Transmitting destroys experiment... why?

[BloodyRain2k]

First I wanna state that I really like the new science system over the old one, except for the one thing: transmitting destroys the experiment. Why?!

This literally takes away any reason ever to use comms before you get a lab in place because you can't transmit the transmittable part and return the rest later. Which makes no sense to me.

There is already the cap to the transferrable amount so why add a second one? Even if it wouldn't allow for covering up the amount that you don't get from returning (Goo and Materials only seem to return for 80% or so) it'd still be useful.

For example you shoot a probe to a planet and let it send some science which you can use to get better parts to get to it later to grab the science and return it for the remaining value.

I guess there probably was a balancing thought behind it but I think it fired back on the point of transmitting and comms.

[Epthelyn]

The new science lab part can be used (when crewed with 2 Kerbals) to clean out and restore experiments so they can be used again after transmission.

[FenrirWolf]

It doesn't destroy the equipment so much as render it unfit for repeat usage until it's all cleaned out and reset.

[Kasuha]

It only involves the goo canister and the materials bay. Yes it is unpleasant compared to before but it makes sense to me - you have a cabinet filled with some materials, you expose these materials to some conditions and they react some way. From that point on, they are "used", you cannot do the same with them again. Similarly like you wouldn't use litmus paper twice in a lab.

So you need the lab module if you want to be able to refill these experiments with new reagents.

[VirtualCLD]

First I wanna state that I really like the new science system over the old one, except for the one thing: transmitting destroys the experiment. Why?!

This literally takes away any reason ever to use comms before you get a lab in place because you can't transmit the transmittable part and return the rest later. Which makes no sense to me.

There is already the cap to the transferrable amount so why add a second one? Even if it wouldn't allow for covering up the amount that you don't get from returning (Goo and Materials only seem to return for 80% or so) it'd still be useful.

For example you shoot a probe to a planet and let it send some science which you can use to get better parts to get to it later to grab the science and return it for the remaining value.

I guess there probably was a balancing thought behind it but I think it fired back on the point of transmitting and comms.

This was a common misconception with the 0.22 science experiments, but as it was shown here, you can just spam transmissions and get all of the data you would have gotten if you had done the return. In other words, there was no need to return science experiments in 0.22 because you could just keep re-transmitting the same experiment over and over again until it maxed out at the same amount as multiple returns. Assign the materials bay and goo canister different action groups and it's really easy to max out science without a return.

[Themohawkninja]

Transmitting merely makes the experiment inoperable, because sending more data would be redundant (you wouldn't learn anything new). Now, you use the lab to "clean" experiments for later use.

Think of the text for the materials bay. One of them is along the lines of "the paint mixes around to make pretty colors" (something like that). Obviously, once the paint mixes around, you can't use it for experiments, since it's already been mixed up. What the lab does, is wash out the paint in the materials bay and put fresh, new, unmixed paint cans back in, so you can mix them up all over again.

Does that help at all?

[JimmyAgent007]

I like how they fixed things, but you can reset the experiment as many times as you want if you dont transmit, that to me seems odd. Personally I would like the notice to show the science info but say "Run Experiment" instead of "Keep Data" and make it impossible to reset. That way we can still check to see if its worth it, but only able to run it once for the reasons already stated in this thread. Because right now, its the act of transmitting not running the experiment that makes it non-operable. That just seems odd.

[Rakshasa]

The kerbal scientists for some reason believe transmission of the results of experiments involve stuffing the sample through the hollow part of the antenna.

[jalapen0]

One of my favorite missions is to send a satelitte and\or rover to a planet\moon. Now that is not nearly as effective. They really need to create a new "experiment" for unmanned modules like the "crew report". Not sure what you would call it but mission control can take pictures and video remotely and should be able to get science from an unmanned module just by looking around. This would make the probes a little more valueable again.

[JimmyAgent007]

Maybe a Survey Report then. Something only probes can do.

