Orbital Survey [v0.9.4 for KSP2 v0.2.1] (2024)

Orbital Survey

Scan celestial bodies from orbit

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Spacedock:https://spacedock.info/mod/3519/Orbital Survey

Source:https://github.com/Falki-git/OrbitalSurvey

Authors:Falki

FEATURES

Scan surfaces of all celestial bodies and generate 2D maps. Available maps are: Visual and Region
Display an overlay of the acquired map in 3D space (Flight view) or in Map3d (Map view)
Display vessel positions, names and geographic coordinates in the mapping UI
Create waypoints that will show in Map UI, Flight view and Map3d view
Zoom, pan and track active vessel in the mapping UI
Experiments trigger in Exploration mode when mapping milestones are achieved at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the scanned surface

(GIF not updated to current UI)

REVIEW

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Antenna parts gain an ability to start scanning
- Each antenna part in the game with a maximum range of>1 Gm gains an orbital survey module
- Each antenna part can do either Visual or Region mapping. See the descriptions in R&D and OAB to see which mode it has

Initiate the scans by parking your vessel in orbit and enable scanning (right-click the antenna part and toggle scanning)
Open the Orbital Survey map and watch as your vessel collects scanning data by orbiting the body
Toggle the Planetary overlay to see your scans overlayed on the body in real time

(GIF not updated to current UI - each antenna has a fixed mode that cannot be changed)

Each scanning mode – Visual and Region– has an ideal altitude at which the scanning area is optimal. Being at lower or higher altitudes applies a progressive penalty for the scanning area. Below the minimal and above the maximal altitude scanning is no longer possible.
Ideal, Minimum and Maximum Altitudes depend on the Body Category the vessel isorbiting. E.g. Minmus -> Small, Mun -> Medium -> Kerbin -> Large

Experiments trigger in Exploration mode
- When mapping milestones are achieved at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the scanned surface, experiments will complete and their Research reports willshow up in the Research Inventory
- Research reportsare generated onallvessels that participated in the creation of that report
- When experiments are complete, a notification will pop up to notify you about the event. If you're not controlling a vessel that participated in that mapping, switch to it so that you can transmit the reportand collect that juicyScience

Create Waypoints by right-clicking on the Map UI
Delete already created Waypoints by right-clicking on their marker icon and selecting Remove

For best results park your vessel in a polar orbit, as close as possible to 90° inclination as that orbit covers the entirety of the orbiting body
Be careful not to lock yourself into a resonant orbit. If you notice your map isn't being revealed, that your vessel keeps orbiting over the same patches of land it already scanned, you're likely in a resonant orbit. Tweak your apoapsis and periapsis a bit to leave orbit resonance. You don't have to be exactly at the Ideal altitude.

NOTES

Kerbol (the star) cannot be scanned
"Always show Map view overlay" settingcan be found in Settings -> Mods -> Orbital Survey.If toggled,Map view overlay will always be applied to every body in game. This effectively makes all bodies "hidden" in Map view until you scan them.
2.5x Kerbolar Systemis supported

INSTALLATION

Automatic

It's highly recommended to use CKAN to download Orbital Survey(and any other mod really) as it will take care of mod placement and installing dependencies
Grab the latest version ofckan.exefrom here:https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/releases
Open CKAN and point to the location of yourKSP2_x64.exe(commonly located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program 2)
Select Orbital Surveyfrom the list and click onApply changes

Manual

Install BepInEx + SpaceWarp+ UITK for KSP2 + Patch Manager + Premonition For SpaceWarp(see Dependency chapter)
Grab Orbital Survey.zipfile fromSpaceDock
Extract the contents of the.zipinto your KSP2 installation folder(commonly located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program 2)
Mod folder will be placed in ..\Kerbal Space Program 2\BepInEx\plugins\

DEPENDENCY

Space Warp + BepInEx - v1.9.2or later
UITK for KSP2 - v2.4.2or later
Patch Manager - v0.9.0 or later
Premonition For SpaceWarp - v0.2.0 or later

ATTRIBUTION

Icon by flaticon.com -Satellite icons created by mattbadal - Flaticon

NOTE

Some Regions are quite rare on certain bodies so they could be considered spoilers. You've been warned! Toggle off the setting for the legend if you want a fully spoiler free playthrough

