Advice for efficient science grinding on mun / minmus. How, what where?

[Corinthas]

I have been playing KSP since early access so have seen many changes to things.
My current game i have just orbited and landed on mun / minmus once each.
In the past I used to haul a sci.jr. up there and slap a few goo pods and stuff on the side.
Now i haul a service bay packed with the experiments (minus the sci. jr.) there and back again.

I have seen a kerbal inventory item with EVA experiments which i plan to take next time.

But going beyond that I have never gotten around to placing a mobile sci lab in orbit up there (thinking mun) and have a re-usable lander? Thinking of a admin building strat to convert money int science (outsource R&D)

I am currently around half way tech level 6..

Anyway please share your advice on how to maximise science haul.

[GunsForBucks]

The science gear I typically aim for is the gravity meter. High and low readings from orbit for each biome that net a good chunk of science. Also works on surface but in science gather mode I tend to just focus on orbital readings to make it easy. Labs work fine if you have decently leveled scientists. If I remember correctly it does not take too many gravity readings to fill them up. So they pair well together.

I tend to land my science labs and transfer science to them there.. Greater Flats on Minimus has been home to many of my labs. Also they take time to collect up data but only process a data set once. Making them able to return is probably the best way to go if you plan to have a long career game.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2087443330

[Jupiter3927]

Build a rover with a small rocket engine on it if you can and use that to hit up as many biomes as possible.
Bring a scientist to reset the goo and science jr experiments too.

The Spark engine works great for this and beats out the Terrier in efficiency on smaller ships.
You should be able to land on Minmus, visit at least half of the moon, and return to orbit with a tiny rover with a Spark engine in under a half hour real time.
Having Jeb driving a motorcycle on Minmus is fun too...

If you really want efficiency, build your ships as tiny as possible to get the most dV out of your fuel.
Skip the goo and science jr experiments because they're huge compared to the thermometer and gravioli detector.
If you're cool with mods, look into the 'Tweak Scale' mod to shrink the science jr down.

If you want speed...
Those huge rover wheels with tank steering are basically indestructible, but will need repairs.
There doesn't seem to be a limit on how fast they spin when turning so alternating between turning left and right gets it going really fast.
I use it to launch planes on the runway, they get up to 100m/s no problem on pure electricity.

[Corinthas]

Originally posted by Jupiter3927:

Build a rover with a small rocket engine on it if you can and use that to hit up as many biomes as possible.
Bring a scientist to reset the goo and science jr experiments too.

Yes liking the hopping rover concept.

[Empiro]

My recommendation is to avoid grinding science on Minmus as much as possible. I did it the first time I played KSP, and after it all, I felt like I just missed half the game.

It's possible to complete the entire tech tree on Minmus, but there are so many great places to visit in the Kerbol system.

So go visit Minmus and the Mun once or twice, but after that, try to aim somewhere further.

[Jupiter3927]

You can turn science gains down if you want more science grinding...
Unlocking the entire tech tree doesn't make you win the game, it just gives you all of the tools the game has to offer.

I dug up a picture of one of my lightweight rovers.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=855168628

[GunsForBucks]

This was my first micro rover I flew back from the Mun.
Ant / Spider engines are probably the most fuel efficient for this as long as you keep the weight down.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2073760423

[andylaugel]

You get science for the first 'x' times (maximum 4 I believe) you do an experiment on any given biome. A scientist on EVA can collect science from an instrument, reset the instrument (like goo and materials bay), and store it all in the cockpit or other science-holding parts, like the Experiment Storage Unit. To make this easy, I also have all instruments gather their science on action group '2'.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365237796

So after landing, I'd have all of the instruments gather readings, send a scientist on EVA, collect all the readings and reset the instruments, then repeat 3 more times before storing those readings in my storage units, cockpit, and so on.

I have sometimes used biome hopping, where a lander will take a suborbital hop or a drive from one biome to another.

[Bubba Fett]

In previous playthroughs I've placed mobile stations around both the Mun and Minmus.
This is usually something like a capsule, hitchhiker, mobile lab, the rockomax 64 and a poodle or skipper. You also have batteries, solar panels, mono propellant tanks and a few docking ports on it.
Something like this isn't too difficult to get into orbit and I usually follow it up with a tanker to refuel it in kerbins orbit so you leave with a full tank. You can usually get to minmus or the Mun with about 2/3 of the tank full and with a small lander you can get a LOT of landings on that fuel.
You send the lander seperatly with it's own transfer stage and drain any remaining fuel into the big tank to support future landings.
While the science lab will generate science, it takes a while compared to what your landings will get you in a much shorter time. The lab's main advantage is that you can level up crew in it so make sure you send everyone down to the surface at least once to plant a flag.

Any science that can be transmitted home without loss should be, while stuff that does get a transmit loss should be stored in the station.
When you've gathered enough science to make it worthwhile, send a courier ship to pick it up. These should be small and cheap. If your transmitted science has unlocked more instruments, bring them along in a small module you can dock with the station.
While it wasn't a thing last time I played much, I think an engineer can now add instruments to your landers in EVA.
My courier ship is usually based on a mk1 pod and when I've brought out a new crewmember and loaded up all the science data, I take it back to kerbin.

