PrivateFlip

Okay sorry to hear that, my apologies for wasting your time. I took a look at the code and did some testing based on your issue. I was able to dock four vessel in one go, I also have not yet found a clue on how something you can describe can happen, will do some more investigation. Looking back at what the time messages actually mean I did note the following: The message "soon" describes any arrival within the hour, which means that if you read this the mission time has not yet elapsed. If you wait around from this point on you should get "anytime now" when the mission time has officially elapsed. The arrival will however not occur if you wait at the station. I'm changing this message to "come back later" in the following version. The mod does add a day to the mission time, so these missions will take a lot longer a in universe time to complete than the real mission.

Ships don't arrive if you hang around the station. You need to have faith go do some other stuff. When you return after the elapsed time the ordered ships will be waiting for you. To answer your first question: yes it possible to order multiple missions at once, one for each docking port.

That was it. During a last test just before publishing the previous version i noticed a relatively obscure application error in the form of an inconsistency in how the Cargo Mass is determined all the way at the end of the tracking process, right after landing. I made a fix for that. This "fix" causes the error you experienced at the prelaunch stage. Having already tested the rest of the functionality, I only ended up testing the fix for this last part of the tracking, and neglected to do another retest of the entire tracking cycle. The moral of this story: "Don't make assumptions."

Update: -bug fixed which prevents tracking from completing, (bug was introduced in version 0.14) -fixed bug where GUI does not open for not supported planets.

Makes it more clear . Just to confirm have you set the Center thrust entry on the engine facing to the rear to "ignore", since it's not part of the engine on which center thrust should be active? Roughly recreated the craft you described. GUI throttle does give me independent control over the engine, also in combination with center thrust.

Reverted all downloads to the 076 version. Even the test rig I used to test the 077/078 versions does no longer work with those versions. EDIT(23-aug-2015): bug has been found, will be releasing patched version shortly.

Briefly played ksp and noticed some mayor issue with the latest release where engine cuts out completely on startup of Center thrust mode. I had no time to investigate and am now on vacation. Will look into this asap, but not before Wednesday this week. Possible remedies for now, ( based on short time I had to evaluate the problem) -Set the "direction" to backwards again (first set it to another value to allow setting it to backwards again). This might prevent the occurrence of the issue altogether. -In the part menu of one engine set the something*Percentage*something on a value higher than zero. This undoes the complete shutdown after it occurs on engine activation and has the mode operate normally. -Download an older version 076, as the problem could well be related to the changes in 077/078 versions. Kerbalstuff does allow downloading older versions. Look under "changelog" on the mod page for the 076 download.

Added a reference to hab136's post in the first post.

Updated (version 078): -throttle steering functionality added. The center thrust mode has been enhanced with a throttle steering option. When this option is enabled the center thrust mode will offset the center of thrust based on control input. It will also be used by SAS to stabilize the craft. The exact amount of torque supplied can be set. The resulting torque will linearly scale with the size of the input. This allows precise control control when used in combination with joystick. When used in combination with SAS this will result in a smooth and constant engine output. The possible torque of throttle steering will in many cases be far greater than what can be supplied by other forms of control. It can be used to give VTOL's enhanced maneuverability. When the torque is set sufficiently high it can be used in combination with SAS to balance the thrust in response to drag for unsymmetrical crafts. This is something which the center thrust functionality alone could not do and drag forces on unsymmetrical vessels are often to strong to compensate by conventional controls. The throttle steering is an extension of the center thrust functionality and has the same limitations and configuration options.

If the center thrust functionality is enabled for all engines the additional throttles don't give intermittent control. This is because if the thrust of the engines linked to the throttle moves above a point where it unbalances the thrust, the center thrust functionality will tone down the engine to keep it balanced. This is near instant so the thrust from these engines seems disconnected from the additional throttle and will instead move up and done with the other engines to keep balance. In the manual there is a section which explains how to only use some designated engines to center the thrust. - - - Updated - - - Have been doing some more testing in 10.4 and to be honest, it isn't too bad for me. If you send me the craft file I can take a closer look at what you're flying.

The destination must be another vessel with a docking port, so no. You can track a mission to a station of a vessel which after rendezvousing with the station can move on to do another task. Another task in this context could be anything, like putting a satellite into orbit, rescruing a kerbal, travelling to the moon. So if you have to put multiple satellites in an orbit, this mod would only save you the part of the mission from takeof to rendezvous with the station. This mod would allow you to reorder such a mission up to the point of rendezvousing to the station. This could be helpful if you have to put four satellites in a equatorial orbit, but if the satellites would have to go to orbits which very different inclinations this mod would not useful because every mission to the station would have to carry sufficient fuel for a plane change. - - - Updated - - - Glad you like it! Putting it on github is always a good idea. Will be doing that.

