Prevent Impossible Contracts

[TinfoilChef]

Could the contract system somehow be tweaked to prevent impossible contracts?

Specifically I had what appeared to be a standard rescue contract:

 

 

When I had matched orbits and closed to about 200 meters I switched to the other vessel to EVA the kerbal and have him fly over to the rescue ship.  standard procedure for this type of thing.   Except that in this case, the Kerbal was in a MK-V Agricultural Module (from USI Kolonization Systems), which by itself does not have a hatch from which the kerbal can EVA or a docking port that a ship could dock with for crew transfer.  This, combined with the fact that I use TAC life support means that the stranded kerbal is guaranteed to die because as soon as I entered physics range the clock starts ticking on the fact that they have no life support.

 

A simple test "does the part have an EVA hatch?", could be used to insure such impossible contracts are avoided.

.

 

 

P

[Kerbart]

Even worse! OCD-me likes to designate the crafts Kerbals are saved from as "Debris". Now, the rescued Kerbal can rename his vessel before leaving, so no problem (you can probably see where this is going). Of course, if they're in a Mk 1 Cabin or a Hitch Hiker, you can't. So you do if from the Tracking Center. Except that, for reasons unknown to me, the renaming functionality has been removed from the tracking center!

 

[TinfoilChef]

26 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Even worse! OCD-me likes to designate the crafts Kerbals are saved from as "Debris". Now, the rescued Kerbal can rename his vessel before leaving, so no problem (you can probably see where this is going). Of course, if they're in a Mk 1 Cabin or a Hitch Hiker, you can't. So you do if from the Tracking Center. Except that, for reasons unknown to me, the renaming functionality has been removed from the tracking center!

 

HUH?  How is that "worse" than not knowing a contract that is impossible to complete until it is too late for the kerbal stuck in something that has no life support . . . that they cannot EVA out of??

[John JACK]

I suppose, it's a mod problem, not a game problem. Look at a Mk1 Crew Cabin — it does not has an outside door, but one of "internal" hatches, that commonly are obstructed by other parts, is an actual working hatch.

The game may look if crewed mod parts have hatches, or just exclude all mod parts from rescue contracts (though it may be not good too). But it's better to ask mod authors to have a hatch on any crewed part, at the attachment node at least. Also it will allow bailing out in case of emergency — don't want kerbals to get trapped if base falls apart for some reason.

And even without any fixing you could extract a kerbal through the Claw.

[tater]

What needs to happen is for rescues to stop pulling a random part that has a crew capacity >=1, and instead have the rescue missions pull whole crafts from a folder of rescue craft files. You'd make a CSM, or lander, or whatever, but drain all the fuel or EC before saving it, then move it to the rescue folder, and that;s one of the craft you'd get for rescue missions.

[Kerbart]

48 minutes ago, TinfoilChef said:

HUH?  How is that "worse" than not knowing a contract that is impossible to complete until it is too late for the kerbal stuck in something that has no life support . . . that they cannot EVA out of??

Because your problem can be solved in-game with stock parts. "Dock" with the claw and transfer them out that way.

I, on the other hand, have to resort to editing the save file to mark those parts as "debris."

 

39 minutes ago, tater said:

What needs to happen is for rescues to stop pulling a random part that has a crew capacity >=1, and instead have the rescue missions pull whole crafts from a folder of rescue craft files. You'd make a CSM, or lander, or whatever, but drain all the fuel or EC before saving it, then move it to the rescue folder, and that;s one of the craft you'd get for rescue missions.

That's a great idea. Maybe the game can even just drain all fuel (LF, OX, MP, Xe) but keep the electricity for life support (where applicable)?

[ferrer]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Even worse! OCD-me likes to designate the crafts Kerbals are saved from as "Debris". Now, the rescued Kerbal can rename his vessel before leaving, so no problem (you can probably see where this is going). Of course, if they're in a Mk 1 Cabin or a Hitch Hiker, you can't. So you do if from the Tracking Center. Except that, for reasons unknown to me, the renaming functionality has been removed from the tracking center!

