[1.3.x] Kerbin Side GAP

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@Keniamin If you go over to the KerbinSide Remastered thread, then you will find that @AdmiralTigerclaw is working on a project to add a bunch of airports. BTW, I am contributing a very large int'l airport, Jebediah M. Kerman Int'l Airport. You can probably use those to regenerate new contracts once we're done with the airports.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Since Bottle Rocketeer tagged me, here's my battle plan:

 

And to show it's not just a pipe dream...  My Data Chart as I update it.

 

And one of the airports- Actually, edit.  Here's the album.

 

https://imgur.com/a/feNu1Uq

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

IF I were the one setting up the planning, I'd be creating Charters that look more like real air contracts.  Some of the rules I suggest.

1: Start with three primary air charter sizes.  0-10 passengers between local airports.  10 - 30 for regionals.  30 - 100 for internationals.

2: A charter can go to any airport of matching size class or higher.  Locals can go to and from ALL airports.  Regionals can go to regionals and international, but cannot fit locals.  Internationals can only go between themselves and the spaceports.  (Don't bother with spaceport contracts beyond intl transfers.)

 

With ten international airports, at least 20 regionals, and a large number of locals, there will be a LOT of options for routes.  If I go on strictly doubling the numbers with every size down, I'm looking at a minimum of 70 individual airports across the planet.

 

 

Something else to consider so long as I'm thinking about it, is creating contracts that involve chains of flights.  In example, I fly a route between two airports, drop off the kerbals, pick up new ones, and fly elsewhere.  I'm making these airports with the intent to spawn, taxi to the runway, take off, fly to the destination, taxi, refuel, taxi out again, and fly to another destination.  All without having to leave the flight scene.  I want to absolutely encourage turnarounds.  So a category of contract for those kind of multi-step flights would be neat.

 

Also, with all these airports, it might also be fun to have another category of flight contract, 'rush' flights.  A very well paying one to five passenger contract that is geared to get a kerbal from a pickup point to a destination as fast as possible.  Works like a typical flight, but with a timer that starts the moment you're wheels-up off the runway (Not before.  Don't want the player to feel they have to jump into the flight the moment they accept the contract).  And I can give you the numbers you need to start figuring out what would be reasonable rush times.

 

At airliner speed, between mach 0.75 and mach 0.83, an antipode (exact opposite side of a planetary sphere) flight on Kerbin is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes.  That's wheels up to wheels down.

You can even use this to create contracts with restrictions, such as 'Passenger is afraid of going supersonic.  Do not exceed mach 1'.  Which would encourage players to create aircraft that can straddle high-subsonic.  But ALSO encourage the players to make their flights as efficient as possible.  Because honestly, you can lose a LOOOOOT of time overshooting or undershooting an aircraft descent.  (And I would assume NOT pulling an aerobatics maneuver to make the Blue Angels proud would be academic if you don't want Vanderbuilt Kerman's caviar lunch spewed all over the carpet.)

Edited June 8, 2018 by AdmiralTigerclaw

[Xenophon Muravyov]

Will this mod still work if i used a scaled up kerbin?

 

[Keniamin]

On 8/18/2018 at 11:01 PM, Xenophon Muravyov said:

Will this mod still work if i used a scaled up kerbin?

I did not test this, but if Kerbin Side itself works I suppose it must be enough for my mod. Although, all positions of the bases are hardcoded into my mod, so when you scales Kerbin up, any inaccuracies in positioning scales up too. So some reference points (launch positions, helipads) may turn out to bee too coarse (will not fit real borders of helipad, for example).

[Keniamin]

On 6/8/2018 at 3:02 PM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

And to show it's not just a pipe dream...

Nothing to say more than I've already said — absolutely awesome.

But I feel I have to explain a bit how my mod works. Technically, it contains some code that generates contracts, but all this code works at "compilation" time, i.e. I change some parameters or behavior and then launch a special script, saying "make a couple of contracts for me, please". It makes contracts and then I just put them all to a folder inside GameData/ContractPacks.

So from the "game point of view" there is no executable modules in my mod, it only consists of config-files for the Contract Configurator system. Every file describes one contract, i.e. one route with all of its attributes, and can be changed only at the next "compilation" time, not in the game. So my possibilities and options are limited by used system.

On 6/8/2018 at 3:02 PM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

If I were the one setting up the planning, I'd be creating ... I'm looking at a minimum of 70 individual airports across the planet.

This sounds like a perfect plan, but a bit depressing when I think about fitting all these positions and defining all these routes manually.