Update -Tourist can be selected as preferred crew for missions. A tourist will not count toward any minimal crew requirements of a mission. Tourist contract completion will be handled accordingly destination around Kerbin, Mun and Minmus. -Mod no longer will recruit new kerbals for free if none are available for the mission. -When a mission cannot be completed the price will be refunded. -Added ability for the user to enable other planets in configuration file. Other planets are however not formally supported. See my comments on this in the release thread. This new release was still created on the 1.0.2 version of ksp. I optimistically suspect it works on 1.0.4 as well. Hope to make and test a formal 1.0.4 versions this week. On a more general note: I'm quite aware of the fact the maintenance of this and my other mods has been on a slow but steady downwards slope. For some time I've attributed this to circumstance, and told myself I would pick up the pace, but I'm slowly opening up to the realization this might be an ongoing trend and therefore this might not be getting any better in the future. I really like KSP and loved and still love tinkering on these mods and I suspect I will be doing so to for some time to come, but it is on a returning motion.

Thanks for reporting, I have done some testing, but results were fine so far. Could you send me a stock craft where things go wrong? The mod does not take into account drag, does the inaccuracy increase with speed?

...several weeks later... Research concludes bringing up tourist does not trigger contracts reliably. Some testing code I've written so far shows contract parameters can be completed manually with relative ease, and presumably also the contracts themselves upon automatic return.

Seems like good expansion of the current functionality. Two issues exist regarding the automatic return functionality and tourist: First most of those contracts also requires a suborbital part, which would not register for an automatic return. Also there is the question how the game registers a return, if this is processed during recovery of the vessel or simply the return of the kerbal to the roster. In the former case this could present somewhat of a difficulty. If one of those issues would be a problem which cannot be overcome I could always disable automatic return when tourist are on board, forcing the player to return the vessel by hand. Will do some research into this over the weekend.

I like the idea of tying the VAB size to the part dimension makes a lot of sense: larger VAB for larger parts. Doing away with the part limit entirely wouldn't be necessary. If it was upped from thirty to maybe fifty a lot of the complaint would go away, because you would likely have a much bigger revenue stream to finance the upgrade when you start approaching the limit.

Somehow a kerbal had gotten herself stuck in orbit around the Mun. The request was if KSP could mount a rescue. We would also get money. Fine. There were some other Mun contracts as well: returning some science from the surface and some surveys here and there. It seemed only efficient if we could string these contracts together. Our new R5 first stage was performing phenomenally and would be well able to do a rescue and also touch at least some of the survey points. The rescued astronaut could do some EVA's as well. The R5 Lander was retrieved out of storage. With the addition of probe core, so it could fly unmanned, and an little extra fuel for the lander we set sail. Towards the skies. An subsequently space. The tranfer burn was a little more work than usual because our unmanned rescue and mission vessel had to line up with Cassidy's ship. This wasn't really nessecary there was plenty of fuel in the craft, but the latest upgrade to the tracking station allowed mission control to set up a splendid transfer with both plane and apsis lining up reasonably well. It wasn't completly perfect, mind you, there would have to be a small plane change on Munar orbit. A plane change which upon arrival at the Mun ended up being a little bigger than expected because the rescue and mission vessel was travelling in the opposite direction of the vessel to be rescued. We had plenty of fuel. Cassidy was quickly briefed on the rest of the mission after her rescue from her wreck ship. In one low altitude pass she managed to do two thermometer surveys readings and the rotation of the Mun set her right up to do the only surface survey point. The transfer stage ran dry during the descent. On previous missions, with a less powerful launch stage, it had done so already during the transfer burn to the Mun, so I was good. I set lander down near the area and ordered Cassidy set outside to do the EVA. On the map I could see where the survey point in relation to the lander, or so I thought, and decided to move the Lander there on autopilot. It was so close Cassidy could easily make it later by jetpack. However I fumbled the hop and found out way to late I was moving in the wrong direction. (These navigation points really need an opposite side marker on the NAV-ball.) Waisting more fuel while I switched between map mode to get my bearings I started heading in the right direction. As a message appeared I was entering and a moment later leaving survey point "Kerbin's Courage" I decided to put the lander down fast. No need risking Cassidy being stranded here, since I was going to need a second mission anyway to complete the survey. Unfortunately the landing was a bit to fast causing the lander to toppled over. A rescue mission was required. It would be an unmanned vessel which would first do the other remaining survey point, retrieve Cassidy, who would place herself on "Kerbin's Courage" to guide the vessel in. All went well. With Cassidy rescued, the survey completed, all the science retrieve from toppled landed we were ready to head home. There was however a lot of fuel left in the lander to do a small hop to the Muns pole and the new lander had some yet unused Goo experiments on board. No need to let those go to waste. As we descended from the hop towards the pole I already noticed it was extremely rough terrain. But instead of giving up, like some less courages Space Program Administrator might do, I went on! This heroism, after wasting "a little" fuel looking for a flat surface to land, cumulated in Cassidy being stranded on her return voyage in a ship without fuel in a very high orbit around Kerbin. A rescue mission was required. It would be an unmanned vessel which would rendezvous with Cassidy's ship. Cassidy would move herself and all the experiments to the rescue vessel an return home in the most straightforward manner possible. The mission was a complete success, Bringing Cassidy home after three separate rescue missions! The moral of the story: if there is still plenty fuel left to return home, return home.