 

It's not a solution to the original impossible contracts problem, but I'm currently using this plugin by MajorNr01 to re-enable the renaming function: http://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/rename-vessel-in-tracking-station

[tater]

Yeah, it could do that as well. Rescues in KSP right now are 100% absurd (aside from the whole free astronauts standpoint).

Rescues imply competing space programs, too.

In addition, there are TONS of rescues that happens, which is crazy. I have no flights in space right now (new career), and I think 5 rescue contracts in the mission selection area.

Rescues should have various parameters. Dock and refuel might be one. Another might be to repair something. A lander might be stranded with insufficient dv to reach orbit, then you can either transfer fuel, or rescue the crew. There are many options that would make them more interesting. Of course without life support, and the timer starting to tick the moment the contract appears, they are all pretty silly, anyway.

[TinfoilChef]

31 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Because your problem can be solved in-game with stock parts. "Dock" with the claw and transfer them out that way.

I, on the other hand, have to resort to editing the save file to mark those parts as "debris."

Nope.

Mine is an early career and the claw is not available.  Also I'm using TAC life support... soon as I approach within physics range there is only an hour or two in which to effect rescue or they die because they're out of life support.

There is no time to launch another ship with other components to retrieve the entire module.. and I seriously doubt the MK-V Agricultural Module could survive re-entry.  and as I said before, this is an early career, cargo bays & such to put it in and de-orbit are still far off.

I'm also in the habit of avoiding any use of the claw other than asteroid missions, often not even bothering to unlock it at all.

Finally, I posted this thread about contracts being impossible to complete.   Your comment complaining about not being able to mark something as debris is, to say the least, irrelevant.

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by TinfoilChef

[cfds]

In the astronaut complex, you can check what type of "capsule" the rescuee occupies, at least after you accepted the contract.

[TinfoilChef]

14 minutes ago, cfds said:

In the astronaut complex, you can check what type of "capsule" the rescuee occupies, at least after you accepted the contract.

I'll admit I didn't think of that one.  far better if the "capsule" or whatever they're in was specified IN the contract so it would be possible to just decline it.

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, TinfoilChef said:

Nope.

Mine is an early career and the claw is not available.  Also I'm using TAC life support... soon as I approach within physics range there is only an hour or two in which to effect rescue or they die because they're out of life support.

Pardon me for not being a mindreader. You didn't mention in the original post that you didn't have a claw, so I was forced to assume you didn't think of that solution. ("I don't have a claw yet, so I can't use that as a means to transfer the Kerbal out of the vessel either")

At any rate, as @John JACK mentioned, this is more a problem with the USI mod that isn't providing a hatch on a crewed module. It would be nice to have a rescue mechanism as @tater suggested though.

[Alshain]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Even worse! OCD-me likes to designate the crafts Kerbals are saved from as "Debris". Now, the rescued Kerbal can rename his vessel before leaving, so no problem (you can probably see where this is going). Of course, if they're in a Mk 1 Cabin or a Hitch Hiker, you can't. So you do if from the Tracking Center. Except that, for reasons unknown to me, the renaming functionality has been removed from the tracking center!

 

This has been confirmed as a bug by the guy that bugged it.  It will be fixed.

As for the OP, it's a mod.  You can't fault Squad for the Mod being unusable in this manner.  Every crew containing part in the stock game has a hatch somewhere.  So, this request belongs in the USI thread.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Alshain

[tater]

10 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Pardon me for not being a mindreader. You didn't mention in the original post that you didn't have a claw, so I was forced to assume you didn't think of that solution. ("I don't have a claw yet, so I can't use that as a means to transfer the Kerbal out of the vessel either")

At any rate, as @John JACK mentioned, this is more a problem with the USI mod that isn't providing a hatch on a crewed module. It would be nice to have a rescue mechanism as @tater suggested though.

