[0.20.2] Mission Controller v0.10 (06/24/2013) [ALPHA]

[UAL002]

This is what my window looks like. Same thing pre-launch. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/902126078585228131/EA37B161D4C02DCC6A73527B296ECAF3F85357DE/

[theSpeare]

What is the different between difficulty settings?

The difficulty settings changes the cost scales. Hard just makes things more expensive, and vice-versa.

[UAL002]

False alarm, I'm waiting for it to boot now, but there was an old MC folder in my gamedata that must have been conflicting. I use JSGME so I'm not sure how I missed it.

EDIT: Nevermind, it was just the folder with the leftover savefile info. Its still doing it.

EDIT 2: OK, I think that I was having my issue thanks to writing out the insurance line for Kerbals with a comma in it. Don't do that.

Edited June 22, 2013 by UAL002

[polypusher]

With the NT Space program addon (couldnt find a separate thread for those) I'm trying to do the first Commercial mission. It says it requires min AP of 688506m and max AP 693506, eccentricity between 0 and 0.01.

I'm positive I've met these requirements but the min AP is always red. Any thoughts? I'm thinking that the min AP is actually supposed to be min PE. The fact that this is JUST inside the atmosphere is making the mission extra-hard apart from these apparent bugs.

Additionally, there's a bug with the flavor text. It says it requires 4x Communotron 88-88, 1x Communotron 16. In the actual mission goals those two are reversed, you need 4x long antennae and 1 of the dishes.

[Ession]

those numbers are not inside the atmosphere. Those are 688-695 kilometers.

[penfold]

I'm using impossible innovations mod with MC and it has worked fine until now but MC is now telling me that the engines in the mod cost billions of cash could you plz look into it ....

[nobody44]

I'm using impossible innovations mod with MC and it has worked fine until now but MC is now telling me that the engines in the mod cost billions of cash could you plz look into it ....

That is because the costs for an engine is determined by its ISP and its thrust. The engines in this particular mod are not balanced and have very high ISP + thrust.

I probably won't fix that, because the only way to change it is to use the old way and I don't like the old way.

Well, you could disable the plugin temporarily.

[EvilotionCR2]

This mod looks very good! My favourite CZ-SK let's player Vladoportos (he's too on this forum),did videos about it,and I immediately good hooked in! Just installed it,never played,but looks fun!

[penfold]

That is because the costs for an engine is determined by its ISP and its thrust. The engines in this particular mod are not balanced and have very high ISP + thrust.

I probably won't fix that, because the only way to change it is to use the old way and I don't like the old way.

Well, you could disable the plugin temporarily.

ok ty for the explanation

[SchroedingersHat]

I've encountered another bug, but unfortunately I can't reproduce it. The cost for liquid engines varied by about a factor of 5 between one visit to the VAB and the next. The change happened when I used the rewind function.

Edit: Found it. Your debug version uses default values for all the difficulty coefficients until you hit save and close at which point it uses the values that the input boxes default to.

Edited June 23, 2013 by SchroedingersHat

[KJTheGinger]

OK, so I seem to be having a problem in which the mission options are greyed out and I can't select them. Some of the files for the mission packs are in .sp formats, and others in .txt.

The menu looks like this. I'll try to provide whatever information I can.

[theSpeare]

I'm really really pleading for the return of pricing by part costs - or at least the ability to toggle between the modes of pricing by mass and cost. Please return this feature.

[veryinky]

I was writing commercial missions, namely setup geostationary com network, weather satellites, GPS then hit a snag with the GPS satellite network as there's no way to require a specific MNA.

3h:00m:45s to 3h:00m:55s, 0.0 to 0.002ecc, inclination of 54.75 to 55.25, lan of +/- .5 of 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, 320, MNA of +/- 0.05 0, 1.571, 3.14159, 4.712

It's 24 GPS missions.

I've already written 6 geostationary comsat using that new repeatingsamevessel parameter.

Also weather satellites is getting a structural fuselage (sat body), 4 sensors, 200 electricity and a Communotron 88-88 (sat dish) into a random orbit.

I'm testing repeating "commercial passenger" missions, which are brining 2 hitchhiker cans into suborbital/orbit/orbit around the mun/orbit around minmus, then land on kerbin, with a huge (100k) bonus for landing at KSC. Not sure if they're fun though.

Also two missions which either require bringing one or 3 kerbals into orbit, docking with something (presumably a space station) at 600km, then landing with the same number of kerbals. Simulating a shift change/resupply.

[Snillum101]

I'm really really pleading for the return of pricing by part costs - or at least the ability to toggle between the modes of pricing by mass and cost. Please return this feature.

I'm sorry to say I have to agree. I really thought the previous way of doing things was much better. I understand its difficult to balance things but the current charging by mass makes heavy simple structures wildly expensive.

[SchroedingersHat]

I'm sorry to say I have to agree. I really thought the previous way of doing things was much better. I understand its difficult to balance things but the current charging by mass makes heavy simple structures wildly expensive.

Here's a thought to throw out there although I don't know how much extra work it'd create:

Use the cost value for parts, but by default generate cfg files which override costs with the current set of formulae. If there is a cfg file with the same name as a mod's folder present in the mission controller directory then there will be no autogenerated one.

