SCIENCE! What's the most you have gotten in one mission? How did you do it?

[advil]

1,854 Here's the screenshot to prove it.

No mods, no cheating.

Just a mothership

After that, the mothership and all her crew returned to Kerbin, where the crew EVA to a transport vehicle, stow all of their science and de-orbit to the surface.

So how would / did you do it?

[Caelib]

I got about 3700 in one trip to Minmus -- it is probably the easiest science because of its low mass, which allows you to visit many biomes without a lot of delta-V. In a new career, I unlock all of the science parts first, then go to Minmus in one manned mission and collect surface samples and do crew reports.

[No one]

That depends on how you define "one mission".

If you mean "One recovery":

Almost 4000 from Eeloo. That said, it did involve a weird glitch which helped me out (It recovered the spaceship while I was on my way back to Kerbin). I could have gotten back to Kerbin on my own, but while I was performing the burn to get back to Kerbin it randomly put me back at KSC showing me all the science I'd gotten for no reason (And the spaceship disappeared and the astronaut was back at KSC).

I had 4 of each experiment done from space high, space low, and surface. Also 4 surface samples because I put 4 command pods on the lander even though there was only one astronaut. (Take surface sample, store data, repeat)

If you mean "One launch":

One spaceship broke up into 9, each (Besides one, which crashed, RIP Jebediah) landed on a separate biome of Minmus, did science, and returned to Kerbin. Each one got almost 700 for a total of about 5500. A little less, given how I think I had already landed on one of them, but still well beyond what I got from Eeloo.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

I brought back 17,677 science from my encompassing mission to Jool where I landed on all 5 moons with a huge ship. You can see me getting my science in the twitch highlight: http://www.twitch.tv/fleetadmiralj/c/4585954. In reality, I got a bit more than that because I transmitted things like crew reports which probably wasn't counted there.

[UmbralRaptor]

[Pecan]

I think I accidentally got 20 or 30 for something once. No idea how I did it - or why, now I think about it.

[magnemoe]

I tend to do science first with two suborbital jumps, second has goo and material labs, then a Mun flyby into orbit if possible.

Then Minmus, tend to visit 4 places and get surface, goo and lab readings, then a repeat of this mission with gravitation and seismic sensors, this land everywhere.

Mun rover to study the east farside crater and canyon and its 6 biomes in the area. This tend to fill out the tech tree including mods who cost 1000 science

[Eric S]

My biggest payout missions to date? A Mun rover that hit every biome on the Mun and then returned as my trip to the Mun in that save, back in 0.22 when you could transmit-spam the goo and Science Jr stuff. Also did all the orbital stuff. I think that was in the 5-6K science range, might have been higher. I had all the experiments by that point, and yes, it was a pain getting that far in the tree without going to the Mun. I won't be doing that again, especially since the Science Jr's aren't reusable without hauling a lab around, and the stupid amounts of driving that had to be done didn't help.

I also did an unmanned Jool tour that was more points, about 8K if I remember right, but it was a lot less work (and pain) so not as memorable.

[Caelib]

For any new KSP players, you should exercise some restraint in using the "SC-9001 Science Jr" (.2 mass) and "Mystery Goo Containment Unit" (.15x2+ mass - symmetry) -- while these parts will gain you some science, they are extremely heavy compared to the other science equipment and are not reusable unless you have a "Mobile Processing Lab" nearby. Generally speaking, I do not use either of these on manned missions unless I also have a Lab because of the mass-to-science gain they yield ... not to mention complicating ship design for a lander.

For manned missions ... crew reports, EVA reports and surface samples are the best bet for science because there are no additional parts needed for them

[Duke23]

This was from my first manned mission to the Jool system. I dropped probes on Jool and Laythe, flew by Tylo, and landed on Pol and Vall. Didn't make it to Bop out of fuel concerns... Am I forgetting any? I dragged along a science lab and 3 sets of dockable experiment pods (Science Jr and goo pods, other experiments were on the probe core or lander respectively). One to keep on the transfer ship for flybys / drop on Pol and Vall with the lander, and one for each probe. I didn't get as much science as I could have with a slightly different build, but I was pretty proud of the way that mission and ship turned out. Even after making it home in the return stage (the smaller self contained nuclear ship at the front) I still had plenty of fuel, enough that I should have bit the bullet and landed on Bop. And then visited Dres on the way back... lol

Edit: This isn't counting any data that I transmitted for full value.

I'm currently using a modified version of this ship to send two fairly large SSTOs to Laythe for my first manned landing.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Duke23

[katateochi]

I got 9750 points on my 2nd mission in a pure stock career.

