orienteering and GPS to complete tasks

[entspeak 1]

For me, I like to use the GUI as little as possible. It would be awesome if, on a harder difficulty (though not solely on the delayed command difficulty), on the Lens HUD, there were map coordinates - a kind of GPS, if you will. And you could work in conjunction with a gridded map. Then, in the Mission, it could give you map coordinates to go to and you would have to direct yourself there and locate, using orienteering, which item needed to be analyzed/photographed.

For example, if you needed to photograph a particular rock formation on the edge of a crater rim, the rim coordinates would be in the mission and along with a general idea of the shot desired to be used. You could then, using orienteering, navigate to the opposite side or down into the crater - or whatever, depending on the desired shot, locate the formation to be photographed, orient the camera and take the picture.

If you needed to analyze a particular rock, the exact coordinates of that rock could be given in the mission and then you'd navigate toward it and do the analysis.

If you needed to analyze a particular section of atmosphere, you'd get those coordinates and navigate there.

So, basically, in an advanced mode, you could turn off the visual helpers and use orienteering/GPS to navigate to points and perform the tasks.

In future, once manual landing is incorporated... this coordinate system could be used to choose landing sites.

Edited August 6, 2013 by entspeak

[Akanechan 10]

There's only one problem with this idea - there isn't a Martian GPS and what satellites we do have around it do not come close to a constant-coverage constellation.

[entspeak 1]

This is very true; there is no GPS for Mars. However, Mars has been mapped thoroughly. Currently, there are localization techniques used to determine where the rover is at a particular time - location data pulled from image headers, for example. Now, given the delay issue, this can't be done in real time, but we also can't drive the rover in real time. So, having a real time localization system - "a kind of GPS, if you will" - that can be used for navigation and orienting the rover to complete tasks is not necessarily "realistic," but it is authentic and more immersive.

Incorporating these localization techniques would also be incredibly useful for the extremely hard command delay difficulty level that seems to be in the works. I'm just proposing a real-time version of it to go along with the real-time command difficulty levels.

Here is a paper that includes a description of the various ways rovers are currently located and navigation is accomplished.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission - Rover Localization and Topographic Mapping

Edited August 6, 2013 by entspeak