a2soup

To anyone who may find this in the future: The fix described above worked great, but it was actually unnecessary to set the experiment back up since it turns out that when a Kerbal picks up an experiment with 100% complete but untransmitted science, they hold that science just like any other science result and can take it back to Kerbin with them. They may even be able to transmit it after putting it in a commnet-connected craft, but I didn't test that unfortunately. I hope this helps someone out there, since I was unable to find any documentation of these mechanics anywhere online.

Wow, is there a bug report on that? Seems like an unintended behavior, given that spotty power and signal work up until it reaches 100%. At the least there should be a button in the context menu to attempt transmission or something. Anyways, looks like I have some commnet work to do before I reset it to try again. Thanks so much for your help!

So I deployed a small experiment station on the Mun in my first breaking ground career mode to fulfill a contract. Was working pretty great for a while. I checked in on it after a while, however, and found that it had apparently gotten disconnected from the control station, but only after collecting 100% science. The problem is that only 10% of this science ended up getting transmitted for some reason. What's up with that?! None of the modules seem to have moved around at all, and it is definitely still in range of the control station, which is still receiving power from the solar panel. Screenshot with context menus is at the link, it won't let me insert the image for some reason. How can I fix this, and how can I stop it from happening again? https://imgur.com/a/Nr1joPS EDIT: On second look, maybe the connection with the control station isn't lost, but it's not receiving power for some reason? I don't know, man.

So, seeing as Porkjet just announced his departure from Squad.... is this still happening? EDIT: I don't mean this in an angry or critical way. I was actually pretty ambivalent about this revamp. I'm just curious.

Does anyone know what Roverdude is doing with the biomes? Is it just cleanup, or is he totally redoing some bodies? Or is he just adding more? This is the first I've heard of this, and I'm very interested!

Just chiming in to say that I find the maps (especially biome maps) you've made so far incredibly useful and would love to see more. My top vote is for Eve next.

Performing and returning every possible experiment in a single stock parts launch has been my sole goal in KSP for the past year or two. I've probably sunk over 100 hours into it so far. I have started from scratch three times. In 0.25, I actually launched the mission and completed every experiment except for those on Kerbin (I posted about it when I completed everything except the Kerbin system). I had a couple of science planes that I am confident could have done all of the Kerbin experiments as well, but it would have taken a while. I never finished because by that point 0.90 had been out for a while. Since 0.90 added many more biomes, I felt that there was little point in spending hours finishing a mission that was no longer comprehensive. Currently, I have finished designing the space-only components for a 1.0 mission. They need a little testing and tweaking, but they are mostly done. I will start on the atmospheric components (the hard part) when Squad settles on an aero model. I worry that I won't be able to finish before 1.1, but hopefully not too much will be changed and the achievement will still be relevant. Is this a weird way to play KSP? Yes. Is it obsessive? Check. Is it the most fun I've ever had playing a game? ABSOLUTELY. I will report on any completionist easter eggs I encounter, but I don't think there will be any.

They are well worth it on larger ships if you use the pure LF airplane tanks. The LF/O rocket tanks with the oxidizer drained have too much dead weight for too little fuel to make the LV-N much use, as you discovered.

Isn't the L2 Atlas Low-Profile Engine from the B9 Aerospace mod...?

You're right, I did this research in the course of planning an extensive ion-powered mission, so I was overly focused on getting lots of power efficiently. The title should be something more like "Past Dres, solar panels are less efficient than RTGs" If you have some battery buffer and all you need is a little bit of power for a probe core and/or occasional reaction wheels, then two OX-4 panels are probably better than an RTG, even at Jool. They do not under any circumstances produce electricity more efficiently there, but they have a lower total weight, which is what matters if you only need a little electricity.

This misses the full situation. For missions inside of Dres's orbit, solar panels are better than RTGs. Also, fuel cells are often better than RTGs outside of Dres's orbit, depending on your ship and mission. Before 1.0, the best solution was almost always to cover everything in OX-STATs. Now, there are three different ways to generate power, each with significant and distinct optimal use situations. Electricity, which used to not take any consideration, is now something to be carefully planned. I call that an improvement whether you're a realist or game-ist.

Try hooking up the ion engines to fuel cells for electricity. You'll need to do some calculations about how much fuel to bring, but the fuel cells are actually remarkably efficient. I think that ion engines running on electricity from fuel cells end up having a higher effective Isp (counting LF/O consumed by the fuel cells) than nukes.

Gigantors at Jool generate ~4 electricity/second per ton, while RTGs generate 9.4 electricity/second per ton. Gigantors take up more mass that RTGs for a given electricity output, not just more space. So while they are still useful, they are not optimal. That said, they look awesome, especially on bases, so go ahead and use them

The 0.03 t weight difference between the RTG and small fuel cell represents the weight of LF/O required to generate 2400 electricity. So, very roughly, if you plan on using less than 2400 electricity on your mission, you are probably better off with the fuel cell. You will have to balance this with the ∆v lost to the fuel cell's LF/O, but that shouldn't be very much except on very small probes. Unless you are using ions (in which case your requirement for high electricity generation rate tips the scales towards fuel cells anyways), you will almost certainly use much less than 2400 electricity during your mission. Naturally, if you have a probe core, you will have to micromanage your batteries by shutting them all off (along with your fuel cell) when warping so that the probe doesn't suck power during warp. This point definitely stands. Unless you are an efficiency-squeezing, battery-micromanaging mass pedant (like me ) the RTG is probably the preferable choice for any mission with a probe core. Note: All of this discussion applies only to missions past Dres. Inside of Dres's orbit, solar panels are usually the best choice.

Solar panels were recently changed to scale power with the square of distance from Kerbol rather than linearly. I did some testing, and came up with the following electricity outputs for solar panels at each planet (all stats in electricity/second): OX-STAT Moho: ~1.5 Eve: 0.64 Kerbin: 0.33 Duna: 0.15 Dres: 0.03 Jool: 0.02 Eeloo: 0.01 OX-4L/W Moho: ~7.5 Eve: 2.99 Kerbin: 1.54 Duna: 0.70 Dres: 0.15 Jool: 0.08 Eeloo: 0.03 Gigantor Moho: ~110 Eve: 44.37 Kerbin: 22.90 Duna: 10.40 Dres: 2.30 Jool: 1.18 Eeloo: 0.41 Combined with previous stats I calculated here, one can calculate that solar panels are a strictly worse power source than RTGs anywhere past Dres, and they are about equal at Dres. As discussed in the other electricity stats thread, fuel cells are probably a better choice than RTGs most of the time, but that's a different question. EDIT: test conditions. I tested all the panels in a 500 km circular orbit around the planet. Sun exposure in all tests was between 0.97 and 1.00. For Moho, Dres, and Eeloo, I tested near the planet's apoapsis. At Moho, the numbers were changing pretty quickly (not sure why... heating maybe?), so I recorded a slightly conservative estimate.