[KSP 1.8 - 1.12+] - Probes Before Crew [PBC] Version 2.93

[_Zee]

With the release of KSP 1.9 its about that time for another PBC update. Thankfully, 1.9 didn't do much in the way of altering parts so the portion of updating that typically consumes the most time should be short and sweet.

I've got a pretty loaded schedule for the next few weeks though so stay patient.

For now, comment replies - 

On 12/31/2019 at 10:00 AM, salajander said:

There were some issues with KSP AVC versions earlier than 1.4.1.3 and KSP 1.8 ...
<snip.
... It should all be working now.

Good to hear. The next release will be sure to include the newest AVC files.
 

On 1/4/2020 at 10:20 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

@_Zee would you consider adding Snacks support to PBC? I've already submitted it in the poll, but I decided to mention it here as you already support the other major LS mods, but not Snacks

I wouldn't typically agree to allowing another mod to jump the poll, but MKS is massive and the patch may never see the light of day. It's the unfortunate reality of my circumstances right now, not to mention MKS has radically changed in its format and application every time I've ever checked in on it, going back several years. Snacks is a Life Support mod, and if memory serves it's pretty lightweight in part count, so I'd say it gets +2 to it's priority value that I just made up on the spot. I will try to squeeze this into the next patch.
 

On 2/15/2020 at 4:21 AM, Syczek said:

I would like to have request (if u have time and will to do it) to cull down this tech tree to be match to vanillia(like old seti UbM was) one just with probes before crew modules. With my 210 mods tech tree is complete mess,and hardly readable,i cannot even build proper vehicle because all parts are chaotically placed in tree

If I understand correctly, you're asking for a version of PBC that uses the vanilla tech tree instead of the CTT? I'm sorry, but this will likely never happen. Too much work, too little time.
 

On 2/15/2020 at 12:16 PM, SevenOfCarina said:

This mod is great, but it always annoys me how the 'Establish Stable Orbit' contract doesn't payout till a probe has been brought back from a stable orbit. With DeadlyReentry and rescale mods, this essentially demands heatshields, and is, overall, significantly more difficult than just getting to orbit. The 0.625 m heatshield isn't really that effective since it's actually smaller than the probecores its supposed to protect, and the 1.25 m heatshield needs a 45 science node.

Can it be split into two different contracts - 'Establish Stable Orbit', which gates the moon probes contracts, and 'Return From Orbit', which gates the crewed exploration contracts?

I can see the merit of the issue you bring up. Instead of re-designing the layer locks for a single mod that some may not even be using though, I think the better solution might be to provide staged rewards for that specific contract much like they work for the mid-game/late-game contracts in this mod. I could provide a single relatively-large payout in science for the "Orbit" step of the contract, and then provide the rest of the rewards at contract completion after "Return" is complete, perhaps with a smaller science payout to compensate. Or... maybe insert a single side contract that is only available if Deadly ReEntry is detected. I'll have to think on this, but I'll make sure some kind of compensator is in place for the next patch.
 

10 hours ago, Tinkman said:

Love this mod! Did a playthrough recently and it completely changed how I approached the game, thank you!

I was wondering, however, if it would be possible to create just your changes to science experiments as a separate mod? I really like that I don't have to EVA every few seconds at each body, but my preferred set of engine mods don't fit into the community tech tree very well.

You can actually achieve this on your own in fairly quick and easy order. From the root of my mod, navigate to ProbesBeforeCrew\_Core\Zs_Science.cfg . That "Zs_Science.cfg" is the one and only file you need to replicate my science changes (not including my Planet-Reward-Multiplier changes; those are in Zs_ScienceParamMod.cfg). You could literally just copy paste that file into your Kerbal Space Program\GameData folder and delete my entire mod folder, or just leave the file where it is and delete everything else within my mod folder; either method will work. Out of curiosity, what engine mods are you using that I'm not supporting yet?


Thanks for the continued support and interest in my mod everyone. If you guys stopped asking for things I would probably stop maintaining things. So in the words of Scott Manley, "Fly Safe."
 

[Kwebib]

On 2/15/2020 at 7:21 AM, Syczek said:

I would like to have request (if u have time and will to do it) to cull down this tech tree to be match to vanillia(like old seti UbM was) one just with probes before crew modules. With my 210 mods tech tree is complete mess,and hardly readable,i cannot even build proper vehicle because all parts are chaotically placed in tree

Are you using Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes? This might help reduce the clutter.

