(KSP 1.10 + 1.12 ) Mission Controller 3.2.0 (Final Version) (Updated 6/25/2021)

[malkuth]

Make sure the mod is not disabled and for any of changes to take hold in settings you have to push the save button. But it does work. The only way you don't get nothing Is if your in testing mode or disabled mode.

[Sandworm]

I;m working on a mission pack, but am having trouble with parts goals. Setting requirements for stock parts is easy (ie partName = longAntenna) but I cannot figure out how to set requirement for mod parts (ie partName = kethane_highGain). In fact I cannot seem to set requirements for ANY stock part.

Is this an error on my end or is this a coding issue? Is MissionController only looking to the squad directory for parts names?

[malkuth]

I'm not sure wont be home this weekend to check it out. But I suggest take a look at the other packs and see how they did it. I know for sure you can use any stock part. Check the github page on either my fork version or nobody version. Mission creation has not been touched by my version.

[malkuth]

I know when I made my packs I had to go onto the parts config file to find out its actuall name. Only place you can find it since the game name is usually different then Cfg name.

[Diche Bach]

Not sure if this could be done differently, but little idea I have for the mod.

So I did the two level 1 missions from stock and NT Space Program and (finally!) after numerous tries managed to get 'em done (RT makes it a lot more difficult with that whole Line of Sight thing; basically I resorted to just sending my two probes straight up and then as straight back down as I could manage). Anyway good fun.

So I decided next mission I'd do in my campaign would be your repeatable Comms Satellite one Malkuth. I had me a good rocket for this that I had come up with from playing the "Campaign" (self imposed) on the wiki and I modified it slightly to be more cost effective. I had one of the stock expandable dishes and three of the stock long antennas on it.

The ship itself is three stages. A central fuselage that is two stages, top one being the satellite and small liquid engine with inline dock to get it into geosynch orbit right over KSC. The second stage are two radial rockets and all three initial engines LVT-30.

Thinking that maybe I could recoup some of the losses by recovering and 'recycling the bottom stages that drop off on the way up, I put a small Remote Tech RC antenna which includes remote control and parachutes on all of them. They did parachute safely to the ground, and I was able to recover them, but didn't seem to get any money back for them.

So if it would be possible to extend the recycling function to debris on the ground that can be recovered that would be cool.

It was only after I had launched the thing the first time that I realized "Hey this isn't gonna work. You need a crew on this thing in order to get this satellite in orbit . . . " . . . DOH!

So yeah, restart one more time I guess

This mod with RT is pretty challenging and fun.

[NathanKell]

RT is great for MC. Although you totally don't need a crew, just use the flight computer. I've managed to orbit, and safely deorbit, a satellite for MC, with no com satellites, using RT--you just have to carefully queue your retro burn just under the horizon from KSC, so you'll be in contact when you want to pop chutes. RT2, with DCPU-16 integration, will make that tons easier.

Also, you can totally put a satellite in KEO, or pretty much any orbit, by carefully queuing flight computer commands, even in RT1.

As you can see from my mission reports thread, I've recently taken to creating a small ground tracking network first--more realism, and it gives me a little larger above-horizon window for satellite maneuvers.

NathanKell, proud KSP "Hard Mode" (FAR+RT+DRE+MC) player.

Oh, as for recycling--remember that in MC in .21, until we can make it work better, you have to first recycle the craft through the MC interface (i.e. switch focus to the craft/debris, open MC window, choose Recycle ONLY ONCE) and only then go to tracking station and recover it.

[Diche Bach]

Cool. I'll have to check out the flight computer more closely. Not seeing a thread in your posts that seems to be a "mission reports thread."

On recycling: so, if I have a three stage ship

3rd: two radial fuselages with a RT RC antenna and chutes that are set to auto deploy when the rockets are decoupled

2nd: central lower section of the main rocket, also with a remote control equipped command module and parachutes.

1st stage: satellite that will stay in orbit forever

I won't be able to recycle the 3rd and 2nd stages because the final portion of the ship is staying in space?

If I were to divide stage 1 into two separate portions: the satellite that stays in space forever, and a lower portion that returns to Kerbin would I then be able to recycle the dropped 3rd and 2nd stages?

Or is it just a matter of completing the mission? and then I'll be able to recover all the "debris" that I dropped and recycle it for more cash?

[NathanKell]

Sorry, meant my thread in the Mission Reports subforum, it's called the KATO Space Race.

