Simplified map view

[Lucid Hills]

The thing I don't like about the current map view is it kinda breaks my immersion. It's too detailed. You can see all the details on a planet or moon without having to work for it.

My idea is that you build your own map as you go in a sense. When you start off, all you have is a very visually basic map view showing the positions and rough size of some of the close, larger celestial bodies (stuff that'd likely be visible in the kerbin night sky) but that is all. This starter map view would have no surface detail whatsoever on any of the present bodies and would be completely missing some of the more distant planets, all moons (except Kerbin's), and all asteroids.

You would use satellites and telescopes to expand and add detail to this starter map. With a satellite in it's orbit you could scan a body's surface, overlaying this information onto the body's suface as the satellite scans, filling in detail. Telescopes could be used from a Kerbin orbit to scan for asteroids and new distant planets plus if used to target on body, could scan for moons in it's orbit and provide some very low res surface detail to that body in map view.

I also see this mod working well as a nice basic 3D map that could work well with RasterPropMonitor.

I could make this mod myself but rather than you all having to wait on me to learn how to code, if there is someone who'd like to take this idea and make it reality in a more realistic time frame than what I could do it, then please by all means go for it.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Lucid Hills

[Justin Kerbice]

Such idea suits career mode very well (in immersion and "realism" point of view), and I'm pretty sure it has already suggested before (in suggestion forum).

But you did it more precisely . Maybe as an option to mode (unveiled map ON/OFF).

Of course KSC area (former KSC too ?) may be already there and fully explored, maybe a 50 kms circle around KSC and eventually old runway, unless it has been forgotten since then.

I also think stuff like ScanSat do with its own maps could be nice, but, the big but is it needs a lot's of work and I'm afraid so much hack in the code which could lead to have a big kraken party everywhere !

Bodies could also be mapped from surface with rover, plane, drone, and even kerbals (by going to a mountains top, we may be able to map a significant area).

Finally it needs science tools to identify new bodies and get their data.

[Lucid Hills]

Of course KSC area (former KSC too ?) may be already there and fully explored

Yeah I thought of this. I was thinking that Kerbals would have likely already mapped their planet from the surface though probably not very well because they are kerbals. So I was thinking something like this:

And maybe a similar sketch for Mun but of just semi random craters across the surface.

Bodies could also be mapped from surface with rover, plane, drone, and even kerbals (by going to a mountains top, we may be able to map a significant area).

Yeah that's a great idea. Like you could map in very high detail but in a retentively small area.

Finally it needs science tools to identify new bodies and get their data.

Of course.

[pizzaoverhead]

Good idea. This would give a greater divide between the map view as an internal instrument or the kerbals' theory and the external or IVA window view reality. There would be a greater feeling of accomplishment, as it would be like seeing things with your own eyes for the first time, rather than a simulation which you are free to jump around in.

It could be made wireframe, simplified "artist's impression", or just the solid colour of that planet's icon. Replacing the skybox would also be important.

[Justin Kerbice]

I have just an idea to make this happen: instead of a complicated, potentially buggy thing with a new map, at least, bodies could be covered by the infamous fog of war (black or any other colour), like kethane map, atmo.visual enhancement (with its clouds) or the new karbonite map overlay.

We start with some fog removed on KSC, rovers may have some "line of sight" radius around them, as weell as plane and spacecraft, BUT using a high altitude space craft may not make the job easy as it is so far it can get precise view of the landscape below, or it may need some high technology optical device + a kind of scansat satellite, which may be use mostly to fill the remaining holes of some area of bodies.

After that, it may need a way to hide orbits to get something close to the original idea.

[Lucid Hills]

Woo! This thread was brought back from the mod archive thingy.

While it was down two new threads ( 1 , 2 ) started with what seem to be similar ideas for those interested.

[tater]

I'd actually assume that Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus would be well mapped as visible from Kerbin. The two moons might have "meh" elevation data, and nothing at the polar regions. More distant world would be FAR more sketchy. This would make the Kerbin area a good newb zone, while making a natural difficulty modifier for more distant worlds. Add a new radar mapper module, and have squat for data on planets with clouds without it.

[Lucid Hills]

I'd actually assume that Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus would be well mapped as visible from Kerbin. The two moons might have "meh" elevation data, and nothing at the polar regions. More distant world would be FAR more sketchy. This would make the Kerbin area a good newb zone, while making a natural difficulty modifier for more distant worlds. Add a new radar mapper module, and have squat for data on planets with clouds without it.

Yeah this all sounds good.

I was thinking that Kerbin would have hand drawn maps which could have been made by map makers on the surface before the time of satellites (because you haven't launched any yet).

The Mun would only have the kerbin facing side mapped (because the mun is tidally locked to Kerbin) with drawn maps that could have been made by astronomers. Minmus would have a similar type of map but of the whole surface as it isn't tidally locked.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Lucid Hills

[tater]

We had pretty good maps in ww2, though even then there were badly mapped areas. The munar surface would be pretty well done (the side they can see).

[Lucid Hills]

We had pretty good maps in ww2, though even then there were badly mapped areas. The munar surface would be pretty well done (the side they can see).

Yeah. I like the look of the basic sketch type but also I think it should be basic enough that you feel the need to map properly but not too basic that you can't get by.

Also remember than when not in mapview, you would see the planets in all their glory.

[tater]

True. You can do it kerbal-style and just head there, then land. The most important is really the lack of elevation data. Landing on a slope can be nasty.

