[0.24][WIP] Extra Contracts

[keenguitar]

I've done the mission in which you have to capture an asteroid and bring it in orbit around Kerbin, and I encountered a bug. Basically as soon as I grabbed the asteroid I completed the contract, even though I was on an escape trajectory out of Kerbin's SOI.

Images:

[StarLiner]

Just what I needed, thank you!

Would it be possible to perhaps increase the difficulty of certain missions, like base construction, by requiring the bases/stations to be a certain weight?

[pellinor]

If you are driving a rover and it is not completing the objective, please make sure that the rover was launched after the contract was taken. The agency wants a new rover for this.

So you keep track of vessels to forbid reuse. How does this work together with docking (i.e. merging the 'new' rover with an 'old' spaceship)? I know that mission controller had issues with vessel IDs and docking. Also MechJeb's 'delta-v expended' counter has bugs with docking.

Edited July 23, 2014 by pellinor

[Ictiv]

I love this mod! I've been enjoying some lovely drives recently across Kerbin.

I am having a problem completing the space station contract thought. I've got two of three checkmarks. The one I haven't gotten is "Build a new orbital station that has power generation, an antenna, and a free docking port." I have constructed such a station, both designing and building after accepting the contract. It has solar panels and an RTG for power generation, communitron 32 and Comms DTS-M1 antennae, and a shielded docking port.

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/AAoMca7

Any idea why it won't mark that as complete? Thanks for the awesome mod!

I'm going to assume you're probably using Remote Tech, or some other mod that either has to do with energy generator parts or docking ports.

With me, Remote Tech was the issue. Having looked at the source code, this plugin decides that you meet the requirements by manually checking if there are parts with the correct modules on your ship. However, Remote Tech 2 for one removes the stock communications module, and puts in its own module instead. Because of this, the current iteration of this mod is not compatible with Remote Tech (or any other mod that does this kind of thing). At least not when it comes to parts that are affected.

If you like, you can test if this is the issue, by going into your Game Data\Squad\Parts\Utility folder and making a copy of the longAntennae folder. longAntennae2 for example, then edit the part.cfg inside so that "name = longAntannae" reads "name = longAntennae2". (I haven't modded parts like this too much, but I think it also works if you don't create a new folder, just create a copy of the part.cfg and do the same inside it. But I'm not sure.)

EDIT: Also after this, you could launch the game (or "Reload all" in the debug menu if you don't want to relaunch) and a new copy of the stock antennae should show up in the VAB. Replace your ship's antennae with this one, and it should be ticked as correct on the launchpad. This worked for me.

EDIT2: I think that this issue could be fixed without further problem from Remote Tech 2 by simply altering the code that it checks both for "ModuleDataTransmitter" which is the stock module for the antennae (and the dishes) and ALSO for "ModuleRTAntenna", and consider it fulfilled if either is present.

EDIT3 The Revenge of the Edit: See, this is the problem with me getting used to mods. It didn't even conciously register for me that the remote tech thingy was there under the MET timer. Of course you're using Remote Tech

Edited July 23, 2014 by Ictiv

[Arsonide]

The version I'm working on has some things that MAY fix the weird completions, a lot of it has to do with the fact that vessel situations change oddly, but I have some code that might help. The focus is my waypoint system though, and now it can avoid water! (The two I crossed out are not on this side of the planet, they're on the opposite side, on land.)

One more addition to make to the system, and I can finally drop it into a contract. The icons are colored persistently based on which contract they represent, and it chooses a random saturated color. That way you can have 50 flight contracts if you want, and you will still be able to distinguish which waypoints belong to which mission.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Arsonide

[Arsonide]

Hey if you guys want to help me come up with cheesy name ideas for the sites that are going to show up in Extra Contracts I'm open to them. Most sites are "Site X4-AB" or something like that, but every now and then I generate a really cheesy name using a prefix and a suffix:

Prefix: "Jebediah's", "Bill's", "Bob's", "Wernher's", "Gene's", "Dinkelstein's", "Dawton's", "Eumon's", "Bobak's", "Kirrim's", "Kerman's", "Kerbin's", "Scientist's", "Engineer's", "Pilot's", "Kerbonaut's", "Kraken's"

Suffix: "Folly", "Hope", "Legacy", "Doom", "Rock", "Gambit", "Bane", "Frontier", "Pride", "Retreat", ""Escape", "Legend", "Sector", "Abyss", "Void", "Vision", "Wisdom", "Sanctum", "Refuge", "Doubt", "Redemption",

Yes, you too can blow up rockets at Kraken's Bane.

