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SENTINEL contract


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launched the Sentinel, got all 16 asteroids.  Got a second contract, moved the probe to the new orbit.  Got all 11.  Got a THIRD contract, barely getting to it with remaining dV, but make it.  The purple target orbit goes away, leaving me with only my current Blue one.  I check the little contracts window, and I have the green check for being in the right place, with the right sensor.  

However, I go back to the KSC, and check the contracts, and it does NOT have a green check.  SO I go into the tracking station, and yep, the purple target orbit is back.  As soon as I select to "fly" my Sentinel, it goes away again.  Back and forth.  I even backed up 1 quicksave and moved back out a second time, with the same result.  Just to check, once I had it in the right place, I stayed focused on the probe and did a complete Kerbal rotation (4 years) and never got a message that it identified a single asteroid.

Am I missing something?  It's got an HG-55 and connection to KSC, and it's the same probe that has worked successfully twice already.

Michael

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2 hours ago, MPDerksen said:

The purple target orbit goes away, leaving me with only my current Blue one.  I check the little contracts window, and I have the green check for being in the right place, with the right sensor.  

However, I go back to the KSC, and check the contracts, and it does NOT have a green check.

AFAIK this is fairly normal. The green check mark in the contracts "only" shows if your current vessel fulfills the condition. When you control a different vessel - or none at all when you are in the KSC - then this condition isn't currently met and thus the check mark isn't there.

2 hours ago, MPDerksen said:

Just to check, once I had it in the right place, I stayed focused on the probe and did a complete Kerbal rotation (4 years) and never got a message that it identified a single asteroid.

That is strange! For my "find asteroids" contract I usually found enough asteroids to fulfill the contract in a few months. Is the sentinel telescope working? When you right-click on it it should say something about "observing Kerbin" or so in a status line in that window. 

Another note: for these sentinel contracts you don't need to match the orbit very exactly. I have two sentinels in different solar orbits between Eve and Kerbin - a lower and a higher one - and one of the two usually matches the requested orbit well enough to fulfill the orbit condition. So once I got them into those orbits I don't need to move them around anymore.

P.S. I also suggest to the moderators to move this to the "Gameplay Questions and Tutorials" subforum.

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I apologize for putting this in the incorrect forum (I do know better and wasn't thinking before coffee).

So I just tested again.  
Went into my save, Purple target orbit was there.  I navigated the Sentinel Probe prograde a touch, and it went away, and I got the green checks in the Contracts menu.
Back to KSC, no green checks, back to probe, green checks.  Hmm.  Okay.  Perhaps it just doesn't register?
Save the game, exit, reload.  Purple target orbit is back, and no green checks.  But I'm at the right place in the orbit (the AN).
Adjust again.  Exit, reload, same thing.

Right clicking on the probe I get:  "Telescope:  Misaligned with Dres"

The contract is:  "Map 20 asteroids passing near Duna's orbit with a SENTINEL Infrared Telescope."  Down in the contract menu it states "Map 20 asteroids around Duna with an inclination greater than 38".  Even though my target ORBIT inclination is only 0.1%

I first can't understand why I get the right orbit, then don't.  But second, once I do have it, and don't leave, nothing maps.  I have an HG-55 that has connection for the entire orbit, unless Kerbol is between the probe and Kerbin.

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35 minutes ago, MPDerksen said:

Right clicking on the probe I get:  "Telescope:  Misaligned with Dres"

Well, then it won't be able to find any asteroids. This message means that your orbit is too high around the sun to be able to map asteroids around Duna, and not aligned well enough with Dres to map asteroids around Dres. To be able to map asteroids the sentinel must be in an orbit around the sun inside the orbit of the target planet (I take it as: the probe's PE and AE must both be larger than the AP of the next inner planet and smaller than the PE of the target planet), and the inclination, eccentricity, and longitude of ascending node also need to be close to matching the target planet.

