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

[Jognt]

1 hour ago, Frag2000 said:

Hi _Zee,

tried to install this mod on 1.7.3 ... but I noticed that the research tree is the same as vanilla (The MK1 Command pod is still in the root). Could it be a conflict with the community tree? Is there any specific logs I should check?

 

Thanks!

I’d start with making sure you have the dependencies (CTT is one). If that doesn’t help you can upload your outputlog.txt file. 

[strudo76]

On 7/27/2019 at 10:27 PM, Jognt said:

I’d start with making sure you have the dependencies (CTT is one). If that doesn’t help you can upload your outputlog.txt file. 

And Module Manager

[Poddster]

I haven't played KSP in years, and when they introduced career mode I thought it was completely brain-dead, and so would play with things like BTSM to stop the easy-cheese of having a Kerbal drive around the KSp unlocking the first 5 tiers of science.

 

Whilst BTSM is defunct, I see that this mod is a spiritual successor of sorts.

So if I wanted to play a stock KSP + PbC, what other mods would you consider essential to get the best PbC experience? (Other than the required dependencies)

 

I.e. what mods was Zee using when playing and designing PbC?

 

[Crixomix]

Zee, I love this mod!

However, I have a suggestion. Please put the remote tech antennas needed to go to eve/duna lower on the tech tree. I shouldn't need to be doing a 1,000 science tech when I have ONLY been able to go the mun and minmus. And you need the KR14 or the Comm88 to have full distance to duna. I think those should be one or even two tiers lower on the list.

[Jognt]

2 minutes ago, Crixomix said:

Zee, I love this mod!

However, I have a suggestion. Please put the remote tech antennas needed to go to eve/duna lower on the tech tree. I shouldn't need to be doing a 1,000 science tech when I have ONLY been able to go the mun and minmus. And you need the KR14 or the Comm88 to have full distance to duna. I think those should be one or even two tiers lower on the list.

I agree that the antennas seem just a bit ‘up’ in the tree. Just remember that the C-16 is infinitely combinable. 

[Crixomix]

5 minutes ago, Jognt said:

I agree that the antennas seem just a bit ‘up’ in the tree. Just remember that the C-16 is infinitely combinable. 

What do you mean infinitely combinable? I do have the multiple antennas multiplier on .5, but you can't be suggesting that I use omnidirectional antenna to get to another planet can you? You'd need like 1,000 of them to even get 1 gigameter!

[Jognt]

24 minutes ago, Crixomix said:

What do you mean infinitely combinable? I do have the multiple antennas multiplier on .5, but you can't be suggesting that I use omnidirectional antenna to get to another planet can you? You'd need like 1,000 of them to even get 1 gigameter!

Admittedly it was more of a "Theoretical" than a "Practical" thought. I kinda wonder how many you'd need and what it'd look like now though.  

[Crixomix]

3 minutes ago, Jognt said:

Admittedly it was more of a "Theoretical" than a "Practical" thought. I kinda wonder how many you'd need and what it'd look like now though.  

Well if you want 100% uptime to Eve, you gotta have 23.53Gm of range. So I'm using the root model with the .5 multiplier, but that only matters if two craft have different antenna. So my best omni at the moment is the Communotron 32 which reaches 2.5Mm. We need the total omni range to be 11.77Gm. Each additional communotron only adds 1.25Mm for me but let's assume you have the multiple antenna thing at 100%. You would need 4,708 antennas! That would take 2,829 electric charge per second, and they would weigh 47.08 TONS. Lol. 

 

All this to be said, we need to unlock the high power dishes a bit sooner so we can go to even and duna without doing the tier 1000 science node

[Jognt]

3 minutes ago, Crixomix said:

Well if you want 100% uptime to Eve, you gotta have 23.53Gm of range. So I'm using the root model with the .5 multiplier, but that only matters if two craft have different antenna. So my best omni at the moment is the Communotron 32 which reaches 2.5Mm. We need the total omni range to be 11.77Gm. Each additional communotron only adds 1.25Mm for me but let's assume you have the multiple antenna thing at 100%. You would need 4,708 antennas! That would take 2,829 electric charge per second, and they would weigh 47.08 TONS. Lol.

