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[1.0.5][Dec 15, 2015] Contract Pack: Giving Aircraft a Purpose (GAP) 0.3: Air Flights, Tours, Coast Guard, STS

inigma

By inigma
in KSP1 Mod Development

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What should I name this pack? I need help deciding before 1.0 release.  

129 members have voted

  1. 1. What should I name this contract pack?

    • Aerospace Exploration and Rescue Operations
      33
    • Giving Aircraft a Purpose
      72
    • SSI Aerospace
      14

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inigma

inigma

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GAP 1.0 Beta has been released. Please see the Add-On Released thread for future development, discussion, and support:

 

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/129208-contract-pack-giving-aircraft-a-purpose-gap-10-beta-air-flights-tours-coast-guard-sts-105jan-4-2016/

 

 

 

Contract Pack: Giving Aircraft a Purpose 0.3

Requires Contract Configurator 1.9.1 from https://github.com/jrossignol/ContractConfigurator/releases

 

an Aerospace Exploration (Development and Testing), Coast Guard Rescue (and Retrieval), and general Operations (charters, flights, cargo drops) contract pack compatible with all stock and modded careers.

I've never done a mod in my life. I guess this is the easiest way to test the waters. Be kind.

Requires: Contract Configurator 1.9.0. Download here: https://github.com/jrossignol/ContractConfigurator/releases

All contracts and vessels included in this pack are completely playable in stock KSP, but I highly recommend these mods to enhance your gameplay:

- Take Command (Launch and Spawn into Command Seats)
- Kerbal Aircraft Expansion (KAX) (Minimalistic set of stock-alike propellers and helicopter parts)
- Waypoint Manager (For better waypoint management and navigation)
- Wider Contracts App (Wider contract checklist popup)
- Kerbal Attachment System (KAS) (For attaching winches, fuel ports, and parts to parts on EVA)
- Kerbal Inventory System (KIS) (For carrying the above parts while on EVA)
- TextureReplacer with Cetera's Suits (get both on CKAN!) (Non space suit Kerbals while on Kerbin, smell the fresh air from your Command Seat flying machine)

Purpose:
To provide a useful purpose for the existence of aircraft in a Career game, and promote the use of stock runways and helipads.

Spiel:
Runways and helipads are meant to be used, not just sit there and look pretty. This pack provides a small set of repeatable contracts for early career aircraft, and thus provides the career player with a predictable source of income, science, or reputation return (depending on the type of contract) using a standard fleet of aircraft you design. It beats having to design a science car, or one-time use craft, or send a probe to nowhere, when all you need is just a little bit more cash, science, or reputation to advance your space program. Of course, you may have so much fun flying things around that you may forget you have a space program, but if so, then I've succeeded!

Contract Pack Goals:

  • Prepatory missions to test prototypes and setup locations.
  • Regular repeatable stunt, tourist, charter, and scheduled passenger and cargo flights to those destinations.
  • Rescue missions to retrieve adrift sea and undersea crews, downed test pilots, spent stages, crashed craft parts, the first splashed down space crews, and more.
  • A small set of boat and submarine contracts to provide context for the above.
  • STS Challenges and rescue missions
  • Fully compatible with new and existing stock and modded careers.

 

Current Contracts:

GAP Version 0.3 Career Contract Availability - 18 Contracts: (To see the full list of contracts I intend to develop, go here)

Career Contract Availability - 18 Contracts

- SSI Aerospace: Join SSI Aerospace!
This is your first contract. Offers you an Experimental Command Seat for keeps, as well as a few other basic parts for getting a boat into water, and ejecting a manned Command Pod if you are not using the Take Command mod.  You are NOT required to accept this contract.

After you acquire the J-29 "Juno" Basic Jet Engine, or the KAX A7 AeroSport Engine, the first three starter contracts become available:

- Wright Aeronautical: Build and fly your first airplane!
- KSC Coast Guard: Coast Guard Rescue Certification
- KSC Island Tours: KSC Shorline Tour - Seats: (2-6)

The following contracts appear after completing the above contracts for their mission track:

- Wright Aeronautical: Give an airplane ride - Seats: (1-2)
- Wright Aeronautical: Barnstorm the R&D Center!
- KSC Coast Guard: S.O.S. Distress Call - (shipName)
- SSI Aerospace: Fly an airplane to 2000m.
- SSI Aerospace: Fly a Mk1 Crew Cabin to 5000m.
- SSI Aerospace: Land on a Helipad!
- Kerbal Space Program: KSC Island Aerial Survey
- Kerbal Space Program: KSC Island Landing
- Kerbal Space Program: KSC Island Airfield Preparation
- KSC Island Tours: Aerial Tour: Flight 1 - Seats: (2-4)
- KSC Island Tours: Aerial Tour: Flight 2 - Seats: (2-6)
- KSC Island Tours: Seaplane Tour: Flight 38 - Seats: (4-8)
- KSC Airlines: Charter Flight 10 - Seats: 2-4

And I added this for testing and fun:
- Space Transportation System: STS-1: Fly space shuttle to orbit, launch satellite, return.  (requires KSC Airlnes: Charter Flight 10 completion)
 

Agencies:

Agencies in the pack that will offer regular or semi-regular contracts, and special missions:

SSI Aerospace - An engineering cooperative focused on developing and testing aerospace assets. (Used for initial flight tests and unlocking mission stories that lead to regular repeatable contracts)

KSC Island Tours - Providing air, sea, and undersea tours of the beautiful KSC Islands and surrounding areas.