CHANGE LOG

Spoiler

v0.9.4 Fixes and QoL

Fixes

Fixed: science button won't flash anymore for Visual/Region mapping experiments - FYI Spicat
Speculative fix: "Experiment interrupted. Not enough Resources" notification should no longer show up during high warp. This doesn't retroactively fix the notification spam for existing vessels, but it should work for new vessels - reported by Argon

Other

All vessels that participated in scanning of the current level of the mapping milestone (25%/50%/75%/Complete) will gain the research report in their Research Inventory, so any vessel can transmit back the report to gain science. Of course, each report can only be transmitted once
Internal rework of how research reports are triggered, with insight from Kuriosity Science. If you notice some weird behavior with triggering reports (25%/50%/75%/Complete) please report it
Added Giant celestial body category. All bodies in the stock game are keeping their current categories (Small, Medium & Large). This is just a support for the 2.5x Kerbolar Systemand future mods that will add bodies with larger radii

Note: in order for Visual and Region mapping research experiments to show up correctly in Science Arkive, you'll need to update that mod to the latest version

v0.9.3 Waypoint loading fix

Fixed waypoints not being loaded when first booting up the game - reported by @Kayser
Increased the hitbox of the map marker (vessel & waypoint) so it'll be easier now to right-click on the existing waypoint in order to edit/delete it

v0.9.2 Map Body selected automatically

Changed: on opening the map UI from the app bar, current body of the active vessel will be automatically selected. MapType will be set to Visual if nothing was previously selected - requested by @rogerawong
Fixed: styling of the "track vessel" button that broke with the previous version

Dev notes:

Updated SpaceWarp.Template to the newest version (UI Toolkit Unity project is now bundled with the main c# project)

v0.9.1 "I Want To Paint It Gray"

Added a new config setting "Always show Map view overlay" - requested by @123man

When toggled, it will always display bodies with a hidden visual overlay in Map view. This effectively makes all bodies hidden/textureless until you scan them.
This settings defaults to OFFso you need to toggle it in Mod Settings if you want it. Main Menu ->Settings ->Mods

v0.9.0 "Wayfarer's Waypoints"

Added Waypoints

Add, Edit or Remove Waypoints by right-clicking on the Map canvas
Waypoints show in the Map UI, Flight view and in Map3d view
You can define Waypoint names and colors, however in Flight and Map3d view waypoints will always be yellow (limitation of the game)
Mouse-over Waypoint markers to show their name and geographic coordinates
Toggle the side controls to permanently show Marker names and Geo coordinates

Note: waypoints will be usually created on the surface of the celestial body, however if you create a waypoint on a body that isn't loaded (for example you're controlling a vessel on Kerbin, but you're adding a waypoint on the Mun), then the waypoint will be created at a certain altitude above the surface of the body (several kilometers). That's normal behavior.

Mouse-over shows Region names and Geo coordinates

Toggle the side "NAM" and "GEO" controls to activate showing of Region names and/or Geographic coordinates while mousing-over the Map canvas
LAT/LON will display if "GEO" control is toggled
Region names display if "NAM" is toggled, but only if the body is 100% mapped

Other

Chinese translations updated by @fengyuan0529
French translations added by @Olympic1& @Spicat
German translations updated by @Olympic1

v0.8.0 Revamp of Min/Ideal/Max altitudes

Introduced Body Categories to which every Celestial Body belongs to. For example: Minmus -> Small, Mun -> Medium, Kerbin -> Large. Each Body Category has different altitudes requirements and for each type of scan.
Field Of View for each part has been reduced to fit this revamp
You should notice a significant improvement in performance, especially when scanning small bodies like Gilly, Pol or Minmus
Gilly Region mapping can now be performed, all bodies are now scannable
Scanning will now be more difficult, since the scanners cover a smaller area of the body (time warp is your friend)
To see what altitudes are required you have several options: 1) R&D and VAB part descriptions (press SHIFT for more info), 2) In VAB in PAM (right-click on a part) you can see a preview of required altitudes for any body category, 3) In Flight view when scanning is enabled you'll see the category of the body you're orbiting and altitude stats for it, 4) Wiki here

Dev note on interoperability

Categories are not hardcoded. They are defined in a Patch Manager library found here. Other mods can override these config values, rename categories or even add new categories when custom planets will be available (x2.5 rescale, RSS, etc.)

Other

Fixed "KerbinMountain" region localization

v0.7.0 "Who needs glasses anyway?"