Yeah, I let Nils know of this same issue with his planetary bases mod, so he put a hatch on everything that was visible (some had hatches, but only after the part was deployed).

 

[The_Rocketeer]

Install KAS/KIS and stick a docking port to it on an EVA.

[Stoney3K]

1 hour ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Install KAS/KIS and stick a docking port to it on an EVA.

With his specific situation it is impossible to send another vessel with supplies up, because the life support mod will kill the Kerbal after 2 hours.

However, this is fairly irrelevant as the core issue here is the USI crew cabin being crewed, but not having a hatch, making the rescue contract impossible. That is a USI bug, not a contract system one.

[The_Rocketeer]

Then the answer seems obvious: uninstall/disable TAC LS until u rescue the Kerb, and in future keep in mind that EVA rescues aren't necessarily viable.

Strictly speaking here, the issue isn't that the cabin doesn't have a hatch (i.e. not a USI problem), but that the combination of hatchless-but-crewable parts and TAC LS makes rescue-from-orbit contracts risky business.

[tater]

The problem is that the part doesn't have a hatch. The stock game randomly pulls rescue contracts from all parts that have crew, so any part with crew that does not have a way to EVA that crew is not fully stock compliant.

I'm not inclined to care that much, as in the stock game you can always wait and rescue him/her in a few years.

Better would be to have actual craft for rescues, and to have a couple folders for craft allowed to be pulled for rescues: SpaceRescueCraft and LandedRescueCraft.

[The_Rocketeer]

I agree with the last point, but I don't see the absense of a crew hatch to be non-compliance with stock. The stock game doesn't tell you HOW to rescue stranded kerbs, it just provides opportunities TO rescue them. So rescuing them from hatchless parts is a bit harder - doesn't bother me in the slightest. If anything, @TinfoilChef is already exploiting a 'bug' in TAC LS by not triggering LS demand until he comes close enough.

Edit: In all seriousness, adding airlocked hatches to every crewable part just for the convenience of making solutions to rescue contracts as unimaginitive as possible is borked on so many levels.

Edited May 8, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Superfluous J]

TAC (or any) life support mod should disable rescue contracts entirely. By the time you got to them, they'd be dead anyway.

[TinfoilChef]

2 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Pardon me for not being a mindreader. You didn't mention in the original post that you didn't have a claw, so I was forced to assume you didn't think of that solution. ("I don't have a claw yet, so I can't use that as a means to transfer the Kerbal out of the vessel either")

At any rate, as @John JACK mentioned, this is more a problem with the USI mod that isn't providing a hatch on a crewed module. It would be nice to have a rescue mechanism as @tater suggested though.

Pardon me for not being in the habit of using the claw at all.  Also I don't recall any mention in changelogs of being able to transfer crew through a claw, especially since it's made to grab on to things, NOT serve as a conduit to transfer personnel through.  That seems on the order of expecting me to consider the idea of transferring them through a large pair of pliers, so no, it never occurred to me.

And by the way, I DID Post about it in the USI thread before starting this one.  Roverdude made it clear that it was a Squad issue and suggested I post here.
 

2 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Install KAS/KIS and stick a docking port to it on an EVA.

There was Insufficient time to send another flight with KIS/KAS gear.

 

 

[Superfluous J]

4 minutes ago, TinfoilChef said:

That seems on the order of expecting me to consider the idea of transferring them through a large pair of pliers, so no, it never occurred to me.

Actually if there was a part that was a pair of pliers that you could attach 2 command pods to, you could transfer crew between those pods. The claw never gained this ability, too. People don't transfer through things. They just can transfer between command pods in the same ship. No checks are made (other than that the destination has an empty seat) and no time is taken. It just happens.

I both agree and disagree with RoverDude on this one. Squad could add a check for hatches and disable contracts for them, but RoverDude could also add a hatch to that module.

Also, you are not considering that perhaps someone would WANT you to have to rescue the Kerbal without a hatch, to exercise your problem solving skills. I'm not saying Squad or RoverDude had that idea, but that hard-coding it away by Squad would eliminate that possibility.

