What's the Most Science/XP You Gained in One Mission? (Spoilers)

[arkie87]

What's the most XP/Science you've gained in one mission?

I just finished an epic mission to Jool, making fly-bys of Jool, Pol, and Laythe.

I earned over 3000 science and each of the original four (Jeb, Bob, Bill, and Val) gained 32 XP each.

It was quite the rush. I perpetually thought i'd run out of fuel and had to wing it, decoupling extra fuel tanks, and then figuring out the most efficient way back to Kerbin was a gravity assist from Laythe. That, unfortunately, sent me on a pretty steep encounter with Kerbin, and i slammed into the atmosphere at 8 km/s with 28 km Pe.

I pulled over 17g's on the descent, and my heat shield even exploded due to overheating...

I say, if your heat shield doesnt explode due to overheating, then you arent playing KSP right

[Levelord]

Valentina looks like she's enjoying herself

[Bilfr3d]

The most XP I've had from a mission is only 7... :'( I have yet to spend enough time playing career to get the higher paying contracts XD

[Falkenherz]

That´s just awesome. And amazing how you managed to make the most unscared Kerbalnauts actually scared... :>

[patboy]

I made a trip to Duna and Ike, and managed to Land on Ike and Duna. Currently I am waiting for my counter with Kerbin.

I had 9 Science Jr and 9 Goos on board. So i made a few experiments in high, low and landed. Also with a temperature scan and Seismic acc.

Eva and Crew reports also.

I am wondering who much science I will get, when i recovery everything.

[hellion13]

Just put Science Alert on my mods list. Most useful thing ever for a forgetful guy like me. I was just happy to fly my creations. Now Im actually getting the science from the crap i put on em. Last mission i ran i received 435 science. Before that, I was lucky to get 1-3 science from a one off crew report.

[soulsource]

I've been doing a systematic study of the munar surface back in 0.23.5. It consisted of an orbital station with lots of xenon, and an ion powered lander.

I'll just post the last imgur album now, you can read the full story here, here, here, and here.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

As you can see: 6428 science points.

[arkie87]

Valentina looks like she's enjoying herself

I didnt notice that! Ha!

- - - Updated - - -

That´s just awesome. And amazing how you managed to make the most unscared Kerbalnauts actually scared... :>

Hehe. I would be too at 8 km/s.... re-entry lasted less than a minute...

[MarvelousBreadfish]

I got about 3500 science from a hop around mission on Minmus. Lots of samples and reports from multiple flat areas, highlands, slopes and stuff. Playing on normal though. Oh, and experiments, lots of them since I had a full crew with a scientist on board.

Edited May 8, 2015 by MarvelousBreadfish

[Esme]

a tad over 900 science, from a mission to Minmus which visited multiple biomes, in both v0.9 and v0.23. I tend to play science-only games (didn;t get on with Career in 0.9), and my PC can;t quite handle v1.0, so it'll be a while before I can attempt a Career game in 1.0

[SkyRender]

I don't know if I ever got a shot of it, but my classic 15-landings-in-one-mission Mun science expedition usually brings back around 7,000 to 10,000 science. I'll have to peruse the archives of images to see if I have a good shot of that.

EDIT: Apparently I never took a shot of it! But I did get a shot of one of my on-a-whim Jool tour results at one point:

Edited May 8, 2015 by SkyRender

[arkie87]

I don't know if I ever got a shot of it, but my classic 15-landings-in-one-mission Mun science expedition usually brings back around 7,000 to 10,000 science. I'll have to peruse the archives of images to see if I have a good shot of that.

EDIT: Apparently I never took a shot of it! But I did get a shot of one of my on-a-whim Jool tour results at one point:

http://www.skyrender.net/lp2/ksp/more_science.jpg

Nice... how many SoI's did you cross?

I'm starting to really like Jool. It's pretty easy to get an encounter with something.

Out of curiosity, how do you manage to return from Jool? Is it always 8 km/s re-entry, or is it more manageable if you choose a less steep return?

[SkyRender]

Nice... how many SoI's did you cross?

I'm starting to really like Jool. It's pretty easy to get an encounter with something.

