[1.10.1+] Contract Pack: Field Research [v1.2.2] [2020-09-20]

[nightingale]

Contract Configurator 1.2.4 fixes some of the issues reported today. Orbital Science experiments won't be offered until the right parts are researched, but you'll still see the Laythe/Eve "rare science" contracts early. Next up I'll look at those and rework the KSC contract (my thought is I'm going to hardcode a list of the more sane KSC biomes and just leave it at that).

[vardicd]

Contract Configurator 1.2.4 fixes some of the issues reported today. Orbital Science experiments won't be offered until the right parts are researched, but you'll still see the Laythe/Eve "rare science" contracts early. Next up I'll look at those and rework the KSC contract (my thought is I'm going to hardcode a list of the more sane KSC biomes and just leave it at that).

Not sure if its one of the issues you haven't gotten to, but I'm still seeing requests for experiments that you can't do in the areas they are being asked for.

[severedsolo]

I don't know if this will help, but with station science,I suspect it reports itself as capable of performing the experiment on the ground. If you a actually try, it will say something like "get to orbit" - science alert also flags it on the ground.

Also station science already has its own contracts. Effectively we'd be getting paid twice

[callmewoof]

I love this mod, huge thank you! But I have a question, many of the early contracts around KSC are asking me to do a "Probe Experiment". I can't figure out what this is asking for. I've tried crew/eva/telemetry(remotetech)/temperature/seismic/ionizer/materialbay/goo, all both manned and unmanned, trasmitted and kept. Nothing works! I've tried clicking on various things to find a "run test" or some such button, but nothing yet. Is a probe report part of a mod that I don't have? Or am I missing something (probably really obvious in plain sight lol)? Thanks for any help!

[KerbMav]

asking me to do a "Probe Experiment"

Possibly a contract specifically written for a mod but lacking an argument to check if said mod is installed?

[Olsson]

I read about this mod first in the Add-on suggestion forum and now I see it's been done! I'm glad to see.

I've just got a few questions.

Do you get contract money and contract research points ontop of the research you get from the experiment itself? If so how are you planning on balancing this to not just turn career into science mode with free money from science experiments?

[KerbMav]

I installed the pack midgame and the first I got were scientific studies of the Kerbin atmosphere - does not pay much, yields no extra science and asked for flying low, landed this and that in five different situations/biomes. Looks rather balanced to me.

[nightingale]

Not sure if its one of the issues you haven't gotten to, but I'm still seeing requests for experiments that you can't do in the areas they are being asked for.

I don't know if this will help, but with station science,I suspect it reports itself as capable of performing the experiment on the ground. If you a actually try, it will say something like "get to orbit" - science alert also flags it on the ground.

I still need to look at Station Science support - I ran out of time yesterday (baby teething ). As far as it reporting being capable of running the experiments on the ground, that really sounds more like a bug in station science itself. I'll follow up with them once I have a chance to dig a bit more.

I love this mod, huge thank you! But I have a question, many of the early contracts around KSC are asking me to do a "Probe Experiment". I can't figure out what this is asking for. I've tried crew/eva/telemetry(remotetech)/temperature/seismic/ionizer/materialbay/goo, all both manned and unmanned, trasmitted and kept. Nothing works! I've tried clicking on various things to find a "run test" or some such button, but nothing yet. Is a probe report part of a mod that I don't have? Or am I missing something (probably really obvious in plain sight lol)? Thanks for any help!

The Probe Report is for Lord Aurelius's Stock Science Tweaks. The fact that they are showing up for you is actually due to a bug in Crowd Sourced Science, which DuoDex has already fixed (but not released). So your options are:

1. Bug DuoDex to release his fix.
   
2. Install Stock Science Tweaks.
   

I read about this mod first in the Add-on suggestion forum and now I see it's been done! I'm glad to see.

I've just got a few questions.

Do you get contract money and contract research points ontop of the research you get from the experiment itself? If so how are you planning on balancing this to not just turn career into science mode with free money from science experiments?