After getting all the science from minmus, you can either move it to the mun or launch a new one and leave the first at minmus.
If you leave it at minmus, you're close to the edge of the kerbin system so you could refuel on site, (either from a ground mining station or a tanker from kerbin) then leave from there on an expedition to duna.
You can also detour one of your courier ships outside kerbins SOI for a set of crew reports, EVA reports, and maybe some science in the wider solar system before ducking back into kerbins SOI for the return home.

[Quizzical]

1) Get the easy science from around Kerbin, and use it to unlock some science experiments. This should at least get you the thermometer and barometer.

2) Build a vehicle that has a scientist, a pilot, one of each experiment that you have access to, and multiple experiment storage units. Fly that vehicle to orbit around Minmus and run all of the experiments multiple times both high in space and low in space, storing the data in each experiment storage unit. After that, fly the vehicle to Mun and do the same thing there. Don't land on either, but only pick up science in space before returning to land on Kerbin. The scientist can reset the mystery goo and science jr. as needed. Make sure that the scientist can just hop out the door and reach the experiments without having to fly around or climb. This should get you enough science to unlock the rest of the science experiments.

3) Repeat (2) with a new vehicle that has all of the science experiments. This time, however, you want to get into a polar orbit about Minmus and repeat the gravmax experiment separately above each of the nine biomes. You want the orbit to be just above 30 km so that it's high in space. Then lower the orbit to just under 30 km so that it's low in space and repeat. When low in space, you want to repeat the gravmax and EVA report separately for each biome. After picking up all of the science from Minmus, fly to Mun and repeat. Above Mun, the threshold for high in space is 60 km. This should get you enough science to unlock a lot more things and let you build a decent lander.

4) Build a lander designed for Minmus that has all of the experiments except for the magnetometer and telescope, as those are only done in space and you've already done them. As with previous stages, you'll need a scientist, though now you can probably skip the pilot because you should have a good probe core unlocked. Land it on Minmus and do all of the experiments while landed. Then hop to another biome and repeat. To go from a low orbit about Minmus to landed in each of the nine biomes and back to orbit takes about 2000 m/s of delta-v if you're efficient. Pick up all of the landed science from Minmus and then return to Kerbin. That won't quite unlock everything, but it will unlock everything that has much of a point near Kerbin or either of its moons.

5) Repeat step (4) on Mun. This time, you're going to need to refuel somehow. You could put mining equipment on your lander. Or you could have a big fuel tank in space and have your lander repeatedly dock to refuel there. The former is probably easier if your difficulty settings are such that there will be plenty of ore everywhere. This should be enough to fully unlock the tech tree unless you've turned science gains down.

On (2) and (3), you want to go to Minmus before Mun. It's easy to get a rendezvous with Mun while coming in from any odd angle. It's much harder to get a good rendezvous with Minmus while starting in orbit about Mun.

Do (4) before (5) as Minmus is much easier than Mun. On Minmus, it's easy to have one vehicle hop around between biomes with no need to worry about docking, mining, or otherwise refueling. On Mun, you're going to have to refuel somehow or bring several landers that you use one at a time.

[Quizzical]

The mobile science lab works, but if you want to fully process all of the science from Mun or Minmus there, you're looking at decades of game time. If you do want to go the mobile science lab approach, then bring several experiment storage units. Land somewhere, do all of the experiments, and store them in one unit. Then repeat all of the experiments and store them in another. Repeat until you've filled all of your experiment storage units. Only after that do you take off and go land somewhere else.

Once you've picked up all of the science for Minmus, transfer one copy of your data to the science lab and send the rest back to Kerbin. There's no need to hop around and land in every biome multiple times, even if you want multiple copies of the data.

[Toucan27]

Later in the game, when science is being used to generate income you can re-analyse every biome with every new laboratory.
I like to place a station, with about 8 new Laboratories out at about 5000Km, out where the transfer to the Mun or Minmus is easy.
Build a nice a big lander with about 3500dv, lots of power and 8 times all experiments, even science bay jr's, a convert-o-tron and a couple of drill-o-matics. You can pretty much fill all the Laboratories with Data with each run.
You could cut down experiments by taking science containers to store experiments but that ends up being a lot more clicks and management. With 8 times experiments you can assign them all to one action key and presto, you're done.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2451311583
This brings in a lot of money and enables the building of much more ambitions missions to the Jool system.

[.]

Labs are actually broken, for my career saves i put one in orbit of minmus and one in orbit of mun and for each of my landings in different biomes I drop the experiments off at the labs. While the labs are processing that data u can begin missions to other planets like Duna & Eve which involve a ton of time warping. Never played much of science mode, but when money doesn't matter im sure scaling up the operation to include more labs and more mun/min landings could be worth it.

[Jupiter3927]

Labs take data from experiments and convert it to science points and work in the background.
It's possible to grind infinite science out of labs if you use enough different labs.
Each lab can only take each experiment once.