Any more science I can get out of Kerbin's neighborhood?

[DaElite101]

I've scraped almost all the science out of the Mun and Minmus, and I'm not ready to go interplanetary yet. So I was thinking, "Why not visit the poles?" and I made 3 craft that I repurposed for finishing Mun temperature scans. If I visit the North and South poles, will they count as different biomes?

[Leftotian]

Nope. Mun only has 15 biomes, poles are 1 biome.

[DD_bwest]

Sometimes its forgot, but every biome has a low orbit EVA report you can grab.

also this helped me alot   http://imgur.com/gallery/a7sKY

[Zhetaan]

You can double the surface science from Kerbin by getting splashed in deserts, mountains, et al, and landed in water.  You'll have to search for them, though.  Landed in water is easy for some experiments if you just stand on your ship, but there are little islands and such that still count as the water biome.  Splashed in a 'land' biome is easier to find; anywhere the terrain dips below 0m is wet, and not all of those places are assigned to the water biome.  In fact, I believe every biome on Kerbin has both landed and splashed versions.

[Blaarkies]

Following on what @Zhetaan said, there are many binomes/situations on kerbin.

-Landed at water: Launch south bound, heading about 195'. Just before you reach the south pole, there is a seperated glacier floating as an island...but it is marked as water(ocean) binome

-Splashed down at Desert: 200km west of KSC(yonder the mountains) there is a small desert binomes(on the same "africa" KSC continent) that overlaps with a small oasis pool of water.

-Splashed down at grasslands: Near the desert-splashed-down-pool, just try the pools next door

-Splashed down at tundra: 200km north of the desert-splashed-down-pool, there will be more pool close to shore...there is supposedly highland close-by, but I can't find it. Instead, there is some "Tundra" pool. Don't ask me how it is on the equator 

-Splashed down at highland/mountains: Look North-East from KSC(45' heading)...look about 600km in that direction(almost halfway around the planet) there is a massive river streaming out of mountains. The river seed point is "Mountain" and 2 pools further down are "Highlands"

-Splashed down at Ice caps:...no idea. I will start a fire, melt the landing zone until the craft is submerged in melted ice...thats splashed down, right? 

-Splashed down at Shores: just roll off the runway into water...slowly is a good idea

-Splashed down at Badlands: The same goes, i think there is a pool close to there.

...not on Kerbin, but close at least
-gravity scans over EVERY binome from low orbit(any planet). below 200km?
-gravity scans over EVERY binome from high orbit(any planet) above 200km?

-m700 Survey scanner. Once for every planet(sad Jool excluded). It gives like 60 science points?

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Press Alt-F12.

Then select the box that say "Show biomes by color in map."

Now you can see all the different science biomes on the Mun/Minmus sorted into a handy color coded chart.

Edited August 4, 2016 by Rocket In My Pocket

[mk1980]

i think it's worth pointing out that a ship that can land on the mun and return to kerbin has enough deltaV to get into an orbit of duna, ike or eve. probably also gilly. it's a more complicated to set up a transfer to another planet (or back to kerbin once there), but the pure deltaV requirements aren't that great

[Snark]

11 hours ago, DaElite101 said:

I've scraped almost all the science out of the Mun and Minmus, and I'm not ready to go interplanetary yet.

Out of curiosity... what's the status of your tech tree?

If you've unlocked all the science instruments, you can easily max out your tech tree completely just by strip-mining the Mun and Minmus for science.  You don't even need to hit every single Mun biome.  If you fully cover Minmus, and just hit the Mun biomes that are within 30 degrees or so of the equator, that's plenty to max it out.  You don't even need to try to cover all the Kerbin biomes (they're worth much less science than Mun/Minmus; as soon as you get enough tech to reach Kerbin's moons, you can pretty much abandon Kerbin itself as a science source, it's just too little return for too much effort, unless you just happen to like exploring Kerbin).

If you think you've been "reasonably" complete on Mun and Minmus, and you haven't maxed out the tech tree, then it means you've missed some really important science source in the places you've already visited, so the best way we could help you would be to figure out what you've missed.

 

[DaElite101]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

Out of curiosity... what's the status of your tech tree?

