Contract Pack - History of Spaceflight - V1.0

[Morphisor]

The latest update to Contract Configurator breaks this contract pack, with issues related to the new agent parser. When using this contract pack, please remain on CC version 1.28.0 until further notice.

 

Edit: the issue has been resolved. Please skip CC version 1.28.1 and update to 1.28.2 if you have any problems.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Morphisor

[Guest]

On 5/10/2020 at 1:04 AM, Morphisor said:

At this point I'm almost certain there's issues with either your savegame or your install. Try and see if it works on a new career save, it's actually pretty common for issues like this to start popping up in pre-existing saves. Beyond that, all I can advise is a clean install.

I dunno what to tell you, it was a fresh clean install with a brand new career save game specifically to run this contract pack.
Oh well....

Edited July 12, 2020 by Guest

[Morphisor]

5 minutes ago, MailletC said:

I dunno what to tell you, it was a fresh clean install with a brand new career save game specifically to run this contract pack.
Oh well....

Are you able to reproduce the issue on a clean install with no other mods?

[baldamundo]

Been really enjoying playing through the Soviet missions on here.

I wonder if it's worth changing the Vostok 3/4 & Soyuz 3/4 missions to each be single-contract orbital rendezvous missions. It's a bit odd how at the moment they're two separate regular launches. It also seems like it's bugged with the current implementation - and possible to fulfill both contracts with a single launch. I even tried to do a proper rendezvous, but had both contracts auto-complete as soon as I brought Vostok 4 out onto the launchpad, because it misinterpreted it as Vostok 3 (and 4) having landed.

I also wonder if it's worth cutting out some of the Kosmos missions in the pocket edition - they do end up getting extremely repetetive. (and maybe add in the first unmanned Soyuz test flights?)

Would you ever include any of the planned but ultimately cancelled missions like the 7K-L1 and 7K-LOK lunar soyuz missions? And do you have any plans to add any of the later missions?

[Morphisor]

1 hour ago, baldamundo said:

Been really enjoying playing through the Soviet missions on here.

I wonder if it's worth changing the Vostok 3/4 & Soyuz 3/4 missions to each be single-contract orbital rendezvous missions. It's a bit odd how at the moment they're two separate regular launches. It also seems like it's bugged with the current implementation - and possible to fulfill both contracts with a single launch. I even tried to do a proper rendezvous, but had both contracts auto-complete as soon as I brought Vostok 4 out onto the launchpad, because it misinterpreted it as Vostok 3 (and 4) having landed.

I also wonder if it's worth cutting out some of the Kosmos missions in the pocket edition - they do end up getting extremely repetetive. (and maybe add in the first unmanned Soyuz test flights?)

Would you ever include any of the planned but ultimately cancelled missions like the 7K-L1 and 7K-LOK lunar soyuz missions? And do you have any plans to add any of the later missions?

I'll need to have another look at the Vostok rendezvous missions, it seems. Contract configurator has issues resolving parameters within VesselParameterGroups if they depend on conditions outside of the group, causing any number of parameter progression issues. I should be able to to keep Vostok 4 from completing Vostok 3 however.

As for Kosmos, Pocket Edition already has only 19 Kosmos missions, with care having been taken that their payloads and launch vehicles vary. This opposed to the 140 or so Kosmos missions in the other editions  

Hypothetical missions have been proposed before, though not necessarily within this pack - it's something I could consider doing eventually. However, adding in other interesting, actually flown post-1967 missions has priority, when I get back into it. I've barely done anything on the contracts for a while now, for various reasons. I hope to get going again later this year.

[etmoonshade]

I just tracked down an issue in my game to a file in this mod.

In GenericEngines\HoS_Engines.cfg, a number of parts are patched as "FOR[RealismOverhaul]". This is really bad on a heavily-modded game, because it makes MM think that RealismOverhaul is installed - which means that it'll apply any patches for RealismOverhaul (including the one that caused me game breakage :V)

These should all be "NEEDS[RealismOverhaul]" instead.

[Morphisor]

1 hour ago, etmoonshade said:

I just tracked down an issue in my game to a file in this mod.

In GenericEngines\HoS_Engines.cfg, a number of parts are patched as "FOR[RealismOverhaul]". This is really bad on a heavily-modded game, because it makes MM think that RealismOverhaul is installed - which means that it'll apply any patches for RealismOverhaul (including the one that caused me game breakage :V)

These should all be "NEEDS[RealismOverhaul]" instead.

Yeah that's not right. I changed the RSS version MM patches to use :needs instead; get dev version from Github for the fix and let me know if there's any further trouble.

[etmoonshade]

5 hours ago, Morphisor said:

Yeah that's not right. I changed the RSS version MM patches to use :needs instead; get dev version from Github for the fix and let me know if there's any further trouble.

eh, to be fair, I didn't "NEEDS" those engines anyway.