Out of curiosity, how do you manage to return from Jool? Is it always 8 km/s re-entry, or is it more manageable if you choose a less steep return?

I made a brief stop to the SoI of every one of Jool's moons on that little expedition. And that mission was done in a much earlier version (0.23 from the looks of it), so re-entry wasn't an issue. Back then, even 8km/sec was entirely survivable since there was no re-entry heat to deal with.

[Baenki]

I got 700 sci from Minmus. There could have been more but bevause I trashed the engine of my fancy, overspecced 2 stage lander i couldnt hop around without loosing the first stage. I try to play realistic. So the 2nd stage is only for ascends.

I did a materials study, goo , surface sample and an eva report while landed and some more evas while ascending for docking to the orbiter. The orbiter itself did some sience too.

Even if the mission was totally overspecced it was the most profitable sience, money and rep wise.

I combined 3 missions.

Surface science, flag, return to kerbin for a total of ~700k funds.

On the other hand the equpment did cost around 130k.

[GeneCash]

Valentina looks like she's enjoying herself

Even Jeb has an "er... holy sh*t, am I missing an eyebrow?" expression on his face.

That pod's gonna need a janitorial crew and some airing out.

[The Destroyer]

I don't remember XP, but my Earth-year long Duna science lab earned THOUSANDS of science. Easily 5k. Went from midway through, mainsails, to all the tech (for the T2 R&D anyway) with 3k left over

[McKermack]

17 G!? For how long?

Shouldn't the crew technically be dead from loss of blood flow?

Nice flying anyhow :-)

[Hannu]

I make complicated projects. I send a station, several landers, tug ships and interplanetary crew ships on Jool's orbit and make expeditions to all moons and then collect thousands on units of science in one return trip. I think that they are larger projects than single missions.

That´s just awesome. And amazing how you managed to make the most unscared Kerbalnauts actually scared... :>

Well. I think that astronaut who does not fear when he fly at 6600 m/s in atmosphere and heat shield explodes can not qualify astronaut training even in KSC. Probably such a people eliminate themselves at about 12 years old because they do not feel fear when they approach tight curve at 100 km/h with tuned moped.

[zarakon]

Note to self, stack two heat shields for any Jool return mission

[Guz]

my grand tour brought 6775 science and 148 XP for bill + 108 XP for Jeb

[BrainiacBlue]

Your kerbals look traumatised.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I once brought home almost 11k on Sciencepoints from a big Mission to Jool and his moons. This was before we had biomes on all its moons thought and that was nowhere near the max. Science you could get from a trip there there

here is my Highlight of the reentry.

http://www.twitch.tv/malfunctionm1ke/c/3906380

[SkyRender]

Of course, theoretically you could have a trip return with over 200,000 science. But that would be quite a trip: you would have to visit every single biome on every single planet and moon in the game and run every possible experiment (some of them multiple times). You'd also probably need to get some science from asteroids in various situations as well. Not that you'd necessarily have to do all of that in one massive super-mission with a Whackjob-esque monstrosity to cart you around, mind. The return vessel's contents are the only important thing, after all...

[arkie87]

17 G!? For how long?

Shouldn't the crew technically be dead from loss of blood flow?

Nice flying anyhow :-)

A while. I had to slow down... a lot...

Luckily, kerbals have no bones, so they are amorphous

It's very difficult to bleed off 5 km/s in atmosphere. When you go that fast, you descend rapidly, and then ascend rapidly, so you need a very steep trajectory. The high density of are means you will be pulling a lot of g's (though regardless, just to bleed off 5 km/s in such a short distance will require a very high g load)

Note to self, stack two heat shields for any Jool return mission

Not necessarily. I just returned from another mission. This intercept profile was less steep-- hit Kerbin at only 5 km/s which is much more manageable. And one heat shield survived capture.

It's relatively easy though, to get a steep intercept at Kerbin (resulting in 8 km/s) though if you use a moon slingshot, so be careful...

[arkie87]

my grand tour brought 6775 science and 148 XP for bill + 108 XP for Jeb

What version of KSP is that? Doesnt look like 1.0?

Also, was that all one craft? Didnt look like it...?