If you've unlocked all the science instruments, you can easily max out your tech tree completely just by strip-mining the Mun and Minmus for science.  You don't even need to hit every single Mun biome.  If you fully cover Minmus, and just hit the Mun biomes that are within 30 degrees or so of the equator, that's plenty to max it out.  You don't even need to try to cover all the Kerbin biomes (they're worth much less science than Mun/Minmus; as soon as you get enough tech to reach Kerbin's moons, you can pretty much abandon Kerbin itself as a science source, it's just too little return for too much effort, unless you just happen to like exploring Kerbin).

If you think you've been "reasonably" complete on Mun and Minmus, and you haven't maxed out the tech tree, then it means you've missed some really important science source in the places you've already visited, so the best way we could help you would be to figure out what you've missed.

 

I haven't maxed out the tech tree, I think I've been reasonably sure I've taken all the science out of the biomes. I don't want to send manned missions to the Mun in fear that I won't have enough fuel to take off after landing and have to send a rescue vehicle. I'm not sure what I missed on Minmus, though. I know I've went to the slopes, greater flats, and lowlands. Right now I'm going to the poles  of Minmus with a probe.

[Plusck]

21 minutes ago, DaElite101 said:

I haven't maxed out the tech tree, I think I've been reasonably sure I've taken all the science out of the biomes. I don't want to send manned missions to the Mun in fear that I won't have enough fuel to take off after landing and have to send a rescue vehicle. I'm not sure what I missed on Minmus, though. I know I've went to the slopes, greater flats, and lowlands. Right now I'm going to the poles  of Minmus with a probe.

Each of the "flats" on Minmus is a separate biome, so that makes several biomes you can easily visit still.

If you're looking to max out science, you really need to use the science facility's "archive" feature - and you'll be able to see quite quickly how many biomes have been covered and which experiments you've missed out on. I'd also recommend checking it relatively often, because it doesn't take any time if you're already at KSC but it tends to get to be TMI to process easily if you wait until you need to find missing bits of science here and there...

[Snark]

7 hours ago, DaElite101 said:

I haven't maxed out the tech tree, I think I've been reasonably sure I've taken all the science out of the biomes. I don't want to send manned missions to the Mun in fear that I won't have enough fuel to take off after landing and have to send a rescue vehicle. I'm not sure what I missed on Minmus, though. I know I've went to the slopes, greater flats, and lowlands. Right now I'm going to the poles  of Minmus with a probe.

Well, a couple of things:

1. If you're not sending manned missions, you're missing out on tons of science.  No EVA reports (those are per-biome, twice, since "in space near" is per-biome).  No crew reports.  No surface samples (those are juicy).  No re-use of instruments if you're visiting multiple bioes, unless you pack multiple copies of each one.  Seriously, you should go manned.
2. Are you not returning your probes?  I'm guessing not, because you expressed fear of "won't have enough fuel to take off after landing".  Are you just transmitting the science?  If so, you're losing more than half of it!

Your problem is not that you need more places to go-- you just need to get all the science out of the places you're already visiting. 

[Spricigo]

10 hours ago, DaElite101 said:

 I don't want to send manned missions to the Mun in fear that I won't have enough fuel to take off after landing and have to send a rescue vehicle. 

Don't worry,  test. Send some probes to fly by minus/Mun and come back safe to kerbin, then send kerbals  to do the same.  Send probes to land and come back, then send kerbals.

[Loren Pechtel]

On 8/4/2016 at 7:38 AM, Snark said:

Out of curiosity... what's the status of your tech tree?

If you've unlocked all the science instruments, you can easily max out your tech tree completely just by strip-mining the Mun and Minmus for science.  You don't even need to hit every single Mun biome.  If you fully cover Minmus, and just hit the Mun biomes that are within 30 degrees or so of the equator, that's plenty to max it out.  You don't even need to try to cover all the Kerbin biomes (they're worth much less science than Mun/Minmus; as soon as you get enough tech to reach Kerbin's moons, you can pretty much abandon Kerbin itself as a science source, it's just too little return for too much effort, unless you just happen to like exploring Kerbin).

If you think you've been "reasonably" complete on Mun and Minmus, and you haven't maxed out the tech tree, then it means you've missed some really important science source in the places you've already visited, so the best way we could help you would be to figure out what you've missed.

 

Second this.  My current game is on Moderate and after almost cleaning the moons of science I've maxed the tree plus some SpaceY parts that take more research than anything that's stock.