[_Zee]

Quick update: Sorry to say it guys, but this patch will have to wait. I work in the IT industry and the coronavirus has us working overtime to keep things running. Thankfully, as I understand it the current version of the mod works just fine with 1.9, with just the minor issue of a handful of vanilla parts not being sorted yet. Send me screenshots of your exploits in space so I can remember what it felt like to still have time to play the game. 

[lokee81]

Great mod. Anyway to get Bluedog Design Bureau to work with this. so that the parts align with the progress  ?

[kewcet]

On 4/7/2020 at 7:52 PM, lokee81 said:

Great mod. Anyway to get Bluedog Design Bureau to work with this. so that the parts align with the progress  ?

You will have to wait until the mod author writes the configs for that mod, you can vote in the OP for the next mod (I think BDB is already leading there anyway).

If you have some knowledge with modding you can write your own CFGs to adjust the parts.

[lokee81]

2 hours ago, kewcet said:

You will have to wait until the mod author writes the configs for that mod, you can vote in the OP for the next mod (I think BDB is already leading there anyway).

If you have some knowledge with modding you can write your own CFGs to adjust the parts.

can you point me in a direction in how to write cfgs ? 

 

[kewcet]

 

21 hours ago, lokee81 said:

can you point me in a direction in how to write cfgs ? 

 

Take a look at the wiki documentation and obviously on the files provided by this mod. But be aware that BDB is a huge mod and you'll have to write a patch for almost all parts.

So be prepared to write a few hundred patches just for this mod 

[_Zee]

 

3 hours ago, kewcet said:

 

Take a look at the wiki documentation and obviously on the files provided by this mod. But be aware that BDB is a huge mod and you'll have to write a patch for almost all parts.

So be prepared to write a few hundred patches just for this mod 

There's something special about witnessing the birth of a new modder.
They either take flight and make something great, or say to themselves "wait, people actually volunteer to do all this work for free? I'm out.". 

[lokee81]

23 hours ago, kewcet said:

 

Take a look at the wiki documentation and obviously on the files provided by this mod. But be aware that BDB is a huge mod and you'll have to write a patch for almost all parts.

So be prepared to write a few hundred patches just for this mod 

Thanks! I'll give it a look. 

19 hours ago, _Zee said:

 

There's something special about witnessing the birth of a new modder.
They either take flight and make something great, or say to themselves "wait, people actually volunteer to do all this work for free? I'm out.". 

Haha, true. Well I  got plenty of time these days. So if you don't hear from me again. you'll know 

[lokee81]

Had a look. 

Is this the way to do it? 

1. Navigate to the part. and change the cfg file that is allready there. (look at screen shot).
 

Questions, 
1. Is there a way to make one file to link to all the different cfg's ? 
2. How do i find what tech nodes are used in this mod? (probes before manned)
3. How would i share the edits? Just repost the whole of the bdb folder? 

Many thanks

Screen :

https://imgur.com/V8RHUJl

Edited April 12, 2020 by lokee81

[4x4cheesecake]

@lokee81 That's one way to do it but it's also the worst way to edit config files. The prefered method would be a ModuleManager patch. It follows pretty much the same syntax of the config files but with some addition features.
A ModuleManager patch allows you to modify config files without actually touching the original config so if you want to share the rsult, you dont have to reupload the whole mod again but just your patches. It's way more convenient and if something went wrong in your patch, the original config values can be used.

In your shown example, this would be something like this (not 100% correct, it's just to explain stuff)

@PART[bluedog_125mDecoupler]:NEEDS[PDB, BDB]
{
	@TechRequired = the nech node you want to move your part to
}

"@" will tell modulemanager to EDIT something, in this case a "PART". Which part is defined within the [ ], in this case it's the part with the name "bluedog_125mDecoupler". Then you should add some conditions with the :NEED operator, so your patch will only be applied, if PDB and BDB are actually installed (you need the correct mod names here, usually defined by the name of the mod folder)

Now you want to edit a value within this config, the "TechRequired" value. It defines which technode of the TechTree the part will be associated with ("category" is just for the filters in the editor). Again, the "@" operator will tell ModulManager to edit a value, but this time you don't need the [ ] to define which value, just the plain name is fine. Just put the new value here (for example "Start" to move it in the very first node of the TechTree).

But how do you get the names of the Technodes? Well, you have to look them up in the config files of the Community TechTree mod, at least I dont know if there is a more convenient way.

