[1.12.4] Kerbin Side Remastered GAP - Flight contract pack [v2.1.7] [2022-12-19]

[RYU AZUKU99]

How the heck do you unlock the other contractors like Jeb's Junkyard? They all say the require "Flight Progress must be completed" but I have no idea what that means. I've done 8 of the inspection flights and both of the navy certifications but nothing else has unlocked(besides the TKA ones after doing inspection flights).

[Caerfinon]

9 hours ago, RYU AZUKU99 said:

How the heck do you unlock the other contractors like Jeb's Junkyard?

The various different agencies that offer flights have requirements that a certain number on Inspection flights be completed before they will start offering fight contracts

• Navy missions start after an inspection flight reaches the particular Naval Air Station 
• Hinterland Tours begins after 16 inspection flights are completed
• Jeb Cargo flights, Kerbin Geographic missions, KSIS Operational flights and SkyMed rescues  begin after all 20 inspection flights are completed. 
  • NOTE: SkyMed flight also requires you to have the mod Kerbin Side Remastered Gap Extras installed.

The value that determines the progress is the variable $ksrgapFlightProgress which is contained in the Persistent Data Store section of your game's persistent.sfs file in the saves directory.
It looks like this:

	SCENARIO
	{
		name = PersistentDataStore
		scene = 7, 8, 5
		DATA
		{
			ksrgapFlightProgress = Int32:9
		}
	}

If you edit this file while your game is not running you can change the value of the Int32:  between 0 and 20 to set the Flight Progress to where you want it to be without completing all the Inspection flights first.    

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Caerfinon
skymed note

[RYU AZUKU99]

9 hours ago, Caerfinon said:

The various different agencies that offer flights have requirements that a certain number on Inspection flights be completed before they will start offering fight contracts

• Navy missions start after an inspection flight reaches the particular Naval Air Station 
• Hinterland Tours begins after 16 inspection flights are completed
• Jeb Cargo flights, Kerbin Geographic missions, KSIS Operational flights and SkyMed rescues  begin after all 20 inspection flights are completed. 
  • NOTE: SkyMed flight also requires you to have the mod Kerbin Side Remastered Gap Extras installed.

 

 

 

 

Bless your soul.

 

But I did notice that the extras mod doesn't load properly/show on the tracking station map, even with the dependencies the new airstrips don't show up for purchase or with all sites unlocked from the difficulty menu, not really sure what's going on with it. They are appearing in the persistent.sfs  though.

Edited November 7, 2023 by RYU AZUKU99
problems with extras mod

[Caerfinon]

15 hours ago, RYU AZUKU99 said:

But I did notice that the extras mod doesn't load properly/show on the tracking station map

The Gap extra air strips do not show as airports using the Kerbal Konstructs icons in the tracking station by design. The are meant to be stumbled upon. Any flight missions to one of these sites will generate waypoints for the specific contract. 

In the patches directory of the Mod there is a  file named CustomWaypoints.KSRGAPEX that can be used with the Waypoint Manager mod to display all of the airstrips.  It needs to be moved to that mod's folder to be used. A similar file for the main Kerbinside Remasterd Gap mod exists in it's patches folder if you wanted to use those as well. 

[jocax188723]

Hi, great mod, fun to play, very few bugs, well done. 

Quick question - is there any way to change passenger requirements? Going from mission type 2 (10-12 passengers) to mission type 3 (Only 80+ passengers) is a bit jarring. Are there any intermediaries like 30-40 passengers and 50-60 passengers?

[Caerfinon]

6 hours ago, jocax188723 said:

to mission type 3 (Only 80+ passengers) is a bit jarring

The requirements of mission type 3 is intended for a large passenger aircraft design with a passenger capacity for 80 plus kerbals. In actual game play however, having 80 plus kerbals on a vessel generates incredible lag, so the actual number of passengers on each of these flights is restricted to 12-16 kerbals in addition to the crew. This allows for the piloting of larger crafts with the minimal amount of lag. 

I'm glad you are enjoying using it in your game. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Caerfinon

[nwillard]

Firstly thanks for the amazing mod.