People can tweak the autogenerated cfg files for their favourite mods and post them, then nobody44 can pick some people to maintain a reasonably canonical set of cfgs much like there is available for modular fuel tanks.

The main down side I can see is stomping on the cost value for any other mods that use it or want to use it (I know of none of hand).

[itsme86]

I'm sorry to say I have to agree. I really thought the previous way of doing things was much better. I understand its difficult to balance things but the current charging by mass makes heavy simple structures wildly expensive.

I agree. I even find the LV-T30 and LV-T45 engines prohibitively expensive. It's very difficult to use one and still break even on a mission.

[veryinky]

Personally, I like the new price scheme since it rewards re-usable spacecraft. I would increase the mission rewards to match the new costs though.

[asmi]

I think we need to create a simple database for all parts and manually assign price to each and every part out there. Because it seems that auto algorithms don't quite work in all cases. For example, currently almost any stock mission is a net loss since cost of just two engines is over the rewards.

[Artophwar]

I like the current system. May need some slight rebalancing but there are also difficulty settings. You can drop it down to easy. I have gone through on medium and even had a few failures here and there, (mainly forgetting parachutes, lol) and I did drop into the red momentarily but Im now back on track and at a couple hundred thousand. I find that you need to use solid rockets and LV-909 for most of the early missions. LV-45s are overpowered for those missions anyway. The only mission reward that I found was way too low so far was the Vostock III where you have to dock two craft, since you have to pay for two craft.

Again overall I like the new system. Some mission rewards may need to be tweaked and maybe then base engine cost dropped very slightly.

[SchroedingersHat]

I think we need to create a simple database for all parts and manually assign price to each and every part out there. Because it seems that auto algorithms don't quite work in all cases. For example, currently almost any stock mission is a net loss since cost of just two engines is over the rewards.

It works out okay if you have a fairly minimal rocket design for each payload. Also use boosters for boosting for getting off the ground as you only pay for fuel, not thrust unlike liquid engines and it is very hard to recover liquid stages discarded while your apoapsis is in atmo. My main complaint is it's very difficult to design the right rocket without a much bigger collection of parts than stock. Although he only viable strategies I've found for hard mode are recovering your first stage every time, and spaceplanes.

Also hard mode is hard when you're also playing with deadly reenty and remotetech. I might have to write a set of infrastructure missions because getting started on hard without anything is super difficult (*shakes fist at nobody44 for adding the landing requirement to most of the early missions* I need those satellites, damnit).

Side note: Idea -- missions that require a part containing a specific module rather than a specific part. Communotron 16s everywhere are so boring. Also there are other mods with sensors which sometimes fit an aesthetic a bit better.

Edited June 23, 2013 by SchroedingersHat

[asmi]

It works out okay if you have a fairly minimal rocket design for each payload. Also use boosters for boosting for getting off the ground as you only pay for fuel, not thrust unlike liquid engines and it is very hard to recover liquid stages discarded while your apoapsis is in atmo. My main complaint is it's very difficult to design the right rocket without a much bigger collection of parts than stock. Although he only viable strategies I've found for hard mode are recovering your first stage every time, and spaceplanes.

I'm playing with FAR, and I've found it extremely hard to guarantee that I can get every launch to space when using SRBs - every once in a while it flips over. Since I'm on a tight dV budget, I don't have extra dV to compensate for flips (if they didn't cause rocket to fall apart).

With liquids though I have total success.

[SchroedingersHat]

I'm playing with FAR, and I've found it extremely hard to guarantee that I can get every launch to space when using SRBs - every once in a while it flips over. Since I'm on a tight dV budget, I don't have extra dV to compensate for flips (if they didn't cause rocket to fall apart).

With liquids though I have total success.

Stabilizers are cheap with the current pricing scheme. If you want to stop it from flipping: weight up, drag/lift down -- think of a dart. The little tiltable winglet will give you control when you don't have vectoring, but without FAR to tone it down, it'll be rather extreme for a small rocket, a SAS wheel, or one of the less agressive ASAS type things (like mechjeb or maybe an avionics package) may help in that regard. When I'm using solid boosters I just use tail fins and go straight up.

If you have FAR then one of the farings (such as AEIS or KW) will definitely pay for the extra cost/weight in terms of controlability and reduced drag (it merely adds more drag if you don't) also add nosecaps (again worse than useless with stock drag model).

[Zirc]

Why normal LV liquid engine cost so much? (25k)

[Jipsu]

This is indeed great mod overall. Only thing I miss is way to set this mod so that it allow you to play sandbox without budget going negative. I would like to try different vehicles to beat the goal. Now when I do that, I ruin my budget on mission 2 and feel like I want to start from beginning. One way is to make one save with this mod and one without, maybe different ksp installation, but if I play the game and decide I want to try mission, I had to launch game again and that wouldn't make any sense. So I suggest button that allow you to enable and disable vehicle cost subtract from budget (disabling it would prevent complete missions naturally). That way you can see vehicle cost (I like to see it) and you can decide when do missions and when just playing sandbox.

[veryinky]

So I suggest button that allow you to enable and disable vehicle cost subtract from budget (disabling it would prevent complete missions naturally). That way you can see vehicle cost (I like to see it) and you can decide when do missions and when just playing sandbox.

Isn't there a turn costs on/off button in the configuration menu? It still lists the vehicle price.