How do I transfer science from my lander to my return vessel?

[snakemasterepic]

So I have a Duna mission in progress. I have sent down a lander, done some EVAs , acquired a sample, returned to orbit, and docked to the return vessel. How do I transfer the science to the return vessel so that I can take it back to Kerbin?

[Johnno]

Don't think you can, I've yet to test it myself but as far as I can tell from my manned landings the sample is saved to the manned module you first put it into.

[Tassyr]

Tested and confirmed- you can't. AKA this entire method is screwed, meaning I kinda can't go to the moon any more. XD

[Scarecrow88]

Tested and confirmed- you can't. AKA this entire method is screwed, meaning I kinda can't go to the moon any more. XD

Well you can, you just have to use a lander that can make it back to Kerbin. What it does is knock on the head Apollo style missions that use a pure lander that gets left behind, which I thought would have gained you a lot of science. It would appear that there is no science to be gained from how you complete a mission, which is a shame.

[Specialist290]

The "good" news is, once you unlock batteries and solar panels, it effectively doesn't really make a difference.

As long as you have an antenna and a power source on your lander, you can transmit any report that you've stored. There's only a limited amount of science available per biome from what I've been able to determine, and it doesn't matter whether you get it all home in the pod or through transmitters -- once it's all yours, it's all yours, with the only difference between transmitting and direct recovery being how much you're able to get across at one time. In theory, you could just keep collecting samples and transmitting data back to Kerbin until the "Sample Collection" science for that biome is used up, with the only real limit being your own patience and tolerance for tedious repetition.

In other words, no matter whether you're using a teaspoon or a bucket to empty the well, the amount of water you get out of the well is still the same once you've emptied it.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

In other words, no matter whether you're using a teaspoon or a bucket to empty the well, the amount of water you get out of the well is still the same once you've emptied it.

Are you certain about this?

I thought you will lose science points by repeated transmitting and not bringing them home instead in the end.

So I just need one Goo Container and one Science Bay after all?

[maccollo]

Are you certain about this?

I thought you will lose science points by repeated transmitting and not bringing them home instead in the end.

So I just need one Goo Container and one Science Bay after all?

I think you wont be able to get all science through transmitting science with data loss, as you will get a % each time. However after a bunch of transmissions you will have over 90% of it... So yeah, sadly there isn't much of any benefit to recovering a vessel with science. You will get way more science by using the last bit of fuel to go to some unexplored place.

[Mykill Metal]

no benefit? You're joking right? Did a mun mission and came back with over 500 science. Didn't transmit one time. Because after you transmit, and do science again, you get less science for the same experiment. So yes MalfunctionM1Ke, you do need more than one of each or at least one science bay.

500 science transmitted ends up being like 3-400 due to signal loss.

500 science recovered ends up being 500+ science due to bonuses for recovery. So yes. It is MUCH BETTER to recover than transmit.

[Mr. Scruffy]

The impossibility to use a lander to bring samples to a return vessel seems to be an oversight, none-the-less. I wonder if the devs are aware of this or wether they just didnt think of it.

[Mykill Metal]

Oh and the fact that you CAN'T transfer science into an "experiment data collector" and transfer it to another ship is laughably stupid. What, I'm supposed to build a ship that goes ALL THE WAY to duna, LANDS, RE-ORBITS, RETURNS, AND de-orbits back at Kerbin? LMMFAO. YEAH RIGHT!!!!

[Johnno]

Oh and the fact that you CAN'T transfer science into an "experiment data collector" and transfer it to another ship is laughably stupid.

Keep in mind that the game and especially the career/science mode is still in development. What you think is "laughably stupid" is simply the first version, it'll likely be changed/updated along the way with more options. Have patience, give it time. In comparison we don't have internal crew transfers either and the experiments aren't separate entities as such and are simply saved to your kerbal/craft. So it actually makes perfect sense right now.

What, I'm supposed to build a ship that goes ALL THE WAY to duna, LANDS, RE-ORBITS, RETURNS, AND de-orbits back at Kerbin? LMMFAO. YEAH RIGHT!!!!

First off, easy on the all caps, I understand that you want to emphasize your feelings about this, but even so please do so in a good manner.

Second, it really isn't all that hard. The experiments get saved to the manned module, or your experiments, so simply put them all onto the pod/module you want to bring home. Since there's no reentry heat damage you can do so with the lightest module you wish to use. Beyond that, you can freely dock/decouple items so it would be no different than doing a manned mission to Duna in previous version. You can assemble the ship in orbit in several launches, send it off to, land with parachutes, return to orbit with a rocket engine, dock and return by transfer stage, then deorbit and parachute down with your landercan even.

