General Apocalypse

I have mentioned that I will most likely use Contract Configurator since the original game code seems kind of a mess and I simply lack the time that it would probably take to rewrite it from scratch. I should have probably highlight it better. Thanks for the reply and for your many mods.

Yea what you want is a ye old tech tree mod . Plenty of those around and they are quite good.

Without the career contracts the game feels a bit empty , also funds about if you set them to 200%. I used to do that in my first play troughs and it wasn't robbing me of the experience.

I want to develop a new mod that would redo the career contracts. There have been several mods around but they are often outdated , bugged or too small in scope. I imagined that this mod would be similar to Career Evolution but I would integrate (after getting the proper permissions) contracts from other mods. The must have mods that I plan to integrate are : Scan Sat , Kerbal Konstructs , Planetary Base Inc. and Extra Planetary Launchpads since they add desperately needed functions to the game. The mod will be built using Contract Configurator since the original code seems kind of a mess and I simply lack the time that it would probably take to rewrite it from scratch. The goal of the mod is to create a narrative on which you can play your game from the first steps to launching your old crew from the base on Eeloo , having them dock with their transport vessel in orbit and send them to Kerbin and then via another transfer land them at KSP. I was thinking that the contracts should configured with a number of missions for each celestial body . Since manned and unmanned mission have drastically different requirements of dV I've split them into the following categories and given some of them program name . Unmanned: 1. First flyby - Voyager 2. First orbit and relay - Pioneer 3. First polar orbit, mapping, biome specific science - Explorer 4. First impact - void - Viking A 5. First impact - atmosphere - Viking B 6. First soft landing - void - Mariner A 7. First soft landing - atmosphere - Mariner B 8. First orbit and return - Ranger 9. First soft landing and return 10. First high atmosphere science 11. First automatic rover - Pathfinder 12. First solar observatory - Helios 13. First low orbit solar observatory 14. First deep space relay - orbit beyond Eeloo 15. First UAV helicopter 16. Unmanned asteroid science Manned: 1. Kerbin suborbital rockets - Icarus 2. Kerbin LKO Science - Mercury 3. Mun and Minimus orbit and landing - Apollo 4. First orbit and return - Vanguard (must perform spacewalk) 5. First polar orbit and biome specific science - Discovery 6. First landing and return 7. First manned rover 8. First research station 9. First space shipyard 10. Fist orbital fuel depot 11. First orbital refinery 12. First mining base 13. First surface based refinery 14. First shipyard and launch pad 15. First runway - for planets with atmosphere 16. Manned asteroid capture 17. Manned Helicopter 18. First manned beyond Eeloo fuel depot , science and comm relay space station What I would love to hear from you is your opinion of this project , if you would like to see such a mod added (given that there are some out there). Also please let me know if you thing that some programs should be merged with others , if you would like to add new programs or if you have some additional suggestions for program names. Thank you for reading this. Please let me know what you think.

I forgot to equip the MK 2 "Apollo" Mun Orbiter with chutes so I sent up a probe core with a docking port and ton of chutes. One extremely unpleasant landing later I got the sweet sweet science that comes from landing a "vessel that flew around the Mun" - not a lot but it felt awesome.

Get MechJeb - it will allow you to program most of the scut work (like IRL) and enjoy other aspects more. Don't worry the computers is bad enough that it can't properly handle complex missions for example lifting to LKO a large space station so you'll have plenty of thing to do.

Thank you very much for the welcome post and for your well written , well argued opinion. I am quite impressed with the quality of it. I saw that Near Future has some options with his mod including for some tanks , or maybe it was another one using something called B9PartSwitch I believe ? Anyway there is an implementation with size and while I agree that the implementation will be difficult it is a bit of a must. As for the cost there isn't much to it AFAIK since fuel costs tend to be quite huge. Maybe there should be a limit of the size with 1 part going from 0.65m, 1m, 2m; one for 3.75m, 5m, 7.5m and one for 10m, 15m and 20m. As for properties I agree that xenon holding tanks and tanks that are made from advanced materials should be lighter and more expensive. Overall if we end up with something like 18 different types of tanks for the entire game (with normal mods so no Interstellar stuff) that would be quite good. Tanks are a prime target since they are already heavier than IRL and they don't present huge technical problems and polemics like engines or capsules. Plus the tanks sections gets overwhelmingly populated even in stock play let alone with mods. To be quite honest it would be best if Prime Division or whoever handles the PC version updates would implement the base mechanism of multi-dimensional variants since that would guarantee some level of bug suppression within the code itself.

I agree with this idea . The devs integrating mods is quite awesome as they will provide update support , something the modding community hates to do. If ubiquitous mods such Mech Jeb , Kerbal Engineer , Tranfer Planner and ScanSat would be integrated into the game everyone would win. The mods don't even have to be fully integrated. For example if from they took from MechJeb the Ascent Guidance , Randez-Vous Planner and Docking Auto pilot they would essentially allow us the option to remove 99% of the stuff that gets tedious when you're doing it for the 100th time in a row. I strongly believe I am not alone in being so annoyed be LKO fuel supply flights that I reengineered the launcher to get there faster at the cost of extra dV lost to Max Q. After 100+ repetitions that type of flight becomes mostly a chore. A very enjoyable chore with Mech Jeb doing obeying your programing. All that thing needs now is the Space X commentator to go "Vehicle is supersoni" "Vehicle is now at Max Q" and so on.

The less parts a mod introduces the better. We already have a major problem with in VAB/SPH lag and loading times due to the huge number of parts that you need to make the game experience worth it. Thanks are a prime canditate for such a culling. Right now for example we could cut out about 20 cylindrical tank models by replacing it with one part that can go in diameter from 0.65m to 7.5m , it can vary it's heir to full , half , quarter and has about 5 textures white , orange , riggatoni white , some variants with black stripes Saturn V style and some variants with gold/silver foil. The same treatment could be done to conic adapters tanks , nose cone tanks , round tanks and the MK2 / MK3 variants. One part with multiple options in texture , size and length is the way to go.