4

When you perform every single experiment in every single biome of every single celestial body in every possible situation until their return values are zero, how many science points will you gain in total?

Let's ignore other sources of science points (laboratories, contracts, world records...) and asteroids for now.

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  • This seems rather incredibly broad. – Frank♦ Apr 23 '16 at 12:55
  • @Frank It's not broad. You can answer it with some simple calculations. – Philipp Apr 23 '16 at 12:59
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    "A lot" is the only suitable answer. More than you'll ever need to completely fill the stock tech tree. – MBraedley Apr 23 '16 at 13:27
  • @MBraedley I would still like to know out of curiosity. I also think that this answer would be important for any modders who want to extend the tech tree and make sure that it is actually possible to unlock all the nodes they add. – Philipp Apr 23 '16 at 14:54
6

Infinitely much.

Each asteroid that is generated by the game is its own biome, and asteroid-centric research can be repeated for each of them, for full value each time.

Edit: In response to question edit:

It is possible to calculate the total amount of finite science points available, but it's:

  • Meaningless. There is an infinite amount available.
  • Extremely tedious work, which I expect is why you don't do this "simple calculation" yourself.
  • So large a number that it might as well be infinite. An absolute lower bound exists. It's 209,444, and that is 0.90 and almost certainly missing a few edge cases even there.
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  • Gotcha! I modified the question to also exclude asteroids. – Philipp Apr 23 '16 at 15:55
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    @Philipp Why? While I get that "Infinitely much" doesn't have the delicious specificity you're looking for, it really is the only answer that relates in any meaningful way to gameplay. – Williham Totland Apr 23 '16 at 16:09
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    @Philipp don't you think it is against the ethics of stackexchange to modify your question after it being properly answered? Rendering this answer redundant? – Mixxiphoid Apr 23 '16 at 21:05
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    @Mixxiphoid not when the question tries to find a loophole in your question to provide a technically correct answer but not the answer you actually wanted. The number 209,444 is actually the kind of answer I was looking for, but unfortunately it's for 0.9 and the science system went through some rebalancing in the past updates. – Philipp Apr 23 '16 at 21:08
  • The 209,444 number is wrong: the calculation is crediting the KSC "location biomes" as being full biomes rather than surface-only biomes, it's missing the ability to do a temperature scan in high orbit as well as low orbit, and it doesn't account for the fact that you can splash down in any Kerbin biome. I think the net effect is to overestimate the available science by about 5000 points. – Mark Mar 22 '18 at 23:55
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As of 1.4.1, you will gain 309,912.6 science.

Since 0.90, more biomes were added to Eve, Mun, Duna, Laythe, Vall, Tylo, and Eeloo, providing most of the increase. The barometer now works in a vacuum, for about 20,000 science. Recovered spacecraft can be analyzed, providing 4803 science. An infrared telescope in high solar orbit gains you 44 science. And, if you can somehow keep your craft from vaporizing, a flight through the Sun's atmosphere, collecting pressure and composition data, nets you 393.6 science.

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  • Is there anything in particular that's wrong with my answer? – Mark Mar 22 '18 at 21:56

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