The Mobile Processing Lab; is it fit for purpose?

[UberFuber]

You can even save time by not storing the SCIENCE! in the lab at all...just save it directly to the lander's command pod. So in step 5. above you just need to clean the Material Bay and Goo and leave all the SCIENCE! in the lander.

This thread has some points on using the lab. This post has a pic of my SCIENCE! lander...

I like to keep the lander "uncluttered" so it's a lot easier for me to track whether I completed all the science in my landing. Plus, since it takes quite some time to scrub out the science parts (for me, it's 1 science jr and 2 material pod. The double up of material pod is mostly just to keep the lander balanced), I use that time to do the science report transfer (I've ladders all setup so that when I docked, and can move from my command module to the lab ships command module quickly).

Btw, forgot to mention that my lab ship has its own command module. Since I need kerbal to man the lab anyway, I decided to add a command module for it. It just look... cleaner.

[Kaptain]

I wanted to farm science, but was sick of mun and minmus. So, I hauled the lab out to jool with a small lander. Got all the science from Kerbol, Jool, Bop, and pol. I brought back nearly 8000 science. Tech tree done! Plus I just slapped 4 lander legs and 4 parachutes to my lab, never had a problem recovering it.

Also, I was trying to be wastefull with funds cuz there piling up, and I even after this expensive mission it brought back twice as many funds from exploring those planets and moons.

[hab136]

Yep. That's quicker than doing a docking operations for each flight to the moon and back.

Also note that landing on a planet is a good chance to catch some additional contracts to complete on a Mun or Minimus surface making the whole process not only notably quicker but also significantly cheaper thanks to all the "test parts" contracts that you will do out there and you cannot while flying a single reusable lander.

Sorry, but going to the moon, coming back, synching orbits with a station, orbital rendezvous, docking there, moving experiments around, refueling... it's just a waste of time while you might make a return to kerbin on a maximum time acceleration, then quickly pick new contracts, attach parts, hop back into rocket and get another landing done.

Quicker, gives you science in more regular and manageable intervals (especially important for new players, but also as mentioned: it makes progression in the game much more efficient), gives you money more quickly, doesn't require so much effort.

Using processing lab in it's current form is just crippling yourself.

1. Rendezvous, docking, and refueling/cleaning is normally under 2 hours game time and maybe 3-5 minutes real time. Launching another lander would be a couple of days game time and 5-10 minutes real time. If you're really terrible at rendezvous/docking it might take longer - but that would be incentive to practice it.

2. Launching landers for every biome is certainly more expensive than the lander+mothership approach.

3. You can pick up new missions while still at the Mun - just periodically go back to the space center and check for them. If there are "test part" missions, then fly a dedicated test ship full of test parts. The test-part ship can be on its way to the Mun while you do biome-hopping with the lander. Kerbal Alarm Clock is great to keep track of multiple missions.

You keep harping on "more science quicker" and "more money quicker". Once your lander+mothership combo is around the Mun/Minmus, you don't need more science or more funds during that mission, so who cares whether you get it in small chunks or all at once? You can go explore all the biomes and bring everything back (maybe sending a few test-part ships during the mission), then you have a giant pile of science to play with.

Even if you really want it in small chunks, you'll still be transmitting a fair amount of science - you transmit everything that's repeatable with the lander (crew reports, EVA reports, seismic scan, surface samples), then save one last reading of all of those to bring home to Kerbin, along with the goo and materials bay results.

You're free to play however you like, but the lander+mothership combo still seems more efficient to me.

[Laie]

Sorry, but going to the moon, coming back, synching orbits with a station, orbital rendezvous, docking there, moving experiments around, refueling... it's just a waste of time while you might make a return to kerbin on a maximum time acceleration, then quickly pick new contracts, attach parts, hop back into rocket and get another landing done.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79215-A-convenient-career-mode-LabLander-%28also-quite-asymmetric%29

Enough fuel to visit all Minmus biomes with suborbital hops and harvest 99.8% of the available science points from each. Science can be collected from instruments conveniently while on the ground. All results are stored in the lab, as well as several soil samples from every site. Lab returns safely Kerbin. See thread for details.

I know that you set your part cost to be 8x nominal. May be that you can't afford this. But don't hold everyone else to your standard.

