The four parts in the Sensors category: the three instruments that take readings, the camera that finds points of interest from orbit, and their figures from the info card.
An instrument takes one measurement each time you tap it or its stage fires, at most one every ten seconds, and the measurement is worth money only where nobody has filed one like it before. Read Science readings for what a reading pays and Take a reading for taking one.
The Thermometer, the Barometer and the Mass Spectrometer are small, all three bolt to a flank, and none of them wears out. The SL-8 Science Lab is the other half of the category and nothing like them: an eight-metre crewed module that works through what they gather. Charge is the only thing an instrument ever spends, so one is good for as many readings as the ship's batteries can buy. Each reads a different thing, and each is surveyed separately, so a place you have already measured pays again for the instrument you have not pointed at it yet.
SL-8 Science Lab
Part · Sensors · sold by Orbital Science
An eight-metre crewed laboratory. It turns the samples your instruments gather into discovery, day after day, at a rate set by how far from home it is standing — and the findings only reach your account when you take the ship’s controls and transmit them. See The Science Lab.
Figure
Value
MASS
4.4 t
COST
15,000 cr
STORES DATA
240 u · launches empty
STORES DISCOVERY
120 u · launches empty
STORES ELECTRICITY
40 u
STORES FOOD
30 u
ANALYSES
4 discovery a day at Earth's surface
FURTHEST OUT
×8.4 high over an outer moon
CONSUMES DATA
40 u a day with a full bench
SCIENTISTS
3 seats · ×2 with a full bench
PER READING
24 u of data, from a place this lab has not analysed
SENDS HOME
By hand, while the radio reaches home
BENCH POWER
0.9 u/s, only while analysing
MAX TEMP
1400 K
MAX G
10 g
IMPACT
12 m/s
BLAST
30 kN
NODES
4
Pairs with all three instruments, solar arrays or a reactor for its bench, an antenna that can reach home, and a Greenhouse for the three mouths it adds. Instead of nothing: the survey pays for a place once, and a laboratory keeps paying for staying there.
Thermometer
Part · Sensors · sold by Instruments
Reads the temperature of the air around it, to half a kelvin, with the same figure in degrees Celsius beside it. Above the air it has nothing to measure, so it reports its own skin temperature instead and says so.
Figure
Value
MASS
8 kg
COST
35 cr
DRAG NOSE-ON
0.8×
HEAT EXPOSURE
0.8×
MAX TEMP
1500 K
MAX G
25 g
IMPACT
10 m/s
STRIKE
3 m/s
BLAST
1 kN
SENSOR READS
TEMPERATURE
SENSOR RESOLUTION
0.5 K
SENSOR POWER
0.2 u
NODES
1
STAGEABLE
YES
One radial attachment point: it bolts to the flank of a tank, a pod or a hull. At 8 kg nothing in the game weighs less, so there is rarely a reason to leave it behind.
Its sheet offers one action, Take reading, and it can sit in a stage to read the moment that stage fires. It has no editable settings.
Pairs with a Barometer and a Mass Spectrometer, because the three measure different things and each one's achievements are its own. Instead of nothing: a flight with no instrument aboard earns nothing from where it went.
Barometer
Part · Sensors · sold by Barometry
Reads the pressure of the air around it, to a tenth of a kilopascal. Above the air it reports 0 kPa and marks the reading as vacuum, which is itself a measurement worth filing in the right place.
Figure
Value
MASS
12 kg
COST
45 cr
DRAG NOSE-ON
0.85×
HEAT EXPOSURE
0.85×
MAX TEMP
1400 K
MAX G
25 g
IMPACT
10 m/s
STRIKE
3 m/s
BLAST
1 kN
SENSOR READS
PRESSURE
SENSOR RESOLUTION
0.1 kPa
SENSOR POWER
0.3 u
NODES
1
STAGEABLE
YES
One radial attachment point, like the Thermometer. It is half again as expensive to read from, so on a ship with a small battery the Thermometer gets more readings out of the same charge.
Its sheet offers one action, Take reading, and it can sit in a stage. It has no editable settings.
Pairs with a Thermometer on the same flight, so one climb files two kinds of measurement. Instead of it, the Thermometer alone on a first probe, since it is sold by an earlier tech node.
