Dwight_js

I am using this mod with my 1.0.4 KSP install and I am wondering if I am getting full functionality, especially with respect to the custom contracts. I saw a video where you can input mission parameters, then send it out for tender. I don't seem to have that option. I get a box called "Financials" where I can open a few different settings dialog boxes. The Custom Contracts dialogue lets me set the altitude limits for comsat missions, and the other two options don't work because I apparently don't have the right kind of ships in play (it's very early days in this career). Am I missing something? Is there a user manual out there somewhere?

I started playing Orbiter years ago, so that's where I learned about orbital mechanics. I was able to jump into KSP and orbit, rendezvous, dock, encounter/orbit mun fairly easily (maneuver nodes were already in when I started). Things that stumped me were the navball - took me ages before I hunkered down and actually made an effort to figure out how it works. Landing on airless bodies at a precise location was tough at first too. I tried to use an Apollo approach of lowering Pe to just above the surface, then doing a breaking burn at that point, followed by a controlled descent. I had a tendency to come in with too much horizontal velocity.

I may have missed the point of your post to some degree, but you can't really blame me when I have to decipher sentences like: Anyway, I partially agree with you, but I think your system of offering a "complete list of finite mission objectives" is backwards. I want to be able to: 1. Specify my own mission parameters, e.g: [destination] [manned/unmanned] [flyby/orbit/land] [transmit/return science] [establish base] [deploy rover] [deploy satellite] etc. 2. Let interested parties bid to fund the mission, and select the best deal. 3. Use the funding to fly the mission. 4. Collect the science and reputation rewards for completing the mission. The system could calculate funds and reputation rewards based on the player's unlocked tech nodes, state of the KSC buildings, Kerbonaut skill levels, etc. So in that way, I set my own agenda (where to go and what to do), and the game sets the level of challenge by limiting the tools at my disposal.

Of course it would. Real life Space Agencies don't just sit around waiting for some private company to stop by and offer them a contract. Curiosity wasn't commissioned by some random private enterprise who plopped a bag of cash on the table and said "build this for me"; NASA came up with the idea and sought out funding for it. Same goes for Hubble, the Shuttle program, and pretty much the entire early American space program. I'm not saying that KSP has to mirror the development of NASA. I'm not even saying that the current contracts mechanic should be removed. But the game should accommodate my desire to test the limits of what I can achieve with the tools available at any given stage of my career. Let me suggest a mission goal, offer me the funds to do it, then reward or punish me for my success or failure. That I disagree with completely. Why should the player be forced down any particular path? For me, that approach completely flies in the face of what I perceive as the spirit of KSP career mode - "See what you can do with what you've got." Career should set the challenge, but not the agenda.

I find that the biggest problem with contracts as they stand now, is that they define your game in terms of what others want you to do. I always thought that the strength of KSP was the extremely open gameplay that allowed you to build your own story-arc. We've got a great "What did you do in KSP today?" discussion thread, but I don't think we'll get the same enthusiasm for a "what did KSP make you do today?" thread. I would like the game to limit the materials/resources that I have at my disposal to accomplish goals, but for the most part I would like to set those goals myself, and to receive recognition and reward for accomplishing them. If I choose to shoot for Jool on my second launch, I should get the riches and prestige that I deserve when I get there.

Huh, either I'm completely blind, or there's something wrong with my install. I don't have anything to open the debug menu. I tried re-downloading 6.4.0 and re-installed it, but no dice. Can't get the toggle to show. Is there any other way to adjust the values, in a config file somewhere?

Is it still possible to access the settings to modify the shockwave multiplier and exponent in the version for 0.90? All I see are easy, medium, and hard options.

I was watching the Space x launch and I instinctively tried to use the mouse to rotate the view around the rocket and zoom in and out.

What about the ability to propose contracts, have companies bid on them, and choose the highest bidder? You could enter the vital mission components in a form with drop-down lists that let you define where you want to go, and what you want to achieve when you get there. So it would look something like 'Duna' 'landing' 'manned' 'deploy rover' 'return science' etc.

Sigh... Every time I start a new version, I say to myself: "I'm not going to upgrade from this version, because I really want to get a lot done - satellite networks, fuel refineries everywhere, science bases, remote landers and rovers everywhere. It's gonna be epic! And then I'll upgrade when I get bored with the interplanetary kingdom that I have created!" I don't have a lot of time to play, so it takes me forever to make progress. ...and then Squad go and add stuff that I just... can't... RESIST! I have no choice but to update way before I even get out of the Kerbin system, and I have to start all over. Darn you Squad for your glorious updates!

You should be able to retrieve the data from the goo containers while on eva (get close and right-click them). It breaks the container, but you're done with it after one use without a science lab anyway.

This is a slightly off-topic question, but since we seem to have a few "spread-sheet and slide-rule" types together in one spot, I'm wondering if you all would enjoy this as a game-play mechanic. How would you like it if in the early stages of the game the statistics provided by KSP were intentionally incorrect to reflect the lack of knowledge of the Kerbals. Would you still have fun, if after working out the math you could still have a mission fail because the numbers are just a best guess by Kerbal scientists and engineers?

