Scientists as Navigators

[Duxwing]

I second the motion that scientists should navigate.

-Duxwing

[mitko]

I like the idea, it gives scientists purpose in sandbox.

[cpast]

what? lol. engineers fix broken solar wings, not calculating spherical geometry paths. those are mathematicians and physicians lol scientists... and we have scientists.

No. Scientists do research into what the world is like. Orbital guidance is not a research task; the scientists' job is to decide what the goals are for the craft and to define its mission, the engineers' job is to achieve that mission in the maximally efficient way. Flight dynamics officers have engineering backgrounds by and large; it's not a task done by scientists, because it's not a task involving finding out more about the world (it's instead applying known scientific principles to solve a specific practical problem in the best way you can, which is squarely withing the domain of engineering).

Where scientists would play a big role is in helping you figure out where you should go, e.g. by showing you biome data, and finding anomalies, and that sort of thing. Scientists should help you find anomalies; they should help you tell what biome you're in; they should be involved in science experiments that aren't clickfests; but they shouldn't be needed to deal with orbital parameters.

[Yakuzi]

As far as the last part, Harvester has beat us over the head with how "time based mechanics" ain't never happening, so it's not really a valid alternate suggestion.

To be fair, HarvesteR has changed his mind on a lot of things lately that he previously said "would never happen" (e.g. delta v, re-entry heat, procedural parts and potentially life-support). If life support would be part of stock KSP, I believe that over-time science will not only be viable (without easy timewarping), it will also be a huge drive for setting up orbital and planetary space stations, particularly if combined with unique experiments.

Your suggestion is a good one though, but might be better split up among both scientists (the biomes) and pilots/engineers (the rest).

Edited February 16, 2015 by Yakuzi
cerebral flatulence

[cpast]

To be fair, HarvesteR has changed his mind on a lot of things lately that he previously said "would never happen" (e.g. delta v, life support, re-entry heat, procedural parts). Since life support will be in stock KSP soon, I believe that over-time science will not only be viable (without easy timewarping), it will also be a huge drive for setting up orbital and planetary space stations, particularly if combined with unique experiments.

Your suggestion is a good one though, but might be better split up among both scientists (the biomes) and pilots/engineers (the rest).

Wait, did I miss something? Where did they say life support's being added?

[Yakuzi]

Sorry the devs were talking about reviving life support (Maxmaps IIRC), it is NOT confirmed. My humble apologies, I'll correct I've corrected the post above.

EDIT: It would be nice to have an official place where all upcoming confirmed features would be kept nicely together... an 1.0 feature overview of sorts

Edited February 16, 2015 by Yakuzi

[Pthigrivi]

I tend to think the aversion to time-based mechanics is based on easy game-break by time-warp. For instance if you had an experiment that pays out over time indefinitely, you can just start it and time-warp your whole tech tree. They're also worried about things like time-warping in one vessel and killing the entire crew on another by exhausting its life support without knowing it. There are ways around all this, programmed alerts and basing time-based experiments on finite resources, but its tricky.

Id love life support but I think leaving that for 1.1 and ironing out this already huge haul first is smart.