Any mod that makes labs work on rails?

[eddiew]

Hey peeps,

So here's the thing; I like having an orbital science lab. I like that all my missions first stop there to drop off their data before the crew come back to ground. It makes me do interesting things like have pure-vacuum landers that need some help being recovered on Kerbin, makes me more likely to use motherships that will never land ever, and gives me an actual excuse for a space station.

But... there's not much fun in passing a hundred experiments to it, loading up 750 data, timewarping 10 days, transmitting, loading 100 more data, timewarping... several dozen times. In fact, it's a massive chore and adds half an hour to the back end of an efficient mission!  

So I was wondering if there is, or could be, a mod that would simply make labs process data in the background? Say every day (or once a week) they transmit their science, and check their experiments and take as many from the top of the stack as they have capacity for?

Thanks!

[Shadowmage]

2 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Hey peeps,

So here's the thing; I like having an orbital science lab. I like that all my missions first stop there to drop off their data before the crew come back to ground. It makes me do interesting things like have pure-vacuum landers that need some help being recovered on Kerbin, makes me more likely to use motherships that will never land ever, and gives me an actual excuse for a space station.

But... there's not much fun in passing a hundred experiments to it, loading up 750 data, timewarping 10 days, transmitting, loading 100 more data, timewarping... several dozen times. In fact, it's a massive chore and adds half an hour to the back end of an efficient mission!  

So I was wondering if there is, or could be, a mod that would simply make labs process data in the background? Say every day (or once a week) they transmit their science, and check their experiments and take as many from the top of the stack as they have capacity for?

Thanks!

While not exactly what you are looking for -- it would be quite easy to make a ModuleManager patch to increase the max science storage capacity of the lab parts to something more conductive to not having to babysit them.  It won't trasmit automatically, but accomplishes much the same in the end.

 

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleScienceConverter]]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleScienceConverter]
	{
		%scienceCap = 50000
  	}
}

Disclaimer:  Patch put together off the top of my head, untested.  HAS syntax may be wrong.

[eddiew]

Thanks @Shadowmage I'll give that a go   I figure a science capacity of 2500 is enough, since it can only be loaded with 500 data... unless you happen to know the data cap property name?

*edit* ooo, wait... the transmission costs will be savage... well, I guess that's a reason to upgrade my power supply!

Edited October 5, 2016 by eddiew

[Shadowmage]

3 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Thanks @Shadowmage I'll give that a go   I figure a science capacity of 2500 is enough, since it can only be loaded with 500 data... unless you happen to know the data cap property name?

*edit* ooo, wait... the transmission costs will be savage... well, I guess that's a reason to upgrade my power supply!

Ouch, yah, I forgot about transmission costs... and sadly I don't think there is a way to tell it to transmit partials.

The data-cap can be increased as well, though it is in a separate module/patch.

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleScienceLab]]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleScienceLab]
	{
		%dataStorage = 500
	}
}

 

[eddiew]

Okies, thanks @Shadowmage   I'll investigate what it would take to allow me to transmit indefinitely with different antennae. As long as I can get it sent in a 10 minute pass around LKO then I can stack gigantors until it breaks even. And I might have a modded kingsize RTG somewhere...

[magnemoe]

This is nice, has the issue that you have to visit the lab every 14 day to transmit and restock science during long interplanetary missions. 
2500 would be better, for transmitting, an smaller antenna will transmit slower using less power/ s, else more solar panels and larger batteries. 

[Tex_NL]

I've been upscaling the MPL capacity ever since it has been able to process data.
And I've noticed it has a side effect some could call 'cheating'. (Don't even THINK about starting yet another '... is cheating' thread. Simply DON'T!) Processing speed is based on two things; the total amount of scientist 'stars' in the lab and the amount of data stored. Loading the MPL with 5000 data will spit out more science per day that lading it with 500. The same amount of data will be processed faster.