MPL Data procesing and reasons to get out of Kerbin (there aren't)

[The Aziz]

I like to use it as main part of surface bases. Even if I have finished the tech tree, and I have no use for science except smelting it into funds. Mostly because it looks nice, and makes Kerbals look like they're actually doing something instead of just sitting in empty Hitchhiker.

Also my first lab on Duna helped me finish tech tree back then.

[WanderingKid]

10 hours ago, EstebanLB said:

But the wiki states that the ammount of science per data is always 5, My concern being at wich rate said data gets converted to science

You're correct, I was wrong.  Sorry about that.

I misunderstood something when I read it in the wiki, and never tested it directly.  I'll step aside now, as others (such as Snark) are dead on and involved.

[canisin]

2 hours ago, Streetwind said:

This is why I personally agree with EstebanLB in thinking that the lab should reward intelligent usage more. And I've already started tweaking the lab with my own stats for all future games I will be playing

Hello! What kind of tweaks are you talking about?

I still don't understand the lab fully, because I haven't used it yet. I had used it a little bit in an old career a few years back, but I hardly remember. I want to use it, but I want to keep my science play as challenging as possible. 

Can the variables of the lab be modified? Would you for example suggest that the modifier for data from different locations be set to 0? So that, you have to ship your lab around? Or is it possible to make the once-per-experiment rule global across all labs?

[Streetwind]

1 hour ago, canisin said:

Can the variables of the lab be modified? Would you for example suggest that the modifier for data from different locations be set to 0? So that, you have to ship your lab around? Or is it possible to make the once-per-experiment rule global across all labs?

No, you can't do either of these things.

The way that experiments are marked as used for single labs only is inherent to KSP and would need to be changed by Squad at a base level, or perhaps by a modder writing a custom plugin, if it is at all possible to hook into that. You also cannot zero out lab operation outside the correct SOI, for multiple reasons. One, any calculation of A x B x C always becomes zero if any one of the three is zero. Two, the three modifiers are not created equal, so it's not as easy as you think it is.

 

To change the lab's performance, you modify ModuleScienceLab and ModuleScienceConverter using a Module Manager patch. The relevant values are "SurfaceBonus" and "ContextBonus" in the former, and "scienceMultiplier" in the latter.

You'll notice that the three values are split between two modules, and this poses a slight problem. You see, SurfaceBonus and ContextBonus modify the amount of data that is put into the lab. An experiment that normally yields 100 science will generate 100 data for the lab, with a 10% bonus if the lab is landed, and/or a 25% bonus for being in the right SOI. So in ideal circumstances you could get 137.5 data into the lab. Only then, in the second step of consuming the data, the basic x5 multiplier is factored in. Every point of data converts into 5 science by default, which multiplies that 137.5 ideal data payout into the final 687,5 actual science payout from a nominally 100-science experiment.

You can lower the ScienceMultiplier, but be aware that (unlike the bonuses) it is an integer field, accepting whole numbers only. So, since 0 is not an option, the smallest value you can give it is 1. Thus you will always end up with a minimum 100% payout. The 100-science experiment puts 100 data into the lab without any bonuses - no, you cannot influence this default number in any way, shape or form - and the lab converts it 1-for-1 into science.

Then you might think: "not ideal, but okay, at least I can make the location multiplier be 6.0, so the experiment worth 100 science puts 600 points of data into the lab, and I get 600 science points out of that". And you would be correct. Except, you now have a new problem: the lab only stores a maximum of 750 data to begin with. And there are experiments in stock KSP that already generate more than 500 points of data after factoring in the 10% and 25% bonuses, which is why Squad had to patch the lab a while back to raise its data storage from 500 to 750. And now you want to apply a sixfold multiplier to a 500-point experiment? You're going to need a bigger bucket, good sir!

