Jump to content

Contract Pack - History of Spaceflight - V1.0


Morphisor

Recommended Posts

History of Spaceflight is a contract pack that aims to accurately reproduce historical missions as they happened. Currently this contract pack covers roughly 800 missions, covering nearly every real mission that was ever flown up until 1967 and selected missions from later years. The contracts progress on a chronological basis, starting with the early rocket tests, going into the very first satellites and to early interplanetary and manned missions. All the major programs are there: Vanguard, Explorer, Sputnik, Kosmos, Keyhole, Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyuz, Pioneer, Mariner, Proton... I could go on. The missions aim to accurately reproduce the real profiles, as reported by various sources, most prominently the NASA Master Catalog, Astronautix and Space.skyrocket.de. There is still plenty of room for variation in how you deal with them however, mission requirements have been left mostly open to interpretation - you don't have to do historically matching builds if you don't want to!

 

Version Guide

There are 3 main versions of this mod:

1. RSS: This is the RSS version of the contract pack, which is exclusively suitable for the RSS planet pack (NOT KSRSS, use Stock version for that!). It is made with RP-0/RP-1 in mind and should suit those who use those mods very well.

2. Stock: This is the Stock version of the contract pack, which is made to fit any custom planet pack with a roughly Sol-like system (including KSRSS) . It scales both rewards and contract objectives to the system used by the player and so works well on any scale and in most systems. Planet packs that reparent the homeworld or where the homeworld is NOT the 3rd rock from the sun, will have issues with interplanetary objectives however. Nothing to be done about that except manual editing for the specific use case.

3. Pocket Edition: This Pocket Edition is based on the Stock version of the contract pack. The difference between the Stock version and this Pocket Edition is that this version does not include failed missions and leaves out most of the repetitions of missions that the player has already successfully completed. That results in this version having 370 missions, as opposed to the 800 of the full pack.

The stock and PE versions currently also include additional parameters for users of BDB, Tantares and ProbesPlus. For the RSS version compatibility extras are more limited, since RSS mods are a different matter altogether and I am not personally familiar with them.

Oh and don't try mixing multiple versions of this mod together, that will lead to issues.

 

Progression Guide

In terms of progression, the pack has been divided into 3 main sections: US missions, Soviet missions and International missions. Each can be played separately and you can even delete their respective maps from the mod folder if you don't wish to use them. Further, within each of these trees the pack is structured by the actual programs involved, keeping progress mostly within each program where possible. This means that mostly you will have to do each program's missions if you want missions from further in that same program.

It is also possible to skip ahead with a little cheating however, by using the CC debug menu. When in the main KSC view, press alt-F10 (by default). Navigate to the History of Spaceflight contracts and find the contract you want to do. It will have a CompleteContract requirement with a button next to it. Simply press this button to disable the requirement, allowing the game to load the contract to be directly available. You may need to fastforward a bit for it to load.

 

DOWNLOAD

Spacedock:

RSS version - https://spacedock.info/mod/2385/History of Spaceflight RSS

Stock version - https://spacedock.info/mod/2386/History of Spaceflight Stock

Pocket Edition - https://spacedock.info/mod/2387/History of Spaceflight Pocket Edition

GitHub: https://github.com/Frylovespi/History-of-Spaceflight/releases

Or get it on CKAN, thanks to the excellent support of @HebaruSan each version is on there separately and properly setup.

 

Dependencies:

Contract Configurator by Nightingale is required to be able to use this contract pack:

 

Compatibility:

This contract pack should be compatible with any version that's supported by Contract Configurator, starting with 1.2.2.

There WILL be some conflicts if this pack is used together with other historical contract packs that use the same contract names - CC is unable to load identically named contracts and will simply choose the first one in. Of course, you can manually rename the offenders if you really want to.

 

Recommended mods:

There's a bunch of mods out there that go really well with this pack, as they recreate historical parts with high fidelity. This is definitely not all of them, but certainly some of the top quality stuff that can be used for these missions.

Bluedog Design Bureau - This mod has parts for nearly all the US launch vehicles that were flown in this pack as well as many of the capsules and probes. The Stock and PE versions also include a lot of extra stuff specifically for users of BDB, I can't recommend it highly enough!

