Laie

TL;DR: Career mode encourages players to take and store a lot of results. As it is, that also means a lot of clicky-clicky. Please give the interface a workover. Wall of text follows, key points are bold. -- As far as I can tell, the best way to maximize the science point per mission is to perform repeated experiments at every landing site, either by bringing redundant science equiment or a laboratory. In order to return as many results as possible, they have to be taken from the equipment and stored in a suitable module (probably a lab). In my case, I ended up doing both. With a Lab integrated into the lander, one piece of every instrument would suffice. However, I find running and collecting larger batches of experiments to be much, much more convenient than doing many collection/cleanout cycles (which also means switching between vessel and EVA, the latter requiring me to re-orient the camera each time). I can run all experiments by action group, that's the easy part. It also triggers like 20 results and I have to click "Keep Data" on each. Then some Kerbal has to go out and collect the results. With my first landers, he had to walk around the ship in order to touch on every experiment [1]; later designs cramped all science equipement into a small area so everything is easily acessible from a single spot. So I get him into place, and do a context menu -> collect data for every single instrument. In case of materials bay and mystery goo, I get an additional pop-up warning telling me that this will render the experiment inoperable. Using such a LabLander, I recently touched off all biomes on the Mun during a single mission. At the third or fourth site, I found myself wondering wether I had already taken a soil sample or not, and clicked "Review Data" on the Lab. BAD IDEA. Reviewing 100+ results with the current interface is definitely no fun at all. I ended up just collecting a few more samples for good measure and be done with it. At least in my case, the mass-production of science has the effect that I hardly look at the results anymore. For all I know, there may have been a lot of funny descriptions of the Goo's behaviour yet at some (early) point in the game I stopped paying attention. It's just another result that needs to be filed; who cares what it says? -- [1] Materials Containers should be set to be collectable from a little further away. Probably the caclulation is done from center of object to center of Kerbal; in case of the materials container, which is the most bulky science part, a Kerbal can touch the container with his helmet and still be out of reach. This might actually qualify as a minor bug.

Thanks for telling me. I just tried that and wondered what happened. As to the original topic, Command Pods survive impacts up to 12m/s. Four a stack of four, two radial chutes should suffice even if you land in the highlands. Toss in one more small parachute on the topmost pod and you'll be safe.

That's kind of the point (and the sole reason while I felt the need to post it). I wanted to make a Laboratory Lander with a) only one nuclear engine and a reasonably low center of mass. As a nice side effect, I get all the science parts in one place. As a not-so-nice side effect, this emphasizes the cookie-clicker aspect of doing science.

Touch down, trigger all experiments (by action group), have one Kerbal collect all data, move on. Don't forget to pick up several soil samples. The lander isn't quite rounded: thermometers on the wrong side of the ship, carries *way* too much fuel,... but still, it served me well and I provide it as is. All stock and, with the exception of the engine, it's rather low-tech. (technical data: net mass 10.4t, plus 8t of fuel for almost 4500m/s. Fueled TWR is 2 and 6.6 for Mun and Minmus, respectively) You may see MechJeb modules in this pictures. I removed them before going public. http://www.schnobs.de/ksp/AsymmetricLander.zip Bill gathering science data. The lab itself has no parachutes. Here it is with it's Re-entry Assistance Vehicle.

From the recently-edited wiki (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mobile_Processing_Lab_MPL-LG-2): "The Lab is quite fragile, withstanding only impacts up to 6m/s. It takes ridiculous amounts of parachutes to land it safely. Other approaches to the problem trade in a few chutes for lander legs, or tiny engines and a miniscule fuel supply to pull the brakes shortly before impact. Test your design before actual use." This applies to any fragile equipment, not only the lab. Lander legs, even a single leg(!), will soften the impact quite a bit. Actually, any sufficiently resilient equipment on the bottom (docking ports for example) will protect everything above it -- but only on dry land. When splashing down, you have to slow the impact to whatever is the safe rating for the equipment in question.