[1.12.X] Orbital Survey Plus v2.3.6 (2024)

Orbital Survey Plus

Recent Update Detailed Notes / Thoughts

Spoiler

2.3.5 Patch:

I reverted the SciBonus parameter in the OSP scanner module to 10 down from 20 by default. This matches the stock scanner module's value. My line of thought before was that it took a bit of extra effort to scan with OSP, so you should get more science for it. However, I think double was probably too generous. Even though it does take a bit more work to scan planets to 100% with OSP, I decided to drop the science reward back to stock levels simply because people don't use OSP to make things easier, but to make things a bit more complex. If you liked extra science, the value is easily tweakable by pulling up the config file in the "Patches" folder in a text editor and changing the value to whatever you'd like.

Introduction

Does the insta-scanning capability of the M700 Survey Scanner keep you awake at night? Are you thirsty for more realism but uninterested in complex add-ons that ignore or replace the rest of the stock resource system or add lots of parts? You might be in luck! Orbital Survey Plus is a light-weight mod that provides you with a more realistic and intuitive way to perform surveys with the survey scanner while still using the rest of the stock resource system. Gone are the arbitrary inclination requirements and instant full-body witchcraft resource reveals! The M700 will now only reveal resource data for terrain it has passed over and scanned.

How It Works

After deploying the M700 Survey Scanner and pressing the "start survey" button, survey of the current body will begin. As long as altitude conditions are met (which are the same as stock behavior) the scan will progress, gathering resource information for the terrain under the vessel and draining electric charge. There are no other specific orbit requirements besides current altitude. As the scan progresses, survey data is accumulated, which can be transmitted back to the KSC.

As soon as you transmit your first batch of survey data the stock resource overlay becomes unlocked. When you toggle the resource overlay, you will notice that regions that haven't been scanned and transmitted will be shrouded. As your vessel gathers more data as it passes over terrain, the resource overlay will become revealed for those regions after that data is transmitted.

[Science] Not only does transmitting survey data back to the KSC reveal planetary overlays, it also yields science!

[Biome Overlay] This mod adds a biome overlay toolbar button to go along with the stock resource overlay. The biome overlay will be shrouded in the same way for regions that haven't been scanned and transmitted by the survey scanner.

[Background Scanning] Once you get your scanner going, feel free to leave it and launch more ships! Scans will progress in the background, so there's no need to stick around and time warp.

[Settings] Many of the features of OSP can be tweaked or toggled through the KSP game settings menu. For example, if you're just here for the biome overlay, the advanced surveying feature can be disabled.

See Also

Biome - Kerbal Space Program Wiki

Changelog

Spoiler

[2.3.6 - 26 March 2018]
- Recompiled for KSP 1.4.1

[2.3.5 - 10 October 2017]
- Made compatible with KSP 1.3.1
- Fixed a bug with celestial body display names in screen messages (still English only unfortunately)
- Biome overlay toolbar button is now only visible when a planet is focused
- SciBonus parameter for the OSP scanner module has been lowered to 10 (from 20) to match the stock scanner, meaning by default you will now reap the same amount of science for 100% scanning a planet as you would with the stock system instead of twice as much (this is individually tweakable for your game by altering the module manager patch)

[2.3.4 - 2 June 2017]
- Made compatible with KSP 1.3

[2.3.3 - 2 June 2017]
- Fixed an issue that often caused significant slowdown when the resource overlay wasopen on partially scanned planets

[2.3.2 - 8 March 2017]
- Adjustments have been made to make OSP compatible with alternate solar system mods, including Real Solar System
- Scan grid size and minimum/maximum scan altitudes will adjust based on largest and smallest scannable planet
- Scaling is based on stock parameters, so users with stock KSP solar system will not be affected
- Added some caching behavior to optimize performance
- Optimized coverage percentage calculation
- Made changes to try to reduce a "zipper effect" on straight vertical and horizontal scan lines
- Made requested change to science transmission code for clarity to other mods
- Fixed several small UI bugs

[2.3.1 - 21 November 2016]
- New save compression that should reduce clutter in the persistence file a bit
- Improved efficiency of the overlay shrouding system which was hogging a lot of resources when an overlay was up
- Scan percentage calculation tweaked to be more accurate (it was neglecting projection scaling before)
- Various UI tweaks
- Various other attempted performance improvements

[2.3.0 - 13 November 2016]
- Scan area is now scaled to project correctly onto a globe, eliminating distortion at high latitudes (exact poles still see some weird stuff)
- Found and fixed a bug causing constant re-processing of the resource overlay shroud and bogging down the game
- Fixed an error in maximum scan altitude calculation
- Retroactive scanning added: an attempt will be made to fill in gaps caused by scanning at high time warp
- Optimizations made to compensate for the increased processing necessary for retroactive scanning
- Overlay auto-refresh implemented: active overlays will now refresh for new scan data when the processing requirement is reasonable