Personally I don't see the difficulty. If anything it just adds a bit of design challenge.

[Crush]

What it does is knock on the head Apollo style missions that use a pure lander that gets left behind, which I thought would have gained you a lot of science.

While the pure apollo-style doesn't make much sense anymore, you can easily get the full science when you modify the mission profile slightly: Just put the parachutes on the LM, take the LM back to Kerbin with the CSM and land with the LM.

[Hector]

Fairly easy to work around. I am building a Mun lander where the docking node is on the science bay. There's a decoupler between the science bay and the rest of the lander. So I can take the lander to the surface, return to orbit, dock with the return module, jettison everything but the science bay, and return home.

[Mykill Metal]

I understand that....but the point is I dont want to do that. I WANT an apollo style craft. I WANT to be able to transfer science from a space station to a landing ship so i can do experiments in orbit and bring the results back so i don't have to transmit and lose any science. Internal crew transfers is another thing that pisses me off, I mean we have docking nodes, shouldn't there be an airlock or somekind of right-click option on the docking node that says "transfer crew" and then allows you to choose which ones? I am perfectly aware that this is still in development, but I mean come on. This is like basic stuff. Shouldn't SOMEONE have said, "what if i want to return to the planet and I used an apollo-style landing ship for my munar activities? how will i get my science?" Because that would have been one of my first questions. I have never (until .22) taken a ship from Kerbin to the mun, and returned it. As if it was some kind of 1920s stereotypical "rocketship" that lands on its tail and stuff in the old school sci-fi movies. Oh and by the way, you still can't decouple your science lab and goo containers. Unless that's a bug on my end, the data from the parts i decouple from the capsule lose all their science and i end up with an EVA report or three, and a crew report. (even after "keeping" the data) I have to keep the entire ship together until it lands and then recover the WHOLE THING. And I didn't use all caps. I capitalized words I emphasize in a sentence. It makes the way you read it completely different, more like the way I speak(think) it.

[stupid_chris]

Okay everyone, chill pill time.

This issue is known to the developers, if I'm not mistaken, it's on the bugtracker. For now it can't be done and there's nothing more left to say about it. Maybe we'll get a hotfix for .22 allowing to do this, no one really knows.

I'll leave this thread open for people to come up with ideas/techniques to come across this limitations. If the tone isn't taken down and if ranting about this continues, it will be closed and infraction may be given without warnings. Thanks to all.

[EatVacuum]

Oh and the fact that you CAN'T transfer science into an "experiment data collector" and transfer it to another ship is laughably stupid. What, I'm supposed to build a ship that goes ALL THE WAY to duna, LANDS, RE-ORBITS, RETURNS, AND de-orbits back at Kerbin? LMMFAO. YEAH RIGHT!!!!

Please remember that when you bought KSP it was sold to you as early access. Right on the KSP site they state "The game is currently under heavy development. This means the game will be improved on a regular basis, so be sure to check back for new updates". And then there is the terms of service...

"Please keep in mind:

Squad is not under any obligation to release any updates, expansions or titles at any time. Each release may very well be the last one.

Squad is under no obligation to implement any given set of features prior to the final release for KSP or any future title. All posted lists of planned features are unofficial and do not imply a promise by Squad to deliver anything listed in them.

Squad reserves the right to add, remove and modify content on any of its software at their own discretion, without prior notice.

Squad is under no obligation to maintain any level of communication with the player community, choosing to do so at their own discretion.

The minimum hardware specifications are posted for reference purposes only. KSP is a work-in-progress, and as such, may not perform as expected under any given hardware configuration.

The Software is made available as-is, and may contain bugs and/or manifest undesirable behaviour. Squad does not guarantee any level of stability or performance for the Software, and takes no responsibility in the event of data loss or damage ocurred as a direct or indirect result of using the software. Use at your own risk."

You got the game for a fraction of what it will cost when it is complete and polished, you are in effect being the play testers for Squad. If you can't deal with it then go away and come back when they have put out the final version and then you will have the final product, and still have got it at a discount. Or, you can play with it for now and send in your occasional dump files and post up what you see as the problems with the game, which I sure the devs will read and in most cases will action.

But please people, do it in a positive and mature fashion. Whining over some issue and calling it "laughingly stupid" is not helping. Report it as an issue, describe what you see as the problem and suggest how you think it could be done better. And if it makes sense and a lot of people agree, then the devs will almost certainly pay attention.

