Optimally Efficient Science Mission Challenge

[Othuyeg]

I am not really going to be taking part in this challenge, so do not take what I am about to say very seriously.

I lauched a mission onto the launchpad, cost me 5 bucks to get someone to walk there on their lunch hour and they brought me back some interesting dirt.

[cantab]

And that's why science from Kerbin was banned :-P

[Othuyeg]

Oh I didn't read that part. My bad.

[Jasonden]

Is picking up data allowed?

Is it in the stock game? I tried to do this but it didn't seem to work. Maybe I did it wrong. Is it a KAS thing?

[cantab]

I finally set up for the first part of the Smith 2's mission, the Mun flyby, but have discovered some oddities in the science transmission.

Two 1x6 solar panels aren't enough to run the antenna at full power, so the transmission starts and stops. That's to be expected. If I do the transmission normally, I get messages about the data coming in dribs and drabs, fractions of a science point at a time turning to 0.0 science points at a time. If, however, I timewarp (not physics warp) right after hitting transmit, I still see the warnings about lack of power, but I just get one data message at the end.

Importantly to this challenge, I get significantly more science by using the timewarp in this way. Something like twice as much with the gravity detector.

The value with timewarp is the "intended value", the one I'd get without timewarping if I had enough power; I confirmed this by making a copy of my quicksave and hacking it to have more electricity. However, the lost science due to slow transmission may be intentional, or if not may be seen as deserved.

Is it permissible for the challenge to use the timewarp to get the full science yield from the experiments?

[cantab]

Well, I decided to go for getting the maximum science out. The Smith 2 has now completed its Mun flyby.

I experimented a bit, and determined that to get the most science I needed to stay in normal time just before and through the critical low part of the flyby, spamming the gravity experiment in order to deliberately backlog it and make sure I didn't miss any small biomes. Temperature doesn't depend on biomes, so I kept that result for later transmission so it wouldn't keep showing when I hit the experiments action group. Then once the science gathering was over I hit the timewarp. Because most of the experiments were still in the queue for transmission, they went out for the full value. The drawback was having to wait a few real-time hours for the transmissions to complete, since they weren't sped up by timewarping.

Summary:

Cost: $12.480M

Experiments: Temperature and Gravity

Science: 284.64

Science/M$: 22.81

So far, not the greatest of scores. Actually, the worst of scores. But then this is just phase one of the mission. Even once I make my (rather expensive) mid-course correction for Eve the Smith 2 will still have around 1300 m/s of dV in the tanks.

Nonetheless, feel free to stick it down as a Mun mission for now Jasonden.

Full photo set on Flickr including some more descriptions than here.

Mission cost reminder.

Some launch shots. Like the mission emblem on the SRB?

Eve transfer orbit including Mun flyby established.

Science before. I have been doing other stuff in the save (it's ended up being my main save for .23.5), but nothing from the Mun.

Just one of the many science experiments run. It really felt like the probe was going to hit the Mun when it was coming in!

Goodbye Mun.

Science after.

[Jasonden]

So far, not the greatest of scores. Actually, the worst of scores. But then this is just phase one of the mission. Even once I make my (rather expensive) mid-course correction for Eve the Smith 2 will still have around 1300 m/s of dV in the tanks.

Best score for an un-Kerballed mission so far, more like! And with more to come, too

Here's a new lowest Science/$: a Kerballed Eve lander and return. Took 3 launches, and liberal use of the new engines with high TWR. The good part is that the mission is so expensive by itself that extra science equipment is cheap in comparison. I think that I could do better with some tweaks to allow samples from water too.

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Science: 1543.09

Cost: $129.9M+$104.7M+$117.2M

Science/$: 4.39

Edited April 14, 2014 by Jasonden

[Jasonden]

Is picking up data allowed?

Okay, was just playing with this in my Eve mission. YES! No problem on picking up data, seems perfectly kosher and I just hadn't used it before

[Aedile]

Is it in the stock game? I tried to do this but it didn't seem to work. Maybe I did it wrong. Is it a KAS thing?

No it's in the stock game, 2.3 I think? Just get your kerbal on eva get close and right click the instrument. There should be take data. You can then store it in the pod either by entering it, or using store data option from menu. You can store one measurement from each biome, that's why it's good to transmit one and bring one. The goo and mat lab are one use only though, you need the lab to reset them.

[Jasonden]

. Because most of the experiments were still in the queue for transmission, they went out for the full value. The drawback was having to wait a few real-time hours for the transmissions to complete, since they weren't sped up by timewarping.

I deem this kosher. Although it's a bit exploit-y, there's no reason that you couldn't (IRL) just dribble the data back as your battery allows, so if you're willing to wait a few real-time hours, then I'm okay with allowing it

[nobbers12345]

Oh mai god yes.

Just got the best score for going to minmus and the mun with gravioli and temperature scan only:

0.012882448

[Jasonden]

Oh mai god yes.

Just got the best score for going to minmus and the mun with gravioli and temperature scan only:

0.012882448

Post pics? Are you sure that your cost was in mega$? 12.88 would seem closer to what I might expect for a minmus/mun mission.

[Eric S]

...except it doesn't work that way. First, I forgot that you can only hold one crew report no matter what biome it came from; you can transmit it without penalty, but I didn't bring an antenna. Second, there is only one "space low over Eve" biome, regardless of whether it's over land or sea (I didn't know this, I'd never visited Eve before!).

Kind of off topic, but to clarify this, Eve and Laythe (the two non-Kerbin bodies with water) do not have multiple biomes. What you're seeing is you get different results within the same biome if you're landed vs splashed down. There are places you can see this in action on Kerbin.

[Jasonden]

Well, even if nobody else is interested in this I'm having fun

Here's a Gilly lander:

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Science: 608

Cost: $5.052

Science/M$: 120.35

[cantab]

Clever trick with the landing legs! I wondered why you'd put the capsule under the fuel tanks, then I saw the landing shot.