I just deleted the two non-contract folders. I've got way too many engines as it is. Of course, I haven't had a chance/reason to dive into these contracts yet either, so I don't know if the contracts require the engines for some reason.

[Morphisor]

24 minutes ago, etmoonshade said:

eh, to be fair, I didn't "NEEDS" those engines anyway.

I just deleted the two non-contract folders. I've got way too many engines as it is. Of course, I haven't had a chance/reason to dive into these contracts yet either, so I don't know if the contracts require the engines for some reason.

They really shouldn't, there's no part requirements in there for them. Fry intended them as a way to provide performance accurate historical engines in an RO game. 

[Morphisor]

It has been a while since the last update, but I have just pushed another one to Github and Spacedock (CKAN indexing should follow soon). Those who have followed the dev branch in the meantime will already have most of the changes, I just added some finishing touches over the last couple of days.

Don't expect too much though, this is again mostly a fixes and improvements update. I did however add support for a few developments by BDB and Tantares that have been added/finished since last release.
Finally and certainly not least, I tested and verified compatibility with KSP 1.10 and latest Contract Configurator versions.

Changelog:

**Version 0.9.2

• Various requirement/objective optimizations
• Numerous text and fact corrections
• Added support for BDB new Gemini, BDB Hitchhiker sat and Tantares SP Venera 1

[Dick_Kerman]

Hey, a genuine THANK YOU for the Pocket Edition of this mod... I thought I was going to scream at points with those repeat missions, lol. Great idea, and it led to countless hours of scratching my head trying to build as near as possible replicas with the parts I had available.

[Friznit]

Running through this on JNSQ with BDB, KCT and Bureaucracy installed is a lot of fun.  The only contracts I'm really struggling with are the occasional Explorer mission that requires reaching a 48Mm Ap with a Thor Delta, which even with multiple kick motors is next to impossible (unless I'm being stupid) - is that correct or has a scaling calc gone out of whack somewhere?

I assume the Launcher tests are deliberately part agnostic - they'll complete with any old rocket?

I've got BDB and Probes+ installed.  What other probe mods would you recommend to fill in the blanks?

Entirely not a demand but I thought it would be nice to have a set of companion contracts that covered the unused rockets in the BDB pantheon - maybe an Ahistory of Spaceflight pack  

[Morphisor]

16 hours ago, Friznit said:

Running through this on JNSQ with BDB, KCT and Bureaucracy installed is a lot of fun.  The only contracts I'm really struggling with are the occasional Explorer mission that requires reaching a 48Mm Ap with a Thor Delta, which even with multiple kick motors is next to impossible (unless I'm being stupid) - is that correct or has a scaling calc gone out of whack somewhere?

I assume the Launcher tests are deliberately part agnostic - they'll complete with any old rocket?

I've got BDB and Probes+ installed.  What other probe mods would you recommend to fill in the blanks?

Entirely not a demand but I thought it would be nice to have a set of companion contracts that covered the unused rockets in the BDB pantheon - maybe an Ahistory of Spaceflight pack  

Sorry to tell you, but I double-checked the scaling and they are what they should be. Particularly the EPE and P-14 probes had really high, elliptical orbits. Now I don't think you're being stupid at all. In fact I myself also had a lot of trouble getting these missions done with an accurate Thor-Delta. I even mentioned it a couple times at the performance testing department over at BDB - but other than a change in the IMP probe parts, no changes were made, since Jso is apparently able to fly them to their specs. I guess I'm just not that good either .
Another thing I feel is a big part of this, is that these probes in reality weigh very little - 30-50 kg at most. Which means that in KSP, you'll have to come up with a design that's half of that at the very most. This is of course very challenging given the very limited amount of tiny parts we get, even with BDB. Tweakscale becomes quite a necessity if you don't want to change the rocket.

Launcher tests (and pretty much any contract actually) is kept at least mostly part independent, to allow for creativity as well as much needed changes if a player wants to try this on a different scale or with another parts set. Parts requirements only apply to those supported mods when installed, and then only to the main probe core or crew capsule parts.

Unfortunately there's actually very little in the way of probes in mods, and for US rocketry BDB and Probes+ are definitely the main ones. NF exploration is very useful to keep on hand as well though - its parts may not be based on the equipment used within this pack's timeline, but it can be helpful to custom build your own variants. And if you don't mind doing some massive config balancing, Raidernick has a whole suite of probes in his mods too. If someone does get around to balancing those out for stock-alike career, do please share with the world!