(In the most recent mission I deployed chute only 3 seconds before losing contact with the ground station--whew!)

Any vessel (debris, probe, ship, base, whatever) that is either (1) landed on Kerbin (landed on land) or (2) splashed down on Kerbin (landed at sea) can be recycled. You get 85% of the cost in case (1) and 65% in case (2). You also get 95% of the cost of the remaining fuel.

Note that any vessel below 25km altitude will be unloaded (silently destroyed) if it goes outside of view range of the active vessel. Stock view range is 2.5km. (Lazor systems can change this)

In order to have a reliably recoverable earlier stage you must either:

(a) drop it such that it lands/splashes down before you get 2.5km away.

( take it to orbit with you, then land it/splash it down separately. (i.e. change focus from your safely orbiting payload to the stage you want to recycle, then land the stage).

Once your vessel is safe on the ground/water, you can switch focus to it (if you're not already controlling it) and then go to the MC window and choose recycle. Then you can exit to tracking station and recover it.

(I'm currently working on a line of mostly-reusable MC/FAR/DRE compatible boosters that allow for this.)

One change I hope to make is to check on vessel unloading in atmo if there is sufficient drag (parachutes) or deltaV (for a powered descent) and auto-recycle.

[NathanKell]

Sandworm, this is an artifact of how KSP handles parts with underscores in their names. Change the underscore to a period in the mission package and it will work.

[Jackson Mackenzie]

Okay, so I figured out my problem. I didn't realize that a) you had to claim finished missions manually, that you had to recycle your craft manually before recovering them, and c) that you had to do both of these things while still controlling the craft.

Perhaps these things should be noted in the readme? I guess to most people they seem obvious but they sure as heck weren't obvious to me. I usually have a great many MechJeb displays open for orbital info, surface conditions, etc. and my graphics card is about as powerful as a cabbage (ergo low resolution), so I was keeping the MCE window minimized when I wasn't actively selecting missions and so I didn't notice the changes in the window; I was trying to check the status of finished missions after craft recovery from the space center.

Playing the mod with great gusto now, however, and it works a treat. Great work!

[Sandworm]

Sandworm, this is an artifact of how KSP handles parts with underscores in their names. Change the underscore to a period in the mission package and it will work.

Thanks, that seems to have worked!

I;m calling it a night. Here is what I've been working on. These mission packs are very crude. Unlike squad, when I say alpha I mean ALPHA. There are two packs (military and civilian). Both attempt to simulate realworld missions, drawing from realworld data wherever possible. Eventually the military pack will include manned missions such as Almaz/Skylab (w/ Ioncross crew support) but right now it's just sats. The civilian pack focuses on exploration and discovery of Kethane.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5q6a8nortwqowl/Sandworm_Packs_ALPHA.rar

Edited August 3, 2013 by Sandworm

[NathanKell]

If you ever have doubts as to how KSP will name a part, create a vessel with that part, save it, and open the craft file in notepad. Look for your part. Strip off the _NUMBERS at the end, and that's the internal part name.

[Diche Bach]

Sorry, meant my thread in the Mission Reports subforum, it's called the KATO Space Race.

(In the most recent mission I deployed chute only 3 seconds before losing contact with the ground station--whew!)

Thanks I will check that out

The thing I love about this mod is it adds in that strategy element of calculating tradeoffs: leave a part or two off to make it cheaper or use less fuel . . . saves money up front, but will you be able to finish the mission?

Been trying (without consistent success) to use absolute barebones probes to do the first couple mission (like 5500 and 6900 $ probes) and it really brings out the challenge more than the sandbox. Really terrific stuff.

Any vessel (debris, probe, ship, base, whatever) that is either (1) landed on Kerbin (landed on land) or (2) splashed down on Kerbin (landed at sea) can be recycled. You get 85% of the cost in case (1) and 65% in case (2). You also get 95% of the cost of the remaining fuel.

Note that any vessel below 25km altitude will be unloaded (silently destroyed) if it goes outside of view range of the active vessel. Stock view range is 2.5km. (Lazor systems can change this)

In order to have a reliably recoverable earlier stage you must either:

(a) drop it such that it lands/splashes down before you get 2.5km away.

( take it to orbit with you, then land it/splash it down separately. (i.e. change focus from your safely orbiting payload to the stage you want to recycle, then land the stage).

Once your vessel is safe on the ground/water, you can switch focus to it (if you're not already controlling it) and then go to the MC window and choose recycle. Then you can exit to tracking station and recover it.