I just crashed the initial Kola Island executive contract and killed everyone, and when I went to the astronaut complex to recruit more kerbals the civilians showed up. I have Kerbalism installed but I think it's the stock interface. I guess that bug you noted up there. Know of any easy fix for this?

Edited November 23, 2023 by nwillard

[Caerfinon]

10 hours ago, nwillard said:

Know of any easy fix for this?

If civilians are showing up in the Astronaut Complex then something changed their KerbalType from "Unowned"  to something else making them visible in the AC and the RosterCheck.cfg hidden contract cannot remove them because they appear to be not dead. 

There are a few methods to remove them; 

1. Attempt to dismiss the kerbals from service in the astronaut complex if you can
2.  Use a mod like Ship Manifest  to delete the unwanted kerbals
3.  Edit the persistent.sfs file on your saved game and remove the kerbals you don't want from the roster section of the file
4.  Load them into a plane and fly very fast into the side of a mountain near the KSC.  Extreme yes, but sometimes necessary.  

[nwillard]

Thanks so much for the reply! They are unhired and appear to be populating just the candidate pool. I deleted them from persistence.sys before but more just showed up. I'll see what I can do later and edit this post.

UPDATE: They've mostly all filtered out several days later. Thanks for the response!

Edited December 12, 2023 by nwillard

[Caerfinon]

On 11/27/2023 at 6:09 PM, nwillard said:

to be populating just the candidate pool

In the standard astronaut complex all defined traits will show up as potential candidates. If you use the USI mods then the Astronaut Complex hire section will only give you the option to hire Pilots, Engineers, Scientists, and the specialized traits  available with USI.

If you don't use USI then the mode TRP-Hire performs the same function for just Pilots, Engineers, and Scientists. 

In both cases Civilian, ServiceKerbal, and Civil-Servant  kerbals should not be "applicant" categories.  

[anthonyalessi88]

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays  

Thanks again for the fantastic mod Caerfinon, it's practically the only way I play.

I Was flying around recently and thought of a solution to an issue that's been around for a while. When you arrive at a mission objective, you have to move within 50 metres of a company billboard to trigger it. Sometimes, KSP fails to recognize you at the correct coordinate, even when a notification appears that states you have entered the mission area. But the billboards were a brilliant idea. They make your destination visually transparent, but I thought maybe it would be possible to have a context menu that appears when you click on it, similar to some other KK assets that you could use to manually execute the objective, and maybe even use for access to available services or other company things like a flag and company name editor, fuel and supplies, maybe some sort of money/reputation system? I think it would be a killer addition to an already awesome mod. 

Also, is it possible to manually add a new category of airline transport and cargo that supports a new tier of missions for truly large crafts that give rewards commensurate with that class of vehicle?

[Aelfhe1m]

2 hours ago, anthonyalessi88 said:

I Was flying around recently and thought of a solution to an issue that's been around for a while. When you arrive at a mission objective, you have to move within 50 metres of a company billboard to trigger it. Sometimes, KSP fails to recognize you at the correct coordinate, even when a notification appears that states you have entered the mission area. But the billboards were a brilliant idea. They make your destination visually transparent, but I thought maybe it would be possible to have a context menu that appears when you click on it, similar to some other KK assets that you could use to manually execute the objective, and maybe even use for access to available services or other company things like a flag and company name editor, fuel and supplies, maybe some sort of money/reputation system?

Interesting idea, but a lot more complex than you probably suspect. In order to work correctly someone would need to code a new custom facility type for Kerbal Konstructs to handle the user interaction and a new plug-in for Contract Configurator to implement new behaviours and parameters for the contracts to use.

The existing system on the other hand is a clever workaround utilising features that already existed within the mods.

Why it may be "failing" sometimes is that the location of the waypoint that you must get within 50m of is offset slightly from the billboards location (usually positioned in the centre of a taxiway junction). If you install the Waypoint Manager mod then you will be able to see the actual location of the waypoints. The contract will measure the distance between the root part of your craft's origin and the waypoint location (not the billboard). This could mean for example that a large plane could have a wing touching the billboard, but the cockpit (root part) could be more than 50m from the waypoint on the other side of the billboard. Waypoint Manager gives you a clear readout of location and distance to the terminal waypoint and removes any guess work.