That's what I have so far. I'm heading to work now, but I'm open to ideas for more, I'll implement any suggestions when I get back. They can have conditions as well, so "Bar and Grill" could be a suffix on Kerbin.

EDIT: Got a bunch of suffixes off the X3 map.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Arsonide

[keenguitar]

Include Prefixes: Scott's, Nerd's

Include Suffixes: Lair, Crossing

[kiwiak]

Do you plan too add scansat compability for markers?

[Ictiv]

I'm kind of a sucker for Isaac Asimov, so the first of my additions might give that away. Also I mostly add prefixes, since it seems there are less of those than Suffixes at the moment.

Prefix: Star's, Kerlington's, Hitchhiker's, Night's, Marak's, Taylor's

Suffix: End, Dawn

Additionally, you might want to put in a few of the planets'/moons' names into the Prefixes. I don't know about you, but I personally like to think that the Kerball planets were named after mythological characters aswell, and it would make sense to have those names pop up in geographical locations.

[Burkitt]

Hi,

I've been really enjoying this mod, but I've had a game-breaking bug which I suspect it is causing. I now get no contracts showing up in mission control either available, active, or in the archive. Also, once I have entered any building from the space centre view, it is impossible to leave - the exit button just doesn't work.

Previously I also had a more minor issue with a mission to drive a rover on Kerbin and jump it. The jump registered as soon as the rover loaded on the runway, possibly because it is above ground level. Then after quicksaving half way through the drive, crashing the rover and quickloading, no further progress would register, even if I recovered the rover and loaded a new one.

[Arsonide]

The bugs involving objective completion are known and will be fixed as of this weekend's release of the next version. They affect more than one type of contract, but the rover mission is actually not going to look anything like it does now. It will involve moving to multiple points of interest on a planet and checking them out.

I've had one other person report something similar to what you are experiencing with the interface, and unfortunately he had to revert to a backup of his save. I sincerely apologize for that, but these things happen in alpha development. If I can get more information I can track that down easier. Can you describe the last thing you were doing before this happened? If you were doing a contract, or accepting a contract, what kind of contract was it? Are you running 64 bit?

The development branch already has a number of changes in it that prevent code from running at all outside the Flight scene, as of the last release there are still a few instances where that is the case, and I suspect it might be causing the lockup issue, if code that depends on things in the Flight scene tries to run in the VAB, for instance.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Arsonide

[Superfluous J]

Could the rover (or any waypoint) missions have hidden waypoints? As in, go to a waypoint, and either you get the contract there or a new waypoint opens up that you have to then go to. "Using what we learned at Slim Walker's Gulch, we'd like to run the same test at Tiny Pinkerton's Crossing. I think it'll be even sciencier there!"

[Arsonide]

That was very similar to the plan, actually. Aerial contracts and rover contracts will both scatter waypoints on the map, but the difference is that aerial contracts will have a smaller amount, and want you to visit all of them, (not necessarily in the same trip), while rover contracts will have a lot of waypoints in a smaller area (small being a 20KM radius), with one waypoint triggering the mission success. You'll have to "dig" through the waypoints to find the right one. Theoretically you could land and your first waypoint could complete the mission.

[Burkitt]

Fortunately I took your warnings (in the reddit post on Extra Contracts) about making backups seriously, so all that I lost was Extra Contracts related stuff.

