Mod to Generate Science Contracts by Searching Science Archives to Find New Science to Do

[Tontow]

Do I need Contract  Configurator installed for the beta to work?

[nightingale]

Do I need Contract  Configurator installed for the beta to work?

Yup (5char).

[Rendman]

I've been testing this today, both in my Career mode game, and a new sandbox one. Seems right on the money to me so far. No strange bugs that I've seen. Some feedback though, as you progress through the tech tree, would it be possible for the contracts to prefer higher payout science experiments? It's a little weird when you are far in the game, and it's asking you to do 1 and 2 science contracts. Don't know how that would work, but just a thought.

[nightingale]

I've been testing this today, both in my Career mode game, and a new sandbox one. Seems right on the money to me so far. No strange bugs that I've seen. Some feedback though, as you progress through the tech tree, would it be possible for the contracts to prefer higher payout science experiments? It's a little weird when you are far in the game, and it's asking you to do 1 and 2 science contracts. Don't know how that would work, but just a thought.

That's some good feedback, let me think about ways to implement that... I may put in some logic to stop offering Kerbin stuff for some of the contracts (KSC science, "scraps" contract) once the player hits a certain point (probably going interplanetary).

[Tontow]

Just keep lowering the chance of the low level stuff being offered as you progress to the high level stuff. Just like the game does with stock contracts (or at least should be doing).

[Barking Sands]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=451831161

^^ Completed my first contract (collect science at the Highlands: crew report in flight, crew report landed, mystery goo landed, eva report landed, and materials study landed). I had to exit and relaunch the game because Jeb decided to screw around during EVA (controls don't work, WASD all just make him walk straight forward -- anybody else had this issue?). Upon reopening my career and selecting my vessel to "fly," I finished the round of experiments and clicked the green "recover vessel" button hiding behind the altimeter. The mission still registers as incomplete on all counts in the Mission Control building, and there are just green checkmarks but no green highlights for each of the mission requirements as shown in the screenshot. Did I screw this up somewhere or did I find a bug? Couldn't be bothered trying to replicate it at this point; everything KSP related is going screwy for me today.

[nightingale]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=451831161

^^ Completed my first contract (collect science at the Highlands: crew report in flight, crew report landed, mystery goo landed, eva report landed, and materials study landed). I had to exit and relaunch the game because Jeb decided to screw around during EVA (controls don't work, WASD all just make him walk straight forward -- anybody else had this issue?). Upon reopening my career and selecting my vessel to "fly," I finished the round of experiments and clicked the green "recover vessel" button hiding behind the altimeter. The mission still registers as incomplete on all counts in the Mission Control building, and there are just green checkmarks but no green highlights for each of the mission requirements as shown in the screenshot. Did I screw this up somewhere or did I find a bug? Couldn't be bothered trying to replicate it at this point; everything KSP related is going screwy for me today.

Hmmm.... been doing various minor tweaks/fixes to Contract Configurator and may have fixed this issue, but can't be certain. I'll do some testing and release the new version soon and we'll see if that resolves the issue.

[arkie87]

That's some good feedback, let me think about ways to implement that... I may put in some logic to stop offering Kerbin stuff for some of the contracts (KSC science, "scraps" contract) once the player hits a certain point (probably going interplanetary).

You could make it generate a random number. The weighing should be done based on science multiplication factors? So if you have orbitted Kerbin (1x), Mun (3x), and Minmus (4x), you should have a 1/8th chance of getting a contract for Kerbin, 3/8th's chance for Mun, and 4/8th's chance for Minmus

[nightingale]

You could make it generate a random number. The weighing should be done based on science multiplication factors? So if you have orbitted Kerbin (1x), Mun (3x), and Minmus (4x), you should have a 1/8th chance of getting a contract for Kerbin, 3/8th's chance for Mun, and 4/8th's chance for Minmus

I like the idea, and may implement something somewhat like this eventually. However, the contracts are split by prestige (1 star - Kerbin, 2 star - Mun/Minmus, 3 star - others). Because of the way KSP generates contracts, it's hard to do the logic you proposed across prestige levels. In future I may have it allow some more dynamic weighting by prestige though, which would allow what you described to be implemented.

