MPL-LG-2 data storage?

[strider3]

I currently have an MPL-LG-2 landed on Minmus and retrieving scientific data. I have a scientist aboard. I have transmitted my first batch of data but I still show that 337 worth of data taking up space? (see pic below). Can my kerbal clear this data or is the mission over once I reach 500 data? If so, how does the scientist clear that data so I can keep researching?

 

Vic the Newbal

[Zhetaan]

You keep researching.  The idea is that scientists, over time, convert the data into science points.  When they do this, the data points go away and science points take their place.  The reason you're not seeing this happen very quickly is because your conversion rate is low:  you're only getting .2284 science points per day.  Since the conversion ratio of data to science is 1:5, that means you're using up around .04 data per day.

Get a higher level scientist in that lab.  Better yet, get two.  Even with top-level scientists, though, you should understand that this is meant to be long-term research.  Those scientists will be in that lab for a long time--think on the order of a few hundred days.  Also understand that because you get five science points for every data point, the science will fill and you will need to revisit the lab to transmit it.

Furthermore, remember that research is exponential, meaning that as the data points are used up, research slows.  In order to keep a lab as a going concern and producing science points as quickly as possible, you need to visit it periodically to add more science experiments as well as to transmit what science points have accumulated.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Zhetaan

[bewing]

You transmit science points, not data. Data is what you do the research on.

It's a four step process. 1) You load scientific experimental results. 2) You process the experiments into many points of "data" (up to the limit of the MPL -- 500 in your case). 3) The MPL/scientist slowly processes the "data" into science points by "researching". 4) You visit the MPL and transmit the accumulated science points back to KSC.

The data is just an intermediary step. It gets used up very slowly over time as it gets converted into science points. You want to keep loading in experiments until you've filled up the buffer for data. As the data gets slowly used up, you want to add more experiments and fill it back up again.

So everything is still fine in your MPL. You have more room to store more data if you can, and the scientist is researching away -- slowly converting that remaining 338 points of data into lots and lots of points of science for you to transmit home.

Actually, I suspect you are under the following misimpression: You loaded up a bunch of experiments and converted them into 500 points of data. And then you "waited" (with a timewarp) for the data to be converted into 500 science -- and you thought it would be a one-to-one conversion, so that all the data would be used up when it got converted into 500 science? It's not a 1:1 conversion. A little data gets converted into a lot of science. So you got your first batch of science points, and now you still have a lot of data left to convert.

Edited June 29, 2016 by bewing

[wumpus]

Do you have any more science in the lab (i.e. did it tell you to stop when it filled up the first time)?  If so, keep filling it to 500 (or 750 if you upgrade to 1.1) to increase the rate the scientists generate science.  Just review science and hit the yellow button to convert science to data.