Tantares - While the focus of this mod is currently on later era Soviet parts, it does already see some and is now fully supported with extra parameters.

ProbesPlus - Like Tantares, this mod mostly focuses on later era probes parts, but these are on the list to be added and currently Mariner 3 & 4 already use Coatl if installed.

CRE - While not explicitly supported with extra stuff, this mod adds some beautiful parts for UK rocketry that fit the timeframe and were used to launch a few of the UK missions in this pack.

 

Issues and feedback:

Feedback and input are very welcome. Please report any issues in this thread or on the mod GitHub issues page: https://github.com/Frylovespi/History-of-Spaceflight/ 

Credits:

@Frylovespi- The original mastermind behind this mod

@wolffy_au - Additional early missions and gameplay improvements for existing early missions

@Gordon Dry - Editing

@pap1723 - for the stock credit reward structure

@Whitecat106 - for the Historic Missions contract pack, which this pack is inspired by and builds upon

License: CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0

 

---

This contract pack was originally developed by @Frylovespi. The original development thread is here and all included work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: 

Edited by Morphisor
updated info
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For CKAN, do you want us to do anything special regarding dependencies or conflicts with RSS? We could make the RSS-specific package depend on RSS and the others conflict with it, for instance. Or is it OK to install them differently?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

For CKAN, do you want us to do anything special regarding dependencies or conflicts with RSS? We could make the RSS-specific package depend on RSS and the others conflict with it, for instance. Or is it OK to install them differently?

Thanks for your considerations. Just a dependency on RSS for that version should be enough; in fact, the other versions should actually work just fine in RSS, too! The RSS version is just a bit more specific about the objectives and has a different balance.

There's definitely a conflict with other historical contract packs however, mainly due to CC being unable to handle multiple contracts with the same exact name - so that's a hard one to avoid. I'll add a note about this to the OP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Morphisor said:

Thanks for your considerations. Just a dependency on RSS for that version should be enough; in fact, the other versions should actually work just fine in RSS, too! The RSS version is just a bit more specific about the objectives and has a different balance.

There's definitely a conflict with other historical contract packs however, mainly due to CC being unable to handle multiple contracts with the same exact name - so that's a hard one to avoid. I'll add a note about this to the OP.

I assume each variant of this mod should be mutually exclusive? Not allowed to be installed together?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had some extra free time today, so I spent the day uprating the international and Soviet missions where appropriate. Same method used as with the US missions, so only the ones used in the Pocket Edition were modified. Unless there's sufficient demand for a more complete pass of the whole works, this means my focus can now be on adding new stuff.

Version 0.8.1 Changelog:

- Removed deadlines from interplanetary missions
- Changed Mariner 3 & 4 to use Coatl Mariner mk2 bus instead of BDB MarinerB bus.
- Added additional science, relay and solar parameters to International and Soviet missions where applicable.
- Added Tantares parameters to Soviet missions for Vostok & Meteor (within Kosmos) missions.

The update has already been pushed to both GitHub and Spacedock.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love it so far! I don't have any of the extra add-ons, due to me trying to cut down on the parts, but, it is fun! I think i have gotten to 1960 or so on the stock version (about 50 of the what, 350 contracts). I hope you expand it through at least the end of Apollo! I have completed each of the other historical packs released so far, which i think is now at 4 or 5! I can already tell you have done multiple fixes and have added missions from countries outside of USSR, USA, Germany(WWII and before included), and japan! I hope to continue, and if I have the energy, I will give any problems I come up with (such as contracts not working ect). 

 

Sorry about my sentences, i'm kinda harebrained right now.This brought me back to the game! I haven't played ksp since @Frylovespi paused his pack in 2018. Historical packs help me start up my programs!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, betony1 said:

I love it so far! I don't have any of the extra add-ons, due to me trying to cut down on the parts, but, it is fun! I think i have gotten to 1960 or so on the stock version (about 50 of the what, 350 contracts). I hope you expand it through at least the end of Apollo! I have completed each of the other historical packs released so far, which i think is now at 4 or 5! I can already tell you have done multiple fixes and have added missions from countries outside of USSR, USA, Germany(WWII and before included), and japan! I hope to continue, and if I have the energy, I will give any problems I come up with (such as contracts not working ect). 