Thankfully, that too can be changed, via the dataStorage field in ModuleScienceLab. Easy change to make, just pick a higher number, right? Wrong. Because, remember how research speed scales with data stored? By increasing this number, you greatly accelerate research speed. So you need to go into ModuleScienceConverter again, and tweak things even further. Unfortunately researchTime is another integer field, and since it's acting as an exponent in the underlying math, changing it by a whole number (as is required with an int) has a freaking ginormous impact. That's why you also need dataProcessingMultiplier, thankfully a floating point field for once, for more sane adjustments. Through a combination of these two settings, you need to tune your research speed to a value you're comfortable with. There's no guideline here - it depends directly on what you set for dataStorage as well as your personal opinion. Though I'd say trying for the same time-to-empty for a fully loaded lab in comparison to stock makes a good starting point.

Unfortunately, the only way to know that time-to-empty is to have a fully loaded lab in flight ingame... one in a stock setup and one in your modded game, both with identically leveled scientists.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Streetwind

[Blue_J]

A few comments:

1. If you try to plan your missions with any kind of game-time efficiency, the residual benefit (whether science or converted money) from the MPL becomes far, far less dominant. Around mid-game, when you've simultaneously got 4 vehicles headed to Duna in the same transfer window, a probe headed for Dres, and are running tourist missions in the Kerbin system, then you're not really going to want to just timewarp into the future 60 days at a time like people seem to be doing. The income from having a couple labs is nice and residual, which I think is what was intended. (I understand that eventually we all give up and timewarp our missions to Jool, but still, that's pretty late in the game.) 

2. I've been playing KSP on and off for almost three years. I am very good at landing on the Mun/Minmus. Biome-hopping to juice every last drop of science from the Mun/Minmus is a pretty good way to get bored with the game and make me put it down for another 6 months. As such, I'm not opposed to making it viable to not hit all 17 Mun biomes every time you start a new career.

3. A good set of mods/game settings can do a lot to nerf indiscriminate use of the MPL. Right now I'm running Community Tech Tree, USI Life Support, and a handful of other mods that provide some high-end parts. I also have tech buy-in on. This does a few things: First, it provides large science and money sinks, making it very inefficient to fill out the tech tree around Kerbin. (The higher nodes are very expensive.) Second, using life support means you can't just leave your guys in stations for years at a time, you need to bring them home every so often. Third, the ability to get overpowered toys that take multiple missions to other planets to afford keeps you motivated.

At the end of the day, the game is about trying to go farther out and do new things. It is viable to put 10 MPL stations in Kerbin orbit and make money by converting ore to monopropellant on the runway, but at that point I'm not sure why you bother.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Blue_J
Sometimes I don't proofread when I have to hurry up and finish a post

[canisin]

@Streetwind @Blue_J Thanks a lot for the information and comments. My first thought was to lower the science conversion rate from 5 to .1 and increasing the context modifier to compensate. But as you have explained this completely screws up the lab speed. Another approach might be to tweak data scales of experiments (I think this is also configurable), but then again, that would screw up transmission costs. I could then go on and modify antenna bandwidths, but obviously everything is having a huge chain effect

It looks like modifying the lab is not worth the effort. For the time being, I think I will ignore it. I am playing a heavily modded game similar to Blue_J and I think I have enough experiments to keep me going. 

But, Streetwind, you still said you were preparing your own tweaks, care to share?

Edited February 27, 2017 by canisin

[Streetwind]

58 minutes ago, canisin said:

But, Streetwind, you still said you were preparing your own tweaks, care to share?

Probably not of much use to you - I'm making a custom modded career game right now where I hand calibrate nearly everything that Module Manager can realistically get is codey fingers into. Hand-modified CTT with new node costs, hand-redistributed parts. New values for all science experiments, including modded. Space center with 4 building tiers with redone breakpoints. Custom engine progression, both liquid and SRB, for all sizes from 0.625m to 5m. Started tweaking RealPlume graphics because I was feeling nitpicky about how some of it looked. Probe cores restatted. Parachutes restatted. Solar system replacement, upscaled in size, global physics constants manually adjusted, science multipliers manually adjusted for every celestial body. Fully redesigned USI Life Support effects for every part that can conceivably have room for a Kerbal. And a To-Do list of similar size left to tackle, not including all the new ideas I'll be getting as time goes on. It's an insane project and I've been at it on and off for months and I'll probably never finish... but hey, it's all about the journey, right?

