I'm not a developer, but I'm writing EXODUS

[thedmbarlow]

Hullo!

My name is Dash. Yes, really. Well, not completely, but if I put the full first here, you'll not be able to pronounce it, so let's stick with 'Dash'.  I'd like to say it's nice to meet you all, as it's my first time on the KSP forums. I hope it's true, too. By occupation I'm a writer, and I've never coded any mods for anything in the past, so it's a touch beyond passing strange that my first post to the KSP forums is here, in the "help & support" section of the "Add-on Development" subforum. But I do think it's appropriate. 

I come to you today to ask for your assistance with something I call "Exodus." Now, before I get into it, I'd like to describe what Exodus is and why I need some assistance, but also to make some notes regarding parts of it that aren't mine. This is because Exodus isn't a mod, though the part I'm writing most certainly is.

Exodus is a modpack. Now, this means I'm expecting the player to be using mods that I didn't write and don't own. Because of the variety of mods and specifically the various licenses used, I cannot make Exodus available as a single download. I can't host download links. That's ok. Now, this is a long shot (and not why I'm writing this post), but if you are an author of a mod on my list, feel free to talk to me about your feelings on your mod being used in Exodus. If you're cool with it, and so is everyone else, I may at some point be able to use one service or another to put together a modpack download for ease of access by the player. That'd be nice. However, if you don't want your mod being used, while I would hope that would never happen, I'll respect that, remove your mod from the list. and try to find, or create, an alternative. Currently, as I'm simply providing a list of mod titles to the player, all of which are publicly available, I don't think I'm going against any licenses, but your feelings as a mod author are more important to me than what license you chose. I will ask you to please read the full description of, and understand, Exodus as an idea before you make that call. I think that's reasonable.

You can find the readme (that includes the full modpack description) at the github repo for the modpack: Exodus Contract Pack GitHub Repo

Which brings me nicely around to the "help & support" I'm hoping for, on the Exodus Contract Pack itself. As I mentioned, I am not a developer or coder by any means, but I believe that challenging oneself is very important, arguably vital. In other words, I am very, very new at this. Please don't assume I know anything. My current challenge to myself is to get Exodus up and running. Right now, I have the very beginnings of the contract pack put together. Getting this far has presented a few questions to me. I'm afraid I simply don't have the knowledge to answer them myself, though I've been trying. P

• First, and most importantly, as I'm trying to make everything run on a progression, am I using Contract Configurator's Persistent Data Storage correctly?
• How can I make having certain science (e.g. crew report, EVA report, gravioli experiment report) goals for a contract mission? I haven't found anything regarding to science in CC's wiki.
• How can I make sure that experiment-adding mods play nice with CC when I add one of their experiments to the question immediately above?
• Does OuterSystemPlanets play nicely with CC?

Some more general questions:

• Where & how would I go about learning to create a small mod that would do things like require launch clamps, implement a custom tech tree?
• Is there a mod that allows one to move the KSC? In Exodus' late game I'll want to give the player to make it part of the KSS, due to the (light) story I've put together. If not, refer to first question?
• Would anyone be willing to donate some artwork? I'm no artist, and I think one self-push project at a time is probably enough. I really only need a  few logo pieces.

If anyone wants to assist on the project more generally, that's fine too. Just talk to me. 

Lastly I'd like to mention that everything I'm doing on this project is MIT licensed. This is because I don't want any monetary profit from this. This project is about pushing myself, it's about giving back to the community that's supported one of my favorite games of all time (truth!), it's about offering a challenge. It's not about profit or money. I would go copyleft, but I'm a touch selfish about keeping my handle attached to the idea. 

[wasml]

Making mod packs of others mods can be a sensitive subject and has set off some heated discussions previously as they can create problems for the original mod author. One way to avoid this is to provide convenient links to the needed mods and let the user download the required mods from the source.

Have fun making this and I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

Edited March 13, 2016 by wasml

[thedmbarlow]

18 hours ago, wasml said:

Making mod packs of others mods can be a sensitive subject and has set off some heated discussions previously as they can create problems for the original mod author. One way to avoid this is to provide convenient links to the needed mods and let the user download the required mods from the source.

 

On 3/12/2016 at 5:26 AM, thedmbarlow said:

Because of the variety of mods and specifically the various licenses used, I cannot make Exodus available as a single download. I can't host download links.

I'd prefer if you read the whole thing before guessing that I'm going to do something, that I did talk about. And I plan to ( assuming it doesn't go belly up in the meantime ) suggest that the player uses CKAN. It's simplest for everyone involved in such a project. 

[wasml]

Excuse me - comprehension problem. I think I think of a modpack a little different than what (I think) you're tying to do and that threw me off track.

[RA3236]

Hmm... Moving the KSC probably won't  be as the game progresses. But KSC Switcher does different KSCs around the planet when the game starts.

[thedmbarlow]

On 3/15/2016 at 8:33 PM, wasml said:

Excuse me - comprehension problem. I think I think of a modpack a little different than what (I think) you're tying to do and that threw me off track.

Fair enough! I say "modpack" because that's how I intend it to be played. The contract pack and/or any mods I write for this will make little sense without the modlist, assuming that it won't just crash KSP by referencing stuff that isn't there. 

On 3/15/2016 at 3:44 AM, RA3236 said:

Hmm... Moving the KSC probably won't  be as the game progresses. But KSC Switcher does different KSCs around the planet when the game starts.

You can't think of any way of doing this? 

[thedmbarlow]

Alright! So I've made some little progress on the Exodus Contract Pack:

0.0.1 has been pushed to Github. So has 0.0.1.5 because I forget an important progression clause in the Kerbin Station mission. 

It's entirely untested, but I've rewritten the initial Kerbin Station mission to be a more reasonable open-loop system at first. I believe that both the original mission and the initial mission should be completeable at this time. I will be attempting to test this for the next little while. We'll see what happens.