[Flowz0r]

One of my favorite missions is to send a satelitte and\or rover to a planet\moon. Now that is not nearly as effective. They really need to create a new "experiment" for unmanned modules like the "crew report". Not sure what you would call it but mission control can take pictures and video remotely and should be able to get science from an unmanned module just by looking around. This would make the probes a little more valueable again.

It SHOULDN'T be as effective for gameplay and balance reasons, especially once career mode is fleshed out more and there's cost and reputation to factor in. Just sending a cheap probe to jool to collect data from orbit shouldn't give you as much of a return as sending a team of Kerbals there to do science and getting them back home successfully.

[HarvesteR]

I like how they fixed things, but you can reset the experiment as many times as you want if you dont transmit, that to me seems odd. Personally I would like the notice to show the science info but say "Run Experiment" instead of "Keep Data" and make it impossible to reset. That way we can still check to see if its worth it, but only able to run it once for the reasons already stated in this thread. Because right now, its the act of transmitting not running the experiment that makes it non-operable. That just seems odd.

My initial idea was in fact to have the experiments become inoperable immediately after use. I set it up that way, tried it for 15 minutes, and absolutely hated it.

What happened there is that if the experiments went inop after any use, they would become spent before you even got to see if there was any good science to be done at that spot. It felt very frustrating to have to 'guess' at a good spot to deploy, and risk losing a good experiment if you missed.

I realized then that it was because the game wasn't giving me a choice. When you run an experiment now, it will only become inoperable once the data is 'consumed' for transmission. So it's not so much like litmus paper anymore, but it still makes sense if you consider that the sample 'tray' or whatever the data gathering apparatus inside the module is will get destroyed in the process of being converted into something that can be transmitted.

This then became a good way to separate the 'physical' experiments from the more 'digital' ones. The goo container and materials bay do have physical samples inside, so those have to be destroyed to be processed into transmittable data. The other experiments are either abstract, like reports, or are somewhat 'digital' in nature, like a temperature or gravity scan, so those can be freely reused since their data is already transmittable.

From a gameplay standpoint, I like how this means you now have to manage your science 'cargo'. If you're doing a mission across several new subject types, you now have the choice to dump a less valuable experiment for a possibly more valuable one, and making informed choices is a key element of fun gameplay. This is why the initial idea also didn't work. You had to make a choice, but you didn't have any information to let you weigh the options, so that became frustrating. Being able to see what you got, how much it's worth, and weigh that against your limited uses of the experiment and the promise of more valuable data ahead, that makes it very interesting.

Cheers

[jalapen0]

It SHOULDN'T be as effective for gameplay and balance reasons, especially once career mode is fleshed out more and there's cost and reputation to factor in. Just sending a cheap probe to jool to collect data from orbit shouldn't give you as much of a return as sending a team of Kerbals there to do science and getting them back home successfully.

I TOTALLY agree. I still think there should be a "survey report" thought. Maybe it's only worth half the points of a crew report. I don't know. I still think it should be there. Especially in the early stages of career mode where it's really difficult to get Kerbals back to Kerbin because parts aren't available.

[JimmyAgent007]

My initial idea was in fact to have the experiments become inoperable immediately after use. I set it up that way, tried it for 15 minutes, and absolutely hated it.

Fair enough, I can understand that. I was speaking more from a realism perspective, but that's not always fun. Glad that it is settled either way. Thanks for the reply!

[CaptRobau]

But less effective, because the probe can't interpret the stuff that it's photographing or recording like an astronaut could. This would both make probes more useful for science gathering and still give manned missions an advantage.

[magnemoe]

But less effective, because the probe can't interpret the stuff that it's photographing or recording like an astronaut could. This would both make probes more useful for science gathering and still give manned missions an advantage.

Something like the probe survey does half of an crew report, doing an crew report add the second half.

I assume we have to dock the lander to the ship with the science module to renew the goo and material units?

