I have a missing tourist.

[StarManta]

So I recently launched a giant tourism trip. 4 different tourist contracts, all to Duna-system bodies, totalling 12 tourists.

All are now en route, so I started making my list of who needs to go where.... and I discover something. One of the tourists is missing.

First guess: I forgot to launch him. Go to VAB, check the crew tab - no Dandun.

Maybe I left him in some craft still in orbit? I go through each an every craft that exists in the Tracking Station with the "Kerbal" tab open on the side. I made sure to turn on all kinds of vessels. Dandun is nowhere to be found.

Has anyone ever just -lost- a tourist? I have no idea where he could have gone - there was a lot of crew transfers and launches going on at once.

Did I miss a location he might be? Am I just screwed for that contract? If I have hit a bug, can I edit the save file to put him back?

[Alshain]

That seems like a lot of trouble to go through for something the Astronaut Complex could have told you.  Does he show up there?  It should tell you exactly where he is (down to the seat location).

Edited January 30, 2016 by Alshain

[StarManta]

7 hours ago, Alshain said:

That seems like a lot of trouble to go through for something the Astronaut Complex could have told you.  Does he show up there?  It should tell you exactly where he is (down to the seat location).

I didn't realize the Astronaut complex had that information.... but Dandun is not to be found there, either.

[Alshain]

32 minutes ago, StarManta said:

I didn't realize the Astronaut complex had that information.... but Dandun is not to be found there, either.

Then it has to be a bug.  Have you checked all 3 tabs in the astronaut complex.  I'm not sure for tourists if they would get placed in the missing category or if it would just fail the contract.

[Snark]

+1 to the astronaut complex as the arbiter of this sort of thing.

Suggestion:  Make a copy of your game's .sfs save file and keep it somewhere-- if this does turn out to be a bug, you should report it, and having the .sfs handy might be useful for Squad when trying to track the problem down.

If you really want to be sure-- and guarantee that Dandun is really, truly nowhere to be found, and is not (for example) present somewhere but rendered somehow unfindable by a game bug-- just open your game's .sfs save file in Notepad or whatever, and search for "Dandun" in it.  If the string "Dandun" doesn't appear anywhere at all, then yeah, he's just gone without a trace and the game doesn't know anything at all about him.  (Well, actually, I assume his name must appear in at least one place, if the contract still lists him... but does his name appear anywhere else?)

Going back to in-game investigation for a moment:  Do you still have the contract?  Does it still show as "not yet completed", or does it count as "failed"?  I've never failed a contract, but I'd guess that if one of your tourists actually gets killed or goes missing-in-action somehow, the contract ought to realize it.

As for "how to fix the problem":  manual tinkering with the contents of the .sfs, but keep a backup copy and proceed with extreme caution.  A couple of options:

• Try to put Dandun back.  Find one of the other tourists from that same contract, search the entire .sfs file for every reference to that tourist, and then carefully add a corresponding entry for Dandun where needed.  This will also involve the need to track down an empty spot to put Dandun, since you can't put Dandun in the same seat as your example tourist.
• Probably a lot easier and safer:  Just make Dandun didn't-happen.  Go find the reference to Dandun for your contract, and delete him from there, so as far as the game is concerned there was never any such thing as Dandun and it's just a two-tourist contract.  This seems like a much simpler idea, and less likely that you'll accidentally corrupt something than the try-to-put-Dandun-back approach.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Snark

[StarManta]

I found Dandun in one place besides the contract. It looks like this:

		KERBAL
		{
			name = Dandun Kerman
			gender = Male
			type = Tourist
			trait = Tourist
			brave = 0.694743
			dumb = 0.7998795
			badS = False
			tour = False
			state = Assigned
			ToD = 0
			idx = 3
			CAREER_LOG
			{
				flight = 0
			}
			FLIGHT_LOG
			{
				flight = 0
				0 = Flight,Kerbin
				0 = Suborbit,Kerbin
				0 = Orbit,Kerbin
				0 = Flyby,Mun
				0 = Escape,Mun
				0 = Orbit,Mun
				0 = Flyby,Kerbin
				0 = Escape,Kerbin
				0 = Flyby,Sun
				0 = Orbit,Sun
				0 = Flyby,Minmus
				0 = Escape,Minmus
				0 = Orbit,Minmus
				0 = Suborbit,Minmus
				0 = Land,Minmus
				0 = Land,Kerbin
			}
		}

 

2 hours ago, Alshain said:

Then it has to be a bug.  Have you checked all 3 tabs in the astronaut complex.  I'm not sure for tourists if they would get placed in the missing category or if it would just fail the contract.