[advil]

The process I have used in the past to make the science lab useful is as follows, it involves some trips up to an orbital and back down depending on how much science you want to bring home. I do not use the lab to broadcast experiments back to Kerbin, but instead it serves as a container to return them to the surface. So, I design A lightweight lander with the science equipment available, Make sure it has an accessible docking port, batteries, antenna, PVs, pretty much everything needed to land on a celestial body, and enough fuel capacity to move from low orbit to surface and back to low orbit. This then attaches to A two part orbital section. First a good size engine and a good amount of fuel, generally I like to use a Mainsail and a large orange rock-o-max tank for this, followed by a monoprope tank, battery, control module and Clamp-o-tron Senior, perhaps some surface PVs and RCS blocks for ease of movement. To that docking port is attached the mobile processing lab with only one Kerbal. This also has batteries and a control module, maybe some PVs and of course plenty of radial chutes toward the top end and landing struts at the bottom end, finally a small fuel tank and engine (I think you see where this is going). On top of that the lander is docked. Install enough ladder down the side so that the pilot of the lander can easily move from his CM to the lab to store experiments. From there the gathering of science is carried out as follows..

1) Arrive at target celestial body and move to a stable low orbit

2) Deploy any retractable PVs on the science lab and Orbital

3) Un-dock the lander and move to the desired landing site / biome

4) transmit crew report once landed

5) Collect data from all attached scientific telemetry

6) Eva to the surface and collect a surface sample

7) Collect EVA report

8) While moving back to CM right click all scientific telemetry and remove experiments

9) Enter CM and store all experiments

10) Take off and set course for the orbital stage

11) Dock to orbital

12) EVA lander pilot and right click CM and select "Take experiments"

13) Continue EVA down to science lab and enter storing all experiments in the lab

14) While both Kerbals are inside the lab, broadcast any data that can be sent at 100% only

15) "Clean out" any goo canisters and science juniors to reset them

16) EVA pilot back to lander and reposition for next biome

17) Repeat.

After you have exhausted this, return the whole thing back to Kerbin, detach and land your lander and recover the craft. Then detach and deorbit your mobile processing lab. If all goes well you will be able to recover this as well with all of its contained experiments. Please note that any impact to the mobile processing lab at greater speed than about 6-6.5 Meters per second will likely destroy it so make sure you have enough radial parachutes. Your tug still in orbit can either be trashed or re-fueled. I say no sense in deorbiting something that can be indefinitely repurposed. As far as putting the lab on the surface of the celestial body you plan to gather science from, I have done this as well and it doesn't save any time really. Not to mention your lander becomes huge.

..Thoughts?

[John FX]

For the weight and cost I usually just spam science parts and return them all home.

I don`t use the part as it just isn`t as functional, cheap or useful as returning everything, which just costs a bit of fuel and you get to recover some costs from returning the craft.

on top of that, you don`t need a manned mission if you don`t use it.

[M3tal_Warrior]

I landed lab rovers on Mun and Minmus, so I'm able to repeat all experiments indefinitely (5 times per biome to max out everything) and store them in the lab. Having driven through all biomes (or at least through those close to the landing spot), I land a second lab or lander with 5 capsules, store everything in there and return that lander to Kerbin. That's how I do it - may lack some style, but I like it.

[Dr. Moustache- PhD]

I haven't had much experience yet with .24 (just a few hours of testing a vanilla instance), but I would think that a large consideration in the MPL effectiveness is also if/what mods are being used. DRE (deadly re-entry), for example, will make returning anything much more difficult, and sometimes not worth the cost or complication. I personally refuse to play without RemoteTech 2, and so I like to find uses for those expensive and time consuming satellite constellations I put up. Having a mobile science lab available would seem, IMO, to be a very good way to make them more effective. But I also prefer the role-playing school of KSPing, rather than min-maxxing the science system.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Dr. Moustache, PhD

[micha]

After you have exhausted this, return the whole thing back to Kerbin, detach and land your lander and recover the craft. Then detach and deorbit your mobile processing lab. If all goes well you will be able to recover this as well with all of its contained experiments. Please note that any impact to the mobile processing lab at greater speed than about 6-6.5 Meters per second will likely destroy it so make sure you have enough radial parachutes. Your tug still in orbit can either be trashed or re-fueled. I say no sense in deorbiting something that can be indefinitely repurposed. As far as putting the lab on the surface of the celestial body you plan to gather science from, I have done this as well and it doesn't save any time really. Not to mention your lander becomes huge.

..Thoughts?

There's no need to do this - just have your Kerbonaut collect the experiments from the MPL, store them in the lander, and land with that. Leave the MPL and tug in orbit for the next mission.

[Superfluous J]

There's no need to do this - just have your Kerbonaut collect the experiments from the MPL, store them in the lander, and land with that. Leave the MPL and tug in orbit for the next mission.

Agreed. The key to getting a lab working is to launch one. And never launch another one.