I installed the pack midgame and the first I got were scientific studies of the Kerbin atmosphere - does not pay much, yields no extra science and asked for flying low, landed this and that in five different situations/biomes. Looks rather balanced to me.

Also station science already has its own contracts. Effectively we'd be getting paid twice

There's no research on the contracts themselves (it would be redundant in my opinion). I feel the rewards themselves are balanced, but I'm always open to feedback.

As far as being able to get paid twice... I'll probably look at it on a case by case basis. I'm definitely open to disabling some of the experiments if it clashes with the other mod's contracts.

[zeropositivo]

Install Stock Science Tweaks.

1. 
   

Pfft... like I needed an excuse to install another mod

Done!

[nightingale]

Quick release with some bug fixes. I'll get a fix out to the KSC stuff later in the week (under the weather at the moment). Download now!

ContractPack-FieldResearch 1.0.1

• Fixed typo (thanks Barking Sands).
  
• Fixed issue with Rare Science contract generating for bodies the player hasn't visited yet (thanks True-Chaos).
  

[tomf]

Thanks for adding my impact mod, you can never have too many reasons for explosions.

However I have a bug to report that might be difficult to remove

Impacts can only be generated for airless worlds but I am getting field research contracts for spectrographic data on Kerbin.

In the same contreact I also have a request for an Experiment: Sample while flying low over Kerbin's highlands. What experiment is that?

[nightingale]

Thanks for adding my impact mod, you can never have too many reasons for explosions.

However I have a bug to report that might be difficult to remove

Impacts can only be generated for airless worlds but I am getting field research contracts for spectrographic data on Kerbin.

Ah, interesting... the science system is far too limiting in how you specify where your experiment is valid. Station Science is another example where it is set up to be valid for landed - but not landed on Kerbin. Everyone has their own way of working around these exceptions, but it ends up being nearly impossible to tell what the exceptions are without looking at code.

Anyway, I'm thinking of working this all into a config based system, and I'll just distribute the configs to make stock and various mods work. Once I'm less sick and can actually put too lines of code together without my head hurting, that is.

In the same contreact I also have a request for an Experiment: Sample while flying low over Kerbin's highlands. What experiment is that?

I have no idea, I've never seen that one! Check out the contract in the .sfs file and you should be able to find the experimentID. If you toss that into google or a github search I'm wondering if that'll get you a hit on whatever mod is adding that experiment.

[veryinky]

I'm reasonably sure you can't perform any experiment in the desert while "splashed down".

[nightingale]

http://i.imgur.com/lUqKe9N.png?1

I'm reasonably sure you can't perform any experiment in the desert while "splashed down".

KSP's gibberish text generator has trained you away from reading the contract flavor text - read the text in the screen shot you posted and it will make more sense.

[amorymeltzer]

I'm reasonably sure you can't perform any experiment in the desert while "splashed down".

Have you tried? The whole point of this is that, yes, you can do "splashed down" in every biome on Kerbin, but some are hard to find. It should have given you some waypoints for potential locations - did you check? That's the true genius of this pack.

[veryinky]

KSP's gibberish text generator has trained you away from reading the contract flavor text - read the text in the screen shot you posted and it will make more sense.

Yep, that pretty was much it. Only times I ever read them is in with historical contracts mods.

[tomf]

It looks like I need to take a sample from an asteroid - while flying low over the highlands

Thats going to be tricky.

                               PARAM
					{
						name = ParameterDelegate`1
						id = Experiment: Sample
						state = Incomplete
						disableOnStateChange = False
						values = 0,0,0,0,0
						title = Experiment: Sample
						notes = 
						PARAM
						{
							name = ParameterDelegate`1
							id = asteroidSampleSubject
							state = Incomplete
							disableOnStateChange = False
							values = 0,0,0,0,0
							title = 
							notes = 
						}
						PARAM
						{
							name = ParameterDelegate`1
							id = Recovery: Recover or transmit
							state = Incomplete
							disableOnStateChange = False
							values = 0,0,0,0,0
							title = Recovery: Recover or transmit
							notes = 
						}

[callmewoof]

This is a serious post, but please understand this first part is just for silliness; post real, not actually offended, please don't hurt me.

