Outsourcing diminishing?

[Gnome Boy]

I bought the 1B outsourcing deal for 5000 research over 5 sols, but when I opened the research menu again after some time, it only shows 500 research per sol, instead of the promised 1000. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

[SkiRich]

It is 5000 research spread over the course of several sols (5 I think-cant remember)
That research is used up by things in your queue, so not only will you never see 5000 in any given moment you will also see it dissolve over time.

Note, even if you have zero research the points are being used up. If you have research going on and nothing in the queue, then the game picks the next oldest/cheapest tech to research that is not done yet and starts to do that.

[lost]

Over the course of the final Sol of outsourcing, the total amount shown decays until it reaches 0 at the exact hour when the five Sols expire.

[some moron]

To elaborate on previous post, I think it runs at 1k for five days solid. However it's measuring per sol. And if you begin mid way through a sol, then the last complete sol won't get 1k it will only get 500. So for some reason it's showing the portion that will be applied during the last year, except in less than a year.
If that's what's happening, I don't know why the original showing is 1k since that's not true by the same logic, unless you began at exactly start of the sol.

[lost]

Originally posted by some moron:

If that's what's happening, I don't know why the original showing is 1k since that's not true by the same logic, unless you began at exactly start of the sol.

It's projecting forward for the next Sol starting from the current hour. So if you've got half a sol of research left on the outsourcing, it will be 500 for that next Sol (starting "now"). The next hour, it will reduce further. And so on until you reach the expiration of the outsourcing at which point the next Sol (from "now") has no outsourcing.

[some moron]

Hmm I guess that would make the numbers the way they are.
However it's misleading or inaccurate, because toward the end, when it says 500, you know, how are you to interpret that ie what's the units? It's not 500 per hour, it's not 500 remaining, it's not really "during the next sol" since that implies it's spread out. I guess the correct unit is "units of research during the next day used at 1000 per hour".
I might do something like that in my software as just a cheap way to represent. Better would be amount of time remaining. (12 hours remaining at 1000/hour) But it works.

[merccobb]

It's just a snapshot, as others have said. The research screen in total is a snapshot, as it is also affected by things like shifts being deactivated in labs, or unskilled people working a particular shift. If you watch it during the day it may occasionally say 0 research contributed by buildings because you have nights shifts turned off, for instance.