All this to be said, we need to unlock the high power dishes a bit sooner so we can go to even and duna without doing the tier 1000 science node

Wow.. You actually.. did the math..

That's... a lot of antennas..

..
...
..

Yeah that antenna techtree placement could probably use a bit of a checkup!

[Wyzard]

Here's an integration patch for Nertea's CryoTanks (which is bundled with CryoEngines and KerbalAtomics).  After a recent balance change, the cryogenic tanks are positioned relative to certain stock tanks in the tech tree.  PBC moves a few of the stock tanks to different tech nodes, so this patch moves the cryo tanks accordingly.

@PART[hydrogen-25-2]:AFTER[CryoTanks]:NEEDS[CommunityTechTree]
{
	@TechRequired = largeVolumeContainment  // One step up from Rockomax X200-32
}

@PART[hydrogen-25-3]:AFTER[CryoTanks]:NEEDS[CommunityTechTree]
{
	@TechRequired = largeVolumeContainment // One step up from Rockomax X200-16
}

@PART[hydrogen-radial-25-1]:AFTER[CryoTanks]:NEEDS[CommunityTechTree]
{
	@TechRequired = largeVolumeContainment  // One step up from Rockomax X200-16 (same diameter, similar volume)
}

BTW, @_Zee, please consider putting the project in GitHub so people can submit pull requests with suggested changes.  (Those are easier to keep track of than random forum posts.)

[Autolyzed Yeast Extract]

Can you make the ISRU changes optional to work with mods like Rational Resources

[captinjoehenry]

Does this mod work with GPP?  As I really want a slower science experience in my next play through.

[JadeOfMaar]

On 8/16/2019 at 2:42 PM, captinjoehenry said:

Does this mod work with GPP?  As I really want a slower science experience in my next play through.

Planet packs do not affect whether a tech tree works or not. The only factor is if your desired part mod is configured into it. GPP itself slows your science game by providing less biomes and less science multipliers in order to force you out of the homeworld SOI for that science.

[Jognt]

3 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Planet packs do not affect whether a tech tree works or not. The only factor is if your desired part mod is configured into it. GPP itself slows your science game by providing less biomes and less science multipliers in order to force you out of the homeworld SOI for that science.

PBC also alters science multipliers for celestial bodies, so one of them will have their changes overwritten. (Or PBC will alter bodies that don’t exist, I don’t know GPP  but that still wouldn’t cause problems afaik)

Overall, it’ll work fine and without errors though. 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Jognt

[Wyzard]

For the PbC contract pack, how feasible would it be to make the unmanned landing contracts allow the "return home" part to be something other than a probe?  (While still requiring a probe for the "flyby" and "land" parts of the contract, of course.)

I built a Mun lander whose return stage is based on a HECS probe core and other 0.625m parts.  On top is a science container with a parachute, and that portion detaches and lands while the rest (including the probe core) burns up.  Returning just the experiments seems pretty reasonable for a first-landing uncrewed science mission, but it doesn't satisfy the contract because after detaching from the probe core, the science container and parachute are no longer considered a probe.  The vessel has no control part, so the game calls it debris and there's no way to change that.

The HECS doesn't have enough heat tolerance to survive re-entry from a Mun return, even with the 0.625m heatshield.  To get it safely to the ground, I think I'll have to put it in a cargo bay, which means widening the return stage to 1.25m and enlarging the launch vehicle's payload fairing to match.  That's a pretty big design change just to land a probe core that serves no useful mission purpose once the vessel is in the atmosphere with its parachute armed.

So, if possible, it'd be good for the "return home" part of the contract to allow recovering debris instead of requiring it to be a probe.

(It might be that ContractConfigurator doesn't support having different vessel-type requirements for different parts of the contract.  On the previous page of this thread, there were some suggestions that maybe "return home" shouldn't be a required part of the contract at all.  It might help to split "return home" out into a separate contract that unlocks after completing the "land" one, so it can drop the vessel-type requirement and so that players can choose whether to accept it.)

