How to use Mobile Processing Lab

[MPDerksen]

I don't believe it's been mentioned yet, but the processing is SLOW!  In my last career game, I put a MPL in orbit around Mun.  The data was a mere trickle.  But as soon as I was doing Duna missions and had to time-warp to set up the proper windows, it became worth doing.  

In my current career (still early on) my plan is to put one around Minmus only when I get close to starting the inter-planetary part of the game and I have the better docking ports unlocked.  My first station got pretty wobbly using Docking Port Jr. connections.

[Zhetaan]

2 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

How much more does the MPL get you than returning 2 copies?

It varies a bit because of a few different multipliers.

It starts with the full value of the science experiment (this is the absolute maximum, not the maximum you can return from a single result).  If you are landed (or splashed) on the surface of a celestial body (except Kerbin), then it adds 10% to the data value.  If the experiments that you're loading into the lab come from the same sphere of influence that the lab is presently in, then it adds 25% to the data value.  If you are landed on Kerbin, then there's a 90% penalty to the data value.

For most purposes, assuming that the lab is part of an orbiting mothership or station, you can reasonably expect the 25% increase.  The practical range is full value (when you return the experiments to a lab in orbit of Kerbin) to 135% full value (when the lab is part of the lander or a landed base).

The MPL then turns data into science at a 1:5 ratio, meaning that each point of data becomes five points of science.  Since 125% is common and 135% is not difficult to reach, this results in science points totalling 625% to 675% the original full value of the experiment.

By contrast, returning two copies will get you between 95% and 100% of the full value, depending on the experiment.  That has to do with the amount that the experiment will let you return at a time (in other words, how many times the game wants to encourage you to go back for more science).

 

The short version is this:

The MPL will generate somewhere between 6.25 and 6.75 times the value of whatever experiment you process in it.

[Geschosskopf]

6 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

The short version is this:

The MPL will generate somewhere between 6.25 and 6.75 times the value of whatever experiment you process in it.

Thanks for the explanation.  I can see why you think the MPL is OP.  That sounds even worse than when "copying" was a thing.  And I suppose these base numbers are further increased by the experience of the Kerbals involved?

Since they made the MPL be a science-farm, I've thought it should be a slight buff.  Like increasing the max total science available for a given experiment/location by like 25% and also increasing the return value of experimental results so that the same number of returns could reach the new max total as would the original lower total.  And this process would not take very long, say a week.

Personally, I liked the original version of the MPL best.  IIRC, at that time it was the ONLY way to reset Goo and Science Jr and it could also, after a processing time of only a few seconds, transmit any experiment at full return value.  And it was also the only thing that could store multiple copies of the same experiment/location.  So if you wanted to biome-hop, you had to return to the orbiting MPL to reset the experiments each time.  And if you wanted to return enough copies of everything to max out their science, you needed to land the MPL.  But this was before Kerbals unionized along craft lines (which I STILL think was a Bad Idea).  Once they did that, then they had to give folks a reason to take the different specialists along, so now any 0-level schmuck can reset those experiments.  And it was before a lot of other things now needed as a result.

 

[Zhetaan]

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

And I suppose these base numbers are further increased by the experience of the Kerbals involved?

Actually, no; the experience level of the scientists in the lab will increase the processing speed, but not the total return.  There is a processing multiplier of .25 per experience level, and from it I can figure that the developers assumed that two two-star scientists was the baseline use case.

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Since they made the MPL be a science-farm, I've thought it should be a slight buff.  Like increasing the max total science available for a given experiment/location by like 25% and also increasing the return value of experimental results so that the same number of returns could reach the new max total as would the original lower total.  And this process would not take very long, say a week.

I don't know what range of values the part.cfg will accept for settings, but theoretically, you could simulate at least some of the behaviour you describe by setting the surface and context bonuses to zero, the science multiplier to .25 (instead of 5), and the researchTime to 2 or 3 (instead of 7 for faster research).  It would still require a bit of extra effort, and it would still have the issue of being repeatable with different labs.  Perhaps that will do the trick.