Well, I successfully recovered the pod to Kerbin with the claw and completed the contract w/o having to resort to the Alt-F12 procedure. Problem solved.
Now, of course, I'm getting the "Recover xxx part in orbit" contracts.
Thanks to all who helped out. Your counsel was very valuable.
Just to close the loop on this one, the problem seemed to solve itself. After several game restarts, access to that particular save was restored magically. Don't know why but once it did, the Kerbal was back to work.
For anyone who's interested, I also did some more research on the persistent.sfs file here for another save file issue.
Situation
A rescue contract for a Kerbal in LKO was accepted in Mission Control. Subsequently, a part was removed inadvertently by uninstalling a mod. On the next load of the save, the craft could not be loaded because of a missing part. The mod was re-installed without errors and the part was visible. The rescue contract persisted but the target vessel, which depended on the removed/replace part, disappeared. The Kerbal (a ‘lost’ Kerbal) in the contract target vessel remains in the save file but can’t be located.
Task
Repair the save file (persistent.sfs) to:
1. Remove the contract; and
2. Recover the Kerbal such that they are available.
The contract rewards do not have to be awarded. The contract does not have to be listed as completed.
Execution
1. Navigate to the applicable save folder;
2. Backup the persistent.sfs file for safety;
3. Open the save file for editing to remove the contract:
a. Locate the CONTRACT block containing the Kerbal (try searching for the Kerbal’s name)
b. Save the Contract guid parameter for later. It should be the first line in the Contract section, e.g. guid = 566fc4c5-cb64-4568-a9fe-b3a3a527acc7;
c. Select and delete the Contract block, i.e. all of the text between and including the key word “CONTRACT” and the terminating brace “}” containing the Kerbal. There could be multiple PARAM blocks if there are multiple achievements in the contract;
d. Remove all references to the contract
i. Search for other entries of the contract guid that you noted in 3.b.
ii. For users of the Contract+ mod, there will be lines with the guid embedded that reflect the contract and if you have any filters applied. Remove any parts of the ActiveListID parameter value that contains the guid and any associated values (i.e. from the guid to the next comma, inclusive)
4. Edit the save file to retain the Kerbal:
a. Locate the ROSTER block in the save file. The file will have multiple KERBAL blocks, one for each Kerbal in the save;
b. Locate the KERBAL block for the lost Kerbal;
c. Edit the KERBAL block:
i. Change the type parameter to Crew;
ii. Change the state parameter to Available;
iii. Change the ToD parameter to 0;
iv. Change the idx parameter to 0;
v. Change the flight parameter in the CAREER_LOG block to 1;
vi. Add the following text underneath the flight parameter to describe what actions the Kerbal would have undertaken to be rescued (i.e. an EVA, a deorbit, a landing on Kerbin and a recovery to the Space Center):
0 = ExitVessel,Kerbin
0 = Orbit,Kerbin
0 = BoardVessel,Kerbin
0 = Suborbit,Kerbin
0 = Flight,Kerbin
0 = Land,Kerbin
0 = Recover
vii. Change the flight parameter in the FLIGHT_LOG block to 1
Additional Information
The KSP Wiki has a couple of articles that may be helpful:
1. A tutorial on modifying Kerbals - http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Modifing_Kerbals
2. A configuration file syntax explanation. This is specifically for configuration files (.cfg) and not the persistent.sfs but many of the parameters and keywords are the same. - http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CFG_File_Documentation#Contracts_Configuration_Files
I did have one and on loading all the satellites and a Mun lander re-appeared. Unfortunately, the lander was not controllable; I could make it the active vessel but the engine wouldn't respond to throttle control.
Thanks for that thought. The pull down shows probes highlighted (i.e. visible) and 0 probes when there should 18.
I think I'm going to have to start over...again.