More details - I'm running the 32 bit version of KSP on a 64 bit Windows 7 Toshiba laptop (I don't like 64 bit KSP because it won't let me change focus to other programs while loading)

When the bug appeared I had just completed an Extra Contracts contract for capturing an asteroid into Kerbin orbit. I had vanilla contracts running for exploring Eve and Gilly, and Extra Contracts contracts for putting a base with six kerbals, a science lab, a docking port, power generation, an aerial and an asteroid in Eve orbit, and for driving a rover 2km on Eve and making a jump.

I first noticed something odd when I checked Mission Control and saw only one new contract was available - vanilla explore Jool - but assumed it was because I had so many active at once. Then while building my Eve orbital base in the VAB I was unable to exit it, so had to close KSP. On restarting KSP I entered Mission Control, saw there were no contracts at all, available, active or archived, and was unable to exit. The same occurred on a second attempt.

Your plans for rover and aircraft waypoints look like exactly what I've been hoping would be incorporated into KSP to give more to do once missions arrive at planets, so I'm really looking forward to having a go at that.

[Arsonide]

Your plans for rover and aircraft waypoints look like exactly what I've been hoping would be incorporated into KSP to give more to do once missions arrive at planets, so I'm really looking forward to having a go at that.

I am hoping to get that out (on the later side) of this weekend, but I promise nothing. I hit some serious snags last night, but I'm confident I will reach a solution.

[Algiark]

Hey, so I've been playing with this mod, and I've encountered some bugs with the rover missions.

I was charting Minmus, quicksaved in the middle of the way, and accidentally quit the game. When I loaded that quicksave, the progress tracker doesn't show up again.

Also, while testing a rover on Kerbin, I started at the runway, and then used physical time warp to make things snappy. When in time warp, the progress tracker doesn't show up. When back to normal, the progress tracker returns, but as I go, the progress was stuck to what it was before the time warp.

Maybe this bug won't be a problem once you implement the new rover mission type, but just letting you know.

[Alvin853]

Apparently an MKS/OKS Power Distribution Unit does not count as a power source

You should make the checks more general to increase compatability with other mods

[Arsonide]

Generally I do, when it comes to contract objectives I look for modules, not parts, which means it's compatible with other mods. Right now I look for ModuleGenerator and ModuleDeployableSolarPanel. If the mod implements power without using the stock modules, then it's pretty tough to check.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Arsonide

[Alvin853]

Ok guess I have to blame the USI guy then for not making his generators conform to standards

[Arsonide]

Not necessarily, I might be able to add a list of "extra checks" against the straight up part name, but these will be exceptions to the rule for unique mods such as this. If you don't mind, what is the partName in the part's configuration file, and any module names below that.

[JeffreyCor]

The part name for the Power Distribution Unit in OKS is OKS_PDU. It uses a module called KolonyConverter for the electric charge generation. All modules used in the part are ModuleCommand, KolonyConverter, MKSModule, ModuleConnectedLivingSpace, ExWorkshop

Along the same lines, if I might suggest adding the power generators from KSPI as well so those would also count for a power supply. If that is something you might include I'll be glad to provide any file information you need.

[Arsonide]

FINALLY got the kinks worked out, jesus. Accepted three aerial survey contracts in this screenshot:

[Snillum101]

FINALLY got the kinks worked out, jesus. Accepted three aerial survey contracts in this screenshot:

[snip]

Wow, that looks totally awesome. I'm impressed with the progress you've made on this in such a short time.

[Arsonide]

Incidentally, I think 35,000 is really high for a cruising flight altitude. I need some help choosing a decent minimum and maximum altitude for each planet with an atmosphere: Kerbin, Eve, Duna, Jool, and Laythe, so that these contracts are doable. If anyone has experience flying in those places, and knows those values.

[Snillum101]

I'm pretty sure that most jet planes would be unable to fly at that altitude.

If you look at modern jet airliners then their ceiling is roughly 40,000 ft or 12,000 m so I'd suggest an easy contract being between 8 and 12 km with harder ones maybe going up to 20-25?