Mass Spectrometer
Part · Sensors · sold by Spectrometry
Reads what the air is made of. Its figure is the mean molar mass of the mixture in grams per mole, to a hundredth: how heavy an average molecule of that sky is. Beside the figure the reading names the three biggest gases with their shares and counts the rest.
Sky
It reads
Earth's nitrogen and oxygen
29 g/mol
Mars' carbon dioxide
43 g/mol
A giant's hydrogen
2 g/mol
A reading over Earthunder the ship
Mass Spectrometer: 28.85 g/mol · N2 77.2%, O2 20.7%, H2O 1.1%, +3 more · 999 m
Figure
Value
MASS
20 kg
COST
70 cr
DRAG NOSE-ON
0.9×
HEAT EXPOSURE
0.9×
MAX TEMP
1200 K
MAX G
20 g
IMPACT
10 m/s
STRIKE
3 m/s
BLAST
1 kN
SENSOR READS
COMPOSITION
SENSOR RESOLUTION
0.01 g/mol
SENSOR GASES SHOWN
3
SENSOR POWER
0.8 u
NODES
1
STAGEABLE
YES
One radial attachment point, like the other two instruments: it bolts flat to the flank of a tank, a pod or a hull. It is the heaviest of the three at 20 kg and by far the thirstiest at 0.8 u a reading, which is twenty-five readings out of a full PB-20 Battery and four times what a Thermometer asks.
The mix changes with height, so the same world reads differently at every level you sample it at. That is the reason to carry it up rather than read once and stop. Each world's own page prints the table it is reading: see Earth.
Above the air, and anywhere on an airless world, there is nothing to draw in: it reads 0 g/mol and says nothing to sample. That is still a reading, and it still surveys the place, exactly as the Barometer's vacuum zero does.
Its sheet offers one action, Take reading, and it can sit in a stage. It has no editable settings.
Heads up
At 1200 K it is the most delicate of the three, and the way to sample a world's air is usually to dive into it fast. Put it behind a fairing or a payload bay on a hot entry, or slow down before you open the throttle on the way in.
Pairs with a Thermometer and a Barometer, so one climb files three kinds of measurement at every place it passes through. Instead of nothing on a world you have already surveyed twice: it is a third ledger over the same places.
GI-1 Ground Imager
Part · Sensors · sold by Ground Imaging
A camera that looks straight down. It takes no readings: held one world radius above the ground, give or take five per cent, each pass over a point of interest has a 5 % chance of finding it, with no survey contract and no landing, so a satellite left in the band finds a world's points over days. Over Earth that band is 570–630 km, over the Moon 190–210 km, over Mars 304–336 km.
Figure
Value
MASS
40 kg
COST
450 cr
CONSUMES ELECTRICITY
0.2 u/s
DRAG NOSE-ON
0.8×
HEAT EXPOSURE
0.8×
MAX TEMP
1200 K
MAX G
20 g
IMPACT
10 m/s
STRIKE
3 m/s
BLAST
1 kN
NODES
1
IMAGES FROM
one world radius up ± 5 %
NEEDS
a radio link home: no antenna of its own
ACCURACY
5 % chance a pass finds a point
FIELD OF VIEW
5° either side of straight down
One radial attachment point, like the other instruments. It is a heavy load: 0.2 u/s while it is in its band (out of the band it is off and draws nothing), most of an SP-6 Solar Array's output, and about 150 u of battery to image through the night side of an orbit over Earth. A camera on a ship whose batteries are flat sees nothing.
It has no antenna. What it sees goes home over the ship's radio, so it images only while the space centre can hear the ship: an antenna or a Sat Controller's built-in aerial aboard, in reach of the ground station or one of your relays, and not behind a world. A single satellite over Earth is heard only while it is within sight of the ground station, so points on the far side of a world need relays.
Tapped in flight, its sheet shows one greyed line saying what it is doing: Too low: images at 570–630 km, Too high: images at 570–630 km, Imaging the ground, No power: not imaging or No radio link: not imaging. It cannot be staged and has no editable settings.
Pairs with a probe core or an antenna, a big battery and a solar array as a satellite left in its band, and with relays to reach the far side: it keeps finding points while you are away. Instead of landing on a world to survey it point by point, when the world is easier to orbit than to land on.
