Unable to recover components which have been decoupled?

[Rangoon]

I thought I read that you can recover parts even if they are falling as debris, maybe depending on distance. I'm in career mode, and decoupled some solid fuel rockets. They had parachutes, which I observed deploy, and landed in the immediate shore near the lauch site (less than a kilometer away). My craft landed even closer to the launch site, so the two were less than a kilometer away from each other as well. No observable damage to any component on either segment. After recovering the occupied craft, I only see parts for that segment. Is there a way to recover the "debris" segment?

[SpeedDaemon]

The tracking station no longer displays objects classified as "debris" by default. Try enabling it by clicking the icon for debris at the top of the tracking station screen and see if it shows up in your list then.

[Claw]

Well, the new system extends the physics range (for any craft near the craft in focus). I don't know the exact range, but it's something like 22 or 23 km. This range applies to debris also.

However, I suspect what is happening here is that KSP also helps you clean up around KSC by auto recovering any debris. When it auto recovers, you get funds back but no popup. (At least, you used to get funds back. I haven't verified if you still do in 1.0.)

Cheers,

-Claw

[Rangoon]

Thanks for the replies. I did a little testing. It seems that, in this case, the only way to recover the debris was to *not* select Recover Vessel, but instead select Space Center. From there, I could select either segment and recover. If I select the debris segment, though I don't get the details, I do get an appropriate amount of funds. Then I can recover the crewed segement and get the normal end-of-mission details.

EDIT: On further observation, my Kerbal pilot was outside the craft on another iteration. I hit Recover Vessel, which gave the crew debriefing but it left the debris and the command capsule segment in tact near the space center. I could then select each individually and recover. It does seem that proximity to the launch site determines whether you can see the debris after the mission is over. On at least one occasion, it seemed that debris landed too close to the site, was not recoverable (or was automatically recovered/cleaned up), though it yielded no funds.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Rangoon