Example: KSC Terminal location in relation to billboard:

 

2 hours ago, anthonyalessi88 said:

Also, is it possible to manually add a new category of airline transport and cargo that supports a new tier of missions for truly large crafts that give rewards commensurate with that class of vehicle?

That would be much more doable. "Just" involving writing and testing a new contract for the extra mission types. Perhaps a minimum mass for the vehicle to count as "large"? Of course that would depend on how much spare time Caerfinon has to spend on the mod. Or whether someone else would write the contracts and contribute them. (I'm currently writing and testing some patches to expand the role play aspect of helicopters within the contracts, with adding terminals to helipads where available as an alternative to landing at the billboards. I'll offer them up here once they're in a more complete state.

Spoiler

Landing at Kola Helipad:

On approach to KSC Extended helipad:

 

[Caerfinon]

@anthonyalessi88 @Aelfhe1m “All things are ready, if our mind be so.”  I designed the mission tiers in a fairly modular way. The only differences between the tiers are passenger sizes for passenger flights, and the requirements of a certain number of cargo parts for transport flights. These requirements could easily be converted to total mass or any other values exposed to parameters by Contract Configurator.

But as I took the torch from Inigma and Keniamin and built on their GAP contract packs, I think if there is to be more done to what I have made, then some enterprising Kerbals would need to fork my various Github repositories and rework my stuff to make some improvements. Everything I have made it under MIT License and is there for all to use or change.

I would  be happy to give advice to any future project on how I put things together if it is needed.  

[Aelfhe1m]

Thinking about the subject of cargo missions a little further, I came up with the following concept:

• create a custom "cargo payload" resource
• create some "cargo pallet" parts of various sizes and capacities
• add "cargo payload" as a purchasable resource through the Kerbal Konstructs merchants system, either by adding it to existing fuel merchants or placing custom "warehouse" statics at some locations. The contract advance could include the cost of purchasing the payload from the merchants.
• missions would be written to require flying to a given airport, loading up with a specified amount of cargo payload and then flying to Jeb's Junkyard (or another destination) to offload the cargo
• I'd also like to have missions flying between different airstrips rather than the current pattern of KSC -> somewhere -> Jeb's Junkyard -> KSC
• Possibly a final step of "selling" the cargo to a merchant after landing at the final destination.

Compared to the existing contracts, I think this would introduce some interesting design constraints for the transport planes. Needing them to be able to be built to accommodate the volume and mass of the cargo rather than just an arbitrary number of "payload" parts - after all a 1.25m service bay and a Mk3 cargo bay both count as 1 part and some mod parts are even smaller or larger. It would also allow some flexibility in choosing whether to use several small pallets or one large pallet to satisfy a given capacity requirement and need some thought put into distributing them within your vessel to maintain its balance in flight both empty and loaded.

Different tiers of contracts could be created for small, medium, large and bulk cargo missions and for short, medium or long haul flights. 

After I've finished my current helicopter project, I might take a crack at implementing this but if anyone wants to use this idea before that, then feel free. 

[Misucat]

Hello here, thanks you for this missions pack 
 

I just started the first mission "Let's Start An Airline," and I don't understand how to validate the takeoff clearance. I tried positioning myself at the level of the bilboard panel, the waypoint manager marker, but it doesn't validate anything. The 5-second countdown stays inactive. I have an airplane with a capacity of 5 passengers, a certified pilot, and the inspector is on board.

[Aelfhe1m]

4 minutes ago, Misucat said:

Hello here, thanks you for this missions pack 
 

I just started the first mission "Let's Start An Airline," and I don't understand how to validate the takeoff clearance. I tried positioning myself at the level of the bilboard panel, the waypoint manager marker, but it doesn't validate anything. The 5-second countdown stays inactive. I have an airplane with a capacity of 5 passengers, a certified pilot, and the inspector is on board.