Ok I finally figured it all out. Three guilty parties stand accused! Lord Aurelius, DuoDex, and Nightingale, you are accused of mod-mayhem!

Lord Aurelius - Crime: Duplicitous Duplication!

DuoDex - Crime: Partially Defined Experiments!

Nightingale - Crime: Broad-spectrum Experiment Gathering!

Issue: Field Research Contract Pack asks for "Probe Report" experiments.

Problem: No such report exists.

Reason:

• Lord Aurelius' Mod Stock Science Tweaks used to refer to them as Probe Reports but changed them to Telemetry Reports.
  

1. Installing Stock Science Tweaks does not solve the problem because you only get a Telemetry Report button which does not satisfy the contract.

2. If you have the SETI Community Tech Tree mod, it already incorporates Aurelius' SST mod, which gives you a duplicate Telemetry button; this one won't work either because SETI CTT's config file uses the updated Telemetry naming instead of Probe.

• The Probe Report is for Lord Aurelius's Stock Science Tweaks. The fact that they are showing up for you is actually
  due to a bug in Crowd Sourced Science, which DuoDex has already fixed (but not released).

1. The Crowd Sourced Science mod has an incorrect config file

GameData\CrowdSourcedScience\planets\000_default\StockScienceProbeTweaks.cfg

This file only partially defines an experiment called Probe Report, but because it is not a fully defined experiment, there is no way to perform this action in the game.

• Nightingale's config files for the Field Research use:

  experiments = AllExperiments().ExcludeAll([ evaReport, crewReport ]

  This method was grabbing the broken Probe Report, mistaking it for a valid experiment for contracts.
  

Solutions:

• End Users Like Me: Remove the above mentioned StockScienceProbeTweaks.cfg file from Crowd Sourced Science so it won't show up in contracts. If you already have a contract asking for a Probe Report, you need to cancel it since it can't be completed. Further contracts will then ask for Telemetry Reports instead.
  
• Lord Aurelius: Please get in touch with SETI CTT and see if you can find a way to avoid the button duplication if both mods are installed. Thanks!
  
• DuoDex: You are already aware of the issue, but perhaps you could add a note in your main post until it is fixed? Or maybe even a super-tiny patch hotfix that simply removes the offending file? Or release the next update
  
• Nightingale: Uh, nothing really. The way you grab all experiments is the right way to do things. You get a gold star!
  

​Thank you all for your hard work and awesome mods. I meant no disrespect in this post and I hope no one is offended. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated in making mods to make KSP more fun!

[zeropositivo]

Hope you get better Nightingale! Don't stress yourself out

[amorymeltzer]

It looks like I need to take a sample from an asteroid - while flying low over the highlands

That's a valid experiment. The biomeMask from ScienceDefs for asteroidSample is 7, which means it's biome-specific for landed, splashed, and flyingLow. FlyingHigh, InSpaceLow, and InSpaceHigh are each single, global experiments.

[nightingale]

It looks like I need to take a sample from an asteroid - while flying low over the highlands

That's a valid experiment. The biomeMask from ScienceDefs for asteroidSample is 7, which means it's biome-specific for landed, splashed, and flyingLow. FlyingHigh, InSpaceLow, and InSpaceHigh are each single, global experiments.

Whoops, yeah, I meant to filter those out. Despite being valid, they are several orders of magnitude more difficult than clicking on a thermometer. Next version will fix that.

This is a serious post, but please understand this first part is just for silliness; post real, not actually offended, please don't hurt me.

Ok I finally figured it all out. Three guilty parties stand accused! Lord Aurelius, DuoDex, and Nightingale, you are accused of mod-mayhem!

Lord Aurelius - Crime: Duplicitous Duplication!

DuoDex - Crime: Partially Defined Experiments!

Nightingale - Crime: Broad-spectrum Experiment Gathering!

Issue: Field Research Contract Pack asks for "Probe Report" experiments.

Problem: No such report exists.

Reason:

• Lord Aurelius' Mod Stock Science Tweaks used to refer to them as Probe Reports but changed them to Telemetry Reports.
  

1. Installing Stock Science Tweaks does not solve the problem because you only get a Telemetry Report button which does not satisfy the contract.

2. If you have the SETI Community Tech Tree mod, it already incorporates Aurelius' SST mod, which gives you a duplicate Telemetry button; this one won't work either because SETI CTT's config file uses the updated Telemetry naming instead of Probe.

1. The Crowd Sourced Science mod has an incorrect config file

GameData\CrowdSourcedScience\planets\000_default\StockScienceProbeTweaks.cfg

This file only partially defines an experiment called Probe Report, but because it is not a fully defined experiment, there is no way to perform this action in the game.

• Nightingale's config files for the Field Research use:

  experiments = AllExperiments().ExcludeAll([ evaReport, crewReport ]

  This method was grabbing the broken Probe Report, mistaking it for a valid experiment for contracts.
  

Solutions:

• End Users Like Me: Remove the above mentioned StockScienceProbeTweaks.cfg file from Crowd Sourced Science so it won't show up in contracts. If you already have a contract asking for a Probe Report, you need to cancel it since it can't be completed. Further contracts will then ask for Telemetry Reports instead.
  
• Lord Aurelius: Please get in touch with SETI CTT and see if you can find a way to avoid the button duplication if both mods are installed. Thanks!
  
• DuoDex: You are already aware of the issue, but perhaps you could add a note in your main post until it is fixed? Or maybe even a super-tiny patch hotfix that simply removes the offending file? Or release the next update
  
• Nightingale: Uh, nothing really. The way you grab all experiments is the right way to do things. You get a gold star!
  

​Thank you all for your hard work and awesome mods. I meant no disrespect in this post and I hope no one is offended. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated in making mods to make KSP more fun!

Looks like you cross posted this all over, so imma gonna sit back and wait for Lord Aurelius and DuoDex to work this out.

[zeropositivo]

Whoops, yeah, I meant to filter those out. Despite being valid, they are several orders of magnitude more difficult than clicking on a thermometer. Next version will fix that.

Aww, that sounded like an awesomely hard challenge!

Why not keep in in another form? Another subgenre of contracts... EXTREME science! ;D

[nightingale]

Aww, that sounded like an awesomely hard challenge!

Why not keep in in another form? Another subgenre of contracts... EXTREME science! ;D

Indeed, at some point I'll introduce the asteroid science contract... it just didn't make the first cut. But I don't want contracts that say "get a temperature scan, goo experiment, crew report... oh and tow an asteroid to the surface and pull a couple rocks off it while you're at it".

[HarlyKin]

Started getting a strange stutter in my career game while outside of the space center. Every few seconds the game would slow then go back to normal. Happened in space, landed, mun, etc. Copied it over to my test install and loaded it up to place a ship in orbit and cancel contracts so I could remove mods to find the bug. First contracts in the list when I hit f12 was the field science ones. Hit cancel and the stutter went away.

Tested it by adding contracts and only field science has this problem. I have 5 other contract packs which don't have this.

[nightingale]

Started getting a strange stutter in my career game while outside of the space center. Every few seconds the game would slow then go back to normal. Happened in space, landed, mun, etc. Copied it over to my test install and loaded it up to place a ship in orbit and cancel contracts so I could remove mods to find the bug. First contracts in the list when I hit f12 was the field science ones. Hit cancel and the stutter went away.

Tested it by adding contracts and only field science has this problem. I have 5 other contract packs which don't have this.

Somewhat of a known issue when generating field research contracts, but raised [#225] to see about addressing it. Part of the problem is the way KSP can generate contracts at any time (and cannot be done in the background), the other part being that some of the queries for getting science stuff are really really nasty. I've got a few ideas on things I can do to improve it, so I should be able to get the stuttering down at least a little bit in 1.3.0.