intergration of satilite mapping

[hawk_za]

would like to see how much of the community would like to see this feature implemented into the stock version of the game at some point

please just +1 a reply so i can start gathering numbers if this feature dose interest you

so that i may petition the devs with more than just a request

now if i could just figure out how to add a poll

Edited May 16, 2014 by hawk_za

[shizophrenic]

+1 as long it wouldn't be prerequist to anything else. no one should be forced to do something they don't want. Maybe for career mode it can be the Goal of a Mission.

[hawk_za]

i was hoping it would be along the lines of the way scan sat currently dose things but after speaking to Rowsdower

and after a blog http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...-Edition/page7 that states that they wont be incorporating mods i got the following reply

Quote Originally Posted by hawk_za

hi there im sure you are a busy man and ill try to keep this brief

i recently made a post on the forums

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...-stock-version

with regard to integrating the damny mapsat mod into ksp default game structure and listed about 6 points as to the logic behind this in the hopes of the developers reading it but am currently unsure if even that has happened, as i know how busy you guys must be with the work for patch .24

so im hoping sending you the above link in the hopes that as community manager you might bring this idea to the developers attention as it seems to me that this is somthing much of the community is baying for.

i vaguely remember on a video that the dev team did make a stance on not incorporating mods into the game and would like to further inquire if this stance would ever change.

yours in service

Hawk_za

Hi, Hawk. How's everything? At this time, the devs have no intention to directly integrate mods that have been created by members of the community. However, if it gains enough community backing, I can certainly notify them as to the types of features that people would like to see in future updates. Thanks!

so am hoping to garner enough community support to convince the devs that this is a feature people would like but so far its not looking good 90+ views and only one +1

[rebel49808]

i was hoping it would be along the lines of the way scan sat currently dose things

+1 I would love to have this. In my opinion the more realistic choices we have when it comes to science the better. I sometimes find it tedious to do the same science missions over and over.

[technicalfool]

Mapsat. It's awesome, yo.

[allmhuran]

[Tex]

ScanSat... ISA... It would be purty awesome to have in version 1.0, but it's still early days yet. Stay hopeful! Until then, yep: you'd be better off downloading the mods and doing it that way.

[CaptRobau]

SCANsat is a lot of fun and does a better job at orbital science gathering than the stock system does. It's not tedious, it would help make orbiting probes useful and the maps that are generated are great for helping you plan future missions (which adds a far greater sense of discovery/exploration than the science blurbs do). Ideally satellite mapping would be integrated into the map view as a layer, as the way SCANsat does it is a bit ugly and clunky.

[Capt Snuggler]

would love to have this but i agree with CaptRobau, SCANsat is not the way to do it for the stock game. it needs a nicer slicker interface built in to the map view/tracking station.

I like SCANsat and think its a great mod especially considering the limited tool set, but esthetically it is not to the standard i would expect of stock KSP.

I created a thread with a while back outlining some ideas.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Just want to point out that Rows said that they (probably) wouldn't incorporate mods directly into the game, not that any mod 'ideas' aren't going to be implemented. There might be a scanning system planned for the final final release, we don't know. All we know is that if there was, it won't be direct copypaste of SCANsat. I hope there is some scanning system in stock though.. I kinda like doing that.

[Eric S]

Just want to point out that Rows said that they (probably) wouldn't incorporate mods directly into the game, not that any mod 'ideas' aren't going to be implemented.

This is very much true, there are quite a few ideas that were mods before they were integrated into the game. Docking, rovers, subassemblies, aircraft, etc.

On the other hand, the devs have said that if they do satellite mapping, it probably won't be done the same way as ISAMap or SCANsat, as they didn't like the way either of those boiled down to 1) get satellite in orbit, 2) warp until the mapping is complete. I'm not sure what kind of alternatives they'd consider acceptable.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Oh dear god, I hope they don't take the Kethane route and make you babysit a craft while it scans...

[hawk_za]

indeed i created this thread to see how much community interest there was in the feature of satellite mapping that's why its titled like that hopefully if enough people respond then i can approach Rowsdower again and say look i have x people interested can you please approach the devs with this feature request for implementation before 1.0 so far i have 8 people on board .. we gonna need allot more but i will wait

to those whom have replied thank you

[technicalfool]

Oh dear god, I hope they don't take the Kethane route and make you babysit a craft while it scans...