[Wjolcz]

How about 'Give Player The Choice of What Kind of Missions They Want To Do'?

I say, redo the way the Admin Building works. Instead of 'strategies' offer 'programs'. Each program has a different goal and focuses on one thing. The programs directly influence the missions you get to complete. For example: you choose 'Continuous Presence of Kerbals in Space Program'. It offers you missions (in Mission Control) connected to creating a permanent space station in Kerbin's orbit. You are told to build one. Each mission focuses on building/expanding the station, adding new modules or simply maintaining it somehow. The end of the program would be marked with a 'goal' mission which in this case would the objective to deorbit the station, as the HQ is no longer interested in maintaining it and has decided to move onto a next project (which you get to choose yourself).

The space station program shouldn't be the only one, of course. There would be many more. You could pick a few, mix them and some would unlock new ones.

[Stoney3K]

51 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I agree with the last point, but I don't see the absense of a crew hatch to be non-compliance with stock. The stock game doesn't tell you HOW to rescue stranded kerbs, it just provides opportunities TO rescue them. So rescuing them from hatchless parts is a bit harder - doesn't bother me in the slightest. If anything, @TinfoilChef is already exploiting a 'bug' in TAC LS by not triggering LS demand until he comes close enough.

Edit: In all seriousness, adding airlocked hatches to every crewable part just for the convenience of making solutions to rescue contracts as unimaginitive as possible is borked on so many levels.

I suspect that, if this were a real-life rescue situation, the ill-fated Kerbal would just smash a window if it saw a rescue vessel approaching. The idea of Klawing onto the module or adding a docking port in flight sounds interesting, but I imagine that happening in a real-life space mission as someone slamming their vessel against your rescuee and then cutting a hole into it with an angle grinder so the Kerbal can be rescued.

You can make a point for SQUAD checking for hatchless parts in contracts, but they don't produce any hatchless parts of their own. I suspect that this is an edge case which is caused by mods (and even so, two mods conflicting because this mission would be feasible enough without TAC).

[tater]

1 hour ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Edit: In all seriousness, adding airlocked hatches to every crewable part just for the convenience of making solutions to rescue contracts as unimaginitive as possible is borked on so many levels.

All stock parts with crew have hatches.

53 minutes ago, TinfoilChef said:

And by the way, I DID Post about it in the USI thread before starting this one.  Roverdude made it clear that it was a Squad issue and suggested I post here.

I sorta disagree with @RoverDude on this one simply because:

One, the stock contract system doesn't provide the player with enough information to do the contract in one mission in this case---you are asked by some external entity to rescue their lost guy, but you have to rendezvous to see that you cannot get the guy out---they should tell you the part type (this is where the "sorta" comes in, this would be the fix for stock, determining the part, and adding that to the contract).

Two, normally (again, in stock) the rescues are scaled to player progress. If you've not sent guys to Duna, you don't get Duna rescues. You don't get munar surface rescues when you have barely gotten to Kerbin orbit. For the inflatable hab shown, forgetting the fact that it makes no sense in orbit with a guy in it, you'd require the claw (and I agree that crew (or fuel) transfer via the claw is something that should not even be a thing, anyway). It's just as absurd to be asked to rescue someone with a part you do not have as to rescue someone at a place you cannot get to.

Since the above 2 issues are how the game is designed, and all stock parts have a hatch, I think that added parts without a hatch are actually non-compliant. The stock game would need to change such that crewed parts with no hatch (of which none exist in stock, so this would be a change to support mods) only appear via rescue contracts that include "recovery" of the part. Then at least players would know that the rescue attempt requires a claw ahead of time.

Regarding the LS "exploit" of the LS not turning on until you approach, I think that is a limitation of the stock game, as you do not have LS on a craft until you "own" the craft, and for rescues ownership requires getting into range (presumably so the player cannot self-rescue a kerbal via EVA).

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by tater