Contracts should be Linked to Doing NEW Science (Biome-Specific?)

[arkie87]

Can't say I'm a big fan of the aerial surveys (especially early in the game without spaceplanes) since it takes a long time flying to get there, you have to hit a relatively small target, and waste a lot of fuel with correction burns etc...

Furthermore, the biggest problem is that you are conducting a random experiment in a random location, and you might not even yield any new science (I've had aerial surveys which required a crew report, for which i got no science since i had already performed a crew report in that Biome).

Thus, what i want to propose is that contracts should be linked to doing new science.

For instance, instead of taking surface samples from a random location, what would be better is to assign biomes with which to conduct X experiment. This has many advantages over random locations:

(1) The target is much larger, so it will be easier to hit

Furthermore, the game should only assign biomes that havent had X-experiment done there, thereby:

(2) eliminating repetitiveness/pointless contracts since each mission will yield new science

(3) guiding (new) players by telling them which experiment to do where (less sandbox-y)

(4) giving players a budget with which to conduct science (instead of expecting them to fund it by cleverly linking testing contracts to their scientific expeditions)

(5) helping players fill out their science log and essentially pointing out experiments that havent been done yet

(6) intrinsically limiting the number of contracts of each type (since you cannot get a contract to perform the same experiment in the same biome)

(7) better integration with existing KSP features i.e. Biomes (rather than random locations which are lost...); it will help tie career mode together

What do you guys think? Is there a mod that does this? If not, want to write one?

Edited December 24, 2014 by arkie87

[Anquietas314]

EDIT: original title/OP focused on biomes rather than new science.

Overall I think this is a good idea, but there are a few problems with it, at least given the way most experiments currently work: when you're in the air (or in the case of an airless body, "in space") many experiments don't care about the biome you're flying over, including crew reports for in space.

Obviously you can "fix" that by just having every experiment depend on biomes in those situations, but that has its own issues: you'd have way too many places/situations to do every experiment, which is going to get pretty tedious fast, and it's probably going to screw with the already pretty dodgy science balancing, plus some experiments shouldn't be affected by biome (why would temperature be different in space above the Mun in each biome?).

Edited December 24, 2014 by armagheddonsgw

[arkie87]

Overall I think this is a good idea, but there are a few problems with it, at least given the way most experiments currently work: when you're in the air (or in the case of an airless body, "in space") many experiments don't care about the biome you're flying over, including crew reports for in space.

Obviously you can "fix" that by just having every experiment depend on biomes in those situations, but that has its own issues: you'd have way too many places/situations to do every experiment, which is going to get pretty tedious fast, and it's probably going to screw with the already pretty dodgy science balancing, plus some experiments shouldn't be affected by biome (why would temperature be different in space above the Mun in each biome?).

For temperature scans, for instance, biome overhead doesnt matter; what matters is altitude i.e. low orbit, high orbit. So too for aerial surveys, the requirement should be, "get a temperature scan from Low X orbit" rather than from Y meters above Z random location.

My main point/suggestion is that contracts should be linked to doing new science, rather than something random.

I will revise OP to prevent any confusion.

Edited December 24, 2014 by arkie87

[Anquietas314]

For temperature scans, for instance, biome overhead doesnt matter, what matters is altitude i.e. low orbit, high orbit. So too for aerial surveys, the requirement would be, "get a temperature scan from Low X orbit" rather than from Y meters above Z random location.

I've had quite a lot of contracts that require me to do aerial temperature scans on Kerbin... I don't really want to see those go away, though for the time investment they could probably do with higher payouts. Of course, that is a case where having it be biome-specific would make sense - air temperature varies depending on location.

[arkie87]

I've had quite a lot of contracts that require me to do aerial temperature scans on Kerbin... I don't really want to see those go away, though for the time investment they could probably do with higher payouts. Of course, that is a case where having it be biome-specific would make sense - air temperature varies depending on location.

temperature could vary on Mun, due to volcanic activity, reflectivity of surface material, sunlight/daylight etc... so it's not soooo unrealistic.

but yes, Kerbin is an exception since aerial surveys do have biomes themselves.

But my main point is that contracts should be linked to doing NEW science; i dont care if what makes science "new" is the biome or not.

Edited December 24, 2014 by arkie87

[Anquietas314]

temperature could vary on Mun, due to volcanic activity, reflective of surface material, sunlight/daylight etc... so it's not soooo unrealistic.

Well, the real moon doesn't have any volcanic activity at all... seems logical the Mun shouldn't either, and really the reflectivity of the surface material wouldn't make much difference unless it was nearly a perfect reflector. I do think there should be a distinction between temperature during the day and at night though

[arkie87]

Well, the real moon doesn't have any volcanic activity at all... seems logical the Mun shouldn't either, and really the reflectivity of the surface material wouldn't make much difference unless it was nearly a perfect reflector. I do think there should be a distinction between temperature during the day and at night though

the issue of what makes science "new" is up for debate

But my main point is that contracts should assign NEW science (regardless of how it defines it as "new"). I assume you like that idea?

[Anquietas314]

But my main point is that contracts should assign NEW science (regardless of how it defines it as "new"). I assume you like that idea?

Sure; it makes keeping track of where you have and haven't been a lot easier