[nightingale]

Hopefully will get this in a release state tomorrow. Right now I'm just going around setting up screenshot opportunities and playing with Historian.

Looks a little bit better than quickly slapping a globe into the mission control window.

[Tontow]

Could you shorten the name of some of the Way Points? (look at top of screen)

[Rendman]

I'm not entirely sure how the random experiment generation code works, but is there a way to have the contract generator not include experiments that you do have the corresponding part for yet? I've got a game where I purposefully go through the tech tree slowly and a lot of the contacts I get include taking Hydrogen scans. Not a huge deal, because I just reject the contract until I can handle it, but maybe for newerish players, it might be a good idea.

Thanks again for the work you put into this!

[nightingale]

Could you shorten the name of some of the Way Points? (look at top of screen)

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/714164677673644457/DAF18BD2967B6C031EC2F75280DF25611E011D7F/

Fixed, will be in the release version.

I'm not entirely sure how the random experiment generation code works, but is there a way to have the contract generator not include experiments that you do have the corresponding part for yet? I've got a game where I purposefully go through the tech tree slowly and a lot of the contacts I get include taking Hydrogen scans. Not a huge deal, because I just reject the contract until I can handle it, but maybe for newerish players, it might be a good idea.

Thanks again for the work you put into this!

In general it does - but if the experiment comes from a part that doesn't use the stock experiment module it won't detect it and it will make it available from the start.

So to get any further, I'll have to ask - what is hydrogen scanning and what mod adds it?

[Rendman]

It's from the DMagic Orbital Science mod and I'm not entirely certain about it's function, as I have not used it much.

[nightingale]

Thanks, I'll have to poke around with Orbital science a bit. I know it has its own contracts, so I don't want to overlap *too* much.

[amorymeltzer]

This looks fantastic, nightingale, really wonderful. I haven't had much time to play around with it but it looks really solid! My only real issue isn't even really on you, it's from CrowdSourcedScience. Turns out the most recent version added this little file, which I wasn't aware of, and meant this pack gave me some surprising "probe report" tests. Who knew!

Anyway, real question: Is there a reason why the KSC science pays out per item while the rest pay out only upon full completion?

[Lord Aurelius]

Those probe reports were a request from me for a simple mod I made awhile back, that experiment in particular seemed to be one that really should have been in stock and several other mods added their own versions of it so I made a simple standalone config for it (link in my signature under stock science tweaks).

I didn't realize they were going to go ahead and incorporate the experiment wholesale, I would have thought that they would have checked to see if the experiment was defined and add more reports.

[nightingale]

This looks fantastic, nightingale, really wonderful. I haven't had much time to play around with it but it looks really solid! My only real issue isn't even really on you, it's from CrowdSourcedScience. Turns out the most recent version added this little file, which I wasn't aware of, and meant this pack gave me some surprising "probe report" tests. Who knew!

http://i.imgur.com/GsZbmNz.png

http://i.imgur.com/RjK6dQv.png

Anyway, real question: Is there a reason why the KSC science pays out per item while the rest pay out only upon full completion?

Oh yeah, that was an oversight, I need to change the other ones to look like the KSC contract.

Those probe reports were a request from me for a simple mod I made awhile back, that experiment in particular seemed to be one that really should have been in stock and several other mods added their own versions of it so I made a simple standalone config for it (link in my signature under stock science tweaks).

I didn't realize they were going to go ahead and incorporate the experiment wholesale, I would have thought that they would have checked to see if the experiment was defined and add more reports.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on this one!

[DuoDex]

Sorry about the CSS confusion, I did the probescience stuff rather early in the morning. I'll add a check for your mods later (soon!) and in the meantime have removed the offending files.

Sorry!

[nightingale]

Sorry about the CSS confusion, I did the probescience stuff rather early in the morning. I'll add a check for your mods later (soon!) and in the meantime have removed the offending files.

Sorry!

Good stuff, I was going to put CSS on the "recommended mod list" anyway, but this clinches it.

[nightingale]

It's here!!! Go check it out!

[amorymeltzer]

You rock.