[2.2.0 - 3 November 2016]
- Made compatible with KSP 1.2
- Migrated OSP settings to stock KSP game settings menu

[2.1.1 - 5 May 2016]
- Scanning small bodies (Minmus and Gilly) now produces data for transmission properly
- Fixed a few other edge-case problems with data acquisition
- "Surface Scanned" percentage should now update when changing SOI
- Fixed an infuriating misspelling of "received"

[2.1.0 - 2 May 2016]
- Science! Survey data accumulates as the surface of a planet is scanned and can be transmitted!
- Default science reward for complete survey data is increased from stock (since OSP makes you work harder for it) (tweakable in module config)
- Furthermore, overlay maps only update when scan data is transmitted (toggleable in settings)
- When 95% of the surface has been scanned, the survey will auto-complete to 100% (tweakable in settings)
- Default electric drain while scanning raised a bit (tweakable in module config)
- Fixed NullPointerException spam when using the M700 part in the editor
- Shrunk scenario persistence data a bit (planets that are fully scanned are saved differently)

[2.0.2 - 29 April 2016]
- M700 now shows altitude parameters and percent surface scanned for the current main body
- IndexOutOfBounds exception spam around north pole has been dealt with
- Scan area "squishing" mitigation around polar regions improved
- Shrunk saved scan data in persistence file (still rather heinous but better), old saves should be ok
- "Time Between Scans" applies to active vessels also (it's not scanning every tick anymore)
- Added "enable background scan" setting
- Quick check to make sure everything works fine in 1.1.1

[2.0.1 - 26 April 2016]
- Vessels scanning in the background should no longer ignore altitude parameters
- "Perform Orbital Survey" button should no longer appear when extended surveyor is enabled
- M700 overlay buttons should always be available now
- Added "Start Survey" button so the M700 isn't always active when deployed

[2.0.0 - 26 April 2016]
- Overhaul! Resource scanning is now progressive and real-time instead of all-at-once. Overlays will be shrouded for areas that have not been scanned.
- Lots of fundamental changes, new part module, and new options.

[1.2.2 - 23 April 2016]
- Updated to work with KSP 1.1

[v1.2.1 - 26 June 2015]
- Toggling the biome overlay in map view now respects which planet you have focused
- Biome overlay button added to tracking station
- Icon art redone (hopefully not as ugly)

[v1.2 - 21 May 2015]
- The orbital surveyor now sports a "Toggle Biome Overlay" button for viewing a planet's biomes
- A toolbar button has been added to allow the biome overlay to be toggled without the orbital surveyor
- The biome overlay feature requires that the planet be surveyed first
- Option added in settings.cfg for allowing the biome overlay without having to scan first
- Option added in settings.cfg for disabling "extended surveyor", reverting surveyor back to stock functionality (in case you just want the biome overlay feature)
- An in-game settings menu has been added (via a toolbar button at the space center scene), which mirrors and updates the settings.cfg file
- A settings.cfg file will be generated automatically if none is found

[v1.1.1 - 15 May 2015]
- Vessels without power generation will not continue to scan while unfocused
- Orbit minimum and orbit maximum settings tweakables now affect stock functionality as well (still no luck with inclination)
- "Perform orbital survey" renamed to "Transmit survey data", but has the same functionality
- Fixed ModuleManager patch
- Fixed some bugginess having to do with electric charge drain
- Made context menu "Status" field more descriptive

[v1.1 - 14 May 2015]
- Survey Scanner now consumes electric charge while scanning
- Minimum and maximum orbits now obey stock surveyor rules more closely, i.e., they adjust depending on planet/moon radius
- Added tweakable setting for electric charge consumption rate
- Cleaned up source code a bit

[v1.0 - 13 May 2015]
- Initial release

License

Spoiler

"Orbital Survey Plus" Kerbal Space Program addon

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Known Bugs

- At the highest time warp speed scan lines can start to zig-zag

- Entering the map view can swap the biome overlay with the resource overlay sometimes

- Attempting to tweak the Scan Autocomplete Threshold in the options will peg the value to 0% or 100% (workaround: change it manually in the persistent file)

I primarily built this mod for me, so I don't expect anything. But if you like it and you're the tipping type, feel free.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Wheffle
reflect compatiblity with 1.12.X

[1.12.X] Orbital Survey Plus v2.3.6 (2024)

References