It is also possible to address more then one part in a single patch but you have to find something, these parts have in common. You can group them by modules or values of the original parts by using the :HAS operator. For example, you could use:

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleCommand]]

to address each part which can be used to control a vessel (all probe cores and command pods)

or:

@PART[*]:HAS[#TechRequired[start]]

to address all parts which are currently in the first node of the TechTree.

I would highly recommend to look at the wiki of ModuleManager to learn more about the syntax: https://github.com/sarbian/ModuleManager/wiki/Module-Manager-Handbook

and the mod thread of ModuleManager is also a good point to get more info or help.

For a better understanding what will happen with these patches: KSP will read every single .cfg file within the GameData folder to configure parts and other stuff like game settings. ModuleManager hooks into this process and modifies these read config files by applying the patches to them so KSP will use different values to set up the parts but the original config files are still there and untouched. It is even possible to write patches for patches because ModuleManager will follow a strict order to apply patches which can be manipulated by using keywords like :BEFORE or :AFTER so you can force MM to apply your patch after or before another patch from a different mod will be applied to the same part.

It is an incredible powerful tool and worth the time to learn the proper usage

 

[Kwebib]

Was gonna make a response, but 4x4cheesecake got to it first and did a better job than I would have.

[leroidangleterre]

I understand that this mod is available for KSP 1.8; is it going to be made available to 1.9 as well ? If so, what would be the best way of being notified ? Thanks.

[4x4cheesecake]

23 hours ago, leroidangleterre said:

I understand that this mod is available for KSP 1.8; is it going to be made available to 1.9 as well ?

Yes, but _Zee is a bit busy so it may take some time, he mentioned that in the first post on this page.

23 hours ago, leroidangleterre said:

If so, what would be the best way of being notified ?

Hm...hard to say. You can "follow" this thread (there is a button for this next to the title) which will notify you about any new post in this thread. Since a new mod version usually comes with a post from the mod creator, you wouldn't miss it but you will also get a notification if anyone else posts something here.

[HansonKerman]

ah yes , but are the probes funny and anthropomorphic or boring robots that couldn’t provide a witty Mystery Goo observation if they had the kilobytes?

”seems interesting, I’ll try it when I can play KSP  

[_Zee]

Quick update - as a result of a lot of our clients laying people off or outright going under, we've gone from working overtime to a company-wide 20% hours cut to try and keep our business above water. I'm anticipating this trend will continue in a bad direction for quite some time...
So the good news for you fine folks, is I will likely have a lot more time to get things updated in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

To answer the question of using the current version of PBC on KSP 1.9.1 - as far as I'm aware the mod works just fine with the small exception of a few vanilla parts not yet sorted. I've said this before already but will re-state it for people that don't like to flip through the thread. I haven't received any bug reports with the current release, and PBC users are pretty good about reporting problems quickly.

If you're interested in making your own self-maintained patches in the meantime, the write-up from @4x4cheesecake 5 posts before this one is a very good place to start. He already linked it, but this is the KSP Modders Bible - https://github.com/sarbian/ModuleManager/wiki/Module-Manager-Handbook - this thing is basically open 24/7 whenever I'm writing code.

[RealKerbal3x]

@_Zee I have a question about your contract pack, specifically how the game works out whether the contract has been completed or not.

I've been playing through a career game with PBC and the associated contract pack, and it's been great fun. I'm now just about to send the first probe to Duna and I was wondering - does a part of the vehicle that landed on the surface of Duna actually need to return to the surface of Kerbin? Or can I just have a dedicated lander that delivers its experiment results to a Kerbin return vehicle before being left in Duna orbit? When I do an Eve probe mission, ideally I don't want my Eve ascent vehicle to have to lug equipment for a Kerbin return from the surface of Eve.

Similarly, how does the logic work for crewed missions? Is it just the crew that needs to return to Kerbin, or does part of their lander need to return too?

Thanks in advance

[waerth]

Hello all,

I thought to try out this excellent mod in a 1.8.1 install.

As I was progressing I noticed that my probes never got SAS activated.

I then did the big delete all mods and reinstall one by one thing.

Luckily I had a hunch and it proved correct.

Somehow this mod and Remotetech do not work together very well. Basically with all other mods installed but Remotetech SAS works on all the probes. As soon as I install Remotetech it is game over for SAS on probes

 

[XeroxDE]

On 5/10/2020 at 5:25 PM, waerth said:

Hello all,

I thought to try out this excellent mod in a 1.8.1 install.

