Interact with terrain scatters (for SCIENCE!)

[peadar1987]

Just a thought I had to spice up EVAs and science collection.

How about each biome has five or six types of terrain scatter. One of these is the standard type, it's pretty common.

The others are much more rare (maybe only occurring once every few hundred metres)

You get pictures of these in a contract briefing, or accessible through a menu, and get science for gathering them. (Or maybe you don't get a picture, you just get told to gather interesting-looking things).

They don't have to be loaded for physics, the only change from the standard terrain scatters is that you can gather them somehow (either by right clicking on them, or right-clicking on a nearby Kerbal, whichever is easiest to implement).

This means that instead of just landing on a planet, planting a flag, and going home, you have a small treasure hunt to do once you're down there for additional science (if you want to do it).

It also makes rovers more of a useful thing, as you can cover more ground more quickly, enhancing your search.

Examples of things you could have would be different types of rock on the Mun, maybe some sort of primitive life on Laythe, possible fluvial features on Duna, bones in Kerbin's deserts, patches of water ice near the Mun's poles, etc.

(If anyone wants to make a mod of this as well, feel very free!!)

[Andrew Hansen]

Excellent idea! This would be way more fun than regular surface sample collection!

[NERVAfan]

This would be very cool.

[Tw1]

I'd get behind this idea.

[KerBlammo!]

This is such a simple, yet fantastic idea that would add some nice spice to the game play and exploration. Would also make a great mod. I can't quite believe no one else has come up with this 'til now. Kudos

[einsteiner]

Count me as a "yes please, that sounds awesome" vote.

[TMS]

Don't often comment in here, but that's a very good idea. Fits into the stock experience well and gives much-needed purpose to ground operations.

[peadar1987]

Thanks for the positive response guys, I never quite know if my ideas are any good or not before I post them!

Any modders out there have any idea if this would even be feasible?

[M3tal_Warrior]

Moar Science? Count me in!

[vexx32]

Well, you couldn't have them be the same kind of object as terrain scatters are, but it should be pretty possible... Might be you could do it by extending whatever class the terrain scatters are controlled by.

[ximrm]

That would make eva and rover missions a lot more fun!

Also a museum like showcase of your findings would be cool or integration into the tech tree(we need this part of the eg. ufo anomaly to reverse-engineer and build/unlock new technologies)

[Ikaneko]

Finally, a use for rovers!!!

[Guest]

Scatters that you can touch and get science data from them .

[GorillaZilla]

Indeed, Especially if a lot of the rarer different terrain scatters you want to find are hard to distinguish from the surrounding scatters from altitude, Like veins of minerals ect embedded into normal terrain scatter rocks.... Really would give a real and tangible use for Rovers over just hopping landers.... You would have to drive around, among and up to a lot of different terrain scatter and take a closer look before finding something interesting....

[r4pt0r]

I like this idea, so long as we dont get pictures from mission control. lets find out what they look like on our own.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Ermmmm... What exactly is a "scatter?"

[Wanderfound]

Ermmmm... What exactly is a "scatter?"

Trees and rocks etc. "Enable ground scatter" is a graphics option (off by default).

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Trees and rocks etc. "Enable ground scatter" is a graphics option (off by default).

Ohhh, that kind of scatter. I thought it was something pertaining to atmospheric scattering... That was my best guess, anyway.

This would be cool (e. g. Taking different samples of wood and dirt) but that would require rewriting he entire ground scatter code, not to mention putting a mandatory, high-GPU load effect in the game, which would kill performance on low-end computers.

[lajoswinkler]

Well there were plenty of suggestions to add collectible rocks, as something you'd have to find on a planetary surface, but so far nothing. It's a pity. KSC could use a museum/deposit building for collected stuff.

[katateochi]

Yeah that would be nice. I still drive around rocks, but it would be nice to have a real reason to do so, would make rover-ing (aka Mun drag racing) more fun if crashing into a rock had consequences. Would also increase landing challenge (a little), landing with one leg on a boulder would be a problem (and if you didn't like that you could always turn the scatter density down).

My only worry is the computational overhead that would cause. All those collision meshes. But that's only if it's done with a naive approach of every rock having a collision mesh. Should be dynamic, nearby rocks only get a very rough collision mesh, ones you are right by get a more detailed one.

Well there were plenty of suggestions to add collectible rocks, as something you'd have to find on a planetary surface, but so far nothing. It's a pity. KSC could use a museum/deposit building for collected stuff.

That's a really cool idea and would give a purpose to collecting science in sandbox mode (which is something that is badly needed).

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Should be dynamic, nearby rocks only get a very rough collision mesh, ones you are right by get a more detailed one.

That's no better, because if you're moving then you have to be constantly changing the mesh, which I'd imagine is even harder on to processor.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

This would be a good idea. There's another thread discussing it, though.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Yeah that would be nice. I still drive around rocks, but it would be nice to have a real reason to do so, would make rover-ing (aka Mun drag racing) more fun if crashing into a rock had consequences. Would also increase landing challenge (a little), landing with one leg on a boulder would be a problem (and if you didn't like that you could always turn the scatter density down).

My only worry is the computational overhead that would cause. All those collision meshes. But that's only if it's done with a naive approach of every rock having a collision mesh. Should be dynamic, nearby rocks only get a very rough collision mesh, ones you are right by get a more detailed one.

That's a really cool idea and would give a purpose to collecting science in sandbox mode (which is something that is badly needed).

Actually, would only need to have one mesh, which only appears when a craft gets within 1 or 2 meters of it.

[Red Iron Crown]

Merged two duplicate threads, though one was a bit of a necro it seems the subject still has some interest.

[lajoswinkler]

Why collision mesh, at all? Just make 1% (or less) of the scatter tiny and set it as something possible to collect. No need for collision mesh.