On 6/8/2018 at 3:02 PM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

Something else to consider so long as I'm thinking about it, is creating contracts that involve chains of flights.

As far as I know, Contract Configurator allows to load bulk of tourists at once only on the aircraft spawn. Loading kerbals one-by-one at intermediate airport will be VERY ANNOYING to the player, I suppose.

I was dreaming about fully-reusable vessels too, but I found no possibilities for effective "chaining" of contracts.

On 6/8/2018 at 3:02 PM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

Also, with all these airports, it might also be fun to have another category of flight contract, 'rush' flights.

You can even use this to create contracts with restrictions, such as 'Passenger is afraid of going supersonic. Do not exceed mach 1'.

 

And again, my possibilities in the current architecture are limited to what Contract Configurator suggests. I'm not sure if there are something like "fail timer" and I bet there is no "mach-number restrictions". CC is quite extendable, so it must not be too difficult to make such check based on currently available checks, but only by mean of coding, not configuring.

 

So, after all, I think the only perspective way to realize your ideas is a code-based mod (not config-based) that will find routes and suggest contracts to the player dynamically, like original KSP missions do (such as "rescue a Kerbal" or "perform measurements"), instead of hardcoding all possible flights at the "compilation" time. Such mod can use CC and delegate it all the work regarding contract visualization and completeness checks, but also can implement some features for more interesting contracts (such as mach-number check) and some interface extensions, for example, proper "boarding panel" that allows player to manage on-board passengers when the aircraft is staying at the specified areas of the airport (analogue of the real-life parkings and gates).

This is an interesting project and I'd like to try some things in this direction, but it is a big work and at the moment I have absolutely no time for this May be someday my life will change and then I'll return to this idea, but sorry, no any promises, only "may be".

Sincerely wish good luck to your airports project, it looks like really great thing.

[Atlessa]

Found a really nasty bug:

 

 

Round Range Runway  (in case the names are not procedurally generated).

Moving at ANY speed across the runway 'seams' will break the plane. Sometimes only a single part, sometimes everything, mostly something inbetween, always catastrophic.

[Keniamin]

On 9/16/2018 at 10:26 PM, Atlessa said:

Moving at ANY speed across the runway 'seams' will break the plane. Sometimes only a single part, sometimes everything, mostly something inbetween, always catastrophic.

1. First of all — this is definitely not a Kerbin Side GAP's bug, because KSGAP contains only contracts, neither bases themselves, nor meshes. But it may be a bug of the Kerbin Side mod, that adds all these bases to KSP.
2. I've launched from RR runway a few times and didn't experience such problems. So make sure the problem with engine is not a leak of your own aircraft design. Sometimes plane's engine explodes shortly after launch due to improper connection with main parts. Try to launch your vessel from the other good or not-so-good runways, such as KSC or an Island.
3. If the problem really reproduces only at Round Range base, try to check or change "Terrain Detail" option in game Settings. As far as I remember, Kerbin Side designed for "High" value of this setting (not sure, better try different variants) and may have some unpredictable behavior in other cases.
4. And of course, you can always report your bug in the Kerbin Side's forum thread. But I'm not sure, if anyone still supports this mod. Anyway, the thread:

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by Keniamin

[Ger_space]

On 9/16/2018 at 9:26 PM, Atlessa said:

Found a really nasty bug:

 

 

Round Range Runway  (in case the names are not procedurally generated).

Moving at ANY speed across the runway 'seams' will break the plane. Sometimes only a single part, sometimes everything, mostly something inbetween, always catastrophic.

This is a bug within Kerbin-Side itself. Nothing I can fix, because I don't have the original meshes. I cannot fix it with Kerbal-Konstructs  with any c# black magic. On the good side: Kerbin-Side Remastered + the extra airports package are activly developed and I hope they will continue to work with this mod.

 

[yobeeb]

I've only tried a couple of missions, but I'm struggling. I took a two-passenger contract starting at KSC. One passenger spawns at the building near the runway, the other... in the middle of the ocean on the other side of the planet... Any thoughts? I've never used Kerbin-Side before so I could be missing some obvious step.

[Keniamin]

On 7/5/2019 at 8:15 AM, yobeeb said:

I've only tried a couple of missions, but I'm struggling. I took a two-passenger contract starting at KSC. One passenger spawns at the building near the runway, the other... in the middle of the ocean on the other side of the planet... Any thoughts? I've never used Kerbin-Side before so I could be missing some obvious step.