I prefer my rescue missions to originate from my own mistakes. I'm in the middle of one right now, rescuing 2 Kerbals stranded on Minmus. So far it's involved abandoning a ship in a highly eliptical orbit around Minmus, just as the O2 ran out, to de-orbit and land at a base module on the surface using the eva rcs pack, then changing the trajectory of a rescue ship so that it would arrive before the supplies in the base ran out (with 2 Kerbals the survival time was now cut in half). I now have to rendezvous with the abandoned ship and bring it down to the surface so all the Kerbals can go home. It's a lot more stressful and requires much more problem solving than the rescue contracts. Maybe once the Kerbals are able to take over certain tasks (if that's still in the plan for the final game) it'll be fun to have them mess up and put themselves into emergency situations, but I'll still like that better than the current contracts because the scenarios will make more sense than finding a previously unknown ship/kerbal floating in space somewhere.

Totally agree. I've said in a few places that I would love to see a system where I can create a custom mission statement by picking targets and activities from a drop-down list (e.g. Land on ___ , plant flag, return/transmit science, stay for duration of ___ days, and return Kerbals home), then have companies bid on it. They could even add one or two of their own requirements to throw a wrinkle into your planning, like asking you to place a satellite with a specific instrument on it while you're visiting the planet/moon you've chosen. This would allow you to direct your own focus for your space program instead of being led along by the contracts.

Completed phase one of my Minmus rescue mission. I have two Kerbals stranded on Minmus with dwindling life-support supplies. Henson Kerman was originally stuck in a highly elliptic orbit on-board a lander that had run out of fuel, with only 5 hours of oxygen left. He managed to "get out and push" to bring the lander's Pe down to a few km, then as the craft swung by on it's closest approach, and as the oxygen tank ran dry, he jumped out and circularized a low orbit with his RCS pack. He was then able to de-orbit and land just a few meters away from a base module that Landron Kerman had successfully landed earlier (and by successfully I mean it hit so hard that the engine and fuel tank on the return stage exploded, leaving him stranded with 6 days worth of supplies). The rescue ship is about 6 days from Minmus rendezvous, but with 2 kerbals now at the Minmus base, they only have 3 days worth of supplies. The rescue ship has a ton of excess Dv, and I now have to see whether I can change it's trajectory enough to bring the rendezvous forward enough to save poor Henson and Landron.

Agree with LethalDose, RemoteTech2 to add signal delay, then KOS to create your own autopilot scripts to make probes autonomous.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this is why the game should allow you to "negotiate" your own contracts. The current system is too leading. You should be able to choose a destination, an activity, and maybe the time-frame too, then you get offers of funds and/or science based on your reputation. If I want to leave Kerbin SOI on mission 2, I should be able to find someone to pay me for it.

You could get KOS and program your GPS satellites to perform maneuvers on their own when not in contact with the KSC. If that doesn't appeal to you, then you'll have to set up a relay of some kind for burns that happen when not in line-of-sight with mission control.

Seems to me that a "chutter reset mechanism" would be an appropriate feature for Kerbal rockets.

Couldn't you get that by just playing stock?

I don't mind the use of science points to unlock parts, but I agree that the click-click nature of science makes it boring. In addition to that, what bothers me is how the experiments, research contracts, science points, and unlocking process each exist in a vacuum. For example, I can do a Crew Report (basically looking out the window) and then use the resulting increased knowledge (science points) to develop an ion engine. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I wish that you could do research and run tests in a particular environment, with particular types of instruments, and that the resulting technological developments would be in related fields. So that when I gather science in the upper atmosphere, I can develop technology that is related to that environment (heat-shields, wings, jet-engines, etc.). Maybe even set it up so that initial versions of a part are inefficient, or slightly ineffective, but with the possibility to improve this with testing and research. That way, your mission design will determine what technology fields will open up as a result.

I've tended to avoid parts testing, particularly the "in flight" tests as i just can't be bothered to alter my mission profile to fit in something that offers no significant reward. I also don't like how the tests are completely irrelevant to the progression of the game. Running tests doesn't change anything about the part in question - it performs exactly the same whether it gets tested or not. Side-note: I also don't like rescue missions. I would rather rescue the Kerbals stranded as a result of my mistakes, not some randomly spawend Kerbonaut floating in just his space suit (where's his ship?). I wish there were a system where I could build my own contracts (call it "Negotiation"). I pick a type of mission (rescue, test, satellite placement, etc.) which brings up a form with blanks that I can fill out from drop-downs: "Land on (body name) and (return/transmit) science of type (surface sample/eva report) for X reward." New destinations would give you more reward, with return diminishing the more you repeat the same missions.

Wow, what a friendly forum.

I haven't gone too deep into the contract system yet, but it seems to me that the first-steps contracts are a little bit leading. Launch into LKO first, then the Mun, and so on. But what if I want to go somewhere else first? Or accomplish something else first? Maybe an endurance space-walk, or go straight to Moho with the first few tiers of tech? My suggestion is that contracts be restructured to include negotiation. It could be a simple system where you simply fill in the appropriate blanks to create contract parameters, like this: Orbit Eve at altitude 100,000 m and transmit/retrieve science. or Eva at Kerbin Orbit for duration of 6 hours. Note* These are just examples off the top of my head. Please focus on the contract creation mechanic in your discussion. The game would then evaluate what that contract would be worth in funds and reputation, and you decide if it's worth accepting and going ahead with it. The more audacious the goal, the bigger the payoff. There would be no limit on repeating missions, but returns would diminish as the public get bored with the same old missions. Any takers?