I intend this run to require the science lab to make reasonable tech progress. As such, I'm not yet sure how the final values for it will look like, because I haven't gotten to the point where I can test how the progression works without it. And even if I had final values, I'm not sure they'd make much sense for a stock career.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Streetwind

[canisin]

11 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Probably not of much use to you - I'm making a custom modded career game right now where I hand calibrate nearly everything that Module Manager can realistically get is codey fingers into. Hand-modified CTT with new node costs, hand-redistributed parts. New values for all science experiments, including modded. Space center with 4 building tiers with redone breakpoints. Custom engine progression, both liquid and SRB, for all sizes from 0.625m to 5m. Started tweaking RealPlume graphics because I was feeling nitpicky about how some of it looked. Probe cores restatted. Parachutes restatted. Solar system replacement, upscaled in size, global physics constants manually adjusted, science multipliers manually adjusted for every celestial body. Fully redesigned USI Life Support effects for every part that can conceivably have room for a Kerbal. And a To-Do list of similar size left to tackle, not including all the new ideas I'll be getting as time goes on. It's an insane project and I've been at it on and off for months and I'll probably never finish... but hey, it's all about the journey, right?

I intend this run to require the science lab to make reasonable tech progress. As such, I'm not yet sure how the final values for it will look like, because I haven't gotten to the point where I can test how the progression works without it. And even if I had final values, I'm not sure they'd make much sense for a stock career.

Well, I also obsessed about tweaking my own career game, but I had much smaller ambitions. But even then, I felt like I had to give up at some point. Good luck with your design!

[EstebanLB]

On Kerbin alone you can fill the MPL like 3 times if I calculate correctly. And that would last for a looong time. Timewarping for the MPL alone is exactly what I wouldn't do, it's extremely boring. And I plan to recover the lab and splash it in the KSC to get that money back.
The thing is, that right now, bringing the MPL to other bodies won't give you sicence faster, it will just allow you to fill the MPL more times but that only pays of in the veeeery long run. I still need to visit other places to get bigger ammounts of science instantly, by either coming back or transmiting, but the MPL just won't give you that same benefit

[Leafbaron]

I can see a benefit to sending a MPL to other bodies when the prime directive of the mission is colonization. I.e. a one way trip to the other body where there is no intention of the kerbals ever returning. This way you can get the maximum science from your experiments instead of transmitting them at a reduced percentage of the total science value. 

[EstebanLB]

58 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

I can see a benefit to sending a MPL to other bodies when the prime directive of the mission is colonization. I.e. a one way trip to the other body where there is no intention of the kerbals ever returning. This way you can get the maximum science from your experiments instead of transmitting them at a reduced percentage of the total science value. 

But you won't get the science points right away, It may take months or years to have them

[Haruspex]

 

17 hours ago, Snark said:

I wouldn't call the lab "unbalanced".  It's designed to provide an alternate play style for people who don't want to grind lots of biome-hopping.

The two main schools of thought on the science lab:

• "It's great, because now I don't have to do all that biome hopping, or go to other planets!"
• "It's terrible, because now I don't have to do all that biome hopping, or go to other planets!"

I have zero use for the MPL myself, since I like the biome hopping and going to other planets, so it's a buzz-kill.  So I never use it, ever, at all.

It levels up crew remotely. So one can send a one-way mission to Eve, Laythe or Eeloo and - provided a capable Kerbin relay - they'll have all their XP in situ, which is kinda useful. Establishing a colony and whatnot? MPL is your friend.

 

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Haruspex

[Snark]

2 hours ago, Haruspex said:

It levels up crew remotely.

Whoa, really?

<rummaging in .cfg files>

Holy heck, you're right!  I'm guessing this got added with 1.2?  Somehow I managed to miss this in the shuffle.

Okay, that's useful.  There, I now have a reason to include the part.  Thanks for the tip!

[Terwin]

19 hours ago, Snark said:

Whoa, really?

