Losing science points

[smunisto]

Let's say I have the following situation, starting at 0 science points:

1. I have a craft with 400 science points land back at Kerbin.

2. I recover it.

3. I get 400 science points in my R&D center.

4. I unlock some nodes and I am left with 80 science.

5. I have another craft with 100 SP in it.

6. Recover it.

Now comes the fun part:

7. When I open the R&D Center I have 100 SP...instead of 180.

Am I missing something or should I report a bug?

Edited October 24, 2013 by smunisto

[HeadHunter67]

That's not a bug - the number shown in blue when you recover a craft is your cumulative unspent Science total. The second craft didn't earn 100 Science, it earned 20 - you can check the totals of the recovered tasks to be sure.

[blizzy78]

Two words: Diminishing returns.

[smunisto]

So when I click recover - the total in the summary window shows my total unspent science?

Or the top right Science Points counter in the R&D center shows the unspent one? Or both?

I will check a little more, I am sure the answer is retardedly easy, I can't seem to get the hang of it though.

Let's give the same example with better explanation on my side. We start with 0 SP again:

1. I land and recover a craft on Kerbin - the summary window shows I earned 100 SP.

2. I open the R&D Center and, logically, I have 100 SP in the top right corner.

3. I spend 90 SP and now I have 10 SP in the R&D Center counter.

4. I recover a second craft - the summary window shows I earned 20 SP.

If I understand your explanation correctly, the second craft earned 10 SP, and the other 10 were my remaining unused amount from the previous flight.

And now my R&D Center counter will show 20 SP.

Correct?

[Specialist290]

That sounds about right from my experience.

[HeadHunter67]

Indeed - now you've got it.

[professorbarba]

smunisto, I have the same problem.

HeadHunter67: no, that's not the case for me, because sometimes I recover vessels with less science points then the amount of un-used points I had from the previous mission, and the total number I got is from the last mission. To verify it, I did the following experiment: I had 84 un-used science points from my last mission. I launched a small test mission nearby the space center. When I recover the vessel, the game told me I earned 5 science points. That number cannot be a cumulative one. When I open the R&D center, I had 5 instead of 89.

If the game is not mean to be like that, it is a bug.

[vexx32]

No, it's not. It's not something the devs can fix, because that issue is caused by KSP not being able to read from or write properly to the save folder or persistence file. If you're using the Steam version of KSP, you'll need to locate your Kerbal Space Program folder and make sure it (and all subfolders/files) do not have Read-Only set.

If not (and you're using Windows), make sure that KSP is not installed anywhere in the following locations (including subfolders): Desktop, Documents, C:\Users\, C:\Program Files (x86), C:\Program Files, C:\Windows. If it is in any of these locations, you will need to copy KSP out (Windows' Move command won't do the job well enough) into a better location, e.g., C:\Games\KSP or C:\KSP.

If you're using a Mac, on the other hand, you need to manually set the correct permissions on the main KSP folder, following the instructions listed in [thread=24536]this thread[/thread].

If it persists still, open up a thread in the Support & Bugs section of the forum and give as much info as you can, and we'll see if we can sort it out.

[Taki117]

When you recover a vessel the blue text shows your total, but there is also a white number just above that which shows the number that your vessel got.

[Pecan]

...If not (and you're using Windows), make sure that KSP is not installed anywhere in the following locations (including subfolders): Desktop, Documents, C:\Users\, C:\Program Files (x86), C:\Program Files, C:\Windows....

Huh? It shouldn't be in C:\Progam Files? I simply unzipped the download to there, where is recommended instead?