Contract Pack - History of Spaceflight - V1.0

[CAPFlyer]

Well what is the error value then?  It's not listed anywhere in game and it's a pretty useless number in the mission file (since I don't have a frame of reference for it).  Because as it stands now, for whatever reason, what is coming out of the system isn't actually an achievable orbit under the restrictions above.  If I know how to make the changes, maybe I can play with it some in the future and see what actually works.

Like I said, I'm not trying to change the vision, I'm just trying to make it achievable within reason and the spirit of the pack.

[Morphisor]

8 hours ago, CAPFlyer said:

Well what is the error value then?  It's not listed anywhere in game and it's a pretty useless number in the mission file (since I don't have a frame of reference for it).  Because as it stands now, for whatever reason, what is coming out of the system isn't actually an achievable orbit under the restrictions above.  If I know how to make the changes, maybe I can play with it some in the future and see what actually works.

Like I said, I'm not trying to change the vision, I'm just trying to make it achievable within reason and the spirit of the pack.

The deviation allowed has a value of 10, up from the default of 3. CC doesn't specify a unit for this deviation value, but I assume them to be the same as used by the stock contracts, which means its the percent difference from the given objective values. 10% deviation should be plenty lenient no?

[CAPFlyer]

Well, in my tests, I was never closer than 15* to the intended LAN which is theoretically ~4.2% deviation, but it didn't take it, so I dunno.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

4 hours ago, CAPFlyer said:

Well, in my tests, I was never closer than 15* to the intended LAN which is theoretically ~4.2% deviation, but it didn't take it, so I dunno.

I don't use contracts but this is really interesting to me for the mechanics involved. But I can tell I have a big gap somewhere in my smooth brain.

My (clearly flawed) understanding has been that -if you launch due east- your LAN is basically fixed for that launch site, because you'll always cross the equator at the same point, the same distance from your launch site. So, if you wanted to change your LAN you'd have to change your launch angle, but what if trying to move the LAN results in the incorrect inclination? Are you supposed to change direction during ascent after crossing the equator?

[Morphisor]

1 hour ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

I don't use contracts but this is really interesting to me for the mechanics involved. But I can tell I have a big gap somewhere in my smooth brain.

My (clearly flawed) understanding has been that -if you launch due east- your LAN is basically fixed for that launch site, because you'll always cross the equator at the same point, the same distance from your launch site. So, if you wanted to change your LAN you'd have to change your launch angle, but what if trying to move the LAN results in the incorrect inclination? Are you supposed to change direction during ascent after crossing the equator?

My brain doesn't have a lot more structure to it than yours, it seems. But an older explanation in KSP context I found had this to say:

Quote

There isn't a way to change it in KSP as Kerbin is a perfectly round object with a perfectly round gravity well. In real life, you could be patient and wait for equatorial bulge to cause nodal precession, but in KSP the only ways to affect LAN is either:

- timing your launch into your inclination

- launching into equatorial and burning normal, or

- waiting for your AN/DN relative to the equator and burn normal to equatorial, and then burning out of equatorial into the desired inclination at the desired LAN

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Morphisor

[CAPFlyer]

Yeah, that's the problem you run into.  The LAN for a launch out of KSC in Kopernicus doesn't give a LAN of 28* with an inclination of 21*, so you have to make extra burns to get there.  Not a problem for rockets with "infinite" restarts as the amount of Dv required isn't huge, but if you're flying a rocket (like Thor-Delta) that is limited in restart capability (2nd stage is hotstaged and 3rd and (probe-mounted) kick stages are solid) then it's not something you can necessarily do.

Again, not a complaint here.  Just trying to find a way to complete the contracts without having to use debug.

Edited January 7, 2022 by CAPFlyer

[OrbitalManeuvers]

4 hours ago, CAPFlyer said:

The LAN for a launch out of KSC in Kopernicus doesn't give a LAN of 28* with an inclination of 21*

Wait, you're on stock solar system, right? This doesn't seem possible from an equatorial launch site, which is I guess what you've been saying

 

[CAPFlyer]

Okay, so got to Syncom 2.  Gave me a completely different launch profile (15.4* inclination, LAN of 90*).  I did the launch and this time I just did a timed launch on the inclination just to see if I could hit the LAN with that inclination.  Using PVG to do the calculations, it did a reasonable job, but I had to manually circularize because PVG started giving all sorts of errors once the first 3 stages finished.  I ended up off a bit, but within 5%, and this time it showed the contract completed, so apparently this time it all worked okay.  I don't know.  It's just weird sometimes how some contracts will complete and others won't.