Wright Aeronautical - Offering airplane rides to the public, and provides air show stunt contracts.

Kerbal Space Program - Led by Gene Kerman, authorizes, launches, and commands the world famous space program at the Kerbal Space Center.

KSC Coast Guard - Our motto is Always Ready - Kemper Keratus! Providing air, land, and sea rescue and stage recovery. (Used for occasional rescue and recovery opportunities, mostly near KSC ocean)

KSC Airlines - The official airline of the Kerbal Space Center.

Space Transportation System Space Shuttle Mission Control managed at KSC 2.

 

Spoilers:

q5hFhWT.png

MLwdIUh.png

qRFDSGM.png
 

KAX with Take Command mod will take this Contract Pack to the next level of fun and early aircraft realism (also seen is Texture Replacer with Cetera's suits):
dlATjl8.png

YLB2y2K.png

Fun with pandoras kitten PBK craft to help test these missions:bgONVCa.jpg

pandoras kitten Ady Gil test craft for the Shoreline TourFjwuzqy.png

Island Survey missionhPe0Pgx.png

The HMS Rix carrier landing mission (in development)
fJqaApg.png

KAX part aware Helicopter prototype mission (you are free to use a stock VTOL as well)awpwGcP.png

Island Tour to an exotic location:SnOu7V7.png

Ok... ok... now it's exotic:FViSZ4f.png

Download the Zip from GitHub:

https://github.com/inigmatus/GAP

Installation:

To install the contract pack, simply download the zip on the right, and extract the GAP folder to your GameData/ContractPacks folder. Launch a KSP career game.

Changelog:https://github.com/inigmatus/GAP/blob/master/CHANGELOG.txt

Master Plan Devnotes (Spoiler Alert!): https://github.com/inigmatus/GAP/blob/master/DEVNOTES.txt (Contract filenames, titles, and mindmapped dependencies)

 

CREDITS:

Thanks goes to the following individuals for their contributions to this contract pack. Without them, none of this would have happened:

nightingale - creator of Contract Configurator. tirelessly responsive and an amazing coder and modder
seanmcdougall - creator of Take Command mod
keptin - creator of Kerbal Aircraft eXpansion
maculator - creator of Kerbal Aircraft Builders, for inspiring me with his pioneering example into aircraft based contracts
severedsolo - always a great resource for contract development
pandoraskitten - designer of a number of craft seen in the series above

Edited by inigma
released 0.3
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beelzerob

beelzerob

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Posted

Great ideas! I found little reason to even use the plane hanger early on in career.

I especially like the idea of going to retrieve parts and Kerbals from the surface. I honestly think that's harder than getting them from space...

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inigma

inigma

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Thanks guys. Starting small. Growing from there.

I have nearly perfected my KSC Flight 101 contract.

The idea: fly kerbals out, drop them off at island, pick up new kerbals at island, recover them in the plane at KSC runway. Worked fine last night in my testing. Im just working on jury rigging the contract presentation so the text only shows the passenger names to disembark at the island and the passengers names to load and return to KSC. Keeping it to just 2 passengers for now both ways, but I might include tourists as part of the hop who stay in the plane.

I did have this insane idea to perhaps spawn on the island a bus with a claw that can dock to the plane and act as a easier way to transfer more passengers and maybe even help turn around planes.

I want to make the flight progressively difficult for when the player unlocks larger plane parts. I'm thinking Flight 101 would unlock after mk1 crew cabin availability, Flight 102 would take advantage of mk2 crew cabin availability, and Flight 103 would take advantage of mk3 crew cabin availability, but all three flights would remain available for the picking after unlocking the required cabins.

If no crew cabins are available, I still want the player to be offered the opportunity to simply scout out the island, land, and make it back to KSC for a science return rather than for money. Once enough science has been earned to unlock the mk1 crew cabin, then the scout flight would no longer be available.

The funny thing is that I am in a good position: an awesome mod idea in development, but no real name that I'm satisfied to call it. I'd like to eventually grow this in a lot of areas... but starting small and focusing there is the best thing I think for now. Not quite yet to call it SETI - Air Land and Sea. ;0)

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inigma

inigma

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I've created a few agencies to offer the contracts:

KSC Air Charters - A contract-for-hire service offering regular flights to destinations local and beyond. (Used for regularly available flights to KSC Island, KSC 2, and a North Pole base camp cargo delivery route).