Features:

Canvas can now be resized
Zooming is now possible, up to x10
Active vessel can be tracked when zoomed in
Mouse-overing vessel markers now shows vessel names and geo coordinates - requested by @DimiBD

Other:

After mapping 100% of the body's surface, a higher resolution texture (2048x2048) is loaded to give a much clearer picture when zooming
Added Italian translations - by @leonardfactory

Fixes:

Updated Eve's Olympus region color to black so it's easier to differentiate from other regions - reported by @dolphin263
Fixed Chinese fonts not displaying properly in some cases - reported by @fengyuan0529
Fixed vessel marking coloring for vessels that have more than one antenna with the same scanning mode - reported by @schlosrat
Replaced region names with the localized version (e.g. Biggest Crater -> Rayed Crater)

v0.6.0 "There and Back Again"

Added vessel markers, vessel names and geographic coordinates to the mapping UI
Vessel markers are colored:
- gray: inactive/disabled
- red: invalid state
- yellow: suboptimal altitude
- green: ideal altitude
- white: complete
Added UI toggles for vessel names, geo coords and overlay
Overhauled visual styles of the controls to be more in line with the stock UI
Added UI sounds for toggle and dropdown controls
Fixed a bug where unloaded vessels on game load weren't performing active scanning (map wasn't immediately updated) - reported by @bmcmahonwrx

v0.5.1 Chinese (Simplified) translation added by @fengyuan0529

v0.5.0 "Region is where your heart is"

Biomes are replaced by Regions
- With the For Science! update a new concept of Regions was introduced for science gathering that doesn't align with previously available Biomes
- To help with finding different Regions, previous Biome mapping is now replaced with Region mapping
- Maps have been refreshed; Regions for each body have hand picked colors to fit that body better.
- Discoverables are NOT displayed on Region maps
- If upgrading from a previous version, existing vessels, parts and gathered maps will be updated to the new scanning mode
Legend that contains colors and keys for Region mapping is now visible on the mapping UI
- For the legend to be revealed you need to fully scan the body (Region mapping at 100%)
- If you don't want the legend, you can toggle it off in Settings ->Mods ->Orbital Survey ->Show Region legend

v0.4.0 "This was a triumph!"

Scans now trigger Experiments in Exploration mode!
- Experiments trigger when mapping milestones are achieved at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the scanned surface
- When an Experiment completes transmit the report to get some juicy science!
To better fit the Exploration mode antennae have been revamped
- Each part can now do either Visual or Biome mapping, but not both
- Part progression is also added, higher tier parts will now have higher Field Of View, but also increased EC consumption
- Check part descriptions in the R&D and OAB to find out what part has what mapping mode
- Old saves will still work, but your in-flight vessels will be updated with the revamped parts
Other
- Scans are now disabled if the part that requires deploying is not deployed
- Minimum scanning radius is now set to 1 pixel, meaning scanning should be always performed while inside the Min-Max range. This prevents confusion when vessel is inside the Min-Max range and map is not being updated/revealed
- Fixed a localization bug where language wouldn't default to English if the translation is missing - reported by @-dbv-
- German localization added - thanks to @-dbv-!
- Jool can now be scanned, it will be hard, will require a long time, but it's doable
- All constants are now defined as Patch Manager configs in ../BepInEx/plugins/OrbitalSurvey/patches/configs so they can be easily edited manually by players or overridden by other mods

v0.3.0 "Overlay^2"

Added Map3d planetary overlay
Mapping UI's Body dropdown control now only shows celestial bodies thar have scanning data - requested by Unknow P
Further optimized analytical scanning. Discontinuity in scanning area (spotty scanning) should no longer be present.
Added config settings for "time between scans". You can find them in Settings -> Mods -> Orbital Survey. If you're having trouble with performance during high warp, try increasing these values.
Mapping UI window's position now persists in save game files
Fix log spam if orbiting body isn't configured (e.g. Kerbol)
Added support for future UITK for KSP2 v3.0.0

v0.2.0 "I Hope You Brought Batteries"

Scanning now consumes Electric Charge. Visual scans are 1 EC/s, biome scans are 2 EC/s
Changed Eve's visual texture to the one that shows its seas - reported by @Michk
Fixed closing window not properly updating the toggle button state - reported by @Unknow P

Edited March 3 by Falki