Ground Experiments

[Metanolo]

I'm asking because I'm an old school player, and I've never been playing with the latest gameplay devices like ground science experiments, which came with the breaking ground dlc if I'm not mistaking.

So, I do not really have a precise question because those devices confused me a lot. No kidding, spent a couple hour messing up with control panel, photovoltaic, grand slam, and so on, and didn't got nothing out of it.

So I've been searching online on forums, youtube, guides, and it looks so simple, all it takes seems to put them on the ground and they are working - for others - but not for me. Two hours later those devices are still there on the ground looking back at me and refusing to produce science. Two or three are displaying a menu, others are not displaying anything and I can't even take them back into inventory...I do not know guys, are those machines bugged?

[bewing]

There are some tricks to it. Mostly in which kerbal deploys the devices.

You want a scientist to deploy the science experiments. They create science seven times faster or more, if a scientist deploys them -- depending on the number of stars the scientist has.

But you want an engineer to deploy the solar panels. The panels produce energy depending on the number of stars of the engineer that deploys them.

And then there may be a bug. When you launch the craft, the experiments have to be in an inventory somewhere. If they are in a storage unit, that's good. If they are in a kerbal's inventory, they may never work. So don't put them directly into a kerbal's inventory. To know if they are non-functional, you need to walk right up to them and face them. If you can get a menu, then that's good -- all they need is power.

So, after all that, you get them to a destination and drop them on the ground just like in your picture. Each device needs power from a solar panel. You need a control station, which also needs power. You do not need to interact with them to get them started. They produce science slowly. Once they reach a 10% level, they try to transmit. If they don't have a communications link to KSC at that moment, the transmission fails and they wait for the next 10%. Each 10% transmission can easily take 10 to 20 days, and it's not a lot of science.

If a kerbal picks up a science device, he takes the remaining science out of it. If he picks it up and puts it back down, then that counts as redeploying it -- and then you need to be paying attention to whether he's a scientist or engineer and how many stars he has again.

So, from your picture, I think the most obvious problem you are likely having is power. You have 4 devices, and only one solar panel. Did a 3-star engineer place that solar panel? Look at the menu from the control station. It shows how many units of power are coming in, and how many experiments are attached.

 

[Metanolo]

Solar panel is generating 3 units, but apparently none attached. My best guess is the inventory bug you mentioned did strike for at least 2 devices (no menu or pick up allowed, stuck there forever I guess), and the ramaining devices are not linking with the control panel...

Thank you for the reply but I suppose I'll let them be. They are nice looking but rarely working for me, and when they do there's no profit, so yeah...I've been digging a hole in the water all the afternoon 

[bewing]

Well, your grand slam experiment looks like it deployed correctly. So that one may be working. But to get science out of that one, you need to impact pieces of ships into the surface. The bigger they are, and closer to the experiment device, the more science you get.

[quazarz]

There seems to be a bug with deploying the breaking ground deployables with EVA construction mode. Every time I have tried it, the unit becomes completely inert, can't interact and can't pick it back up. The proper way to deploy is to take it into the kerbal inventory and click the arrow in the bottom right corner of the items icon. An unfortunate side effect of 1.11 is that you can't hold your jet pack and a deployable at the same time so it's pretty tedious