To start that mission you normally just need to launch a plane with a pilot and enough empty seats to the runway. Load the inspector from the popup message then set the brakes and wait a few seconds for the take-off clearance message to be displayed. Then fly out to the target location al little bit above 2500m (not too high or it won't register) and then back to the KSC. Land at the runway and taxi to the terminal location near the billboard. Stop and wait a few more seconds for the final confirmation message, after which you can recover the aircraft.

Most of the other contracts follow a similar pattern with you having to pause stationary at various points until you get clearance to continue.

[Misucat]

Oh yes, that's exactly what I'm doing, but this step doesn't validate, the countdown stays at 5 seconds. I've noticed similar validation issues with other contracts outside of this pack; some steps don't validate, forcing me to manually cancel the contract. I play with quite a few mods, including Kerbal Construction Time and KRASH. Most of the time, I accept a contract, simulate my craft before launching the true mission, which validates some steps and sometimes carries over into the persistence.

There might be a way to reset a contract without rejecting it; I'll look into it. Thanks for the help, anyway 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Misucat

[Aelfhe1m]

Yes, I kept running into issues with simulations and eventually gave up on trying to get them to work reliably. Instead, I now run two save games in parallel - one for my full career with part purchases enabled, KCT for building and research delays etc. And a second testing save without part purchases and with KCT disabled in which I design and test my craft before adding them to the build queue in the main save.

It's more of a hassle having to switch between the saves each time I want to design a new vehicle, but that also incentivises me to reuse existing vehicles more heavily, both within a given career and across multiple careers. Importing tried and tested designs from other past saves into my current game.

As for resetting the contract, I think you might want to start by looking at SCENARIO[ContractSystem] in the persistent file (after backing it up of course) that has sub nodes for all the active (and completed) contracts. Setting some of the parameters' states back to "Incomplete" might be a good place to start. (Never tried it myself, so I'm just guessing). I find KML editor is good for messing around with save files in a slightly more structured manner than a plain text editor.

[Misucat]

According to what they say, getting into modding means spending more time tinkering than playing...

After hours and hours of research, reinstalling my entire mods setup (around 200) one by one to find the cause of the problem, I still haven't found the source. It's not Krash that's working perfectly. But no matter, my previous game is ruined. I'll still follow your excellent idea of having a test craft save to incorporate into my new game. Thank you for suggesting that!

I took the opportunity to clean up all the mods, add GAP, which seems to work with GAP Kerbinside, and I'll use this opportunity to focus this new game on planes, something I've never done in KSP since 2011... This mission pack really makes me want to explore aviation and try to learn space planes alongside rockets and see how things played out in the real world. After all, it's also thanks to aviation that we reached Earth's orbit.

Thanks for all the help anyway, it works, so I'll explore all of this with a new approach, and I apologize for my approximate English.

[hall]

With this mod, oftentimes I'll get these Kerbals with different jobs to that of the base game as applicants. What exactly am I meant to do with them?

[Caerfinon]

These are kerbals that make up the passenger classes of the flight missions.

If you use the mods that alter the hiring process then these Kerbals will disappear from Applicants in the Astronaut Complex. 

I've always played with MKS or if you want something less complex TRP-Hire will also do the Trick.

[hall]

On 1/18/2024 at 8:28 AM, Caerfinon said:

These are kerbals that make up the passenger classes of the flight missions.

If you use the mods that alter the hiring process then these Kerbals will disappear from Applicants in the Astronaut Complex. 

I've always played with MKS or if you want something less complex TRP-Hire will also do the Trick.

A bit of a bother since they also end up being the Kerbals in rescue missions, but honestly I can live with it since this contract pack is so fun. 

[Fihnakis]

Is it by design the barnstorm contract keeps repeating? I've completed it twice and it still returns.

[Caerfinon]

20 hours ago, Fihnakis said:

Is it by design the barnstorm contract keeps repeating? I've completed it twice and it still returns.

The barn storming contracts are from another GAP contract pack. However, if you edit the file for the barnstorming contracts and change the setting maxCompletions = 0 to maxCompletions = 1 (or the number of times you want it to repeat) then the contract will only run that many times.

[Fihnakis]

Yep, I just loaded the game and saw they were under Tudor Aerospace contracts which I believe is planes with purpose. Apologies but thank you for pointing me on how to fix it.