First off hi I'm new how's everybody; second I am loving the new career mode and science points system, just one thing I wanted to kind of get a sounding board on: When you observe the same instrument in the same location successive times it is worth a declining amount of points, which makes perfect sense. When you radio observations back instead of recovering the instrument that is also worth a lesser amount of points, which also makes perfect sense. The issue I'm seeing is with how the two penalties interact over time. My first measurements of several locations, particularly with the Science Jr, were with probes not designed to return. I got the data and radioed it back for 20% credit. For many locations I did this twice, which reduced the overall point value substantially. When I later completed return missions from those locations, I received 100% credit ... for a thoroughly decimated point value. I haven't made any specific calculations but there are at least several hundred science points which I now will simply never see thanks to the multiplying effect of these two penalties. Not only is that kind of unsatisfying, it doesn't really make sense to me either. Shouldn't your first instrument recovered from a location be worth the full value of an instrument recovered from that location? I don't think any self-respecting Kerbal scientist would accept radio data as a substitute for actual Mystery Goo from space on their lab table. Perhaps radio data and recovered instrument data could be put on separate repeat-observation penalty scales, so that as one value declines the other does not? Or recovered instrument data could penalize the value of radio data but not vice-versa? The only alternative is to get really obsessive about never using your antennas until after you've already done return missions from each individual location, but that gets hard to keep track of and I don't think it adds any fun to the game. Anyway 0.22 was a huge update and I know this is kind of a minute detail, I was just curious if this multiplying penalty effect was intentional, and whether anyone else was bothered by it. Long as I'm here, know what else would be cool? Like a building in the space center, or some menu, where you could review the sum total of your scientific data. Like a trophy room - I would totally spend time just looking at everything I'd done. And it would be great for showing you where you had missed an opportunity to do some mission you never got around to.
