Sample/science return in Apollo style lander

[UH60guy]

Bottom line: Are soil samples only stored in the command pod that lands, or can they be transferred to the return module? Do you get the SCIENCE! points for sample return, even if a different part of the ship returns?

Longer description: I'm working up to an Apollo-style landing on the Mun, with an orbiting command/return module and a separate Munar Lander. When Jeb lands and collects soil samples, returns to orbit, and docks with the command module, does he carry that stuff over to the command module? I'd like to try to physically return as much as possible, not so much spam transmissions back to Kerbin.

Obviously the goo and other modules I'll find another way to return, such as a science package with docking port, but I'm wondering about things like the EVA report and soil samples that don't physically appear, but get "stored" in whatever pod he climbs in. I'd just like to know what I'm up against so I can tell if I have to make my Munar Lander weighed down with parachutes and other stuff for surviving the return to Kerbin instead of abandoning it as dead mass in Munar orbit.

Edited October 21, 2013 by UH60guy

[blizzy78]

As soon as the Kerbal holding the surface sample climbs into a pod, the surface sample is stored inside that pod. You need to recover that exact pod to get the points. Recovering a different pod will gain you nothing if it isn't part of the same vessel.

[UH60guy]

Interesting, thanks. I wonder if a mod, such as the crew manifest, could be made to handle sample and report transfer. If not, it might be a good suggestion to make to Squad.

The thinking behind that is if someone wants to do a grand tour with mothership, they'd have to return every single lander to Kerbin to get those soil samples returned, or transmit and lose data. Not that there's anything wrong with transmitting, but I'm really enjoying the challenge of trying to return samples.

I would think that it would be reasonable to transfer soil samples and crew between docking ports (like they did from the LM to CM in Apollo), so I don't believe this would be game-breaking or unbalancing. Alternatively, maybe a ship component to store all these rocks that actually gets heavier with each sample taken (implemented like fuel transfer).

[blizzy78]

or transmit and lose data

Which doesn't diminish the total amount of science you get from doing an experiment. You just need to execute and transmit it more often.

[UH60guy]

Right, I misspoke, sorry- it's only a smaller data return if you don't repeatedly transmit. It's more a gameplay challenge for me in not wanting to transmit repeatedly- I like to think of those rocks going to some Kerbal museums or something, rather than pictures of them being framed on the walls at KSC.

[Tassyr]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/54370-Radially-Attached-Experimental-Data-Storage-Container aside: THIS MAN IS AWESOME. Semi solution for this problem.