Asteroid bases: What am I doing wrong?

[Stealthie]

I've only ever taken on something like half a dozen "build a base on a newly discovered asteroid" missions but this seems to happen every time...

I accept the mission, I send out my trusty rock-grabber, harpoon a suitable asteroid and I get a message saying something like "This asteroid is suitable for the requirements of [company name]" so I drag it back to wherever they want it and commence landing the modules of my base on it.

When I land the first module on it I'll get another "This asteroid is suitable for the requirements..." message and I'll get a green tick next to whatever mission criteria I've met with that particular module - including the one for "a new base with an antenna, docking port and power generating facilities".

I'll then land more and more modules on the asteroid (Accommodation for X number of kerbals, Y fuel storage, power generators, laboratories etc) and I'll get more and more green ticks.

Somewhere along the way I'll lose the tick next to the "A new base with a,dp and pgf"

And so the mission can't be completed.

 

I've tried re-docking with various modules, pulling them off the asteroid and re-landing them but I assume the problem is something to do with the base ceasing to be "new" at some point along the line.

I use a similar strategy when landing a base on a planet (landing a command module with antenna, docking ports and small solar panels and then landing additional modules such as lab's, storage tanks etc and then docking them all together) and I've never had any problem doing it.

Surely the game doesn't expect me to assemble a honking great base floating right next to the asteroid and then harpoon it into the asteroid all at the same time?

I mean, I could do that if the game insists but it isn't very realistic and the result isn't going to be very nice to look at so I'd rather do things in a more realistic and aesthetically pleasing way if possible.

 

Anybody got any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong or what I need to do differently to avoid failing these missions?

[sal_vager]

Hi Stealthie, please see this thread, it will explain what info we need from you and how to post it, in addition to your logs we will need your save files so we can see the issue ourselves.

[Streetwind]

Are all the modules you are trying to dock actually new? I.e. rolled out onto the launchpad after you accepted the contract?

If you lose the tick next to the "a new base..." requirement, it's possible that you docked an older module to the asteroid, and that vessel "contaminated" your entire base with its age. Docking is a procedure that merges two vessels; and in that process, there are some figures that exist twice, such as vessel age (mission elapsed timer). The game must pick one of the two for the new vessel and discard the other. If the older timer is picked, the entire result vessel now has the older timer, and becomes invalid for fulfilling the contract.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Streetwind

[Stealthie]

5 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Are all the modules you are trying to dock actually new? I.e. rolled out onto the launchpad after you accepted the contract?

If you lose the tick next to the "a new base..." requirement, it's possible that you docked an older module to the asteroid, and that vessel "contaminated" your entire base with its age. Docking is a procedure that merges two vessels; and in that process, there are some figures that exist twice, such as vessel age (mission elapsed timer). The game must pick one of the two for the new vessel and discard the other. If the older timer is picked, the entire result vessel now has the older timer, and becomes invalid for fulfilling the contract.

Yep, they're all new modules.

Funny thing is, I USED to operate a system where I left an android tug in orbit around every planet I visited and I can see how docking a new module with that and using it to manoevre the new module into position might have confused the game but I don't think I suffered problems when using it to build space-stations.

These days (out of laziness due to having heaps of in-game money) I just built a lift-motor and tug, saved it as a sub-assembly and then I build all my modules "upside down" in the VAB, tack the lift-motor onto the bottom of it and launch it.Once in space I discard the lift-motor section and leave myself with the tug segment to dock the modules of a station and then decouple it.

Is there, perhaps, a time-limit on how long a partially complete base is considered "new" which might be causing me problems?

As I said, when I first land my "command centre" module on an asteroid I DO get a tick for "a new base with antenna, docking port and power-gen". It's just that I'll then swap to a different craft (say, an accommodation module for 15 kerbals) and I'll then get a tick by THAT requirement and the "new base" tick vanishes - which doesn't worry me immediately because I realise THAT module doesn't have the antenna, dp and power gen.

Then I land that module on the asteroid and you'd assume I'd get both ticks back again, but I don't.

The other strange thing is that all the subsequent modules I land DO cause cause mission ticks to accumulate. If I'm landing a command centre to get the tick for "new base" and then I'm landing, say, an accommodation module and getting a tick for that but losing the "new base" tick, you'd think that when I went on to land, say, a laboratory I'd get a tick for that but lose the tick for the accommodation module. That doesn't happen though. Every subsequent module that I land DOES cause more and more things to get ticked-off the requirements list (and remain ticked). It's just the "new base" tick that seems to vanish as soon as I land a different module.

I wonder if the solution might be something as simple as landing my modules in a different order?

Is there any way to force the game to give me Asteroid base missions so I can experiment with different things?

Worst-case-scenario is that I'll have to just build asteroid bases like an orbital station with a grappler on the end and spear them into the asteroid all in one go but I don't really want to do that 'cos it isn't very realistic.

[sal_vager]

To be honest it's really hard to diagnose contract issues without having the persistent.sfs to test, you can find it in the save folder for each of your profiles.

It may be that the contract is itself bugged and Arsonide would be able to help, he's Squads contracts guy.

You can force the contract to complete, and can also clear the contracts list so another similar one shows up in the debug screen, try alt+F12