ResearchBodies is a mod that adds the functionality of tracking celestial bodies to explore them. When you start a new save, you have to choose a difficulty preset (that sets celestial bodies that are shown from the start) and values for research and discovery costs. This mod's original Author @simon56modder has handed the reigns over to me to maintain support and develop his work going forward due to Real Life commitments. Big thanks to him and to the other contributers below for making this mod happen. His original Thread can be found here. (Please NOTE parts of this code written by JPLRepo are All Rights Reserved as per the license information in the Code headers).

What this Mod does, or how to use this mod: This mod will Make Celestial Bodies invisible at the start of a new game. You can change which celestial bodies are visible by default by changing the difficulty setting in the Difficulty Settings Menu. This mod should be played in Career mode as it offers contracts.

At the beginning of a game you can only see a few bodies. First you have to gain enough funds to upgrade your Tracking Station to Level 2. This will unlock the Observatory Facility. - Yes this mod adds a new Facility to the KSC that acts like a stock facility (destructible and upgradable). Entering the Observatory you can find out information about the Celestial Bodies you know about, or what research level you are up to for discovered bodies. (This UI is still a placeholder and will be updated soon! - will also be upgraded to show information about ResearchBodies contracts).

You will be offered contracts to Search the Skies via the Observatory - or via a Telescope. This mod comes with it's own infrared telescope, but also modifies the stock infrared telescope (That has been included from Asteroid Day). You can also install my TarsierSpaceTechnology Telescopes which also integrate with this mod and perform in a similar way (But also can take pictures of the celestial bodies and you can see their details become progressively clearer as you research celestial bodies).

Yes that's right - This mod also alters the physical characteristics of the celestial bodies. So when you first discovery them they are just a grey blob. As you progressively research them they will progressively become clearer. This mod also alters the Mapview/Tracking Station so you cannot see celestial bodies you know nothing about. And gradually as you research more about them, things like their characteristics and orbits, etc become known to you.

Finding a Celestial Body:- You can a) randomly point your telescopes at the sky and try to scan and find bodies. b) accept Search the Skies contracts and complete them.

Researching a Celestial Body:- You can a) point telescopes at bodies and scan them (or take photos of them if you also have TarsierSpaceTechnology mod installed). b) accept Research Body contracts and complete them. When the research state reaches 100%, you can finally go to this body and you earn science!

If by pure stroke of luck (or not 😉) you manage to encounter a previously unknown body in flight, or one that has not had it's research completed, the body will be automatically discovered and have all it's research completed.

Localisations (translations) - English, Français, Español This mod previously supported the above languages. And still does. From KSP 1.3 English and Spanish is supported by default when you select those languages via KSP. For French however, you need to go into the Difficulty Settings for ResearchBodies and manually select French as the language.

This mod also can support the other KSP 1.3.0 supported languages - but has not been translated at this stage. Volunteers for translation to Russian, Japanese, Chinese more than welcome.

Install Instructions:
Dependency: You must have installed (NOW included in this package). Module Manager
Completely delete REPOSoftTech\ResearchBodies and REPOSoftTech\ProgressiveCBMaps folders from GameData before updating from a previous version.
As of V1.8 the install folder location has been changed. Please ensure you remove \GameData\ResearchBodies folder if you have one in your install.
Download and install Contract Configurator Mod (This is required).
Un-zip into your GameData folder.