Manual Science Retrieval

[Dogface]

EDIT: further KerbalKon videos suggest that this is not true. Nevermind.

It looks from the KerbalKon videos that you have to manually retrieve (EVA) science from science parts on a ship, even though the ship includes the new science module. I would think that all science parts would be wired into the ships systems, and going outside to get to data would not be necessary.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Dogface

[LethalDose]

Can you help catch some of us up?

What's the "new science module" you mentioned? Are these the green parts I noticed in the upper row of the science parts yesterday?

[Eric S]

I watched someone do it and did not get that impression, as long as the lab module was on the same craft (or a craft docked to that craft).

The features being discussed are:

A new part, big (the size of a Rockomax -32 if I remember correctly) and heavy (3.5 tons), and requiring two kerbals to make it function (that may be what dogface saw, if you don't put kerbals in the lab module before the launch, you will have to EVA kerbals into the lab). It has two functions. The first is that it can analyze experiment results and instrument reports to decrease the amount of science lost if you transmit the results/reports. The second is that with the goo canisters and materials science bay, if you don't discard the results, you can't run the experiment again. The lab module lets you reset those two science parts so that you can repeat the experiment after transmitting or moving them to alternate storage, in the same biome/location or a different one.

Kerbals in EVA can take the results from a capsule or science part and store them in a (different) capsule, with some limits. Basically, there is some restriction on storing experiment results of the same type in the same capsule. I don't know if it's experiment-per-biome similar to EVA reports, or experiment type regardless of biome similar to crew reports.

[Nobody]

I think that is more for recovering science from a crashed/disabled ship. For example you miscalculated the fuel required for your Duna landing mission and had to send a rescue ship to pick up the crew in orbit. Now besides saving the crew you could also save the science without transmission loss.

[Eric S]

That's certainly one use for the EVA experiment results transfer, another would be to make it so that you keep most of your science if you do an apollo-style mission, discarding the craft that actually did the landing. I don't think you can transfer the "landed" credit for recovery science, but now you can at least transfer all the other science.

[Dogface]

I could have been wrong. I saw a video where the guy had to go to a thermometer on the side of the ship, get the science and then go into the lab to upload it. BUT maybe he didnt know how to use the lab.

[Eric S]

Odd, what I was seeing was that the "analyze" button was turning up in the panel that pops up that lets you discard/keep/transmit the results, a fourth option. Maybe I wasn't following it right, maybe the person you watched was confused as well (there did seem to be some confusion about it when I watched it as well).