Is 1.7.1 MPL working correctly?

[_stilgar_]

I've noticed that if I try to process data that has already been returned to Kerbin (but never before processed in MPL) I get 0 data from it. Can anyone confirm? Is it a bug? Before 1.7.1 there was a limit of one processing per MPL, but I'm quite sure I was able to process data that was previously returned to Kerbin. 

[Mikki]

Afaik the MPL is not supposed to work on the surface of Kerbin. But i haven`t processed any data ever on the ground, it would be "cheaty" and the idea of the MPL somewhat disregarded.

May have being subject to a change, but who knows? 

[_stilgar_]

I have this bug in orbit, not on the surface. 

[Geschosskopf]

I'm not sure as I rarely use the MPL, but I've always thought that if you've gotten all the Science you can get for a given experiment in a given place, the MPL won't get any more out of that.  But it will work on things with Science still available.  For instance, it takes 3 returned Goo experiments from the same place to exhaust that category of Science.  So the MPL should work if you've only returned 1 or 2 but won't if you've already returned 3.  Of course, the 3rd one only gets the last 1-2% of the available Science so the MPL won't do much for it.  However,, as I say, i could well be wrong.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Geschosskopf

[KerbMav]

On 6/3/2019 at 6:16 AM, Geschosskopf said:

However,, as I say, i could well be wrong.

You are.

The MPL always takes any experiment-biome set of data it hasnt processed yet and turns it into science.

This was specificially designed this way to ensure players will always be able to get new science even when they are "stuck" in their progression or similar, as well as "producing" science in the end when all is researched to keep making use of the policies.

Edited June 4, 2019 by KerbMav

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, KerbMav said:

This was specificially designed this way to ensure players will always be able to get new science even when they are "stuck" in their progression or similar, as well as "producing" science in the end when all is researched to keep making use of the policies.

Ah.  Thanks for the info.  Things have changed and I haven't been paying attention.  Originally, the MPL had totally different functions which I quickly decided were more trouble than they were worth, so I've been ignoring the thing.

[Gargamel]

Not sure if this answers the question or not, but the math involved of determining science output was designed to minimize returns if the science collected was not processed in situ, but returned to Kerbin first, even orbit.   Landing it is almost a death sentence for science production, might as well just recover it. 

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mobile_Processing_Lab_MPL-LG-2#Data_Value

 

[_stilgar_]

15 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Not sure if this answers the question or not, but the math involved of determining science output was designed to minimize returns if the science collected was not processed in situ, but returned to Kerbin first, even orbit.   Landing it is almost a death sentence for science production, might as well just recover it. 

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mobile_Processing_Lab_MPL-LG-2#Data_Value

 

That's not it. I think it's a bug in a recent version. It's easy to reproduce. Make a crew report in Kerbin's orbit. MPL will show some data that can be gained by processing it. Send it home. Make crew report again. Now processing will yield 0 data. 

[KerbMav]

7 hours ago, _stilgar_ said:

That's not it. I think it's a bug in a recent version. It's easy to reproduce. Make a crew report in Kerbin's orbit. MPL will show some data that can be gained by processing it. Send it home. Make crew report again. Now processing will yield 0 data. 

Does this also happen if you dont move the experiment into the lab first but transmit it rightaway from the capsule?

That would mean the lab does not only remember experiments it has processed but already those that were moved into it - which would indeed be a change in behaviour.

[Chibribub]

Can confirm this happening. Even delivering experiment via other craft will make it yield 0 data for MPL. Transfering experiment to MPL has nothing to do with it. Seems that any science previously delivered in any way (transmission or recovery) by any craft will make it yield 0 data.

To reproduce, as mentioned, put MPL in some orbit with some command module, make crew report, see that it would yield data. Transfer the report, make another one, see that it now would yield 0 data. 

[MechBFP]

This change is a good thing if true. The MPL was just a free science machine and was basically a cheat. Now it is just for giving a bonus to existing science if you haven’t already recovered it and went to the effort to creating an orbital or surface base. 

