General Career Mode Questions

[Lighthawk]

So first off, making sure I'm even understanding Science. At present I seem to have five ways of collecting Science: a science tool like the goo container or one of the sensors, crew reports, EVA reports, soil samples, and recovery of a ship after a flight. Now as I have seen it explained, for each of these categories, there are a pool of Science points at given locations within the game; low orbit, high orbit, over or landed at various biomes, around the Mun, etc etc. And that these pools are set amounts that you deplete every time you collect and then turn in the points, either by bringing them home or transmitting them, and that the percentage loss due to transmission doesn't actually reduce the total points you can gain from the pool, it merely means you have to do more transmissions to collect everything. You can't actually lose points forever by transmitting.

Now for transmitting science, does the type and number of comm units have any effect on the percentage of Science you can get per transmission? Does it matter if I'm using a Communotron 16 or the 88-88? Do more of them make a difference?

Also, has anyone mapped out the different locations where you can collect Science from?

Finally in regards to ship building. I used to use Mechjeb in order to determine my TWR and Delta V while building my ships. However MJ isn't available in the career mode, which has left me building blind, using my best guesses based on what I can remember from my old sandbox games. Is there a mod that can be used to give you the ship stats while playing career mode?

Edited November 28, 2013 by Lighthawk

[Motokid600]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but does VOID show up in the VAB? Doesn't use a part so it should work. If not.. get engineer redux and add the line "start" in its .cfg next to techrequired. Then purchase it in R&D.

You got it with the science points, but when it comes to antennas the larger ones only make the transmissions faster. You don't get more SP per trans. They use much more power, but I personally like the speed. I use the second, flat antenna that folds outward ( forget the name ) and I have one per experiment. It really makes transmissions quick. Depleting a biome to 0.0 points well... sucks quite frankly so the quicker the better imo.

And yes there are biome maps laying around here somewhere. I'm on my phone though so searching isn't the easiest thing. I'll look around later if someone doesn't beat me to it by then. Honestly though.. you don't need them. The different biomes are kinda obvious. Especialy on the moon. Just every major crater and the poles. Then on Kerbin every terrain change.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Motokid600

[capi3101]

KER will do the TWR and delta-V display job. It looks like it's been updated so that you don't have to crack open the .cfg files (this from October 21, 2013 off the mod's comment page). If not, add the "start" parameter Motokid600 indicated. You will have to activate the parts in R&D; just click on them and select "YES". They should be under Starting Tech.

www.kerbalmaps.com has added biome data for Kerbin and Mün; it's pretty much what Motokid600 indicated.

Everything else has been covered; your understanding of how Science works is accurate.

EDIT: Found the specific parameters you need in case it doesn't work. It's:

TechRequired = start

entryCost = 0

Add those to the part .cfg files if they aren't there. Then go into R&D, select Starting Tech and click on the parts to activate them.

Actually, MechJeb uses parts, doesn't it? No reason why you couldn't just do the same thing there...

Edited November 25, 2013 by capi3101

[EtherDragon]

So first off, making sure I'm even understanding Science. At present I seem to have five ways of collecting Science: a science tool like the goo container or one of the sensors, crew reports, EVA reports, soil samples, and recovery of a ship after a flight. Now as I have seen it explained, for each of these categories, there are a pool of Science points at given locations within the game; low orbit, high orbit, over or landed at various biomes, around the Mun, etc etc. And that these pools are set amounts that you deplete every time you collect and then turn in the points, either by bringing them home or transmitting them, and that the percentage loss due to transmission doesn't actually reduce the total points you can gain from the pool, it merely means you have to do more transmissions to collect everything. You can't actually lose points forever by transmitting.

That is correct as of 0.22. The pool of science available for any particular activity is fixed - and transmission loss only means it takes more experiments to get it all. Typically three to five runs (depending on transmission loss) will grab most of the science available at a location.

Now for transmitting science, does the type and number of comm units have any effect on the percentage of Science you can get per transmission? Does it matter if I'm using a Communotron 16 or the 88-88? Do more of them make a difference?

No, this doesn't matter actually. The different kinds of transmission instruments have some different power usage and data through-put. Generally - the higher level ones transmit faster, but consume more power per data portion. So it becomes a trade-off of how much power you want to carry around all the time in the form of batteries.

Also, has anyone mapped out the different locations where you can collect Science from?

The only two bodies that have biomes defined (that aren't the whole body) are Kerbin and Mun. Here is a biome map for Mun (Source, http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Main_Page).

Finally in regards to ship building. I used to use Mechjeb in order to determine my TWR and Delta V while building my ships. However MJ isn't available in the career mode, which has left me building blind, using my best guesses based on what I can remember from my old sandbox games. Is there a mod that can be used to give you the ship stats while playing career mode?

I think some mods are working toward allowing you to add those parts, it may take a bit - though, as career mode is very much WIP. In the mean time, I prefer to just ham-hand my builds and see what happens anyway. Failure is always an option - and a good place to learn something new. =)

[nhnifong]

The different antennae have different peak power requirements and different transmission rates but they don't affect the science that you get back from the transmission. In almost all cases the small red and white antenna is the optimal choice. If however you need to transmit a large amount of data very fast you might want the dish antenna. for example if you were traveling through Dunas upper atmosphere and collecting repeated samples with the atmosphere tool and needed to transmit all that data before you got to lower atmosphere. Note that you'd need a lot of batteries for that.

Edit: actually now that I think about it multiple small antennas might be better than one large dish antenna for that

[Taki117]

The different types of antennae have different power requirements (Increasing as they get bigger) and different transmission speeds (Again, increasing with size) but otherwise they are identical. However, each antenna is capable of transmitting one experiment, so if you have 5 experiments on a craft you should have 5 antennae for simultaneous transmission. Now, that being said (And the reason I emboldened) is because transmission stack. In the above scenario (Duna Atmosphere reentry) you can spam the transmit button as you fall (And you will also eventually get flying at) and upon successfully landing your ship will continue to transmit all the data it gathered whilst falling through the atmosphere (It will just take a really long time)

[Sirrobert]

Except for biomes (only kerbin and the mun) science pools are the same everywhere. High orbit, low orbit, on the surface

[gtmattz]

The current version of mechjeb is incorporated into career mode. I cannot recall which node unlocks the module, but it is quite low on the tree. When first unlocked about all you get is smart a.s.s. orbit info, and vessel stats, then the rest of the features unlock as you progress up the unmanned tech line. Until you get the module unlocked, however, you are stuck with either guesswork, or doing the calculations on your own (you can go into sandbox and check there as well... I just guess myself.)

[Lighthawk]

Thank you all for the good information, I greatly appreciate it.

[phuzz]

I ended up modifying the tech tree in MechJeb, as I wanted at least the info windows and the warp helper to be available from near the start.