Please be respectful of both the developer's efforts and of other people's wants and opinions. If you can do that, I (and probably the developers) will find it a lot easier to respect YOUR opinions. If everyone can do that, this forum will be a lot more pleasant to visit.

[Mykill Metal]

What I said was in a joking around kind of manner with a serious undertone....not disrespectful or immature what so ever. If you didn't get that, my apologies, that's how everyone I know talks. This is still the GREATEST GAME EVER MADE, BY ANYONE, so why would I want to disrespect Squad? I would, however, like to mention that no one is perfect. Which is why we're in this thread, to bring up and bitch about a problem that is causing us to not be able to enjoy the game the way we were before the .22 update. I'm fully aware that the game is still in development, which is why I'm on here to discuss the problems in a lively and attention grabbing manner. Because even if i come across as hostile, someone important might look at it and say; "damn, he's right, we ****ed up, lets fix it". If someone else had written a comment like mine about something I DID, I'd pay attention. The more emotion someone is showing, the more invested they are. And that's exactly why I wrote that. Before .22 I was as happy as a pig in **** with ONLY SANDBOX, but now with all these science things there are going to be problems, namely unforseen and overlooked ones. I basically can't use career mode until I'm able to transfer data because of the way I like to build (won't use antennas because you lose science), and it's frustrating as hell when I really really really really really want to play it.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Mykill Metal
added comma

[urablahblah]

And back to the beginning... No. You do not "lose" science for transmitting, it just ends up taking many many transmissions to gather all the science points. My favorite method is to transmit a few times, then return the experiment to get a significant portion of the remaining points. The system isn't perfect yet, but it is not completely broken.

[Mykill Metal]

It literally says on the box that pops up how much of it you will recieve from transmitting it (might be how much you lose, now that i think about it, but either way it says it). Usually 20-60%. Oh and if you do an experiment once, transmit, then do it again; you get less science than you did the first time.

[BlazeFallow]

Hey guys, It was actually shown that Transmission vs Physical turn in there is no difference in final amount of science obtained from experiments so long as you have the power for the transmissions. The only thing you miss is the science obtained from your ship itself that returns from the planet/mun you visted. Sure, this can end up being a lot of science, but my point is that for the actual experiments themselves there is no penalty for transmitting, other than you have to do about 2-3x as many experiments for the same ending science total.

Reference

[Mykill Metal]

....still makes absolutely no sense as to why the game TELLS YOU you are losing science by the percentage.

[stupid_chris]

....still makes absolutely no sense as to why the game TELLS YOU you are losing science by the percentage.

Okay, let me make it easier for you. When you go somewhere, there is x amount of science point in the area, let's say 100 points are available. Then, when you do an experiment, that experiment takes 10% of the available points, so you have an experiment with a value of 10 points. If you bring it home, you get all the ten points. If you transmit it at a transfer rate of 40%, you get four points. The six points left go back to the science pool of the area. So if you transmit the experiment at a rate of 40%, after there isn't 90 points left in the area but 96. So when you redo the experiment, you will have an experiment value of 9.6, and if you were to transmit it you would send 3.84 science points home and there would be 92.6 points left. And so on until there are no points left in the area. Those are arbitrary values, but that's how it works. So you do not lose science when you make an experiment and transmit it, you just don't gather as much as you could by returning it.

[BlazeFallow]

NotSo_stupid_chris has it exactly right.

That is just the amount of science from the current experiments net worth that will be transmitted. The thing that was proven in the thread I referenced is that the amount of science generated by subsequent experiments scales with the science recovery method.

In other words, experiments which are physically retrieved will yield significantly less science for a subsequent experiment than an experiment which is transmitted in. So you can do many more experiments before reaching a return of 0 with transmitting the science back in. The total net worth of repeated experiments will be the exact same for Physical AND transmission.

Edited October 19, 2013 by BlazeFallow

[Mykill Metal]

That is mind-blowingly confusing. Why not just send 100% and call it a day, instead of tediously spamming the activate science bay and transmit buttons? That would make it fun and actually enticing to send probes instead of manned craft (would help on eve, since i learned the hard way not to land there lol). Also, you could do return (manned) trips for the rest of the science instead of farming all of it, going home, and calling it a good trip. I like actually rp'ing a space program and that would help A LOT. Also, an experiments storage bay (little place-able box on the side of ship, so you can transfer science between ships.

***clarification- I'm not saying send 100% of science in the area, just 100% per transmission.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Mykill Metal
clarification

[Sirrobert]

I wonder how many people realize that you don't lose a single point of science if you radio it over vs bringing it home. It just takes a few more transmisions