Run a Science Lab

Put a laboratory somewhere far away, feed it samples, and collect discovery from it for as long as you leave it there.

The Science Lab explains why it behaves the way it does. This is what to do.

Steps

  1. Build the station. In the hangar, tap the category tabs until the drawer's header reads ‹ Sensors, and pull the SL-8 Science Lab onto the stack. It is eight metres across, so it wants the wide parts above and below it.
  2. Add what it needs to live. Solar arrays or a reactor for 0.9 u/s, a battery for the night side, an antenna that can reach home from where you are going, and all three instruments — a Thermometer, a Barometer and a Mass Spectrometer. Each instrument makes its own samples out of every place, so the full set feeds the bench three times as fast.
  3. Seat the scientists. Tap the lab in the hangar and fill its three seats. Only Scientists may sit in them; the seat rows list the ones you have. One will do, three is twice as fast.
  4. Fly it somewhere worth standing. Land it on a world, or leave it coasting above the air. Earth's orbit works and pays the least; the Moon pays double; Mars three and a half times. It will not work on the pad and it will not work while you are climbing through the atmosphere.
  5. Take a reading at every new place on the way. Tap each instrument and choose Take reading — see Take a reading. Every place that is new to the lab files 24 u of data into it — a little over half a day of work for a full bench. A place you have already analysed with that instrument files nothing, so the way to keep the bench fed is to go somewhere else.
  6. Start the bench. Tap the lab and press Start. The sheet's second row tells you what it is doing — Analysing · 42 a day when it is working, or the reason it is not.
  7. Leave it, then come back. The findings pile up aboard the lab and go nowhere on their own. Take the ship's controls again — from the hangar, or from the map — tap the lab, and press Transmit. The discovery lands in your account there and then.

Checking on it

Take control of the ship again from the hangar and tap the lab. The sheet's rings are the whole story: DATA is how many samples are left to work through, DISCOVERY is how much has been found and not yet sent, and the rate beside each says which way it is going.

The second button is the one that matters. It reads Transmit 42 when there are whole points aboard and the space centre can hear you, No link home when it cannot, and Nothing to transmit when the bench has not made a whole point yet. Come back before the store fills — a full bench stops working until you empty it.

If it is not working

The sheet saysWhat to do
IdleIt is switched off. Press Start.
Needs to be landed or in orbitYou are on the pad or inside an atmosphere. Land, or get above the air.
No scientist at the benchIts seats are empty. Seat a Scientist — a pod's Transfer crew will move one across in flight.
No powerThe grid is flat. More arrays, a bigger battery, or wait for sunrise.
Out of data — take readings somewhere newIt has analysed everything you have brought it, and draws no power while it waits. Fly somewhere you have not measured and read it again: it carries on by itself.
Findings store full — transmit them to carry onIt has made all it can hold and is waiting for you. Press Transmit and it starts again.
Findings store full — no link homeIt is full and cannot reach the space centre. Put a relay between it and Earth, or dock with a ship that can reach home, Transfer resources across and transmit from there.

See also