[Jognt]

9 hours ago, Wyzard said:

For the PbC contract pack, how feasible would it be to make the unmanned landing contracts allow the "return home" part to be something other than a probe?  (While still requiring a probe for the "flyby" and "land" parts of the contract, of course.)

I built a Mun lander whose return stage is based on a HECS probe core and other 0.625m parts.  On top is a science container with a parachute, and that portion detaches and lands while the rest (including the probe core) burns up.  Returning just the experiments seems pretty reasonable for a first-landing uncrewed science mission, but it doesn't satisfy the contract because after detaching from the probe core, the science container and parachute are no longer considered a probe.  The vessel has no control part, so the game calls it debris and there's no way to change that.

The HECS doesn't have enough heat tolerance to survive re-entry from a Mun return, even with the 0.625m heatshield.  To get it safely to the ground, I think I'll have to put it in a cargo bay, which means widening the return stage to 1.25m and enlarging the launch vehicle's payload fairing to match.  That's a pretty big design change just to land a probe core that serves no useful mission purpose once the vessel is in the atmosphere with its parachute armed.

So, if possible, it'd be good for the "return home" part of the contract to allow recovering debris instead of requiring it to be a probe.

(It might be that ContractConfigurator doesn't support having different vessel-type requirements for different parts of the contract.  On the previous page of this thread, there were some suggestions that maybe "return home" shouldn't be a required part of the contract at all.  It might help to split "return home" out into a separate contract that unlocks after completing the "land" one, so it can drop the vessel-type requirement and so that players can choose whether to accept it.)

I know this isn't exactly a 'solution', but you could do a MM patch that adds a ModuleCommand MODULE to the science container. That might be enough to work around it.

[SpaceMoose]

Thank you for this mod, I'm having great fun with it.

Please consider removing the "return home" part of the Eve Probes contract. While landing a probe on Eve can be done early in a career, having it return to Kerbin certainly is not.

[Wyzard]

13 hours ago, SpaceMoose said:

Please consider removing the "return home" part of the Eve Probes contract. While landing a probe on Eve can be done early in a career, having it return to Kerbin certainly is not.

With my earlier post I was just thinking about my Mun mission, but yeah, I wouldn't want to have a return requirement for probes to other planets, or to Kerbol.

So I wrote this MM patch to remove the return requirement from all the probe landing contracts:

// Remove the requirements for uncrewed probes to return home.
@CONTRACT_TYPE:HAS[#agent[KARA],@PARAMETER:HAS[#type[VesselIsType],#vesselType[Probe]]]
{
	!PARAMETER:HAS[@PARAMETER[return]] { }

	// Also tweak some descriptions to avoid mentioning the return parameter.
	@synopsis ^= :land and recover a probe from:land a probe on:
	@synopsis ^= :, skim the corona of Kerbol, and return the Probe home safely: and skim the corona of Kerbol:
	@synopsis ^= :, land on it, and return the Probe home safely: and land on it:
	@synopsis ^= :, dive deep into the lower atmosphere, and return the Probe home safely: and dive deep into the lower atmosphere:
}

(Note that this also takes away the funds reward for returning a probe home, which seems like a reasonable tradeoff.  And it's only for uncrewed contracts; crewed missions still have to bring the kerbals home.)

[SpaceMoose]

14 hours ago, Wyzard said:

With my earlier post I was just thinking about my Mun mission, but yeah, I wouldn't want to have a return requirement for probes to other planets, or to Kerbol.

So I wrote this MM patch to remove the return requirement from all the probe landing contracts:

// Remove the requirements for uncrewed probes to return home.
@CONTRACT_TYPE:HAS[#agent[KARA],@PARAMETER:HAS[#type[VesselIsType],#vesselType[Probe]]]
{
	!PARAMETER:HAS[@PARAMETER[return]] { }

	// Also tweak some descriptions to avoid mentioning the return parameter.
	@synopsis ^= :land and recover a probe from:land a probe on:
	@synopsis ^= :, skim the corona of Kerbol, and return the Probe home safely: and skim the corona of Kerbol:
	@synopsis ^= :, land on it, and return the Probe home safely: and land on it:
	@synopsis ^= :, dive deep into the lower atmosphere, and return the Probe home safely: and dive deep into the lower atmosphere:
}

(Note that this also takes away the funds reward for returning a probe home, which seems like a reasonable tradeoff.  And it's only for uncrewed contracts; crewed missions still have to bring the kerbals home.)