[KerbMav]

On 6/4/2019 at 7:53 AM, KerbMav said:

This was specificially designed this way to ensure players will always be able to get new science even when they are "stuck" in their progression or similar, as well as "producing" science in the end when all is researched to keep making use of the policies.

 

58 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

This change is a good thing if true. The MPL was just a free science machine and was basically a cheat. Now it is just for giving a bonus to existing science if you haven’t already recovered it and went to the effort to creating an orbital or surface base. 

I do not agree. Reason above.

[MechBFP]

53 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

 

I do not agree. Reason above.

Sounds like this is something that should be added as an option to the difficulty screen when starting a new game. 

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, MechBFP said:

This change is a good thing if true. The MPL was just a free science machine and was basically a cheat. Now it is just for giving a bonus to existing science if you haven’t already recovered it and went to the effort to creating an orbital or surface base. 

Here's the thing...

KSP is a single-player game.  Nothing anybody else does in the privacy of their own games has any effect whatsoever on how you play your own games.  Therefore, absolutely nothing gives you any right or justification whatsoever either to complain about how other folks play or allow you to impose your own subjective value system on them.  Period.  End of story. 

Thus, expressing, or even having, sentiments such as the above is simply wrong.  If there's something in the game you consider a cheat or exploit that offends your sensibilities, then by all means don't use it yourself.  But don't put down the folks who do use it, especially if it's an intentional feature of the game, which the prior version of the MPL definitely was.

53 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Sounds like this is something that should be added as an option to the difficulty screen when starting a new game. 

+1.

[MechBFP]

38 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Here's the thing...

KSP is a single-player game.  Nothing anybody else does in the privacy of their own games has any effect whatsoever on how you play your own games.  Therefore, absolutely nothing gives you any right or justification whatsoever either to complain about how other folks play or allow you to impose your own subjective value system on them.  Period.  End of story. 

Thus, expressing, or even having, sentiments such as the above is simply wrong.  If there's something in the game you consider a cheat or exploit that offends your sensibilities, then by all means don't use it yourself.  But don't put down the folks who do use it, especially if it's an intentional feature of the game, which the prior version of the MPL definitely was.

+1.

It’s about game balance. You’re assuming people understand how unbalanced the feature is, as if they are psychic, because the game certainly doesn’t explain it.

Things in the cheat menu are obviously marked as “cheats” so the user is aware of the consequences of using it.

The user is NOT aware of the consequences of using the MPL. The game was not balanced with the MPL in mind, at all. 

Edited June 6, 2019 by MechBFP

[Chibribub]

1 hour ago, MechBFP said:

It’s about game balance. You’re assuming people understand how unbalanced the feature is, as if they are psychic, because the game certainly doesn’t explain it.

Things in the cheat menu are obviously marked as “cheats” so the user is aware of the consequences of using it.

The user is NOT aware of the consequences of using the MPL. The game was not balanced with the MPL in mind, at all. 

It is counter productive arguing about if this is balanced or not (do not use it if you do not like it). One can get science in many other ways, some being more "optimized" than others.

This behavior of MPL is not how it worked previously, it is not how it is described to work and there is no mention of this being an intentional change anywhere. It does seem like a bug.

And the current (what seems to be bugged) behavior also is confusing and does not make any sense, as well as does not provide any balance changes other than inconvenience. You can still first load up the data of a particular experiment into MPL and after that immediately do the same experiment and transfer the data back, so you still have the "extra cheap science" that you are complaining about. This bug only makes it important in what order you do things and is just confusing.

EDIT: and it seems that there is a bug report related to this: Bug #22750

Edited June 6, 2019 by Chibribub
Corrected bug number

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, MechBFP said:

It’s about game balance. You’re assuming people understand how unbalanced the feature is, as if they are psychic, because the game certainly doesn’t explain it.

Things in the cheat menu are obviously marked as “cheats” so the user is aware of the consequences of using it.

