Progressively unlocked ingame encyclopedia; i.e. the R in R&D

[Traches]

This may be brushing too close to "Improvements to science/Integration with discovery mechanic" on the WNTS list, and if it does I apologize, but my idea deals more with what science does for you rather than how you go get it.

I've always thought that while big, the Kerbol system is pretty empty and boring. The journey to each world is fun, but once you get there it's just another box checked and another bucketful of science. There's just not much to see, do, and learn from each place. I'd like to see an extension to the current science reports: in the R&D complex there could be an in-game encyclopedia that fills in as you explore various worlds. It would basically read like wikipedia, but funnier and with a kerbal spin on things added.

This would help to get over the "Been there done that" feeling you get after playing for awhile. Right now there's not all that much difference between Moho and Eeloo except the route you take to get there (which, don't get me wrong, makes them both a lot of fun. A couple times.) Usually by the time you're capable of reaching either of them, you've unlocked most of the tech tree anyway, science points don't mean a whole lot, and you have more funds than you could ever reasonably spend. If there's a story to be found on every world that can't be found anywhere else, it would give me a reason to explore more thoroughly and make the Kerbol system feel much fuller and more interesting than it currently does.

It would also add some realism and believability to the science system; you'll still have the gameplay required "analyze soil sample, learn to build a new rocket engine" weirdness, but you'd also get some actual and relevant information that could conceivably be gained from such a soil sample. It wouldn't have to be limited just to that world's article either; for example, information gained from minmus could show up in the Kerbin article about things like tides or hypotheses about their formation. Information learned from dres could enlighten kerbal scientists about how planets form and the overall origins of the Kerbol system (can you tell I've been reading about the Dawn mission?).

Idunno, just a thought. Beyond the time required to write the lore (which would be a lot, though it could draw heavily from real world wiki pages), it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to implement. Just a UI for reading and some checks on which experiements have been performed. Zero impact on gameplay balance, too.

[RainDreamer]

Isn't that what the science library supposed to do? Your research data kind of tell a story about the planet formation, and piecing together the data across multiple instrument results helps letting you see a better picture. Now we just need more stuff being written for the result text, like what the crowd source science mod does.

[Traches]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the science library just a collection of your science reports? I was thinking of something more complete and unified than that, with more than a sentence or two (many of which are frequently repeated and/or meaningless).

[KSK]

Well I guess you could also argue that once you've been to a planet and read the encyclopaedia entry once or twice, you're basically back where you started in terms of reasons to go back. But I don't care - I think it's a great idea!

[Traches]

Hah, yeah that's true, but it's true for any amount of content they might add. The idea would be that each experiment (or group of experiments) unlocks some relevant part of the article, so if something piques your curiosity you can design another mission and spend the time to study it more closely.

[RainDreamer]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the science library just a collection of your science reports? I was thinking of something more complete and unified than that, with more than a sentence or two (many of which are frequently repeated and/or meaningless).

Yeah, the idea is to have them to be more than just a sentence or two and less meaningless/repeated. And then with all of the data found on every biome, the player can have more or less a larger picture about the planet's history and formation, which may lend itself to a story that is open to interpretation.

Finding alloys and detecting some plastics on surface may hinted at a long gone civilization unlike earth, or perhaps it is just something that just happened in nature. The players can pierces together the clues they find and interpret it in their own way, then their imagination may take the rest. The artifacts and anomalies already existing in the stock game also helps with this, kick starting a story in their mind.

I mean, instead of just simply unlock a pre-written story, I think it is more fun to put the players in the role of the researchers themselves, by interpreting the data available to them and come to a conclusion they are satisfied with. Also it takes very little words to tell a much larger story that is open ended and involve players as active participant.

Though that might just be my thing.

[KSK]

Either version sounds good to me!