KSC Coast Guard - Our motto is Always Ready - Kemper Keratus! Providing air, land, and sea rescue and recovery. (Used for occasional rescue and recovery opportunities, mostly near KSC ocean)

SSI Aerospace - An engineering cooperative focused on developing and testing aerospace assets. (Used for initial scout/unlock/1st return missions)

Kerbal Space Program - Led by Gene Kerman, authorizes, launches, and commands the world famous space program at the Kerbal Space Center. (Used for an STS mission storyline leading to STS-107 rescue mission)

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inigma

inigma

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update: also added KSC Sea Tours (see op)

also PandorasKitten has gladly volunteered to develop a few sea based assets for use in rescue missions.

I need volunteers to help me flesh out a few things if interested:

-Logo for KSC Air Charters (use KSP colors)

-Logo for KSC Sea Tours

-Small and large boats for use in Coast Guard rescue scenarios

-Small tourist submarine for use in Coast Guard rescue scenario

Any takers?

I already have:

-Logo for KSC Coast Guard (I've invited Pandora to help with this)

-Seaplane for KSC Coast Guard scout missions that will spawn from KSC Island - PandorasKitten has this one

Edited by inigma
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Goddess Bhavani

Goddess Bhavani

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Posted

Hi, I'll be glad to help with the above and some more. I was thinking of doing a series of Hawaii Five-O themed things as well just for fun. (Kawaii Five-O!)

Last night I made a small patrol craft which is also suitable for use as a civilian powerboat, she's pretty quick and can be configured for several scenarios. As per @inigma's request I need to add a few chairs to the back for passengers, and I also need to add a couple of ladders to the side as the game doesn't allow Kerbals to climb up on the stern even though it looks perfect for roll-on/roll-off duty. I think you could fit a tiny rover or submarine in there otherwise.

A Coast Guard mission could also involve maritime interdiction; load up the speedboat with some cargo, spawn it with engines on, let it randomly cruise around at 50 knots out of control and send the player's seaplane after it. It may not be possible to stop the boat with stock weapons but it'll be fun to try and eventually it will run out of fuel.

rqTPKaM.jpg

Thanks for bringing me aboard the project (no pun intended!), it will be fun to contribute to a mod project directly.

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inigma

inigma

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When I'm not working on STS stuff:

Contract Pack: SSI Aerospace

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/138997-WIP-Contract-Pack-SSI-Aerospace-%280-0-2%29-Early-Career-Air-Charters-%28Giving-Aircraft-a-Purpose%29

Released version 0.0.2, added KSC Coast Guard rescue contract:

YLB2y2K.png

S.S. Minnow spawns in the ocean (you have to load the vessel from Tracking Center after accepting contract to prevent Kerbals from sink-spawning to bottom of ocean):

tWX2OJm.png

PandorasKitten PBY craft (not included)

glQpjYc.png

nhZYGfA.png

hOJWxUU.png

The pack is more fun with KAX parts and KAS winches :). Here's a helicopter I made with Kerbal Aircraft eXpansion kuey rotor and tail rotor:

oLmMo8s.png

And pandoras kitten PBK with some KAX engines I added:

gOr10vW.png

Now to think of a way to get it to randomly spawn in a general area with different ships and crews...

Edited by inigma
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Goddess Bhavani

Goddess Bhavani

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Posted

Looks great! Noticed your Rescue emblem is not a transparent PNG so I took the liberty of making one out of the Ambulance logo as you requested.

3m0exuJ.png

Flight tested, looks good.

bgONVCa.jpg

Just for lulz perhaps you'd like me to make a bigger boat? Do we need a bigger boat? Like this one - if I rip out the internal structure, plate over the interior hull and reconstruct in stressed-skin format she could be much lighter in part count.

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inigma

inigma

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Looks great! Noticed your Rescue emblem is not a transparent PNG so I took the liberty of making one out of the Ambulance logo as you requested.

http://i.imgur.com/3m0exuJ.png

Flight tested, looks good.

http://i.imgur.com/bgONVCa.jpg

Just for lulz perhaps you'd like me to make a bigger boat? Do we need a bigger boat? Like this one - if I rip out the internal structure, plate over the interior hull and reconstruct in stressed-skin format she could be much lighter in part count.

I love the fishing boat. I've added your rescue image to the assets to gihub. I also added your sea plane image to the OP. I think it looks great and will really sell the concept. I'll even include your sea-plane in the Assets folder in case someone wants to use it.

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inigma

inigma

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pandoras kitten, heh.

With the release of 0.0.3, I've now been able to prove a number of concepts. Now's time to draft a plan. And wow what a plan.

I've updated the OP now. The entire mission spread of what I aim to make one at a time is listed there in the CHANGELOG at the bottom in the section PLANNED MISSIONS. If anyone else has ideas, let me know.

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