Possible suggestions: - Atmospheric samples (Jool for example) - For science base/lab allow it to work only when it is in high or low orbit, and instead of providing research it would condense and store multiple data into storage container designed for landing. this way one can gather plethora of data from any planet and it's moons, without having to land 10+ landers back at kerbin to retrieve all that data. At the same time samples still need to be returned back to Kerbin in order to yield research. - For future ore update: use samples, reports, and recordings of a specific body to reveal ore map. That way planets and moons will need to be researched to show ore nodes, but it wont be grindy afk scanning, nor instant-result on 1 click. More data obtained from one body = more detailed maps.