On hard I did got stuck in a bit of a grind due to the limit because I couldn't do a manned return to the mun with the 30 parts limit. First it was fun to get creative within the limit and I directed science to bigger fuel tanks. However at some point I realized I still couldn't make it and I had now expanded all the easy science before getting solar panels. This put probes for one way mun missions for easy science and satellite mission for easy funds out of reach. When I was already seriously considering starting a new game on moderate, I spotted a contract for a launchpad test for the KD25 solid rocket booster. Replacing the triple RT10 for my most efficient rocket whit three of these I made an orbit around the mun and unlocked just enough science for the solar panels. From there one things started moving forward again. Next time I won't waste my science on bigger fuel tanks so I can go to the Mun without the VAB upgrade because I know I can't make it. Instead I'll direct more science towards solar panels so the satellite contracts for some decent funds are available. However based on this experience I can see how the high cost of the VAB upgrade can put a player who is playing on a difficult level at the edge of the its ability against a "grind hill". I also suspect this is more essential to the annoyance towards the part limit than part limit being realistic or not (don't think it's weird you need a bigger VAB to build more complex ships.)

Welcome to the ksp forums! Like you already suspected this mod will indeed not take into account any recovered stages at this point. - - - Updated - - - The repeat flight takes place in the background; there is no actual autopilot functionality.

No, I'm not planning formal support for other bodies anytime soon. Allowing other bodies would quickly generate the requirement they be handled realistically so in practice this request would require a lot more than simply enabling other planets. It would need to take into account launch windows which then would have to calculated by the mod. The way crew is currently handled while the mission is underway would be blatantly insufficient for longer missions. Interplanetary missions are likely to be more complicated mission configurations like some LKO fueling or assembly which the tracking part of this mod simply cannot handle without a major increase in complexity of the code. Adding all this would be a significant amount of work while only bringing a niche functionality to players who are flying regular identical interplanetary missions. Then there is the fact the in practice usage of this mod isn't completely straight forward for the player which does not read the manual (few players do). In short there are all these finicky things how the mod tracks the mission the player is flying and what the consequences are for the mission which can be ordered after tracking. If you have used the mod yourself you have probably been in the situation where you decided to redo a tracking flight of a particular mission, say your station resupply mission, because the mission you can order based on your first tracking of this mission type did not exactly gave you the options you wanted. Maybe it didn't give the you an automatic return options because you undocked from the station without engaging the tracking for the return mission, maybe the mission requires a minimum crew of three even though its vehicle can fly unmanned. When flying to Kerbin orbit this is, I suspect, all reasonably acceptable. This is a mission a player would be flying on a regular basis even if the player didn't have this mod, so flying it a second time after learning by trial and error how the mission is tracked isn't an issue. For interplanetary missions however things will likely be a little different and this mod in my opinion cannot deliver what a player would reasonably expect. What I have done for the next version is make an option available in a config file where you could expand the list of enabled planets at your own discretion.

Update -added functionality to set a preferred crew list when ordering a mission

How does it makes you feel? Personally, I don't think it was intended to work in this matter, so I would go for for the word "exploit".

Current version does not but that seems to be getting a more an essential feature with the KSP 0.90 and 1.00 changes. EDIT(10 may): Functionality to set a preferred crew list for requested missions has been added for the next version. Will do some more testing and probably release it somewhere this week.

Update -added functionality make the mod more suitable to process multiple vessel arrivals. Vessels which are supposed to have arrived at for example a station since the last visit to the station by the player are, under the hood, "pasted" into the game at the first time at which the station is again visited. To reduce the load on the system, multiple of such simulated arrivals are now processed sequentially. In addition logic has been added to prevent arriving vessels to by chance be loaded to the same location. -brought the mod up to date with ksp version 1.0 by adding all resources used as an abblator for a vessel to the "Required Return Resources". -when ordering a vessel automatically return to Kerbin, the plugin logic has been expanded to not only check whether the "Required Return Resources" are present but also if there are still engines on the craft to use these resources.

Thanks so much for this mod TriggerAu! Wouldn't know what I would do without it.