The user is NOT aware of the consequences of using the MPL. The game was not balanced with the MPL in mind, at all. 

No, you're assuming your subjective view of certain features is "balanced" and that other people are wrong, so you are trying to impose your standards on everybody else.  And this is quite simply wrong for any single-player game, such as KSP.  Now, if this was a PvP game, and then Player A's use of an exploit or imbalance does affect Player B, so Player B has a right to complain and try to get things changed.  But when it comes to single-player games, you're just minding other folks' business when their business has no effect on you.  

[MechBFP]

40 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

No, you're assuming your subjective view of certain features is "balanced" and that other people are wrong, so you are trying to impose your standards on everybody else.  And this is quite simply wrong for any single-player game, such as KSP.  Now, if this was a PvP game, and then Player A's use of an exploit or imbalance does affect Player B, so Player B has a right to complain and try to get things changed.  But when it comes to single-player games, you're just minding other folks' business when their business has no effect on you.  

This is like arguing that it is perfectly fine for a single player shooter to put in a gun, right near the start of the game, that does 500% more damage (or hell even say a 1-hit kill weapon since MPLs actually provide infinite science) than any other gun in the game just because it is single player. 

You can argue how that is fine all you want, but you would be wrong. It impacts the game balance in a negative way, and that’s simply a fact.

1 hour ago, Chibribub said:

You can still first load up the data of a particular experiment into MPL and after that immediately do the same experiment and transfer the data back, so you still have the "extra cheap science" that you are complaining about. This bug only makes it important in what order you do things and is just confusing.

Indeed it definitely is bugged right now. I don’t think it was an intentional change, but caused by whatever new code they added for the time based experiments. Since this is also time based I think it got caught in the cross fire.

Edited June 6, 2019 by MechBFP

[Gargamel]

Hey guys, take it easy....  Let's not get personal here....

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, MechBFP said:

This is like arguing that it is perfectly fine for a single player shooter to put in a gun, right near the start of the game, that does 500% more damage (or hell even say a 1-hit kill weapon since MPLs actually provide infinite science) than any other gun in the game just because it is single player. 

You can argue how that is fine all you want, but you would be wrong. It impacts the game balance in a negative way, and that’s simply a fact.

Of course it's just fine because it's a single player game.  If you, in your play, don't pick up that gun, that's your business.  If other players want to use it, that's there business because it has zero impact on you.  So you have no cause to complain.  Mind your own business.  You'll get your nose broken less often that way 

[MechBFP]

14 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Of course it's just fine because it's a single player game.  If you, in your play, don't pick up that gun, that's your business.  If other players want to use it, that's there business because it has zero impact on you.  So you have no cause to complain.  Mind your own business.  You'll get your nose broken less often that way 

*throws entire concept of game design directly into the nearest rubbish bin*

Now I agree with you completely.

Edited June 6, 2019 by MechBFP

[Loskene]

This is hilarious because you're both more or less right for the wrong reasons.

Single player games do have to take balance of features into account so as not to spoil the default experience, ie playing the game "as intended", but there is absolutely no such thing as "cheating" in a single player game in the sense that we consider "cheating" today. It used to mean funny things like big head mode you'd mess around with when you've already beat the game, now it means ruining someone else's day, which you obviously can't do in single player.

So in this case, while balance is not irrelevant neither is it a showstopper where there should only be one "correct" way of playing the game.

[Xavven]

24 minutes ago, Loskene said:

This is hilarious because you're both more or less right for the wrong reasons.

Single player games do have to take balance of features into account so as not to spoil the default experience, ie playing the game "as intended", but there is absolutely no such thing as "cheating" in a single player game in the sense that we consider "cheating" today. It used to mean funny things like big head mode you'd mess around with when you've already beat the game, now it means ruining someone else's day, which you obviously can't do in single player.

So in this case, while balance is not irrelevant neither is it a showstopper where there should only be one "correct" way of playing the game.