<rummaging in .cfg files>

Holy heck, you're right!  I'm guessing this got added with 1.2?  Somehow I managed to miss this in the shuffle.

Okay, that's useful.  There, I now have a reason to include the part.  Thanks for the tip!

There is also a setting to allow instant experience, if that is turned on you do not need the MPL to level up in-situ.

You may need several of them, but you can use the MPL for unlimited data without leaving the atmosphere.(you probably want to lift it off the surface for converting experiments to data to avoid the 1/10 landed on Kerbin multiplier, but a VTOL lifter only needs to get it airborne for several seconds at a time for that)

I think the MPL *can* be over-powered for some play-styles, but so can the cheat menu, and as this is a single-player game I'm not worried about it.

Personally, I have no problem with an orbital science/fuel station where interplanetary vessels stop to off-load the extra copies of the experiments they collected for future trips.  Saves a lot of effort(and LS resources) not needing to land on the Mun or Minmus to top off the tanks and make sure I have enough science to keep my scientists busy when going interplanetary(I tend not to wait for launch windows, so it can take a while). 

Sure I have a lab or two up there, but their contribution is pretty trivial considering the missions I have going on.(3 Mun bases(~33 kerbals), 2 Minmus bases(5 kerbals), three Duna Bases en-route(only one will be manned), two Moho bases en-route(only one manned ~ 5 kerbals en-route), Duna mission currently returning, Jool Probe with detachable scansat and ISRU components en-route.

Sure I finished all the stock nodes a long time ago, but I am still collecting science, after all science and colonization are what this program are all about.

[Snark]

1 minute ago, Terwin said:

There is also a setting to allow instant experience, if that is turned on you do not need the MPL to level up in-situ.

Yeah, I was aware of that one, but never turned it on because it felt "cheaty" to me.  (Not saying it's a cheaty feature for anyone else; just that for me, personally, I didn't want the instant-free-experience-upgrade.)

The reason I'm so happy to hear about this feature is that it gives that ability, at a cost (i.e. lugging around an otherwise useless 3.5-ton hunk of hardware).  Not only does that give me a reason to bring the science lab (thus giving utility to a part that's otherwise useless to me), but it also gives me a fun game decision by providing a tradeoff:  the benefit of remotely leveling up, versus the trouble and inconvenience of lugging the lab along.

So, nice! 

[KerikBalm]

22 hours ago, Snark said:

Whoa, really?

<rummaging in .cfg files>

Holy heck, you're right!  I'm guessing this got added with 1.2?  Somehow I managed to miss this in the shuffle.

Okay, that's useful.  There, I now have a reason to include the part.  Thanks for the tip!

yes, I believe it was added at the same time as the comm relay system.

I was quite happy for this change, and it also eliminated a lot of "busy work" that I had previously done. I now don't need to do a "training program" for each kerbal before sending them on a long range mission. No more Flag on Mun, Flag on Minmus, pop out of Kerbin SOI and recover, just so that my kerbals will be lvl 3 at the destination (they would spend years away before they could level up from destination experience).

My engineers can be fully capable of repacking chutes, fixing wheels, fixing landing legs, etc in the jool system without doing that busy work... and the scientists can print money... err... research at maximum rate once there.

Such a "training program" can still help for scientists to produce more science on the outbound journey (even then, it allows one to cut out the jtrip just outside kerbin's SOI) , but thats about all one needs. Also if you didn't know, a related change is that only one kerbal needs to plant a flag for all kerbals in a nearby vessel to get the flag planting XP - which also saves a lot of tedium.

Money printing and kerbal leveling... yes, I use it

[WanderingKid]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

 Also if you didn't know, a related change is that only one kerbal needs to plant a flag for all kerbals in a nearby vessel to get the flag planting XP - which also saves a lot of tedium.

Wut?  Before I send up a ship with this as a fact, is there any reference to this occurring?  This would be most awesome.

[KerikBalm]

 

[WanderingKid]

Rock on, thanks @KerikBalm!  I'd no idea about that.  My tour bus system just got a lot less tedious.