[Snark]

21 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Don't worry,  test. Send some probes to fly by minus/Mun and come back safe to kerbin, then send kerbals  to do the same.  Send probes to land and come back, then send kerbals.

^ This.  Or if you want to get really cautious, send your crewed Mun lander to the Mun and back... without any crew aboard. 

Or if that's too expensive, do a save on the launchpad and you can revert back to it if things go pear-shaped.

[Spricigo]

16 hours ago, Snark said:

^ This.  Or if you want to get really cautious, send your crewed Mun lander to the Mun and back... without any crew aboard. 

Was about to say exactly that but felt like building confidence is more in need than design testing.

I still remember my first landings and how 'creative'  they turned out because I was too nervous to follow my own plans. 

[DaElite101]

On 8/4/2016 at 8:23 PM, Snark said:

Well, a couple of things:

1. If you're not sending manned missions, you're missing out on tons of science.  No EVA reports (those are per-biome, twice, since "in space near" is per-biome).  No crew reports.  No surface samples (those are juicy).  No re-use of instruments if you're visiting multiple bioes, unless you pack multiple copies of each one.  Seriously, you should go manned.
2. Are you not returning your probes?  I'm guessing not, because you expressed fear of "won't have enough fuel to take off after landing".  Are you just transmitting the science?  If so, you're losing more than half of it!

Your problem is not that you need more places to go-- you just need to get all the science out of the places you're already visiting. 

My plan is to transmit the science, then send a manned mission to land in that same spot, just like Spricigo said. Also, after sending a few more missions, I know that I do in fact have enough fuel to take off and return to Kerbin with nuclear engines. I like to go to Minmus since it's easier to land and the return is easier. Whenever I visit the Mun though, I usually get a bad escape and will have to get a kerbal out to push. Right now, my latest lander is going to the Mun and Minmus. I'm sending a refueling ship to Minmus which is my craft's first destination to refill the craft and put a tourist onboard. Can you transfer tourists across ships while docked, by the way?

EDIT: Okay, forget the tourist. I'm just sending a probe with fuel and a parachute module to the lander.

Edited August 6, 2016 by DaElite101

[Snark]

18 hours ago, DaElite101 said:

I'm sending a refueling ship to Minmus which is my craft's first destination to refill the craft and put a tourist onboard. Can you transfer tourists across ships while docked, by the way?

EDIT: Okay, forget the tourist. I'm just sending a probe with fuel and a parachute module to the lander.

Yes, you can transfer tourists around with docking ports.  What they can't do is go EVA.

Sounds like you decided to practice with completely-unmanned return missions first, and that's a great way to practice.  Just a suggestion, though, for future reference:  when you do graduate to sending manned missions at some point, if you feel like being extra cautious, you may want to consider sticking with astronauts-only (i.e. no tourists) for the first few land-and-return missions until you feel comfortable with it.

Rationale:  It's a lot easier to rescue an astronaut than a tourist if something goes wrong.  The astronaut's ability to go EVA gives a lot of flexibility to scenarios that could be tricky without it.  Some examples:

• Land the Mun lander, yay!  Except it topples over on landing and now can't take off again.  Solution:  Send a rescue ship (with an empty command pod) to land nearby.  Crewmember goes EVA from the stranded ship, walks / flies / rides a rover to the rescue ship, gets in, flies home.
• Land the Mun lander, yay!  Except it turns out not to have quite enough dV to get back into Mun orbit from the surface, let alone go home.  Solution:  Take off, then when it runs out of fuel, crew goes EVA and uses jetpack thrusters to complete Mun orbit.  Send rescue ship to pick up the stranded crew member from Mun orbit.

There are other scenarios that can be problematic as well, but those are some good examples.  The moral of the story is that in general, tourists are functionally identical to crew when everything goes as planned... but if something goes badly wrong, you have a lot more options with crew than you do with tourists, which makes crew easier to rescue.

Eventually, this will all be old hat to you and your missions will run smoothly without a hitch, like they're on rails, because you've got plenty of practice under your belt.    And then you'll easily and confidently send tourists pretty much anywhere you'd send an astronaut.  But if you're working through the exciting early-learning phase where things often go wrong and you need to cope with disasters, be aware that crew gives you more wiggle room to recover.