[Rostiro]

Can someone help me with the Transit-1B mission. I have created vessel (Main Launcher Rocket) + Vessel A (OCTO, 2x Battery, Antenna, 4x Solar panel) + decoupler + Vessel B (Same as Vessel A), I decoupled the vessel B from Vessel A at the desired orbit, but nothing happens, the mission is still not accomplished I tried switching between vessels after coupling (no luck), change control before coupling (still no luck). How do I complete the mission? 

In Contract window is not finished part - Vessel: Solrad Model (New) 

Thank you

[Morphisor]

11 hours ago, Rostiro said:

Can someone help me with the Transit-1B mission. I have created vessel (Main Launcher Rocket) + Vessel A (OCTO, 2x Battery, Antenna, 4x Solar panel) + decoupler + Vessel B (Same as Vessel A), I decoupled the vessel B from Vessel A at the desired orbit, but nothing happens, the mission is still not accomplished I tried switching between vessels after coupling (no luck), change control before coupling (still no luck). How do I complete the mission? 

In Contract window is not finished part - Vessel: Solrad Model (New) 

Thank you

Make sure the Solrad Model has a relay antenna on board, regular antenna is not sufficient.

[Rostiro]

On 2/16/2022 at 12:10 PM, Morphisor said:

Make sure the Solrad Model has a relay antenna on board, regular antenna is not sufficient.

Thank you, I tried it, but unfortunately without success. I've also checked the hidden parts of the contract, and what I can't achieve is "Be within 10 km of Transit-1B". I would expect that condition to be met from launch, when the both vessdels are very near each other. 

[Morphisor]

On 2/17/2022 at 8:42 PM, Rostiro said:

Thank you, I tried it, but unfortunately without success. I've also checked the hidden parts of the contract, and what I can't achieve is "Be within 10 km of Transit-1B". I would expect that condition to be met from launch, when the both vessdels are very near each other. 

The condition should only be checked after both craft have entered the specified orbit, so no it won't be checked off at launch. If that doesn't work, I'll have to look into separating parameters some more.

[Garuda]

Will this work with a 2.5x scale system such as JNSQ or KSRSS?

Edited March 8, 2022 by Garuda

[Aelfhe1m]

1 hour ago, Garuda said:

Will this work with a 2.5x scale system such as JNSQ or KSRSS?

I'm currently playing JNSQ with the stock versions of the contracts and it works fine. The contracts re-calculate altitudes so they are properly scaled for alternative planet packs. Some of the missions also try to pick target bodies using various rules rather than names so for example Pioneer 11 will ask you to fly-by Jool then Lindor. Not all the bodies will be covered by missions,  none of the Moon missions seem to target Minmus.

The RSS versions have hard-coded altitudes in many (most?) of the contracts so will be rather high for KSRSS. Possibly impossible in some cases because Ap exceeds SOI limit. The body names won't be a problem though unless KSRSS only includes a subset of the full RSS bodies (I haven't checked)

[Garuda]

Having a great time playing through this with pocket edition. Would it be possible to transplant the apollo missions from the full pack to pocket edition? It feels strange to have the other manned programs filled out but apollo only having a single mission

[Morphisor]

On 3/8/2022 at 10:02 PM, Aelfhe1m said:

I'm currently playing JNSQ with the stock versions of the contracts and it works fine. The contracts re-calculate altitudes so they are properly scaled for alternative planet packs. Some of the missions also try to pick target bodies using various rules rather than names so for example Pioneer 11 will ask you to fly-by Jool then Lindor. Not all the bodies will be covered by missions,  none of the Moon missions seem to target Minmus.

The RSS versions have hard-coded altitudes in many (most?) of the contracts so will be rather high for KSRSS. Possibly impossible in some cases because Ap exceeds SOI limit. The body names won't be a problem though unless KSRSS only includes a subset of the full RSS bodies (I haven't checked)

Definitely recommend using the stock version for KSRSS, it should give the correct targets for all missions, though the altitudes may not be 100% the same (relatively).

