What to do when you're stuck on science?

[Boovie]

Hi all,

I've been really enjoying KSP since I started playing and have been going through career mode with all the trials and tribulations of any new player. As I've gone about unlocking the tech tree I've reached a couple of points where I've found myself stuck and struggling to gather enough science to continue unlocking new technology which has, in turn, hindered me in reaching new targets where I could gather more of said science.

What do y'all do when you reach a point like this? I'm sure the order in which I am currently unlocking the tech tree is sub-optimal, but it's my first time through career mode so that's bound to happen (I already see some ways in which I could go about it better). Any advice to squeezing the most out of readily accessible science on Kerbin?

[Vanamonde]

It's hard to give suggestions without knowing what you're already done, but here's what I do. Stick some science parts on a rocket with an antenna. Shoot it off somewhere and don't even try to get it back. Just have it transmit the results of the experiments. It can take a surprisingly simple ship to pass close to or fall on another planet, or even just perform some science in solar orbit outside of any planet's SOI. 

[bewing]

Do you really mean exclusively on Kerbin?

The first thing to understand is that there are 42 biomes on Kerbin. Many of them are hard/tricky to find. Have you found the flagpole biome, and extracted all the science from it? Do you understand that upgrading some KSC buildings gets you more biomes to take data from? Do you understand that the VAB South Complex biome appears and then goes away? Do you understand that all nine natural biomes can be accessed both from land and while you are "splashed", and the science points you get from that are all completely independent -- so in some sense there are 18 of them? Have you gotten the science from the mountain biome when you are splashed? Do you know where the Badlands are? Do you understand the trick for getting "EVA in flight over biome X" science points? Do you understand that you can get temperature and crew report science in flight over each of the nine natural biomes? Do you understand that there are seven scientific instruments that give science data?

If you have used all 7 instruments to ravish all 42 of Kerbin's biomes of all their science points, then there are only two steps left.

1) You can use a Mobile Processing Lab. You gather all the experiments all over again, load them all into an MPL and launch it into orbit. Its whole purpose is to generate more science for you.

2) You start launching robotic and krewed ships to the Mun, Minmus, and beyond to gather more experiments in their biomes (and return the science to KSC). If you feel you don't really have the tech yet to do those launches -- that's what the game is about, is forcing you to get painfully low-tech ships to distant places.

 

[Phil deCube]

If you get into a polar orbit of Mun and do an EVA report over all of the biomes as Mun rotates underneath you, you can earn several hundred science. Same goes for Minmus.

As for the tech tree, this is how I usually do it. Top and bottom:

[mk1980]

the way the Kerbin SOI is laid out, it's actually almost impossible to get stuck on science. the only real bottleneck is the very early game. you need to gather enough science to unlock the tech required for moon landings. once you can consistently get kerbals to the 2 moons, you can "farm" plenty of science there. enough to unlock most of the tech tree. and once you unlock the mobile processing lab, you can abuse those to generate infinite science if you don't want to get the research points for the remaining nodes from other planets.

you probably don't need all the science from kerbin biomes. just collect a few experiments on the launchpad and runway, maybe also landed in the nearby shores and water biomes. that should give you enough tech to get all (or most) of the stuff in the first 2 tiers.

with those techs unlocked, you can build rockets that get to orbit. the science from high atmosphere and low & high orbit should be enough to get the 45 rocketry node that unlocks the terrier engine and maybe some extra points for other stuff.

with the terrier unlocked, it's not too hard to do a flyby (or orbit) of both mun and minmus, so you can collect some cheap low & high orbit science from the 2 moons to unlock the tech you want for landing on the moons.

once you can land on the moons, the science problem is basically solved. if you need more points for something, you can just farm them in one of the ~20 moon surface biomes that you haven't visited yet. from that point onwards, it's up to you if you go for easy (but "grindy") moon science farming or use space labs to generate research points or go for interplanetary expeditions to fill out the remainder of the tree. or any combination of those options.

[Streetwind]

You will probably discover that your struggles are not so much related to the order in which you unlock technologies, but rather that your skill in constructing and flying spacecraft plays an extremely large role. The reason for this is because the tech tree generally gives you either improved parts, or new science experiments.

- If you unlock the nodes with science experiments first, then well, you have new science experiments to do, which lets you unlock other nodes.
- If you unlock the nodes with improved parts first, then well, you can reach new destinations where to conduct your existing experiments, which lets you unlock other nodes.

As a new player, your rockets are probably not yet built as well as they could be. As a result, you probably think you can't go to many new places yet. You'd be surprised! You can easily land anywhere on Mun and Minmus and return, with no more rocketry nodes unlocked than where the Terrier is (you'll probably want at least the static solar panels at the bottom of the tree too, though). Heck, technically you could do it with Reliants only, but that isn't particularly fun except maybe for the challenge. The point I'm trying to make is: you can go further than you think you can, if only you build it right. And that "building it right" is a big part of the learning curve of KSP. If you're new, don't sweat it, it will come to you in time

As an example of what you can do with low tech parts, this lifter takes only 70 science to unlock - a mere 25 for all the relevant parts, and 45 more for the struts that keep it from wobbling. And it pushes up to maybe 32 tons to low Kerbin orbit. In the screenshot, there's an orange Jumbo tank out of view on top of this thing, which weighs 36 tons and makes the margins a bit uncomfortably tight, but a few tons less and it'll be just fine. With 32 tons in orbit, you could push like six fully featured landers to the Mun at the same time! Of course, the rocket as shown is a bit contrived because it requires a tier 2 VAB and a tier 3 launchpad due to its sheer size and mass, and by the time you can pay for those upgrades, you will definitely have more than 70 science... but it is still an example of what you can do with a very limited selection of parts. Low technology doesn't hold you back nearly as much as you think it does!