Ever.

[Yarrula]

I second the mothership/lab combo in orbit. I've done this several times and it's always cheaper and more time efficient than launching new landers and science instruments from kerbin. My method is to transmit and recover one of each experiment from each biome. My lander's have two material labs, two goo, and one of everything that doesn't need a lab to reset. All science results are stored in the lander's capsule for recovery later. Everything that can be transmitted with no loss (eva reports, crew reports) is transmitted. I have to hit up 5 or so biomes around Mun or Minmus to make this the better option in the long term, rather than bringing multiple goo experiements, but once you leave Kerbin's SOI, the Lab really starts to shine. It'll get even better once other planets get their own biomes.

I am mystified by the transmission boost part of the lab though. I never use it. If I go through all the trouble to haul the lab and some kerbals out there, I'll just recover enough samples to make up the difference between processing and not processing the experimental results. I want that transmission boost for things I don't plan to return, which means that I need to consign two kerbals to the empty black in perpetuity. I'm not that heartless, yet.

[advil]

Agreed. The key to getting a lab working is to launch one. And never launch another one.

Ever.

What control module are you using that lets you store Several biomes worth of samples in order to return them to kerbin? If you could store an unlimited supply on a CM then there wouldn't be any need to use the lab to store experiments. That's my whole reason for using the lab, to store the large number of surface samples and various measurements. Any time I've tried to put a kerbal into a CM with multiple surface samples I'm told they won't all fit. So how is it you're doing this?

[Mitchz95]

I really only use it for cleaning out goo and material study experiments so I don't have to carry 20 of them over to the Jool system. Cuts down on craft size a lot.

This.

What control module are you using that lets you store Several biomes worth of samples in order to return them to kerbin? If you could store an unlimited supply on a CM then there wouldn't be any need to use the lab to store experiments. That's my whole reason for using the lab, to store the large number of surface samples and various measurements. Any time I've tried to put a kerbal into a CM with multiple surface samples I'm told they won't all fit. So how is it you're doing this?

As long as each sample is from a different biome, they will all fit in any command pod. Likewise with every other kind of science.

[DasValdez]

Experiment module cleaning is perfect as-is. It's so good, I don't even worry about using the transmit bonus.

I'm a huge fan of the science ship and lander method... Every time a new save starts, the first goal is to get these parts researched so this baby can head straight for Minmus to polish off the tech tree. 121k off the pad, of which 70k stays on mission with the ship and lander.

The low grav lander can double hop Minmus, snagging two biomes per trip. Since I'm a tad impatient, the crew fills a MkI with experiment results and a probe core returns it to Kerbin for recovery when I want Science Now while leaving the base ship on-station. There's enough fuel and monoprop on board to land at every biome twice, and a fueler drone can top her back off when it's time for the next mission.

The same base ship can be used to max out the Mun and be used on most other planets/moons with a simple lander refit (Swapping the second science jr and goo for more fuel). The base ship stays in orbit and a light rocket delivers the new lander. I could use the higher DV lander for all missions, but the Minmus double hops in the low grav unit save a lot of time. Again, I can use the MkI's to return a subset of science before all biomes are done, just to satisfy the Law of Apparent Progress for biome grinding.

A special lander drop tank/supply depot can be added and the same lander used for most other planets and moons... pretty much everything except Eve.

Two radial clamp-o-trons on the main tank allow for refueling and attachment of interplanetary drop tanks. The side tank axial cl-o-t's allow attachment of my interplanetary boosters, for when fuel is plentiful and I don't have the patience to burn at TWR = .2. A long range version of the MkI recovery probe allows results to be sent home before the crew returns. I can also swap out a recovery module with Science Satellite or Atmo probe modules.

Once I get one of these puppies off Kerbin, I never worry about science again. The MPL is a real winner.

[fairytalefox]

1. In my expirience, it's just cheaper in terms of funds, mass and operation difficulty to put several copies of science tools at the probe rather than have fun with recharging them at MPL. Well, it makes some sense in Jool missions because 18 Science Jr's attached to 5 or 6 probe cores aren't easy to manage, but in any other scenario you just need moar SJr's.

2. It's ability to increase science yield when transmitting works as intended but is completely useless. As people said above, it's piloted so you HAVE to return your ship. And if you're going to return anyway, what's the point in transmitting science when you can just bring it back in your pocket?

Adctually I think that MPL should give us more than 100% of science when processing experiments in the same location/biome where they were done. Because it's more effective to bring your scientists to your samples (in their natural environment) rather than bringing (probably damaged or spoiled or what) samples to the scientists.