 

Sorry about my sentences, i'm kinda harebrained right now.This brought me back to the game! I haven't played ksp since @Frylovespi paused his pack in 2018. Historical packs help me start up my programs!

Glad you are enjoying it. Don't be scared, but the full versions actually have close to 700 contracts to do, so you've a way to go yet!

I can't rightfully take credit for the international missions, that's all @Frylovespi work right there. All I did was standardize the lot and get the stock version up the same quality.

As for additions, Apollo and Skylab missions are at the top of the to-do list and will be included in the next version. No ETA as it depends on my actual workload, but I guarantee it won't take months. Those who follow the M_dev branch on Github may get them sooner than an official release too :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Morphisor said:

Glad you are enjoying it. Don't be scared, but the full versions actually have close to 700 contracts to do, so you've a way to go yet!

I can't rightfully take credit for the international missions, that's all @Frylovespi work right there. All I did was standardize the lot and get the stock version up the same quality.

As for additions, Apollo and Skylab missions are at the top of the to-do list and will be included in the next version. No ETA as it depends on my actual workload, but I guarantee it won't take months. Those who follow the M_dev branch on Github may get them sooner than an official release too :)

Thanks for the info! I've always enjoyed finishing off each pack, so no worries if it's a bit more contracts to go :cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those following the dev branch, I just pushed an update that adds the remaining Surveyor missions, as well as all manned Apollo missions. These come with full extras for BDB and Coatl where applicable, for all versions.

The Apollo missions are some of the most complex missions I have written and are quite extensive. Some basic testing was done and everything *should* be working, but feedback on them would be massively appreciated!

Main release users will have to wait a while longer, I intend to add Skylab and some more Soviet missions (Salyut and Soyuz!) before calling it worthy of a 0.9.0 release status.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am very excited about this contract pack because I have been looking for something that does a good job integrating BDB parts.  I have thought about trying my own hands at making a pack but I am glad you have done it.  Would you consider adding a contract that that utilizes the Venus Flyby Parts from BDB to do manned flybys of Eve and Duna?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm testing the first missions, you did a great job in this new version. The altitudes are sometimes surprising, but their logics is easy to understand when you go in the associated .cfg file (and the way to did it is really slick).

I noticed that for a mission, it is indicated Homeworld() and not Kerbin as destination (I think it's for Blossom-1, but not fully certain).

Aerobee mission around 60km:

Spoiler

screen10.png

 

Edited by ndiver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/11/2020 at 5:34 PM, Redleg1 said:

I am very excited about this contract pack because I have been looking for something that does a good job integrating BDB parts.  I have thought about trying my own hands at making a pack but I am glad you have done it.  Would you consider adding a contract that that utilizes the Venus Flyby Parts from BDB to do manned flybys of Eve and Duna?

Thanks, though I should mention that the integration with the parts mods is deliberately kept low: mostly just the main cores/capsules are required and any science experiments that match the mission. I don't want to force players to make full historical builds if they don't want to - it may also simply be necessary to make adjustments if the scale used is different. Of course, using the correct builds does tend to be worth KSP internet points around here :cool:

As for manned flybys beyond the home system, that's not something that's actually been done yet and so doesn't really fit in with this contract pack. If you're looking for more generic-but-historic-in-style missions, the current BDB 1.7 dev build has a bunch of custom contracts in it that may suit you - also built by me :) No manned flyby in there either though, since there's no real historical equivalent to go on for that. But there is Gemini there and Apollo may yet make it in there, too.

 

5 hours ago, ndiver said:

I'm testing the first missions, you did a great job in this new version. The altitudes are sometimes surprising, but their logics is easy to understand when you go in the associated .cfg file (and the way to did it is really slick).

I noticed that for a mission, it is indicated Homeworld() and not Kerbin as destination (I think it's for Blossom-1, but not fully certain).

