How does the Laboratory work?

How does the Mobile Processing Lab work?

There's a "Start Research" option, but it doesn't do anything...

Solution 1:

According to this page, experiments can be performed or transferred to a vessel with a Mobile Processing Lab (MPL). Regular experiments which normally only generate science can now also generate "Data" which is a new resource that can only be generated and used by a MPL.

Data is converted into science on the MPL. That science MUST be transmitted back to KSC (not returned by recovery).

One data can be converted to five science, so this is a good deal. The down side is it takes a long time and a lot of electricity.

Also, the rate at which data is converted to science is determined by the number of scientist on the vessel (not necessarily in the MPL). See graph: