I've met all requirements for two contracts, yet they won't complete

[nicksayce]

I currently have the contracts for testing the ant liquid engine and the NERV atomic engine. The ant requires me to be in a sub-orbital trajectory of between 70,000 and 83,000 and the NERV Atomic engine requires me to be in an escape trajectory. I've met the requirements for both contracts and got green ticks in the contract window, yet when I activate the engines, the missions don't complete. Every other contract similar to this previously have gone without a hitch, but these two just won't complete and I don't want to lose the money.

Any ideas what could be wrong?

Thanks

[Ferdoni]

Well It could be that you've activated the engines before in the flight. Also a condition is that, you only see it when you hit the '+' button on the contract, is that you have to 'activate the engine trough staging or by right clicking on the engine -> 'run test'.

Hope this helps

[rofltehcat]

You have to activate them through the staging process once the other parameters are met.

Note that they don't need to actually work. I got a mission to test a Xenon-based engine before I had any xenon fuel tanks but all the game cares about is if you activate it at the right time, not if it actually works.

Maybe manually deactivate them and create a new staging step but I don't think that will work.

[ElWanderer]

I think both those engines require a right-click -> run test rather than staging. I remember being caught out by this in v0.90 when I staged off lots of bits from craft, all the while wondering why the contract to test an LV-N wouldn't complete.

[nicksayce]

Thanks all, I'll try all of the above.

[Snark]

Yeah, the discrepancy between "activate by staging" and "click Run Test" can be tricky... gotta read the fine print.

I understand why they have the "Run Test" option for testing things that aren't stageable, like command pods, but it's confusing that engine test contracts sometimes use one and sometimes the other.

[Kurld]

FWIW, I had a contract to test the "Twin-Boar" engine on sub-orbital trajectory of Minmus. I actually used the engine as part of my lift vehicle. When I got to Minmus orbit, I dectivated the engine and used my lander to get into a suborbital trajectory. I then dragged the icon for the Twin-Boar in the staging display so it was above the current stage. When I hit the staging key (re-activating the Twin-Boar) the contract completed.

[klesh]

Whenever I have a test part contract like that, I right click the part on the launchpad to find out if it requires a test to be run, or simply to be staged at the right moment.