[lazarus1024]

Maybe a Survey Report then. Something only probes can do.

I like this. It also makes a lot of sense. Someone send to devs as a suggestion.

Should be easy enough to make a survey report and crew report or EVA report be the same on the back-end, but maybe have the survey report carry somewhat less science value than having a real kerbal there.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that a probe part can't do any science at all without an instrument attached to it.

Oh, maybe a camera science part?

[abixbg]

My initial idea was in fact to have the experiments become inoperable immediately after use. I set it up that way, tried it for 15 minutes, and absolutely hated it.

Cheers

Totally agree that is frustrating not knowing how much science you can harvest at any given point (which is that bad in reality btw:) Maybe when more scientific resources are added like "Mystery Goo shots" or material trays this can be revisited again. It also could create need to do spacewalks for supplying the lab with "raw materials" which then can be converted in science (then science-->money when you implement financial aspect )

[abixbg]

My initial idea was in fact to have the experiments become inoperable immediately after use. I set it up that way, tried it for 15 minutes, and absolutely hated it.

Cheers

Totally agree that is frustrating not knowing how much science you can harvest at any given point (which is that bad in reality btw:) Maybe when more scientific resources are added like "Mystery Goo shots" or material trays this can be revisited again. It also could create need to do spacewalks for supplying the lab with "raw materials" which then can be converted in science (then science-->money when you implement financial aspect )

[Goodiej17]

Maybe a Survey Report then. Something only probes can do.

Great idea. And have it like the goo canister and the materials bay. You can transmit the data once and it become Inop.

[SkyRender]

My initial idea was in fact to have the experiments become inoperable immediately after use. I set it up that way, tried it for 15 minutes, and absolutely hated it.

What happened there is that if the experiments went inop after any use, they would become spent before you even got to see if there was any good science to be done at that spot. It felt very frustrating to have to 'guess' at a good spot to deploy, and risk losing a good experiment if you missed.

I realized then that it was because the game wasn't giving me a choice. When you run an experiment now, it will only become inoperable once the data is 'consumed' for transmission. So it's not so much like litmus paper anymore, but it still makes sense if you consider that the sample 'tray' or whatever the data gathering apparatus inside the module is will get destroyed in the process of being converted into something that can be transmitted.

This then became a good way to separate the 'physical' experiments from the more 'digital' ones. The goo container and materials bay do have physical samples inside, so those have to be destroyed to be processed into transmittable data. The other experiments are either abstract, like reports, or are somewhat 'digital' in nature, like a temperature or gravity scan, so those can be freely reused since their data is already transmittable.

From a gameplay standpoint, I like how this means you now have to manage your science 'cargo'. If you're doing a mission across several new subject types, you now have the choice to dump a less valuable experiment for a possibly more valuable one, and making informed choices is a key element of fun gameplay. This is why the initial idea also didn't work. You had to make a choice, but you didn't have any information to let you weigh the options, so that became frustrating. Being able to see what you got, how much it's worth, and weigh that against your limited uses of the experiment and the promise of more valuable data ahead, that makes it very interesting.

Cheers

It is a much better system that discourages transmission spam. In fact, I've found that it doesn't discourage the core type of mission that led to science spam (a very compact lander unit coupled with a mothership it returns to regularly), but rather speeds things up during such missions. If I had one suggestion to make, though, it would be to add a "data bank" part (or functionality to the larger probe cores) so that un-Kerballed missions could also store experiment data and thus probes could be used in a similar fashion for the non-physical experiments. Returning probes instead of transmitting is a very real strategy that even we humans use in our space program, and it would make a lot more sense than sending a ship with 6 of every instrument to observe the Jool system, for example.

[Moar Boosters]

My initial idea was in fact to have the experiments become inoperable immediately after use. I set it up that way, tried it for 15 minutes, and absolutely hated it.