[C1maCat]

Any chance of this being done by someone? Would love to have it

[peter1981]

Great Idea

I think that this could hinge on resolution: Initially the out line and general features of Kerbin are given as is the Kerbin facing side of Mun. But, as Kerbals rove, walk, fly and orbit around a planet, moon, or asteroid the areas in their line of sight would be filled in. The trick is to make distance from surface reduce the resolution of the mapping.

Its tricky to get this right -- the simple approach would be to have a line of sight circle around a Kerbal and reduce the mapping resolution with distance:

But, when a Kerbal is stood on the ground or in a rover then they should get fantastic resolution of where they are but the resolution should drop away from the Kerbal towards the horizon. Also form the ground you get a good sense of the elevation of hills and mountains and of the areas topography.

If the Kerbal is flying or orbiting then the sense of the height of hills and mountains is reduced also the resolution of the image is much lower.

Another thing is mapping should be much lower resolution at twilight and nearly impossible at night. But, again if the Kerbal has a light illuminating some part of the ground then that should be mapped.

What I'm trying to say is if you look at Venus with the naked eye all you'll see is a bright white-yellow dot and you'd conclude that that is all there is -- further because of the clouds you'd not be able to see the ground anyway. With a telescope you can make out the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and the ice caps on Mars and the rings of Saturn.

I think initially the planets of the system are known but there surfaces just an average colour. Of the moons of the planets only Mun, Minmus, Ike, and the 3 largest moons of Jool, (Tylo, Vall, & Laythe) are know again surface just an average colour except Mun's Kerbin-facing-side which has low resolution detail, large craters can be seen and changes in surface colour (mare), the non-Kerbin-facing-side is again average blurred colour (gray).

The way to discover other moons would be to upgrade the tracking station to level 2 giving Gilly around Eve, and Bop and Pol around Jool. again with average colour surfaces. Or entering the parent planet's SOI would reveal It's moons.

A Tracking Station upgraded to level 2 should be treated as ground based telescopes so show ice caps on Duna but average and blurred, flats on Minmus, low resolution detail, large craters can be seen and changes in surface colour like the seas of Laythe and Eve. (Eve may be obscured by clouds though?)

A tracking Station upgraded to level 3 should be treated as better telescopes asteroids are visible again blurred average colour surfaces and treated as spheres.

New items to improve mapping (some mods do this already an maybe could be included.) Altitude scans from orbit, Hi-res terrain scans from orbit, satellite based camera - give line of sight to unmanned craft, Biome scan from orbit, Anomaly detection, and Space telescope - improves distant plant and moon surface mapping.

Well that's my two-pence worth -- what do you guys think?

[John FX]

I like the idea, it would give purpose to land and space telescopes and for planetary scanning (which we will have for resources anyway)

Maybe once we get the resource scanning the part could be augmented relatively easily to allow surface scanning and removal of 'fog of war'?

We could get a resolution like this from a distance

[tater]

This is so very needed. A simple way to implement this is to fix the visual model used in map view to an altitude that is not determined by the current spacecraft.

Say you teleport a new ship to a world in low orbit. The view from external view is the real view. The map view would have the world as seen from the point it first renders, just zoomed into THAT texture (a few handfuls of pixels across of texture, even though you are in low orbit). If the craft contains the right instruments, then as you orbit, the altitude the map view uses to select the texture detail decreases.

[pizzaoverhead]

The map view is an information source, not a faithful recreation of reality. There's no reason a fully-upgraded tracking station should be restricted to showing terrain colours. Let users pick colour filters for terrain data just like we do for object types:

Heightmaps

Slopes

Biomes

Have low-tech levels show Lucid Hills' original display: "There is a body here". Allow upgrades to show coastlines, atmosphere, day/night cycles, terrain colour, biomes, slopes etc. and tie its discovery into the science system via SCANsat-style gameplay.

It makes your science data useful, gives you a sense of progression, gives you a better view for landing future missions, and preserves the feeling of "first discovery" when you finally see what the planet actually looks like for the first time from the craft.

[tater]

And some sort of scanning is coming with ISRU anyway, right?

This would fundamentally improve the "science" system.

I think it is entirely fair to reduce part count and assume that ALL command pods and probe cores have cameras.

The early probes and the mk1 pod can be assumed to have B&W cameras capable of mapping surface features. The quality would depend upon a couple options. One, antennas can start to matter. Omni antennas only transmit at a very low bitrate, you'll want a high-gain. Capsules (or the right probe design) can return the images for development. So a combination of camera quality, bitrate, and flyby/orbital altitude drives the map quality.

More advanced pods and probes would have better and better cameras.

[tater]

Here's a reality check on the current map view.

I picked a lander on the Mun, and zoomed out from there. First image is the best possible zoom.

I think that with good imagery from orbit (or in a perfect world even an impacter probe sending back images like Ranger did, as long as it was limited to the area imaged), the zoom level should allow resolution that eventually equals the "real" view.

Zoomed out a little from our lander (looks about like it does from low orbit here:

The MUn should start with resolution at least this good (really better), though ideally not of the far side.

The whole Mun visible:

I'd expect the Minmus images from the surface of Kerbin to be about this good at the very least.

Distant:

This is better than one would expect for images of Duna, Dres, etc from Kerbin, honestly. When you go to a world past the Mun (and Minmus) Something like this is as close as you should be able to zoom to any body. It might have to be set far enough away that you cannot cheat to look at distant moons any closer if they exist.

[Axelord FTW]

Basically, a Fog of War effect but with resolution instead of a blackout.

I sort of like it.

The closer you get to a body, the more precise the image become in the map view.

The current map view resolution is good enough as an upper limit of the attainable resolution as seen by manned crew and telescopes. SCANsat is the logical next step.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Axelord FTW