1 hour ago, Garuda said:

Having a great time playing through this with pocket edition. Would it be possible to transplant the apollo missions from the full pack to pocket edition? It feels strange to have the other manned programs filled out but apollo only having a single mission

All the Apollo missions are present in the pocket edition too, so likely there's something wrong if you're missing out.

That said, if for any mission set you want to do the whole thing instead of the pocket version, you can replace the entire subfolder of said set with the one from the stock version and you should be good to go.

[Garuda]

4 hours ago, Morphisor said:

Definitely recommend using the stock version for KSRSS, it should give the correct targets for all missions, though the altitudes may not be 100% the same (relatively).

All the Apollo missions are present in the pocket edition too, so likely there's something wrong if you're missing out.

That said, if for any mission set you want to do the whole thing instead of the pocket version, you can replace the entire subfolder of said set with the one from the stock version and you should be good to go.

Yep, for some reason pocket edition was missing the apollo missions.  tried stock and that fixed it. Are you planning on extending this pack past 1967 or just leaving it at that? 

[Morphisor]

4 hours ago, Garuda said:

Yep, for some reason pocket edition was missing the apollo missions.  tried stock and that fixed it. Are you planning on extending this pack past 1967 or just leaving it at that? 

There's a few focused extensions beyond that already, mainly in the dev branch. I still have to get around to finishing what I've got in the works, but don't expect there to be much more to come. It's a lot of work and I've too many other things on my mind.

[Garuda]

On 3/11/2022 at 1:47 AM, Morphisor said:

There's a few focused extensions beyond that already, mainly in the dev branch. I still have to get around to finishing what I've got in the works, but don't expect there to be much more to come. It's a lot of work and I've too many other things on my mind.

Seems like it's still broken. The files are all there but the other missions just aren't showing up. Everything seems to be up to date as well

[Morphisor]

On 3/22/2022 at 2:50 AM, Garuda said:

Seems like it's still broken. The files are all there but the other missions just aren't showing up. Everything seems to be up to date as well

Looks like a bad install I'm afraid. Try to reinstall from the latest release to doublecheck, Apollo is in there already.

[MaikC]

The Soyuz - 4 + Soyuz - 5 Missions are broken. It is not possible to fulfill the goals.

Mission Soyuz - 4 : Start a Vessel  with 3 crewplaces and 1 Crew, then dock with Soyuz-5  switch 2 crew to Soyuz-4 and return with 3 crew

Mission Soyuz-5: Start a Vessel with a Crew of 2 and return with 1 Pilot

As you can see, this is impossible to fulfill, if you don't find a kerbal in space somewhere along the way.

 

Btw in the description for the mission it is correct:  Soyuz 5 was launched with a crew of three men -- Boris Volynov, Commander, Aleksey Yeliseyev, Flight Engineer, and Yevgeniy Khrunov, Research Engineer.

Edited March 26, 2022 by MaikC

[Morphisor]

21 hours ago, MaikC said:

The Soyuz - 4 + Soyuz - 5 Missions are broken. It is not possible to fulfill the goals.

Mission Soyuz - 4 : Start a Vessel  with 3 crewplaces and 1 Crew, then dock with Soyuz-5  switch 2 crew to Soyuz-4 and return with 3 crew

Mission Soyuz-5: Start a Vessel with a Crew of 2 and return with 1 Pilot

As you can see, this is impossible to fulfill, if you don't find a kerbal in space somewhere along the way.

 

Btw in the description for the mission it is correct:  Soyuz 5 was launched with a crew of three men -- Boris Volynov, Commander, Aleksey Yeliseyev, Flight Engineer, and Yevgeniy Khrunov, Research Engineer.

Thanks for spotting that, I'll fix it so Soyuz-5 requires going up with 3 crew like it should.

[Aelfhe1m]

Contract Pioneer-P-30 should require a fail during launch (as described in the flavour text) but at present is set up to require sub-orbital flight over the moon prior to vessel destruction. This is because targetBody is set to HomeWorld().Children().First() on line 37 before the reachstate parameter is defined.