What happened there is that if the experiments went inop after any use, they would become spent before you even got to see if there was any good science to be done at that spot. It felt very frustrating to have to 'guess' at a good spot to deploy, and risk losing a good experiment if you missed.

I realized then that it was because the game wasn't giving me a choice. When you run an experiment now, it will only become inoperable once the data is 'consumed' for transmission. So it's not so much like litmus paper anymore, but it still makes sense if you consider that the sample 'tray' or whatever the data gathering apparatus inside the module is will get destroyed in the process of being converted into something that can be transmitted.

This then became a good way to separate the 'physical' experiments from the more 'digital' ones. The goo container and materials bay do have physical samples inside, so those have to be destroyed to be processed into transmittable data. The other experiments are either abstract, like reports, or are somewhat 'digital' in nature, like a temperature or gravity scan, so those can be freely reused since their data is already transmittable.

From a gameplay standpoint, I like how this means you now have to manage your science 'cargo'. If you're doing a mission across several new subject types, you now have the choice to dump a less valuable experiment for a possibly more valuable one, and making informed choices is a key element of fun gameplay. This is why the initial idea also didn't work. You had to make a choice, but you didn't have any information to let you weigh the options, so that became frustrating. Being able to see what you got, how much it's worth, and weigh that against your limited uses of the experiment and the promise of more valuable data ahead, that makes it very interesting.

Cheers

This all makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but I think it's slightly confusing from a realism/roleplay POV because currently we're still running the physical experiment multiple times, and discarding the results if we don't like them.

It might be more intuitive if it worked exactly how it does now..... but the button for "perform experiment" be changed to something like "check experiment" or "check location". We'd then see if we're in a place where it'd be beneficial to perform, and then have a choice between "perform and transmit" and "perform and keep data".

The act of running the experiment multiple times to see if we're in a suitable location feels counter-intuitive when they're supposed to be single-use unless you process them with the lab.

Players might forget, but the Kerbals should know which locations they've exhausted, so it'd make more sense if there was a way we could check if an area has been depleted of science without actually running the experiment.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Moar Boosters

[Max Grant]

The new resource system has changed how I'm playing, and I am enjoying it actually. The incentive to bring back the sample if I can is now much greater, and therefore I'm forced to learn, better, how to do return-sample missions. I just did an unmanned probe to Minmus and brought back the samples, when I realized I had over-provisioned for fuel and I'd left parachutes on from an earlier attempt at Eve.

I play without sound most of the time due to my only computer being a laptop with terrible speakers, so I've been filling in Professor Oak's voice for whenever I visit Werner Von Kerman to update my technology tree. It really has a similar vibe to the old Pokémon Snap game if anyone's ever seen that.

[Wahgineer]

This all makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but I think it's slightly confusing from a realism/roleplay POV because currently we're still running the physical experiment multiple times, and discarding the results if we don't like them.

It might be more intuitive if it worked exactly how it does now..... but the button for "perform experiment" be changed to something like "check experiment" or "check location". We'd then see if we're in a place where it'd be beneficial to perform, and then have a choice between "perform and transmit" and "perform and keep data".

The act of running the experiment multiple times to see if we're in a suitable location feels counter-intuitive when they're supposed to be single-use unless you process them with the lab.

Players might forget, but the Kerbals should know which locations they've exhausted, so it'd make more sense if there was a way we could check if an area has been depleted of science without actually running the experiment.

That's what the science archives are for.

[Max Grant]

Oh, maybe a camera science part?

Oh, my god I was just talking about a game that takes pictures and I can't believe this didn't occur to me. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Actually I'd like to see more science parts with functions like mass spectrometer, wide and narrow-field camera, infrared, and basically y'all ought to go through the instrument list on 1960's and 1970's probes from the real world, because I'd happily make my "science" part of the mission going through and collecting 20 readings off an array of instruments. Especially with the ability to view the pictures/data afterwards, in the science center.