theSpeare]

Nice! That reminds me, I need to make it so that the rocks don't disappear after you find them (only after you leave the scene). Kinda immersion breaking.

[SpaceBadger007]

Aaaahhh!!!! I just looked at my rover album on mobile and its all screwed up nooooo! I will fix it tomorrow, the order of most pics are wrong, so sorry about that people.

EDIT: Its fixed now!

Edited October 8, 2016 by SpaceBadger007

[theSpeare]

Hey! I'm working full-time now but this plugin is far from dead, I just won't be able to pump features into it as fast as I would want. When KSP 1.2 fully releases this monday(?) I'll update RS for it.

I've actually been thinking about just rewriting most of RoverScience as the bulk of the code was written while I was still learning C# and Unity, and I think I can make the source a lot more modular. If I do this, adding some big features will be much much easier. Right now it's all a mess and it definitely shows.

So that's the plan, update for 1.2 (shouldn't take too long since I've already looked into it with the pre), then most likely rewrite the code. After that, it'll be adding/refining features and then maybe moving on to something like KerbalScience.