Egosoft did silly things like this to try to stop people from going the "construct a self-sufficient production loop, go get cup of coffee while in time warp" route. They did this by dropping your fight and trade ranks over time which had the net effect of... making the fights easier. Erm. Oh yeah, it made some of the more boring missions like "fetch 50 squillion units of ore to the production complex 50 jumps away in 5 minutes" non-doable due to trade rank. Well blow me down with a feather, I feel positively punished.

Like that's going to stop me from hitting time acceleration, switching the screen off and coming back Tomorrow morning. If that's how I want to play the game, then that is how I will play the game and I don't like having to fight with the game developers in order to play with a toy.

If that's how it would go with the "you must have focus" Kethane-style scanning with limited time-warp usefulness? Fine. Start scanning, go out and find something more fun to do. Come back and the net effect is the same: A scanned planet. Just like with the "you must have focus and time warp beyond 50x is pointless" Kethane scans, which is perhaps the most mind-numbingly boring, makes-it-only-barely-worth-having-the-mod part of Kethane. Just good that I don't have to be sat at the keyboard for a satellite to orbit, eh?

Developers: Don't make users fight you to have fun. In most cases, you will lose.

Edited May 21, 2014 by technicalfool

[technicalfool]

indeed i created this thread to see how much community interest there was in the feature of satellite mapping that's why its titled like that hopefully if enough people respond then i can approach Rowsdower again and say look i have x people interested can you please approach the devs with this feature request for implementation before 1.0 so far i have 8 people on board .. we gonna need allot more but i will wait

to those whom have replied thank you

Pretty sure that Rowsdower (and the rest of the mods, and devs) already know of the demand for mods like SCANsat. You wouldn't be the first person to want something like that in stock.

[MoeMelek]

+1. I think it's an essential part of space exploration. Even a basic one. It would be fun if the surfaces of the planets and moons had very little detail to begin with (like if it had just been seen by telescopes), and then with satellites and landings it would "fill in" with more high resolution imagery and data about the planet/moon. I've always thought that in career mode you should know very little about the system to begin with and then explore and send satellites to add knowledge. Probes/landers could even be prone to fail if you don't have adequate knowledge. Would add new depth to the game.

[Eric S]

Oh dear god, I hope they don't take the Kethane route and make you babysit a craft while it scans...

They specifically stated that they didn't want a mechanism that worked that way, so I doubt it would happen (devs don't always get their way on stuff like this, but the Squad team seems capable of coming up with ways around stuff like this).

[hawk_za]

Pretty sure that Rowsdower (and the rest of the mods, and devs) already know of the demand for mods like SCANsat. You wouldn't be the first person to want something like that in stock.

fair enough

then why is it not on either the already requested features in the sticky on the forum http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/44952-Already-Suggested-List or not on the wiki page either

[allmhuran]

It doesn't seem like the "warp until done" mechanic should really be as problematic as is often supposed. If you turn on time warp and walk away then your space center is sitting around doing nothing (ie, not doing missions, not earning money, not earning science) for all that time. In a fully implemented career mode this should cost you something. Whether that's reputation decay, or the daily cost of keeping your space center functioning, or lost mission opportunities, whatever.

In other words, I think (hope, beg) that when career mode is fleshed out properly, the right thing to do will indeed be:

- Get satellite into a good orbit for scanning

- Set it to scan (which would of course consume power)

- Go off and start your next mission

- Come back to the satellite to collect and transmit the data back so that your followup mission (which is probably already in flight!) knows where to go.

And similarly for any other mechanic that involves unfocused vessels.

[Vaporo]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59042-Painting-the-map%21?highlight=painting

Here is a similar suggestion from a while ago.

I think that this would work very well alongside discovery of celestial bodies. (that is planned, right?) You can initially "discover" bodies with a telescope, which will tell you only the overall color of the body, and give some estimations of gravitational and size parameters. The closer you get the telescope to the planet, the more detail you get. If you send a probe containing a camera module to the planet and take a picture, or send a manned ship and get a crew report, you can get map detail comparable to what we have now.

Maybe map mode could work something like Google Earth and allow you to zoom in for an extremely close look at the surface features of a planet. Scanning the planet's surface with a SCANsat-like part could give resolution higher than what we have now, and sending a probe or manned craft to the surface would give very high resolution in a small area.