Thanks! Will this take effect on a contract I already accepted? How do I tweak it so that it only removes the return requirement for Eve?

 

[SpaceMoose]

15 hours ago, Wyzard said:

With my earlier post I was just thinking about my Mun mission, but yeah, I wouldn't want to have a return requirement for probes to other planets, or to Kerbol.

So I wrote this MM patch to remove the return requirement from all the probe landing contracts:

// Remove the requirements for uncrewed probes to return home.
@CONTRACT_TYPE:HAS[#agent[KARA],@PARAMETER:HAS[#type[VesselIsType],#vesselType[Probe]]]
{
	!PARAMETER:HAS[@PARAMETER[return]] { }

	// Also tweak some descriptions to avoid mentioning the return parameter.
	@synopsis ^= :land and recover a probe from:land a probe on:
	@synopsis ^= :, skim the corona of Kerbol, and return the Probe home safely: and skim the corona of Kerbol:
	@synopsis ^= :, land on it, and return the Probe home safely: and land on it:
	@synopsis ^= :, dive deep into the lower atmosphere, and return the Probe home safely: and dive deep into the lower atmosphere:
}

(Note that this also takes away the funds reward for returning a probe home, which seems like a reasonable tradeoff.  And it's only for uncrewed contracts; crewed missions still have to bring the kerbals home.)

I decided to do a little research on how ContactConfigurator works, and it seems I need to do this if I want your patch to work only for Eve:

@CONTRACT_TYPE:HAS[#agent[KARA],@PARAMETER:HAS[#type[VesselIsType],#vesselType[Probe],#targetBody[Eve]]]

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by SpaceMoose

[SpaceMoose]

The MM patch didn't seem to work for the Eve probe contract I had already accepted, but I was able to remove the "Return Home" parameter from my persistent.sfs file. I can now stop banging my head against the wall, trying to get a return vessel landed on Eve without burning-up on atmospheric entry (I haven't yet unlocked the inflatable heat shield and I don't feel like grinding more science out of the Mun/Minmus to get it).

P.S. I like everything else so far about this mod. Thanks again!

Edited August 23, 2019 by SpaceMoose

[Wyzard]

3 hours ago, SpaceMoose said:

The MM patch didn't seem to work for the Eve probe contract I had already accepted, but I was able to remove the "Return Home" parameter from my persistent.sfs file.

Yeah, that's what I did for my already-accepted Mun contract too.

For the record, if anyone else is in a similar situation: find the CONTRACT block that corresponds to the PbC contract — they have "subtype" names like "ProbeMun" or "ProbeEve" — and delete the PARAM block whose ID is "vpg".

[_Zee]

Hello everyone! I still have very limited amount of time to mod these days, but that's going to change fairly soon (in about a month). I'm uprooting my life and moving to another state, the events leading up to and after that should afford me some extra time to get some work done here. There are about 2 pages of posts that I need to go through and reply to, I'll do that when I can address all the issues that have been brought up.

Glancing through everything I see balances suggestions, contract changes, patch submissions, github requests. All of this is great! I regret not being able to address all of this more quickly, but wanted to let you all know I'm still here and will get to all of it soon. Feel free to continue adding to the backlog until that time.  

[jamqdlaty]

On 8/24/2019 at 5:33 PM, _Zee said:

Feel free to continue adding to the backlog until that time.  

A little question/suggestion, cause something is not clear for me. There's that requirement for probe contracts: "Ensure that your vessel's name is tagged as a PROBE". Why? It already checks if the vessel crew capacity equals 0. I had to cheat completion of one mission cause I forgot to check the tag. I don't understand why is it important. Maybe this requirement can be just removed?

[amoksepp]

This mod sounds great, i will start a new career play (didnt played career for ages) with RT  / ScanSat and maybe some Life support and first time without quicksave/revert.

Hey, is the science balanced to the Mobile Proccessing LAB or without it?

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by amoksepp