I'm putting the vid of that together now,

I was aiming to do it quickly (from the kerbals point of view) so I just went to Minmus and Mun. First mission orbited both moons and landed on Minmus and I also did a load of EVA landings. The second mission took a sci-lab, a ton of fuel and a lander with all the experiments to Mun and did shuttle runs to the different biomes. It's a fast way of doing career, it has some really fun/interesting design challenges but flying the actual missions is both boring and exhausting!

[timsfitz]

I got nearly 10,000 from a Jool mission a few months ago. It was only 3 moons, so not a Jool 5 challenge. I wonder how much all five moons gives you.

[Pecan]

My biggest payout missions to date? A Mun rover that hit every biome on the Mun...

That's incredible - how long did all that driving take? Did you just wedge the keyboard or something?

[Ghost13]

That's incredible - how long did all that driving take? Did you just wedge the keyboard or something?

I guess he used MechJeb rover autopilot feature, otherwhise that would be quite a booring run. I did something similar on Duna with custom biomes and a manned rover with around 10k science worth of the whole trip.

[bobcook]

I got nearly 10,000 from a Jool mission a few months ago. It was only 3 moons, so not a Jool 5 challenge. I wonder how much all five moons gives you.

It varies. My own Jool-5 mission secured 12,435 science points from five different landers plus the main ship. For Jool-5 type missions, seems like 20,000 isn't too difficult, with some good planning. A "grand tour" of the Kerbol system netted someone 42,000 science. Absolutely amazing. Ziv keeps excellent records in the Jool-5 mission challenge thread.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

I got nearly 10,000 from a Jool mission a few months ago. It was only 3 moons, so not a Jool 5 challenge. I wonder how much all five moons gives you.

See my post earlier. I didnt get 100% of everything, but the vast majority of it, bringing back over 17,000

[SkyRender]

Well, let's see. My best mission profile milks the Mun dry of all science, so... somewhere around 9,500 science or so. Not bad for the second Career mode mission, I'd say.

[advil]

Wow you guys really have hauled in a lot of science! The problem I started running into was only having the one lander, and at first not realizing I had to remove the science when I returned to the mothership to transfer it off of the lander's control module. I also noted when I transferred my crew off of the mothership at Kerbin that each hitchhiker can only stores something like 9 experiments. Do some of the control modules allow you to store more than that? How many will the mobile processing lab allow you to store?

[SkyRender]

Wow you guys really have hauled in a lot of science! The problem I started running into was only having the one lander, and at first not realizing I had to remove the science when I returned to the mothership to transfer it off of the lander's control module. I also noted when I transferred my crew off of the mothership at Kerbin that each hitchhiker can only stores something like 9 experiments. Do some of the control modules allow you to store more than that? How many will the mobile processing lab allow you to store?

Every Kerbal-compatible part can hold 1 copy of any and all possible experiments. Ostensibly you could have a single instance of every single possible scientific experiment in the game stored in a single capsule if you wanted. You need a second capsule of some sort to store more than 1 copy of anything, though.

[Vahal]

The reprocessing laboratory can hold several identical science reports.

[advil]

The reprocessing laboratory can hold several identical science reports.

Excellent, that's what I was looking for. I think I dislike that this is true though, only because the lab module is bigger than the hitchhiker and holds half as many Kerbals. Obvoiusly the lab must have a bunch of equipment in it and thus less room for seating whereas the hitchhiker only has to hold four Kerbals, however, this also means I can theoretically take less crew than I thought I needed. Does anybody know how many of a single item can be stored in that module? for example how many different surface samples can I store in one science module?

[allmhuran]

I've only flown one mission, but I've flown it several times! The first mission of a new career, with no parts unlocked, trying to see just how much science I could get in a single launch.

The answer is 10563

[advil]

I'm planning a mission to Eve with a massive rover that will be carrying three crew. one in the command module and two in a mobile lab. From there I want to ferry my science from the surface to a mothership in low orbit and then return that ship to Kerbin orbit and ferry again to the surface to recover the science. I'm doing this more for the challenge than the science as I have seen a lot of posts from people stating that Eve is one of the most difficult places to land, and I myself have only landed there twice earlier in my career and never returned. Obviously the hardest part is going to be getting the rover to the surface as it is purposely very large and heavy. I unlocked the largest size rover wheels and I want to try them out This will be a multi part mission requiring several vehicles of different types to work together but I think it will be fun provided I can get everything to work. I'll post some screenshots when I actually work out all of the kinks and get a rover on the surface.

[Akalaël]

Just unlock the science Equipment first.

Then go to Minmus. Hop around here to have multiple biomes readings.

Sure you can go up to 5000 science points in one go.

I came back with 3900 points once, but hitted only 5 biomes.

[advil]

Looks like we all have some good "Big fish" stories but not many pictures guys, pics or it didn't happen What kind of crafts are you using? Are you using mods? turning on infinite fuel? I'm somewhat of a purist when it comes to KSP so the mission I ran was 100% vanilla and no infinite fuel.

Don't sing it, bring it