Science handling in the science lab

[magnemoe]

Then I use science labs I tend to top it up with data, then visit the base again after 20 days and transmit the researched science and do an new refilling of data and it can take around 100 data each time as around 100 data has been converted to 500 science who is max the lab can hold.

Works nice but ff you have some high value science like an surface sample from Pol with  this is less worth processing in the science lab than an eva report unless the lab hold lite science. 
The surface sample is 444 data who gives 2220 science however the lab has to hold less than 306 data to fill it. 
Now the real boring part is that the lab produced less science and use less data as the amount of data goes down going from 350 to 300 data will take longer than going from 750 to 650 and give less than half the science. 
Why could not the science production been independent on the amount of data?

[dangerhamster]

As the amount of raw data goes down it becomes harder for them to pull verifiable facts from the remainder, this naturally slows down the discovery rate. Can only be solved by installing the creationist mod I'm afraid.

[Snark]

It's a game design choice, that's all.  Science labs crank out science faster if they've got more to work with.  It's how they work, so you simply plan around it.  As I understand it, the rate they crank out science goes down when there's less science in the lab, but the amount stays the same:  i.e. the total science-lab yield for that EVA report will be the same, whether you put the report into an empty lab or a nearly-full one.  It just takes longer to extract the value, that's all.

In any case, if you're out at Jool, you've got all the time in the world to process stuff before coming home, right?  Plus, for full-value-upon-transmit stuff like EVA reports, you can have your cake and eat it, too:  just grab two copies of the EVA report.  One to transmit, one to process in the lab.

(Admittedly, the issue doesn't come up in my own games, because I generally don't bother with science labs at all-- they feel OP to me, generate too much science for free.  And in any case, by the time I get out to Jool in a career, I have long since maxed out the tech tree, so I'm gathering science only to "count coup" on the various moons.  Therefore trying to max out science points via the lab simply isn't relevant to me.)

[Mister Kerman]

That's too bad. I have a "bring everything home" policy, which comes with it's own drawback of possibly losing the entire mission worth of data. I'm still inside of Kerbin's SOI though.

 

Honestly I've never seen the point of the labs. They're too heavy for me to want to lug them around, and maximum science value for each condition has never been a priority for me. I think there might possibly be even enough science from doing lunar landings on Kerbin's moons to completely unlock the tech tree. Past that you'll basically be trading 100 percent of your science for money or reputation.

 

They definitely make stations look cooler though... Someone enlighten me.

[Corona688]

11 minutes ago, Mister Kerman said:

Honestly I've never seen the point of the labs. They're too heavy for me to want to lug them around, and maximum science value for each condition has never been a priority for me. I think there might possibly be even enough science from doing lunar landings on Kerbin's moons to completely unlock the tech tree. Past that you'll basically be trading 100 percent of your science for money or reputation.

They've completely transformed career mode for me.  Suddenly I've got a reason to relax, stop forcing myself to do every little mission,a good reason to bother training my crew, and incentive to timewarp.

If I'd known about the exponential decay, though, I might have brought it all to one lab instead of splitting it into two   Oh well, there'll be data aplenty when the multilander returns.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Corona688

[Snark]

35 minutes ago, Mister Kerman said:

I think there might possibly be even enough science from doing lunar landings on Kerbin's moons to completely unlock the tech tree.

This is, in fact, the case.  It's pretty easy to max out the tech tree by strip-mining Mun and Minmus for science.

35 minutes ago, Mister Kerman said:

Honestly I've never seen the point of the labs.

It basically comes down to play style.  Different players have very different play styles.  One player's fun challenge is another player's unpleasant grind.  For my own play style, I agree with you-- I've got zero use for science labs, I basically never use them unless I've got a contract that requires that I have one on the ship.

On the other hand, for other players, the science lab can fill a hole that solves what is, for them, an unpleasant grind, as Corona describes above:

27 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

They've completely transformed career mode for me.  Suddenly I've got a reason to relax, stop forcing myself to do every little mission,a good reason to bother training my crew, and incentive to timewarp.

It does mean that the science lab is a little bit complicated and... well, "idiosyncratic" is perhaps the best word.  Because it's really a game-design compromise, an attempt to allow players with radically different play styles to be able to enjoy the game in their own ways.

Trying to build a thing that solves player A's game experience without breaking player B's is a really hard problem in game design.  Therefore, I'm not inclined to kvetch about the lab, even though it's useless to me personally.  I just don't use it, problem solved. 

[Terwin]

I like how the science lab will let me store multiple copies of a given experiment, works great with goo, materials, gravioli, seismic and surface sample experiments, letting you get full science recovery in a single visit.

As far as actual science data generated by the lab, it can be useful for purchasing all those empty nodes in the community science tree while you are on an extra-planetary sojourn, but is not a terribly big deal unless you have mods that populate those 1500+ science nodes.  

 

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by Terwin

[Tyko]

I saw the same challenges and I've been fooling around with modding the behavior (my first attempt). For my play style I want it to give me a remote way to generate roughly the same science I would have gotten if I'd flown it home. My changes do two things:

• Bring the Data -> Science conversion ratio closer to 1:1 instead of the 1:5 conversion rate of the vanilla lab- I'm trying to collect in a remote location, not dramatically increase my total science earned.
• Shorten conversion times to days/weeks instead of weeks/months - the basic game provides instant science at the KSC. I wanted it to take some time, but I also didn't want to have to time warp to start seeing results.

So far it's working pretty well. If I think I didn't break anything I'll probably ask for some expert input from the forums on whether I'm creating unintended consequences.

Also, I created a material science storage cooler based on the Goo experiment model that you can strap to a rocket and store a 2nd copy of experiments in 

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, Corona688 said:

They've completely transformed career mode for me.  Suddenly I've got a reason to relax, stop forcing myself to do every little mission,a good reason to bother training my crew, and incentive to timewarp.

If I'd known about the exponential decay, though, I might have brought it all to one lab instead of splitting it into two   Oh well, there'll be data aplenty when the multilander returns.

Same here, all my bases and capital ships has labs, gives them an purpose and I have to check them every 20 day and check the life support situation.
Currently moving science from Mun to Minmus base who is the old and start to run out of science data from Minmus.
The interplanetary missions has started gathering spare science to be put in an library in LKO for other missions to use. 

I got the point with the current system however its encourage micromanagement. Had been better if you had an flat output at least after filling the lab completely. 


 

[SorryDave]

I use labs all the time in career mode, mostly for generating funds. Not a lot, I think 500 science=$50K.  I don't use them much to unlock the  tech tree, as I usually unlock a lot of the tree within the first 100 game days.

Kerbins moons generally get one in space and on the ground. One thing that is nice about them is that they can "use" science from data that has already been collected. It sometimes makes sense to collect two sets of experiments if you visit a new place. One set to take home and one set to convert to data in a lab.