It is less important to exactly match the orbit that the contract specifies, and more important to be on an orbit that allows the sentinel to function in the first place. Although obviously you need both, but as I already wrote: it is very generous when deciding that you are on the prescribed orbit. On the other hand, the status on the sentinel needs to say "Mapping Duna" (or whatever target planet) or it just won't work!

1 hour ago, MPDerksen said:

Down in the contract menu it states "Map 20 asteroids around Duna with an inclination greater than 38".  Even though my target ORBIT inclination is only 0.1%

The inclination that the contract text mentions is the inclination of the orbit of the asteroids, not the inclination of your spacecraft! The latter needs to match the inclination of the target planet.

57 minutes ago, MPDerksen said:

I first can't understand why I get the right orbit, then don't.  But second, once I do have it, and don't leave, nothing maps.

As I said: you only get the green check mark while you are controlling the craft that is actually doing the mapping. That the green check mark goes away when you switch to the KSC or to another craft is normal and doesn't keep you from finishing the contract. What is a problem is that you are not in a correct orbit to map anything. To have that you need to be in an orbit where the status on the sentinel says "Mapping Duna".

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1 hour ago, AHHans said:

Well, then it won't be able to find any asteroids. This message means that your orbit is too high around the sun to be able to map asteroids around Duna, and not aligned well enough with Dres to map asteroids around Dres. To be able to map asteroids the sentinel must be in an orbit around the sun inside the orbit of the target planet (I take it as: the probe's PE and AE must both be larger than the AP of the next inner planet and smaller than the PE of the target planet), and the inclination, eccentricity, and longitude of ascending node also need to be close to matching the target planet.

Reading right off the contract:  Ap - 29,042,109,229, Pe - 26,006, 582,174, inclination - 0.1
Since Duna is roughly 20B meters out, I am completely too high, but that's what the contract calls for.  SO...... the contract is broken?  I should simply cancel it, take the loss, and move on?

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23 minutes ago, MPDerksen said:

Reading right off the contract:  Ap - 29,042,109,229, Pe - 26,006, 582,174, inclination - 0.1
Since Duna is roughly 20B meters out, I am completely too high, but that's what the contract calls for.  SO...... the contract is broken?

Well, yes, that orbit won't work for Duna! (And also not for Dres because the inclination is wrong.) You could try to see if an orbit that is just inside Duna's orbit will be accepted as being close enough to the contract orbit. But, to be honest, that doesn't look likely to me it's just too far out. :( (Or did you try that already?)

In such a case I would use the cheat menu (on Linux <Right-Shift> - <F12>, on Windows <Alt> - -<F12> or so) to mark the contract as completed. In my books this is working around a bug and not cheating.

Are you using any mods that could mess with the contract generation system? Or is this a bug in the stock game?

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56 minutes ago, AHHans said:

Well, yes, that orbit won't work for Duna! (And also not for Dres because the inclination is wrong.) You could try to see if an orbit that is just inside Duna's orbit will be accepted as being close enough to the contract orbit. But, to be honest, that doesn't look likely to me it's just too far out. :( (Or did you try that already?)

In such a case I would use the cheat menu (on Linux <Right-Shift> - <F12>, on Windows <Alt> - -<F12> or so) to mark the contract as completed. In my books this is working around a bug and not cheating.

Are you using any mods that could mess with the contract generation system? Or is this a bug in the stock game?

I used almost all my dV to get out this far (3rd contract), so I'm not going anywhere from here... lol

I'll mark as completed, since I do feel I fulfilled it as given.  I didn't know how to access the menu, so thanks for that.

my only mod is KAC.  Highly unlikely that could effect a science contract.

thanks for the help.

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Postscriptum: I just noticed that in my current career I have a similarly impossible sentinel contract on offering. (I haven't accepted it, and I don't think I will. ;)) So this is indeed a new bug in KSP.

I also found that there is a new bug report on the bugtracker: Bug #24282

Edited by AHHans
fixed typo
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