Lastly, you're not the first to suggest an alt-history expansion - this was suggested a while ago in the BDB thread as well in fact. I'm open to the idea, but I'd need someone to write out the mission details for me, since I'm really not familiar enough with the subject matter. Then we'd need to figure out how to make it different to existing historical missions, otherwise you'd just have "land on the moon but with a different part required" kind of missions, which is not worth the trouble imo.

[SilverFox1701]

So I've been working my way through the US tree in the standard pack - I figured there was so much in it between the US and USSR it was better to focus on one line instead of split my focus between all of them - and have reached a bit of a confuzzlement. Pioneer P-30. Mission requirement says I need a Vessel State with a destination of the Mun with a suborbital trajectory. I've made three attempts so far to get this mission to complete, but it refuses to give me both requirements. I get Destination: Mun once I'm in the Mun's sphere of influence, but even with a free return trajectory giving me a periapsis only 20km above Kerbin's surface, it won't give me the suborbital trajectory requirement until I leave the Mun's SoI, which wipes the Destination: Mun. I'm a little stumped here, and am not sure if I'm missing something or if something's wonky. 

[SilverFox1701]

15 minutes ago, SilverFox1701 said:

So I've been working my way through the US tree in the standard pack - I figured there was so much in it between the US and USSR it was better to focus on one line instead of split my focus between all of them - and have reached a bit of a confuzzlement. Pioneer P-30. Mission requirement says I need a Vessel State with a destination of the Mun with a suborbital trajectory. I've made three attempts so far to get this mission to complete, but it refuses to give me both requirements. I get Destination: Mun once I'm in the Mun's sphere of influence, but even with a free return trajectory giving me a periapsis only 20km above Kerbin's surface, it won't give me the suborbital trajectory requirement until I leave the Mun's SoI, which wipes the Destination: Mun. I'm a little stumped here, and am not sure if I'm missing something or if something's wonky. 

Disregard; I'm just apparently not very smart. I didn't hit me until after I posted this and was working on a different mission that I realized, "Hey, smart one. There's a difference between suborbital and escape. Maybe try getting a suborbital around the Mun instead of just carrying through on an escape." Finished the mission after that. 

[SilverFox1701]

Right. Now I actually DO have an issue, and I don't think it's because I'm being an idiot this time. Have made four attempts to finish the Corona 22/Discoverer 22 mission. Checks all the boxes, still refuses to complete. 

[Morphisor]

7 hours ago, SilverFox1701 said:

Right. Now I actually DO have an issue, and I don't think it's because I'm being an idiot this time. Have made four attempts to finish the Corona 22/Discoverer 22 mission. Checks all the boxes, still refuses to complete. 

That's strange, there's nothing in that mission that I can see should cause this behaviour. The VesselDestroyed parameter is being checked off, which is basically the only thing that differentiates this mission from the usual stuff. Could you provide a log from when you flew the mission and which KSP version and CC version? Maybe @nightingale has any ideas here.

[SilverFox1701]

6 hours ago, Morphisor said:

That's strange, there's nothing in that mission that I can see should cause this behaviour. The VesselDestroyed parameter is being checked off, which is basically the only thing that differentiates this mission from the usual stuff. Could you provide a log from when you flew the mission and which KSP version and CC version? Maybe @nightingale has any ideas here.

I'm currently running KSP version 1.9.1 with the most up-to-date version of CC - or at least, what CKAN says is the most up-to-date, 1.30.5. That being said, because I'm crap - or because I've only been playing for a couple months and have never had an issue like this, take your pick - I don't actually know a) what kind of log I'm looking for and b) how to submit it. I know that's probably not what anyone wants to hear, but I haven't had to work with the technical side of the game before...:(

[Morphisor]

17 hours ago, SilverFox1701 said:

I'm currently running KSP version 1.9.1 with the most up-to-date version of CC - or at least, what CKAN says is the most up-to-date, 1.30.5. That being said, because I'm crap - or because I've only been playing for a couple months and have never had an issue like this, take your pick - I don't actually know a) what kind of log I'm looking for and b) how to submit it. I know that's probably not what anyone wants to hear, but I haven't had to work with the technical side of the game before...:(

Your versions should be ok. As for the log, by this I meant the ksp.log file, which is located in your main KSP directory (where ksp.exe resides). Mind you, this file gets rewritten every time you start the game, so unless you got a log from when you accepted the contract and completed its parameters, it's not going to help determine what's going on here. It may also help if you describe what you did specifically and how the parameters were completed. My main thinking is that either you found some strange faulty workaround or there's a bug in CC.

