How to Track Remaining Data For Mobile Processing Lab?

[Frederf]

In my space program I've moved to the stage where I can put science experiment data in a mobile processing lab and get extra science from it. The difficulty is I've completed a lot of basic science missions but haven't processed them in the MPL before. So I'm just having to guess what "depleted" science activities still are valuable run through the MPL. I wish I had a way to record, predict, and track what science out there (both ones I've done simply or haven't at all) is going to provide that +1 (or better) data yellow button.

My understanding (it could be wrong) is that once I MPL-ify an experiment it's used up and I have to make them unique. I'm trying to get good science out of the MPL but it's hard to judge what I can and should feed it.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Frederf

[Murph]

It's not really a proper solution, but you'll know if an experiment has already been processed by the lab in question. The process button only appears if the lab hasn't seen that particular experiment before. You can also keep the previous experiment results in the lab after processing, but the current UI is dreadful for actually seeing what's there once there's more than about 10 experiment results.

Beyond that, absolutely nothing in the stock game really helps you with that at present. Hopefully the replacement UI in 1.1 (all UIs have to be redone from scratch for Unity 5) might be better.

On the flip side, there's no requirement or benefit in-game for hitting 100% completion on experiments processed in a lab. You don't really even get the personal achievement type thing from looking at them in the science archives, as with traditional experiment results.

I suggest forgetting about anything like completion and just moving on to a new location once you get bored with the current one. Just let that lab slowly run dry, but any exploration missions to the body it's orbiting can always stop there and process whatever experiments they gathered, on their way back home.

[Falkenherz]

Yeah, there is a mod called Science Alert, but it has no according option, neither.

The way I manage this is to designate a MPL to Mun and to Minmus polar orbit. Then I collect all EVA data and let them munch it up. Once this is done, I will re-collect and feed them the surface data. Then I will exchange both crafts. Just in order to be efficient, my new interplanetary vessel to Duna will also have a MPL, which will be fed around Minus before going out of Kerbin SOI, just in order to be useful during the long travel time.

I suspect once I have done this, I have opened all tech nodes, anyways.

[Snark]

Also, it's worth calling out explicitly (Murph alluded to this), just in case you're not aware: MPL processing is on a per-lab basis. You can only process a given science result (instrument + celestial boy + situation) once for any given lab, but if you have another lab, you can run it through that one.

It's unfortunate that the lab doesn't have any sort of UI display to let you know what it has already seen, but you can always start afresh with another lab and know that it can process everything. (Also, if you're really determined, I imagine that the save file must have a list of processed experiments for each lab, though I haven't bothered to go and look).

Seems like a good place for a mod... hopefully someone will create such, if it's not there already.

[cephalo]

Also, it's worth calling out explicitly (Murph alluded to this), just in case you're not aware: MPL processing is on a per-lab basis. You can only process a given science result (instrument + celestial boy + situation) once for any given lab, but if you have another lab, you can run it through that one.

It's unfortunate that the lab doesn't have any sort of UI display to let you know what it has already seen, but you can always start afresh with another lab and know that it can process everything. (Also, if you're really determined, I imagine that the save file must have a list of processed experiments for each lab, though I haven't bothered to go and look).

Seems like a good place for a mod... hopefully someone will create such, if it's not there already.

Right now I think that its a per-craft basis. I have two labs on a craft and it's not working like that.

[Cardano]

Right now I think that its a per-craft basis. I have two labs on a craft and it's not working like that.

Confirmed

Originally Posted by Silpion

How does this work? I just sent a craft with 2 labs to Bop, and no data ever goes into one of the labs. Both are staffed with two scientists each. Whenever I click the yellow button to send data to the labs, it only goes to one of them. Also, weirdly, the data stays in its original instrument, and I'm presented with the science pop-up a second time. Clicking the yellow button again brings up an error that the science was already sent to the lab, but I can still transmit the data.

The second lab just sits there idle, with no data and some hungry kerbals.

Staying in it's original instrument is by design.

[Frederf]

I'm doing a bit of empiricism now about what experiments can provide MPL data and which can't. This is my first MPL and first round of experiments shoved in so I know that all of them are unique. Not every experiment is MPLable and some are but for "+0" data.

Surface Sample from Runway +1

Materials Sample while flying at Kerbin

EVA report flying over Kerbin's mountains +0

Surface Sample from Kerbin's Deserts +1

Atmospheric Pressure Scan from Kerbin's Deserts +0

Mystery Goo Observations from Kerbin's Deserts +0

Materials Study from Kerbin's Deserts +1

Temperature Scan from Kerbin's Deserts +0

Mystery Goo Observation from KSC +0

Materials Study from KSC +1

It appears that several experiments simply don't count for MPLification and others have their values floored due to being less than 1 data value. Maybe in other multiplier areas the 0s get higher.

[Murph]

It appears that several experiments simply don't count for MPLification and others have their values floored due to being less than 1 data value. Maybe in other multiplier areas the 0s get higher.

The lab is deliberately made barely functional on Kerbin's surface. Off Kerbin, all experiments generate data (max once per type & location combination, for a single craft).