Transmitting science with BG deployables

[Klapaucius]

I finally just started playing around with the Breaking Ground science deployables.  How do you get them to transmit science?  I have a communotron on an airplane landed nearby and it says they are all connected.  Is this something that only actually transmits in Science mode? I'm currently just messing about in Sandbox.

 

Also, I just crashed another aircraft not far away and I got only .02% science with the seismometer.  Is that supposed to be that low?

[AHHans]

A general explanation how the deployed science works can be found in this thread:

An explanation of when the experiments (try to) transmit their science and why this can cause them to not transmit all (or even most) of their science can be found here:

So the communotron nearby will do nothing for the deployed science because it isn't a relay antenna.

... Hmmm, sandbox mode ...
O.K. Apparently in sandbox mode the deployed science does not transmit. The experiments generate "completed science" but don't even try to transmit that.

The percentage of seismic science you get from crashing a craft onto a body will depend on the crash energy - i.e. mass of the craft and it speed - the distance of the impact to the sensor, and the mass of the body. My experience is:

• On Kerbin: if you set up the station close to the KSC, then the discarded boosters will gather the full science over time. (Even if it is in small increments.)
• On small-ish planetoids without atmosphere (Mun, Ike, and smaller), just crashing obsolete parts (the transfer stages for trans-Munar or trans-Duna injection, old landers, etc.) into them collected the full science.
• Duna and Eve were a larger problem: on Duna I got it by crashing a streamlined rocket from its Kerbin transfer close-ish to the sensor. Eve was the usual pain in the posterior: anything from the orbit either explodes or gets slowed down to terminal velocity in Eve's souposphere. Winged cruise-missiles that filled up to 315 t total mass by mining on Eve, and then were steered to impact close to the sensor only gave a few percentage points when doing it without "cheating". When I did the impact at 4x physics warp I got the full science...
• I haven't done the Joolian moons, Moho, or Eeloo yet.

[Klapaucius]

@AHHans

 

Thank you so much for the very detailed response!