OKTO Enjoyer

I'm working on an unmanned start tech tree mod, and one of the changes I'd like to add outside the tree itself is gating some types of contracts (Kerbonaut Rescue and Space Tourism) behind tech tree nodes, as trying to complete them before the appropriate tech becomes available would either be very difficult or outright impossible. Looking at the Contracts.cfg file, there were some vanilla contract types that seemed to work like this, and they both included the line TechNodeRequired = <tech tree node id> // The Tech tree node that must be unlocked to be offered this contract However, adding the line TechNodeRequired = generalConstruction // The Tech tree node that must be unlocked to be offered this contract in Tour // Tourism Contracts hasn't seemed to work, as I'm still seeing space tourism contracts as soon as I launch my first rocket out of the atmosphere and upgrade my mission control. What am I missing?

Taken care of. Thanks! I'll go back later when I have time and read through the more permissive license options.

I've been working on a new unmanned start tech tree mod, inspired by theonegalen's "Unkerballed Start" and Yemo's "Unmanned Before Manned" trees. My main goal has been to keep it as similar to vanilla as possible, with as few deviations from the stock progression path as possible. So far, I've got it fairly well roughed out, and it's available for download on my github at https://github.com/Russell-Nesbitt/probeStartTree Before I begin to finalize it, however, I wanted to submit it for community critique and see if I can get a few questions regarding modding practice I had answered. Firstly, I'd appreciate it if I could get it reviewed by more experienced players in regards to its balance. I've playtested the mod (50% science/funding, no quicksaves/loads/reverts) only up until Mun orbit missions, and my overall KSP experience extends only to Eve orbit and back. I wanted to ensure that the basic progression path I had set up (especially regarding the post OKTO2 probes) was appropriately balanced for later game play. There's a screencap of the tree in the Readme, but to see all the changes it will need to be downloaded. Secondly, I had a few questions regarding modding best-practices and how best to avoid mod incompatibility issues. Currently, my mod works by directly editing TechTree.cfg, dictionary.cfg, and all the relevant part config files. This will obviously result in a great many undesired incompatibilities with other mods. I'm aware of the great utility offered by Module Manager in this case, and -as I mention in the Readme file - I intend to port the mod over to Module Manager as soon as I've finalized everything. Once that's done, I'll get it hosted it on Spacedock as well as on my personal Github. From my understanding of how MM works, that future port should address pretty much every incompatibility issue regarding TechTree.cfg and the part config files. However, I'm unsure regarding how to solve the problem with dictionary.cfg. Ideally, I'd like even a overwrite-style install (as seen in the Readme) to be fully compatible with other mods that require unique text, but I don't know if that's possible without MM. One of the mods I dissected when I was looking at how MM functioned edited the en-us.cfg file instead of the dictionary.cfg to get custom text into the game. Is this better practice than adding new lines into dictionary.cfg? Furthermore, is there a standard for how to set up unique identifiers for new #autoLOC_ values? I simply appended the ones I needed for custom node text onto the list with different numbers, but I can see how overlaps with other mods could occur in this case. Would something like #autoLOC_probeStartTree_numbergoeshere be in better keeping with modding standards? I also had a question regarding the nodeName field present in each tech tree node object in TechTree.cfg. I'm honestly not sure what it's for. As it seemed to contain information regarding the tier at which the node appears in the tech tree, I made sure to update it for any vanilla nodes I moved up or down in the tech tree progression, and I created new values for the new nodes I added in. For example, I moved the "Landing" node up a tier in the tree, so I updated its nodeName value to node5_landing. This hasn't seemed to affect anything in the base game, but as one of my goals is to have this mod work with any other mods that add parts to the vanilla tech tree, I wanted to ensure that nodeName isn't used in some way that I didn't notice. I was also wondering if there was a good place to source custom thumbnail art for tech tree nodes. I have several new nodes in my "Manned Pods" line that simply borrow art from the "Command Modules" node, and I would like to replace those with custom art before I do the MM port. I don't mind having to do it myself in MS paint, but I doubt the results would be pretty! I don't want to steal art from any other mods without express permission from the author first, for obvious reasons. Is there an accepted etiquette for art reuse? #POSSIBLE SPOILERS?# I made visible the "hidden nodes" for Experimental Motors and Nanolathing, and incorporated them into my tech tree in case any other mods used them for parts. Is this considered good practice? #END POSSIBLE SPOILERS# Lastly, if there's any modding best practices that I've failed to follow and haven't thought about asking, please tell me! I'd really appreciate it. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/