Also line 43:    

title = Launch the Pioneer-P-30 probe and fail to reach @targetBody

should read

title = Launch the Pioneer-P-30 probe and fail to reach @theMoon

NOTE: I only looked at the stock version of the contract since that is the one I'm currently playing with JNSQ.

[CAPFlyer]

Found another one - Explorer 28 (IMP-C) has orbital parameters that I think are wrong, but not because you made a mistake.  I think NSSDCA has an error.  NSSDCA shows the periapsis as 32290km.  I think it was supposed to be either 3229km or 322.9.  Looking at other launches from the IMP series, this seems to be the most likely.  IMP A had a periapsis of 4395km, IMP B had a periapsis of 917km, and IMP F (the next IMP launch in 1967) had a periapsis of 2031km.

Sorry to edit this, but didn't want to put on another post so quickly.

2 more issues - Gemini IV - what experiments am I supposed to use for the extra experiments?  There's a Gemini Mangetometer and Spectrometer, but the Spectrometer is Mass Spec, not Microwave Spec?  I found a couple of Photometry experiments, but neither gave me a "check mark" when I landed with them stored onboard.  I know you were trying to make the science more varied, but I think maybe you need to add to the description on what experiment parts you're referencing or something because finding a part based on the experiment it runs is not very easy unless the part is actually named the same as the experiment (which often isn't the case).

And Explorer 29 shows a flight date of June 11, 1965.  It should be November 6, 1965.

Edited March 28, 2022 by CAPFlyer

[Morphisor]

18 hours ago, Aelfhe1m said:

Contract Pioneer-P-30 should require a fail during launch (as described in the flavour text) but at present is set up to require sub-orbital flight over the moon prior to vessel destruction. This is because targetBody is set to HomeWorld().Children().First() on line 37 before the reachstate parameter is defined.

Also line 43:    

title = Launch the Pioneer-P-30 probe and fail to reach @targetBody

should read

title = Launch the Pioneer-P-30 probe and fail to reach @theMoon

NOTE: I only looked at the stock version of the contract since that is the one I'm currently playing with JNSQ.

Did you test it in action? The contract should complete as soon as any sub-orbital situation is achieved, since the body is not specified for the reachstate parameter.

18 hours ago, CAPFlyer said:

Found another one - Explorer 28 (IMP-C) has orbital parameters that I think are wrong, but not because you made a mistake.  I think NSSDCA has an error.  NSSDCA shows the periapsis as 32290km.  I think it was supposed to be either 3229km or 322.9.  Looking at other launches from the IMP series, this seems to be the most likely.  IMP A had a periapsis of 4395km, IMP B had a periapsis of 917km, and IMP F (the next IMP launch in 1967) had a periapsis of 2031km.

Sorry to edit this, but didn't want to put on another post so quickly.

2 more issues - Gemini IV - what experiments am I supposed to use for the extra experiments?  There's a Gemini Mangetometer and Spectrometer, but the Spectrometer is Mass Spec, not Microwave Spec?  I found a couple of Photometry experiments, but neither gave me a "check mark" when I landed with them stored onboard.  I know you were trying to make the science more varied, but I think maybe you need to add to the description on what experiment parts you're referencing or something because finding a part based on the experiment it runs is not very easy unless the part is actually named the same as the experiment (which often isn't the case).

And Explorer 29 shows a flight date of June 11, 1965.  It should be November 6, 1965.

You're right about IMP-C, the perigee value provided by the NASA catalog seems unlikely, especially given their own pre-launch analysis here: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19650007660. The only other values I can find for the supposed orbit are on Astronautics and Gunther's space page, but there's no sources to corroborate these values (229 x 261206 km; https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/explorer_imp-a.htm). Still, that makes more sense for a Delta-C to achieve, so I'll apply these values instead.

As for the experiments, each experiment has a number of parts that potentially suit the requirements, but these have seen quite a few changes in BDB since I designed the mission. I may have to re-evaluate this, but that'd take some time. There's no real fix for experiments being hard to identify on my end, since what is visualized in the interface is not the experiment definition and can vary per part.  For now I'd suggest using the OSO photometer, Nimbus or Mariner 2 have microwave spectrometry parts.

Explorer 29 date is indeed faulty, thanks.