 

I agree and would add that even in single-player games, there are cheats that are defined explicitly as such in game manuals or hint-books. "Cheating" in that sense doesn't mean gaining an unfair advantage over another player (because it's a single-player game), but rather ruining the default game experience by removing, circumventing, or lessening challenges that the developers intended the player to overcome through skill, ingenuity, grinding, etc. For example in DOOM 1, if you use the "noclip" cheat, you can get through doors you were supposed to have to find a key for, and that key was guarded by tons and tons of monsters, or a jumping puzzle. You effectively bypass that part of the game meant to test your skill at killing lots of monsters and surviving. Hence it's a cheat.

That said, I also don't care if someone on this forum "cheats" or not, or even how they define cheating, because it doesn't affect me at all. It's kinda silly that we waste so much breath on arguing about it, but here I am arguing about it.

 

On 6/5/2019 at 1:34 AM, _stilgar_ said:

That's not it. I think it's a bug in a recent version. It's easy to reproduce. Make a crew report in Kerbin's orbit. MPL will show some data that can be gained by processing it. Send it home. Make crew report again. Now processing will yield 0 data. 

Yeah, this thread has gotten pretty off-topic. IIRC, if you already put an experiment into a particular MPL, it will not let you process that again. Could you clarify that you mean that if your MPL has never seen a crew report from, say, high space around Mun, that it will have 0 data because you transmitted the crew report previously?

[_stilgar_]

On 6/7/2019 at 12:53 AM, Xavven said:

Could you clarify that you mean that if your MPL has never seen a crew report from, say, high space around Mun, that it will have 0 data because you transmitted the crew report previously?

Exactly. Even newly launched MPLs will process previously returned science to 0 data. 

 

On 6/6/2019 at 4:23 PM, MechBFP said:

This change is a good thing if true. The MPL was just a free science machine and was basically a cheat. Now it is just for giving a bonus to existing science if you haven’t already recovered it and went to the effort to creating an orbital or surface base. 

You can argue that MPL gives you too much science, but right now it's not balanced. It just means that you should never return any science to Kerbin and instead process everything in MPLs. This bug effectively removes part of the game (either MPL science or returning science to Kerbin - and MPL science pays more, so it's not worth to return any experiment to Kerbin). If that was deliberate change, it wouldn't be balance, it would just be bad for gameplay. 

 

 

[Tekaoh]

I'm wondering if someone might know...  Has anything changed lately with the science lab?

If I recall correctly, it used to be that I could go to orbit, collect all the science available in orbit, recover it, THEN send a lab into orbit to run all the experiments again but put all the data into the lab and process it. And if I run out of data, I could launch another lab and do it all again.

The same thing is explained in the Wiki entry for the lab:

Quote

Each unique experiment can produce data for a given lab module only once, but a duplicate experiment can be taken to another lab and processed there. Note that when an experiment has been used to generate data it is consumed, but if the experiment is re-run the duplicate result can still be transmitted or recovered for its usual science yield. The reverse is also true; any experiment that has already been recovered at KSC for full value can still be run again, stored in the lab, and converted to the full amount of lab data in each new lab.

But now, it seems like if I've collected the science and recovered it, when I launch a lab and run the experiment again, it offers me 0 data. I instead have to get the science data in the lab first, THEN collect a new sample to recover it. Keep in mind that when I collect and recover the science in the first place, I collect and recover 100% of it. But even if I don't, it seems like I get diminished amounts of science data. I thought you used to get the same science data from an experiment as long as you've never had a given experiment in a given lab before.

(I tested this out in a clean install with no mods just as a sanity check. Seems like something changed in stock...)

Did something change with the science lab where it only gives you science data based on how much of the science you've already collected game-wide? I've been scouring the changelogs but I can't find anything.

Edit : This was merged in from another thread, which is why it sounds like I posted in this thread without reading it at all haha. Instead, I'll just say that I've reproduced this bug too.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Tekaoh