Well, KSGAP does not spawn kerbals by itself, it uses ContractConfigurator's functional. May be it is a rare bug, cause I've never heard about such problem before. You can try to decline the mission and then accept it again (or load earlier save and accept the mission there) and check if the problem reproduces. You can also make a savegame with the problem and show it to me, although I don't have KSP installed now, so it may took some time to set it up and check your save.

[Wolf123]

@Keniamin I tried this mod and also had the same problem as @yobeeb. It seems to happen only on 'service' flights where you are only transporting a few passengers, when you are transporting a large number of passengers on a commercial contract the appropriate 'load passengers' box comes up and it seems to work. If I remember correctly I was using 1.6.1 and a re scale mod. 

Edited July 9, 2019 by Wolf123

[Beetlecat]

Did this pack (or even Kerbin Side Jobs) provide contract flights to reach/explore unopened bases? This one certainly seems ideal to provide impetus to fly facilities crew to all the new ones.

Now that Kerbinside Remastered has a 1.0, this may be a good time to research how to build contracts... Maybe it'll take a while, but it'll be fun.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Beetlecat

[Stone Blue]

29 minutes ago, Beetlecat said:

Now that Kerbinside Remastered has a 1.0, this may be a good time to research how to build contracts... Maybe it'll take a while, but it'll be fun.

Why?.. are you looking to *do* it?

[Beetlecat]

12 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

Why?.. are you looking to *do* it?

Why not?!

[nwillard]

As someone who snaps up any working contract packs I can find, I'd definitely use it

[Beetlecat]

On 7/24/2019 at 3:53 PM, Beetlecat said:

Why not?!

Oh, this was a whole G-D year ago?!  Well, I didn't exactly get going on those contracts...

I'm just getting back into KSP after the pandemonium began, and am enjoying JNSQ quite a bit, but at some point I'd love to go back to KSR and job/contract fun to support that.

[Mars Mullo]

Hey... seaplane contract.

Using stock.. no KAX no Firespitter.. ther just too out of date on CKAn to update.

 

Anyways...

Problem....  landing on made floats from small fusulage tanks (emty)   .. results tips head over heels smashes plane to bits.. speed.. 30 ms or less.

Problem 2 ... cant take off on water... cant get fast enough.. not enough lift to get up and away.

 

Tried using heavier aircraft with twin jet engines.. nope.

Tried making essentially a microlight.. nope.

 

Oh.. tier 1 and 2 parts only.

No mod parts.  \

Anyone got a design that works they can show me.. im starting to run out of funds simulating in KRASH to get something that works?

P.S using Unkerballed start tech tree.

[Invaderdave]

I'm trying this mod and kerbin side for the first time ever (1k+hours in). Kerbin side appears to work fine and the KS GAP missions show up, but every mission has pre requisites that are unmet, specifically the requirement that the starting base "not exist" 

https://ibb.co/Sr3xMRk 

I have tried on different saves, one with all bases open and one with all bases closed (and hidden) and nothing seems to satisfy the pre requirements. Is this an incompatibility problem with 1.10 or am I just missing something? 

My pilots are excited to get started! 

 

 

 

[Beetlecat]

5 hours ago, Invaderdave said:

I'm trying this mod and kerbin side for the first time ever (1k+hours in). Kerbin side appears to work fine and the KS GAP missions show up, but every mission has pre requisites that are unmet, specifically the requirement that the starting base "not exist" 

https://ibb.co/Sr3xMRk 

I have tried on different saves, one with all bases open and one with all bases closed (and hidden) and nothing seems to satisfy the pre requirements. Is this an incompatibility problem with 1.10 or am I just missing something? 

My pilots are excited to get started! 

This one will be problematic, since I think KerbinSide GAP was based on the *previous* version of KerbinSide, not KerbinSide Remastered, which has most if not all different bases. I'm not sure if you can run the original KS in 1.10+. There could also just be any number of other issues since it was last reviewed/updated.

[Invaderdave]

3 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

This one will be problematic, since I think KerbinSide GAP was based on the *previous* version of KerbinSide, not KerbinSide Remastered, which has most if not all different bases. I'm not sure if you can run the original KS in 1.10+. There could also just be any number of other issues since it was last reviewed/updated

I'll keep checking for updates or similar contract packs compatible with 1.10.1. Thanks for the info though! It will save me any more time fiddling with it for now.

[Jacksonzhangph]

What might be the reason I can not rescue him. Like I can not switch to him no matter what. Not even in the tracking station. I am using TAC lifesupport mod.