As I was progressing I noticed that my probes never got SAS activated.

I then did the big delete all mods and reinstall one by one thing.

Luckily I had a hunch and it proved correct.

Somehow this mod and Remotetech do not work together very well. Basically with all other mods installed but Remotetech SAS works on all the probes. As soon as I install Remotetech it is game over for SAS on probes

 

I'm going to try to reproduce this in my install. Meanwhile make sure the RemoteTech Flight Computer is turned off when trying to use SAS as it disables the Stock SAS maybe this solves the problem.

Edited May 15, 2020 by XeroxDE

[XeroxDE]

@_Zee A quick heads up on the upcoming new Version of ScanSAT which deprecates all prexisting scanners by listing them as unresearchable and adding a bunch of new ones. SInce PBC overwrites the deprecated parts they are still obtainable in the TechTree.

The easiest solution is deleting the zzSCANsatPatch.cfg file. This solves the problem while also maintaning compatibility for the older ScanSAT versions as there where no balancing changes made by PBC.

This made me curious: What is the reason for overwriting with the same data as in the original mod? It seems disadvantageous to me as you would have to update manually whenever the original author makes (balancing-)changes to the mod.

 

PS: Thanks for the great mod

Edited May 16, 2020 by XeroxDE

[A lazy noob]

@_Zee Noticed the tiny basic wing does not compile when ReStock enabled. Made a quick and dirty patch to allow it to load back in.

//ReallyTinyFinRestockPatch
@PART[size0_basicFin]:AFTER[ProbesBeforeCrew]:NEEDS[ReStock]{
	@MODEL{
		@model = ReStock/Assets/Aero/restock-winglet-basic-1
	}
}

pretty straightforward. I just have it in my zzzPersonalPatches folder

Edited May 20, 2020 by A lazy noob
Prev code was ugly af, shortened by like 20 lines

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Small suggestion for the next version - in Zs_ProbesBeforeCrew.cfg, the patch that creates the telemetry experiment applies it only to un-crewed parts.

However, contracts generate requests for that experiment for all sorts of situations, including things like "send a scientist here and perform telemetryReport". It stands to reason that a crewed capsule should be able to send telemetry too, no need for an additional probe core on the vessel. So:

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleCommand],#vesselType[Probe]]:NEEDS[CommunityTechTree] <-- Deleting that would be a convenience!
{
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleScienceExperiment  
        experimentID = telemetryReport 
        etc. etc.
    }
}

Just a thought.

[Duufke]

I'm having issues with the added 0.6m Turboshaft engine. Upon cloning the part with attached propellors (either via alt+click or symmetry), the propellors shrink to about half their original size on the cloned engine. When loading a craft the same happens for all engines. Now I'm using a heavily modded instance. so this could be due to a conflict, but I wanted to get this out there anyways. Cheers!

[Livingfood]

This pack is great, thank you for your work.   I'm playing it basically vanilla with just mechjeb for the ease of  repeated ascents.   I have 2 questions.

1. Do the PBC contracts actually expire in the given time?  If I didn't want to send probes to minmus for a while will I lose that contract?

2. Does anyone recommend a must have mod?  I do like playing with as little mods as possible, but a mod that someone thinks adds so much to the vanilla game that I shouldn't live without?     Current mods are:  PBC, PBC contracts, MechJeb, X Science.  That's it.   

Thanks everyone!

 

[hoover2701]

31 minutes ago, Livingfood said:

2. Does anyone recommend a must have mod?  I do like playing with as little mods as possible, but a mod that someone thinks adds so much to the vanilla game that I shouldn't live without?     Current mods are:  PBC, PBC contracts, MechJeb, X Science.  That's it.  

I love PBC as well. I wish there was support for Tantares as I really like the russian spacecraft but concerning your question I'd recommend Kerbalism with the Kerbalism Science Only config. The complete overhaul of the science mechanics literally makes me crawl through career mode and that's what I love (I'm playing JNSQ with PBC, the Kerbalism Science Only config and USI-LS/MKS as the main mods). The building process in the VAB becomes so much more meaningful as you really have to plan your missions carefully corresponding to the contracts. I don't believe it will work with X-Science though... Oh, and DMagic Orbital Science in order to make the new science system even more juicy!

Edited June 16, 2020 by hoover2701
wording