Agency Names Missing in Contracts

[Synthesis]

Pretty much exactly as it sounds.

I very recently managed to update my 1.2.2 save to 1.3.1--which realistically probably took ~10 hours of reinstalling every mod and testing to see what worked and what didn't--and was settling down to play when I realized that ever new contract the game generated for me is missing the contract agent (provider) name. It's just blank. All other data is present. 

Most of my existing contracts have names. And they all have the flag graphics loaded up. Some tests seem to suggest this is only for modded providers, since things like "Kerbin's First" and "Sean's Cannery" still show up. 

I have no idea what could be causing this. I went ahead and installed Contract Configurator, which was something I'd overlooked, but the new contracts generated don't seem to be fixed. If I open up the actual save file, my contracts all seem to have agent names listed in the file, the game just...doesn't want to load them up? I've never encountered this issue before. 

Edited November 4, 2017 by Synthesis

[BrunoTheMad]

Having the exact same issue myself using 1.3.0, I originally figured it was a contract configurator issue as I have not seen it crop up with CC uninstalled, but I wonder if another mod is affecting the way modded contracts display agents. Using contract configurator the agent shows up under the ‘all’ contracts tab, but once a contract shows up under the ‘available’ tab the agent is no longer displayed.  This is the case not just for custom contract groups but also with agencies belonging to mods such as Bluedog Design Bureau.

[Synthesis]

46 minutes ago, BrunoTheMad said:

Having the exact same issue myself using 1.3.0, I originally figured it was a contract configurator issue as I have not seen it crop up with CC uninstalled, but I wonder if another mod is affecting the way modded contracts display agents. Using contract configurator the agent shows up under the ‘all’ contracts tab, but once a contract shows up under the ‘available’ tab the agent is no longer displayed.  This is the case not just for custom contract groups but also with agencies belonging to mods such as Bluedog Design Bureau.

Thank you for responding Bruno. I was running into this issue without Contract Configurator installed--however, my 1.2.2 save did use it, so maybe the "changes" were affected even if the mod wasn't installed. 

Likewise, I was looking under 'Available', since that's the default place to look without contract configurator. I don't suppose you have any other solutions? I don't really use Contract Configurator normally, I installed it as part of a general "You should have this installed" push. 

[BrunoTheMad]

Sorry for the delayed reply, I haven't had much time to dedicate to KSP this week.  Not sure if you fixed the issue for yourself yet, but I did a fresh install/started a new game without contract configurator and had the same problem with mod agency names not showing up in contracts. Because of this I don't think it is an issue with CC, but maybe another mod or something to do with the localization updates in 1.3.  Could you post your mod list?  Might be able to figure out what mods we have in common that might be causing the issue.

[Synthesis]

19 hours ago, BrunoTheMad said:

Sorry for the delayed reply, I haven't had much time to dedicate to KSP this week.  Not sure if you fixed the issue for yourself yet, but I did a fresh install/started a new game without contract configurator and had the same problem with mod agency names not showing up in contracts. Because of this I don't think it is an issue with CC, but maybe another mod or something to do with the localization updates in 1.3.  Could you post your mod list?  Might be able to figure out what mods we have in common that might be causing the issue.

It's quite fine, I'm glad for any response. And to answer your question, no, mostly because I'm not even sure when to begin, but it's very helpful to hear that the problem is reproduced with a new install with mods--this might be a more common issue than expected.

Sorry for the screenshot, I couldn't find a way to export it as text data. Let me know if this helps at all.

[BrunoTheMad]

Alright, I think I figured it out! 

I did a fresh install and only used two mods, Tantares and Bluedog Design Bureau.  I noticed in game that the Tantares agency was showing up properly on the contracts menu but BDB's agencies were not, so I decided to check out the differences between the two agency CFG files.  It seems that the Tantares agency CFG has one additional parameter that the Bluedog CFG did not. 

In the Tantares CFG, right above "description = " is a parameter called "title = " with the same text found after the "name = " parameter.  Adding the "title = " parameter to the BDB agency CFG file and using the same text from BDB's "name = " parameter caused the Bluedog agencies to properly display in the contracts menu.

I think my suspicions earlier were correct and something was changed after the KSP 1.3 localization update, causing mods that do not use the "title = " parameter to not display the agencies properly.  To fix this issue is fairly simple, just add the "title = " parameter with copied text from "name = " to any agency configs that do not have it, although this is pretty annoying and likely time consuming if you have a lot of mods, but it is good to know that it can be fixed.

I hope that helps!  Let me know if that works for you, and I think you are right, this is probably a common issue that most people don't notice since it is pretty minor and doesn't really affect gameplay.

[Synthesis]

2 hours ago, BrunoTheMad said:

Alright, I think I figured it out! 

I did a fresh install and only used two mods, Tantares and Bluedog Design Bureau.  I noticed in game that the Tantares agency was showing up properly on the contracts menu but BDB's agencies were not, so I decided to check out the differences between the two agency CFG files.  It seems that the Tantares agency CFG has one additional parameter that the Bluedog CFG did not. 

In the Tantares CFG, right above "description = " is a parameter called "title = " with the same text found after the "name = " parameter.  Adding the "title = " parameter to the BDB agency CFG file and using the same text from BDB's "name = " parameter caused the Bluedog agencies to properly display in the contracts menu.

I think my suspicions earlier were correct and something was changed after the KSP 1.3 localization update, causing mods that do not use the "title = " parameter to not display the agencies properly.  To fix this issue is fairly simple, just add the "title = " parameter with copied text from "name = " to any agency configs that do not have it, although this is pretty annoying and likely time consuming if you have a lot of mods, but it is good to know that it can be fixed.

I hope that helps!  Let me know if that works for you, and I think you are right, this is probably a common issue that most people don't notice since it is pretty minor and doesn't really affect gameplay.

Bruno, you're a genius and my hero! Or at the very least my hero.

It wasn't that many files to edit, and it immediately fixed the issue. I suspect a lot of mod creators are understandably unaware of this issue (understandable seeing how Squad made no notice of the change)...I should've made a not of all the mods I made the changes to and posted in their threads with the very simple fix. 

[BrunoTheMad]

2 hours ago, Synthesis said:

Bruno, you're a genius and my hero! Or at the very least my hero.

It wasn't that many files to edit, and it immediately fixed the issue. I suspect a lot of mod creators are understandably unaware of this issue (understandable seeing how Squad made no notice of the change)...I should've made a not of all the mods I made the changes to and posted in their threads with the very simple fix. 

Glad I could help! 

I didn't make a note of the mods with this issue either unfortunately, but hopefully more folks will pick up on the new format or see this thread if they run into the problem in the future.

[Aelfhe1m]

I'd been wondering what was causing that.

Until mods catch up I've written this little MM patch to find any agents without a title and add a copy of the name:

@AGENT:HAS[~title[]]
{
	&title = #$name$
}

Seems to work fine. One contract orbit that was showing a blank agent in the tracking station now shows "DMagic" as it was supposed to.