Suggestion: extending gameplay with reallife science-projects as mini-game

[John Guevara]

hi,


today I want to introduce you to a science-portal that fascinated me. There I have recently found some very interesting projects! These projects are specially designed for amateurs, science beginners and enthusiasts. The nice thing i found is, that all these projects have a standardized API[1] from the portal and there are also ready-made implementations[2] that is, less work for Fdev! That means everyone can integrate all these projects everywhere, for example in Elite Dangerous as a mini-game! Let me briefly explain my idea. I imagine FDev selects a few projects from there, taps the API and develop a nice interface/gui with small workflow like mini-game in Elite Dangerous for it. This mini-game could be a workflow fordern man things, like scanning-mechanics or analyzing some objects.
My head explodes with euphoria when I imagine, in deep space, i getting out of the pilot's seat, going in the back of the ship, entering the scientific cabin and calmly analyzing a few samples on the big screen.
I admit, these concepts are not new, for example, in Star Trek Online you can walk around in your own ship and visit various departments (medical, engineer, ...), where you can give various assignments to the employees or analyze things.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;aIq5qXntDRc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIq5qXntDRc&t=9m19s[/video]

In Elite Dangerous the player become extra reward/science-points/bonus-information/whatever if you do the mini-game. just a side-idea: if you get points instead of cash-reward, maybe you can buy some extra stuff from tech-broker with this points.


The result would be, while playing ED, you become volunteers in REAL science projects at the same time and maybe you can find something cool in real life!


the portal page is called: https://www.zooniverse.org/ or https://www.galaxyzoo.org/ (as alias)
There are many scientific projects specifically created for volunteers https://www.zooniverse.org/projects


Here are a few great projects that I can well imagine in the game:

Exoplanet Explorer

Spoiler

preamble: I can easily imagine this project in Elite Dangerous, when scanning and analyzing unknown or permit-closed solar systems. I know there is currently no scan mechanics from outside the systen, but it is an open possibility.

description:

The graphs you see here are known as lightcurves. These show the brightness of a star over time. If a planet passes in front of the star, it wants to block some of the light, causing a dip in the lightcurve. This is called a transit.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ianc2/exoplanet-explorers/classify

Milky Way Project

Spoiler

preamble: with this project you can analyze interesting things. maybe pilots can buy scan-data from other pilots and analyze them to get more detail-information for specific objects in ED-galaxy. then you can sell the information and get reward/whatever-points.







description:

The Milky Way Project is a treasure hunt!
- Identifying bubbles
- Identifying a Bow Shock Driving Star
- Identifying Yellowballs
- See something else that is interesting?

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/povich/milky-way-project/classify

Science Scribbler

Spoiler

preamble: Collect gas samples, scan atmosphere or analyze asteroids and do the mini-game for extracting detailed information from the data. you can do the mini-game direct during the scan-process or afterwards in a safe space or station.

description:

In this project we ask you to look at images that are of the insides of cells! Many biological studies produce data in the form of 2D images. To be able to draw scientific conclusions from these images, we must first analyse them. Typically, these images are analysed through annotation - this is the process of labelling features, such as objects, in the data.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/msbrhonclif/science-scribbler/classify

Etch a Cell

Spoiler

preamble: same work-flow as above with Science Scribbler project. different images.

description:

We need you to help us by drawing around the nucleus of the cell, as shown in the image above. This is known as segmentation, and is a critical analysis step that helps us understand more about the shape and structure of important cell features.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/h-spiers/etch-a-cell/classify

Supernova Hunters

Spoiler

preamble: finding supernova in ED-galaxy (or maybe neighboring galaxies?), sell data or visit the supernova itself.

description:

The problem we face is that our current software produces many "bogus" detections of supernovae. To the computer the above example looks like a supernova because the difference image (on the right) shows a difference between the other two. But to humans this looks strange compared to the previous example of a real supernova.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/dwright04/supernova-hunters/classify

Radio Meteor Zoo

Spoiler

preamble: scanning flying meteor in space/atmosphere. i could imagine a workflow like: you get data from station from planet und you analyze this images and sell them back.

description:

With this Radio Meteor Zoo project we focus on meteor showers, which are mainly due to dust particles released on its orbit by a comet when it approaches the Sun. The Perseids around August 12 are a well-known example of a meteor shower. During a meteor shower, many radio meteor echoes display complex shapes in BRAMS data and automatic detection algorithms struggle to detect them correctly. This is where the Radio Meteor Zoo volunteers come in. You can help us a lot by identifying meteor echoes during meteor showers.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/radio-meteor-zoo/classify

Steelpan Vibrations

Spoiler

preamble: maybe interesting for analyzing thargoids or guardians technology/communication?

description:

We are trying to better understand the unique physics of the steelpan - also known as the steel drum. We're asking you to locate areas of maximum vibrations (called antinodes) in the images and to count concentric circles or ellipses.

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/achmorrison/steelpan-vibrations/classify

There is many many more projects. What I like about the presented idea is, on the one side the mini-game (new mechanics and worklow in game) and rewarding (extra cashout/bonus) in Elite Dangerous and on the other, it contributes to real life scientific projects and helps scientists to better understand our real world.
The motto is: play the game and be a part of the science.


The mini-game concept is not new either, something like that already exists in eve-online. https://www.engadget.com/2015/11/01/eve-onlines-new-minigame-puts-players-to-work-for-science/ btw, here is another platform with two another projects with open API: http://mmos.ch/

Spoiler

[video=youtube;12p-VhlFAG8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12p-VhlFAG8&t=0m45s[/video]

Any suggestion and criticism are welcome.


Thanks Frontier for the great game!


[1] https://developer.zooniverse.org/en/latest/
[2] https://github.com/zooniverse/panoptes

PS: i dont known if it allowing here to post videos from another games, if not, please PM me, i will remove the videos. the videos shows only how it implement somewhere else.