How do you figure out what the "test conditions" of your missions are?

[dissembly]

Hi all,

I recently got this game and I love it, but it really has a serious problem with basic things going unexplained...

How do you work out what the "test conditions" for a mission are?

I'm trying to do "Test TR-18A Stack Decoupler...". I've launched many, many rockets with the TR-18A Stack Decoupler being used, I've tried it while breaching atmosphere, I've tried it while reaching orbit, I've tried it while staying within the atmosphere. No matter how many times I use the stack decoupler, the mission never completes.

How are you supposed to know what the "test" conditions are? They aren't written in the mission description, they aren't listed under "Objectives", and they don't appear in that little panel on the upper right of the screen that shows the mission progress.

With the heat shield mission, I sort of just had to guess at what the conditions where based on logic (e.g. I had to guess that the heat shield needed to be right-clicked on *after* having landed, this was after a series of failed flights where I tried clicking on it during re-entry and found that it was unresponsive). What am I supposed to do for this one? logically, you would think the mission is passed when you use the decoupler, because it says "activate the part through the staging sequence when all test conditions are met."

There must be some invisible test conditions. How do you know what they are?

[dangerhamster]

Sounds like "Test at theLaunchpad" contracts to me, you don't need to fly at all. In the case of the decoupler simply stick one under a mk1 pod and whilst still in the VAB right click on the decoupler and change force percentage to zero to stop the pod being flung around. This is also useful on contracts that require testing engines/boosters at the pad. You can change the amount of fuel in a tank/booster to zero and still stage the engine without going off into the blue yonder. Note that you can also change the max thrust, very useful if you want to ascend in a more dignified manner than the default bat out of hell... 

[steuben]

it should say somewhere in the text of the contract. post either the text or a screen of it.

[Snark]

There aren't any "invisible" test conditions.  The test conditions are exactly what the contract says they are.  It's right there in front of you.  (Admittedly, the way it's worded and arranged can sometimes be confusing.)

If you're confused about a particular contract, please post a screenshot of the contract and we'll happily explain exactly what you need to do. 

 

[Geschosskopf]

12 hours ago, dissembly said:

How do you work out what the "test conditions" for a mission are?

As others have said, the conditions will be spelled out in the text of the contract.  You can read the full version in the Mission Control building but you have access to a condensed version at all other points in the game on the toolbar.  The contract button looks like a sheet of paper with text on it.  Click that and it will show you a list of all your contracts with their objectives and conditions spelled out.

Be sure to read conditions CAREFULLY because sometimes one of the conditions will be utterly ridiculous, either making the contract impossible to begin with requiring so much effort that you'll spend more making the ship than you'll earn doing the contract.  Or maybe one of the terms is just beyond your current technology and you'll have to do it later, but that's rare.  And with part test contracts, sometimes the part has to be staged as normal and sometimes you can right-click and do "run test:".  Be very sure you know which one you have to do before you launch the mission

In general, part test contracts all require the test be done at a specific location at a specific planet.  This can be the launchpad (easiest), the ground (launchpad counts for this), splashed down, in atmospheric flight at some combination of speed and altitude, or in space on sub-orbital, orbital (within a certain alittude range), or escape trajectories.  But be sure you read which planet because many of these locations can be specified for Mun, Minmus, and other planets, not just Kerbin

The other thing about part test contracts is, as mentioned, whether the part has to be activated by staging or by "run test".  If staging is required (and it almost always is for engines and decouplers), it means just that, you push the space bar to activate the part.  Right-clicking to activate the part will probably NOT work (it used to, but they changed this).  This means that when building the vehicle to perform the test, you have to arrange its staging list so you can stage the test part in its specified location without screwing up the rest of your vehicle.  OTOH, if you have to "run test" (usual for wheels and other things that don't normally appear on the staging list), this takes some time and of course access to the part with your mouse, so you have to take that into account when designing the ship and mission profile.

But OTOH, you don't actually have to USE the part you're testing, just activate it somehow. and you don't even need to bring it home.  IOW, engines don't require fuel, decouplers can be fired sideways without separating your rocket's "real" stages, etc.  Sometimes the test part is actually useful to your ship so you will use it, but often the part is useless/awkward to the ship, just payload to get to a certain location.  This all means that it's often possible to add some test parts to a ship that will be going to or passing through the specified test locations while en route somewhere else for another purpose.  Such as a Mun lander.  Getting significant amounts of science has to be done mostly on your own dime because contracts don't provide very much at all these days.  So you have to build a big, expensive Mun lander at some point, which will, just in the course of its normal mission, pass through Kerbin's atmosphere, suborbital, orbital, and escape regimes, plus the same on Mun and the Munar surface.  You can thus often stick a few small test parts on it to help it pay for itself fincanically.

[ElWanderer]

I have a vague memory of a recent support thread where the game was genuinely generating contracts with the conditions blank, but I can't find it. There may be some weird bug you've run into -  all the contract conditions should be spelt out clearly.