Edited June 2, 2016 by Streetwind

[steuben]

Turn on  some of the strategies in the admin facility. I've got Unpaid Research Program and Outsourced R&D at the 25% level going. Then just grind the tourist and sat contracts.

[wumpus]

The order of unlocking the tech tree is hopefully less important than it sounds.  Often, the most important bits are scientific instruments.  Two critical items are electronics (probe core with SRS and torque, allows Bob to easily pilot the craft as well as solar panels which are critical in going beyond Kerbin's orbit), nuclear propulsion (moving big craft around in space, especially interplanetary).

Just how much science are you milking from each biome?  Some notes:

You can get an EVA report while flying in orbit over each biome.  Note you can't warp while hanging onto the craft, you have to pop in and out when it looks like you are flying over a different biome.  Expect to do the same thing with the gravioli detector when you get it.

Crew reports and EVA reports (assuming crewed flights) can hit every biome.  Themometers, barometers (and maybe some later ones) can be used as often as you need.  Mystery goo and materials bay require a scientist to reset it every time (thus making the Probodobdyne OCTO + Bob a good combination) if you want full science everywhere.

Learn to do the science dance (it gets tiring, and may cause you to go to sandbox).  Get a crew report, EVA report, themometer, barometer, (and if you have a scientist grab the mystery goo and materials bay science and reset).  During EVA take the data from the capsule and store it (for some reason you can store one crew report per biome, but until you take it out and store it (from outside the ship) you can only have one.  If you landed take a surface sample (unlock R&D building to level one before visiting Minmus and Mun) and also take an EVA report while hanging onto the spacecraft (counts as flying over).  Again this has to be stored in the spacecraft before your EVA on the ground as you can only carry one EVA report around.

Do the science dance everywhere.  The launch pad, the runway (just launch a capsule covered with scientific instruments from the hanger and you will be at the runway).  Wherever you land (often water, but try to land on the rest of Kerbin.  Warning, mountains are dangerous).  In low atmosphere, high atmosphere, low orbit, high orbit for each planet or moon (of course, the two early moons have no atmosphere, but still have low and high orbit).  Each moon has a lot of biomes and getting >3000 science is possible on Minmus (and pretty easy if you can leave an orbiting fuel tank and dock with it).

I'd avoid overdoing science on Kerbin.  It is slow and tedious (note you can physically warp time and use (alt?) to make kerbols run, but it is still slow).  Best way to hit all the KSC biomes is to unlock aircraft and build a jet-powered car that is covered with scientific instruments (with Bob at the wheel).  This should easily cover the science needed to unlock the aircraft, but you could probably send a probe to another planet in the time it takes to visit all of KSC.

Probably the most overpowered way to get science is the mobile processing lab.  I'm still a bit hazy on how it works (they nerfed some of the OP parts for 1.1), but it appears that for ideal use it should be orbiting the Mun or Minmus, and preferably landed on Minmus (it will generate science faster if on the eternally lit poles, but that requires serious scouting and extra-mobile labs).  Not sure if it makes more sense to do Kerbin (ground, atmosphere, orbital) science in Kerbin orbit, that might be a good start to the MPL, but  it might "waste" some possible science.

[Boovie]

I appreciate all the replies. I'm able to get to the Mun but am having some trouble landing so I think I could use some continued tweaking of my rocket builds/launch profiles.

[bewing]

Landing on the Mun is pretty tricky, indeed. You can get a lot of science without landing though. EVA reports in low orbit over each biome, and gravioli reports in both low and high orbits -- it's worth a lot.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I find the big winners early on are surface samples and Science Jr. If you are struggling with Mun landings try Minmus first, it's way easier, plus you get a crap-ton of science there. Like others have said, you can do an orbit around the Mun and clean house with EVA reports too. I generally avoid Kerbin science except for places you end up anyway, eg launchpad, atmosphere, where ever I land. Hit Minmus, you'll feel like you cheated when you come back home

[cantab]

Build a car loaded with science experiments and drive to a building at KSC and run the experiments. Quick injection of science, virtually free money-wise, I use it when I just need a bit more to get a tech node I want.

If you don't have rover wheels yet, use aeroplane wheels and a small jet or rocket engine for propulsion. If you don't have aeroplane wheels either build a cylinder and roll it around with command pod / reaction wheel torque.

[Warzouz]

Well, I play with 50% science income (which don't change the gameplay much). I didn't felt "lock" by science. Sure, you may need to do an extra science mission before doing you big interplanetary mission because you want to unlock parts before departure. but that usually require a single trip top Mun or Mimus. Even at 50% I unlocked the whole tech tree by stripping Mun, Minmus and Ike (+ 1 landing on Duna and KSC science stripping)

[StarStryder]

On 6/1/2016 at 6:02 PM, Boovie said:

I appreciate all the replies. I'm able to get to the Mun but am having some trouble landing so I think I could use some continued tweaking of my rocket builds/launch profiles.

Go for Minmus first.  It's not much more dV needed to get there but since it's gravity is much weaker, landing and lifting off again is much easier than the Mun.

The next thing to understand is that if you can reach the moons then Duna and Eve are not that much further away in terms of dV.  It just takes longer to fly there.  Don't worry about landing, just send an unmanned probe to collect and transmit science.  If you can manage it (either through more dV or careful gravity assists you can do Ike and Gilly relatively easily.  Since it's unmanned, you don't have to worry about returning the probe if you don't want to.

[Andersenman]

On 1.6.2016 at 9:43 AM, Streetwind said:

this lifter

... is an outright obscenely blunt illustration of the Rocket Equation.

 

(This is a good thing.)

[Gojira1000]

I more or less walked through the science and craft design for stock career (complete with terrible audio) in the thread below - was 1.05 but nothing has changed drastically.