[SilverFox1701]

Log's not gonna do you much good, then. I played a little yesterday, so it's yesterday's log and not Friday's. In regards to what I did, I made three launches. The first was standard operating procedure; I tend to accept and run these contracts in batches. Not exactly historically correct, but easiest for me. Right now, my habit is to pick up six or seven contracts and run them at the same time, complete as many as I can at once in a launch. I launched under the auspices of an Explorer contract - I believe it was Explorer 30 - and completed four other contracts at the same time. I then went suborbital with the probe and crashed it into the ocean. I remember I crashed it into the ocean because the solar panels survived re-entry down to about 1 km above the surface before they ripped off. When the contract didn't finish, I launched a small Flea-SRB powered probe with the intention of crashing it into the surface sub-2km away from the launchpad; this usually completes missions that want to derp for me, whether it's a crash mission or a recovery, but it didn't work this time. Skipped over to a SCANsat mission I was running for a bit, as I needed to do something different for a bit - had been working on HoS missions all day and needed a brief break - before coming back and launching the rocket I was using specifically for ballistic missions. Those are always suborbital from launch. Flight went like clockwork, mission still refused to complete. 

[Morphisor]

@SilverFox1701 Ah I see where this is going wrong. The vesseldestroyed parameter is attached directly to the vessel parametergroup, effectively binding it to a specific craft that's used for the mission. To be safe, I should detach it from the vesselparametergroup so that any craft can complete it. There may be more like these out there, particularly in the 'fail' mission department. I must admit my heart wasn't in it when working on those.

[Friznit]

12 hours ago, Morphisor said:

@SilverFox1701 Ah I see where this is going wrong. The vesseldestroyed parameter is attached directly to the vessel parametergroup, effectively binding it to a specific craft that's used for the mission. To be safe, I should detach it from the vesselparametergroup so that any craft can complete it. There may be more like these out there, particularly in the 'fail' mission department. I must admit my heart wasn't in it when working on those.

Isn't that sort of the point though?  The contract works fine if you don't try to cheese it.  I've completed all the exploration contracts and the only ones I've struggled with are those that require a very high orbit, which seems unachievable using the strictly historic launcher builds.  The issue SilverFox is having isn't a bug with the contract per se but a consequence of trying to workaround the spirit of the historical progression by attempting to complete multiple contracts in one launch.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Friznit

[CAPFlyer]

1 hour ago, Friznit said:

The contract works fine if you don't try to cheese it.  I've completed all the exploration contracts and the only ones I've struggled with are those that require a very high orbit, which seems unachievable using the strictly historic launcher builds.

I'm working Explorer 10 right now which has one of those odd orbits and it took some pretty extreme (for me) messing with MechJeb's Classic Ascent Guidance and then disconnecting once in terminal to achieve it.  Then I forgot to kill the Altair and ended up in too good of an orbit so now I get to fly it again.  But that's what's cool - it shows that even in super-simplified KSP that "Space Is Hard"^TM/R/C...

[SilverFox1701]

6 hours ago, Friznit said:

Isn't that sort of the point though?  The contract works fine if you don't try to cheese it.  I've completed all the exploration contracts and the only ones I've struggled with are those that require a very high orbit, which seems unachievable using the strictly historic launcher builds.  The issue SilverFox is having isn't a bug with the contract per se but a consequence of trying to workaround the spirit of the historical progression by attempting to complete multiple contracts in one launch.

I never tried to make a "workaround of the spirit of the historical progression". If that's what it sounded like, I'm sorry. When I first started doing the contracts, I took the starters of the US, the Soviets, and Germany at the same time, as I try to take as many missions as I can as a general rule just from an efficiency standpoint. When I found one launch completed multiple contracts, I just went with it. Also, if this is a consequence of me doing a "workaround", then why has it never happened to me before? I've completed about half the American line at this point, as well as all of the German, French, Canadian, and British trees and have never experienced an issue like this in doing it. 

[CAPFlyer]

Running into a little problem on the TRANSIT 4A flight.

Launched.  Used Ranger 6 (BDB) core as stand-in TRANSIT 4A, Aerobee 100 (Sounding Rockets) core as stand-in INJUN 1, and SOLRAD (BDB).  Got all tasks finished except 1 (RTG because first launch with SNAP3 failed to recognize the SNAP3 attached to the Ranger 6 for whatever reason) - The SOLRAD 3.  I'm using the SOLRAD satellite model from BDB, I added the Ranger UV telescope for the science, and it all went great and all checked, but the full task won't check.  See attached -

Tried renaming again, jumping out and then back in, and a couple other things, but nothing fixed it.

Also, couple things here - 1) real mission, SOLRAD 3 failed to separate from INJUN 1.  2) If order matters (i.e. have to complete each in turn), then SOLRAD 3 needs to be the 3rd item to complete because it was the top of the stack, not the middle.

Unfortunately, this was right before I had to shutdown to go to work, so I can't further troubleshoot until tonight.  Would love to get some insight in the meantime.