Aerobee mission around 60km:

  Hide contents

screen10.png

 

Yeah the altitude numbers may seem a little strange at first, but that's the scaling at work for you. Good catch about the text, it was indeed Blossom with that. I fixed that and a few other minor things for the next dev build version - not uploaded yet.

Do keep the feedback coming!

 

Edited by Morphisor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Morphisor Talking about feedback, I had one problem so far that I had to cheat through.

 

Pioneer 5 is physically impossible to do, unless you leave kerbins SOI,  do the research, and then return to kerbens SOI, to then head out again. the way its coded in the contract currently. when i figured it out, I just cheated through it. i'm now midway through 1960, and havent seen any other errors. although I have cheated all the destroyed on/around kerbin due to me screwing up mods and other things trying to fix an error with contracts + that I caused playing/learning with the code, but everything else has passed with flying colors!

 

(note don't play with code that you don't understand where the error comes from-whoops, and yes, it was an error with something completely different, lol :confused: )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, betony1 said:

@Morphisor Talking about feedback, I had one problem so far that I had to cheat through.

 

Pioneer 5 is physically impossible to do, unless you leave kerbins SOI,  do the research, and then return to kerbens SOI, to then head out again. the way its coded in the contract currently. when i figured it out, I just cheated through it. i'm now midway through 1960, and havent seen any other errors. although I have cheated all the destroyed on/around kerbin due to me screwing up mods and other things trying to fix an error with contracts + that I caused playing/learning with the code, but everything else has passed with flying colors!

 

(note don't play with code that you don't understand where the error comes from-whoops, and yes, it was an error with something completely different, lol :confused: )

Can you elaborate what part about the mission is impossible? The mission is to leave homeworld SOI and transmit science from interplanetary space (space around Kerbol/Sun). I can't find any issues in the files yet? Pioneer 6 is the same, basically; does that have the same issue?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nevermind my previous post, did some testing and found the issue: I forgot a simple disableOnStateChange = true for this type of contract. I pushed a fix for the affected Pioneer contracts to the dev build on Github already. Other contracts may also be affected by this issue, but I can't think of any right now. Will do a broad check later, any fixes will be in the dev build.

Also with the latest dev version are now the Skylab missions: initial launch and all 3 crew stays. Those 3 crew missions are quite similar, so if anyone's got an idea about making them cooler but still realistic, do tell!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Morphisor said:

Also with the latest dev version are now the Skylab missions: initial launch and all 3 crew stays. Those 3 crew missions are quite similar, so if anyone's got an idea about making them cooler but still realistic, do tell!

Maybe we can discuss that on the development thread? Put the link in initial post and in the dev thread, list the missions where you look for ideas :)

Edited by ndiver
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ndiver said:

Maybe we can discuss that on the development thread? Put the link in initial post and in the dev thread, list the missions where you look for ideas :)

While definitely possible, I think it may be easier to keep all discussion in one thread to avoid confusion. Besides, this one is easier found by people it seems. So by all means, any suggestions are welcome here! For any mission.

Edited by Morphisor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Morphisor said:

While definitely possible, I think it may be easier to keep all discussion in one thread to avoid confusion. Besides, this one is easier found by people it seems. So by all means, any suggestions are welcome here! For any mission.

My point is typically to avoid to mix the discussions about Skylab / Apollo (the development), and the content of the current version version (bug reporting).
If you look what I included in the development thread about Skylab-2, we have enough to build a core of mission. But as I do not know what allows Contract Configurator, I maybe miss ideas and possibilities (I'm starting to read the wiki).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, GBOBCO said:

I am having an issue where Explorer-1 and 8 are not appearing in the All Contracts list.  I have tried with both stock and pocket edition.  Thoughts?

You're going to have to provide more info than that. Do the contracts not load at all or are they not being triggered? You can check if a contract loads correctly from the CC debug menu, default access by alt-F10

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the quick reply, and the debug info.  I had no idea ALT+F10 was even a thing...

There is an error on many of the bluedog parts.

[EXCEPTION] System.ArgumentException: 'bluedog_Juno1_Explorer1' is not a valid part.

This same error occurs on many contracts, all having to do with bluedog parts.  I am thinking I should un-install BDB and do a clean install?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...