Yes, checked all 3. And I've had tourists KIA before, the contract ends immediately.

I ended up just marking off Dandun's parts of the contract as 'Complete'.

[Snark]

8 minutes ago, StarManta said:

I found Dandun in one place besides the contract.

Okay, so he's in the crew roster as "assigned."  The problem (IIRC) is that he actually needs to be in two places:  the roster which gives all his info, and also the wherever-it-is that he's actually sitting.  The game knows that he's alive and well, just that there isn't any place where he is.  Just sort of in limbo.

Pick one of his "siblings" (i.e. one of the other tourists on the same contract as Dandun) that isn't missing.  Search the .sfs for that kerbal.  The kerbal should (I think) show up in two places:  a roster entry just like Dandun's, and also a mention as an occupant of a seat in some crewed module.

Take that mention as a "template", find another empty slot for a crew module on the ship, and make a change there to put Dandun in that seat.  (Keeping a backup copy of the .sfs file, of course!)  I suspect that'll do the trick.

On a side note:  this is definitely a bug, you should report to Squad.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Snark

[Alshain]

Ok, so search for a line in persistence that reads "crew = Dandun Kerman".  It should be under a VESSEL/PART tag.  If it isn't there you can change state to "Available"

Edited January 30, 2016 by Alshain

[Snark]

1 minute ago, Alshain said:

Ok, so search for a line in persistence that reads "crew = Dandun Kerman".  It should be under a VESSEL/PART tag.  If it isn't there you can change state to "Available"

...with the caveat that changing it to "Available" will move him back to KSC, and you'd need to launch him again to catch up with your ship that's already in transit.

Less convenient than just editing him back into the ship... perhaps safer, though (fewer moving parts, may be less likely to munge something in the editing process).

[Alshain]

16 minutes ago, Snark said:

...with the caveat that changing it to "Available" will move him back to KSC, and you'd need to launch him again to catch up with your ship that's already in transit.

Less convenient than just editing him back into the ship... perhaps safer, though (fewer moving parts, may be less likely to munge something in the editing process).

You can edit him back into the ship easily enough if there are seats.  You just add him as a "crew = " line to the part you want to put him in, but as you said it's not as safe.  If for some reason the craft/part lacks seating, I have no idea what would happen.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Alshain

[Skript88]

On 1/29/2016 at 11:10 AM, Snark said:

Just make Dandun didn't-happen.  Go find the reference to Dandun for your contract, and delete him from there, so as far as the game is concerned there was never any such thing as Dandun

Thats some X-files stuff right there.............

Dandun never existed *x-files theme plays in a kerbal pitch*

[Hodari]

On 1/29/2016 at 1:19 PM, Snark said:

...with the caveat that changing it to "Available" will move him back to KSC, and you'd need to launch him again to catch up with your ship that's already in transit.

Less convenient than just editing him back into the ship... perhaps safer, though (fewer moving parts, may be less likely to munge something in the editing process).

Much easier and probably safer to just use the alt-f12 cheat menu to mark his part of that contract as completed(Not to mention that way you still get the rewards from it).

[egoego]

On 29.1.2016 at 4:31 PM, Alshain said:

I'm not sure for tourists if they would get placed in the missing category or if it would just fail the contract.

Tourists don't show up in the missing category in the astronaut complex, I know that from own experience 

Also the contract fails, but you can get some money out of it if you return other tourists safely from the same contract that where already underway.

[Watzlawick]

I have a similar Problem: I did a Tourist Mission and accomplished every step: brought them subortbital to Kerbal, orbital to Kerbal, and landed them safetly - and of course recovered the vessel.

The Mission is still active, although every Mission step is shown as "complete". The tourists are nowhere

Maybe I have to say, that it was only one part of a larger Minmus Mission (the tourists where only in the part that orbited to Kerbin... so I orbited, detached, brought them back, and then went further with the other part of the spaceship to fly to Minmus,

[Netherman555]

Sounds like the Kraken was hungry for Dandun

It seems like a normal glitch to me.  Do you need Dandun for a mission? If so, you may have to let the mission fail.  That seems like the only thing to do.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.