Okay, that is very clear. Thanks for that!

One change I hope to make is to check on vessel unloading in atmo if there is sufficient drag (parachutes) or deltaV (for a powered descent) and auto-recycle.

Well I send you lots of good energy and encouragement to see if you can implement that, because neither (a) nor ( sound particularly useful. If you drop it under 2500 m then you aren't getting a whole lot of use out of it in the first place, so it is probably a fairly dinky rocket+tank that hardly seems worth using in the first place much less saving with a chute.

If you carry the empty tank and engine into space with you . . . well I guess that isn't terrible, but it does seriously bite into the efficiency to not just jettison that extra weight when it is no longer adding thrust.

It is a shame the engine works it that way.

Would it be possible to do a work around like this: put a very light command module on each fuselage that you drop. After it decouples and as long as your still ascending stage is stable and can handle itself for a few seconds, switch to the jettisoned stage and make it active for a little while, perhaps activate its chute if it wasn't already set to blow with the stage change?

Would that maybe work around it and make the piece count as a landed ship that wouldn't despawn? I'm guessing probably not and as soon as you switch back to the actual ascending stage, it would once again calculate distance to the dropped pieces and destroy them if it was >25km eh?

Anyway, it is very nice to experience the game with some operational constraints that make one analyse the tradeoffs in striving toward a goal. Thanks for a great addition to KSP!

ADDIT: Oh waitaminute. Lazor Systems can change view range eh? Might have to check that out as I have the Lazor docking thing installed!

Edited August 3, 2013 by Diche Bach

[malkuth]

The problem is that once you leave that ksp range. Things like parachutes no longer work. Even if you have a probe body on it. So the item will just hit ground and die anyway.

For right now what Nathan says is the only way I can think of saving staged parts. Get it on the ground you are golden. It's the getting it on ground part that's hard without direct control.

[NathanKell]

You're most welcome! But most thanks go to nobody44, who created this and did most all the work.

I'm guessing probably not and as soon as you switch back to the actual ascending stage, it would once again calculate distance to the dropped pieces and destroy them if it was >25km eh?

Yup. Except it's >2.5km stock. The pairing is >2.5km away, <25km altitude.

Lazor will let you up the first number to whatever you want, but it can (a) get buggy and ( get SLOOOOW. I usually play with 25km view distance, or did on .20; for now I'm running stock.

As to not staging away your booster: here's some tricks you can do:

(a) Launch to a high apoapsis, separate a bit early, and circularize to a lower orbit. Then switch back to the booster and ride it down.

( Make the boost stage do 75%+ of the work and only circularize with either payload engine or a throwaway light stage. Ride the booster down.

© Go for a high orbit. Even if you have to do multiple stages (3+), you may have time to ride your first stage down before your payload reaches apoapsis! Assuming high enough TWR on the upper stages of course.

Note that (a) will probably only work without DRE; G force will kill you if you come down near-vertical from a high Ap.

What I try to do for light (<2t payload) rockets is have a booster that supplies 75%+ of the dV; it will burn out with an Ap of 80 and a Pe of, like, -40 or less. That's survivable, just. Then have a light circ stage that I throw away; it'll cost only maybe 500k, or did last time I actually played the game. :]

So stage away at Ap, burn to circ, then switch back to booster and ride it down. Note that to do this, you really need your sat network up and running, since the splashdown from a KSC launch will be far over the horizon.

Edited August 3, 2013 by NathanKell

[NathanKell]

Costs in VAB parts list are now correct! And various other fixes. I'll try to put out 0.14 while malkuth is away.

[rosenkranz]

I'd really like to see the auto-recycle on vessel unload thing. That would be very nice and would IMHO patch a real deficiency in the base game.

This would also promote spaceship one type launches as well from space planes or large aircraft. Though calculating the dV of an aircraft can be difficult, however an aircraft 1st stage should not have any trouble with dV.

[teacherboi]

Great mod, I love it! However, on some of the missions where you have to keep a craft in orbit for a certain amount of time need some adjustment. Right now I'm on the Civilian Mission 08, and I have to keep a low orbit for a day. The thing is, that I can only fast forward to 100x speed. So far it has been over 10 minutes of just sitting here staring at a circling craft waiting for the clock to run out.

Perhaps either higher orbits for day+ missions, or shorter times? Thanks.

[malkuth]

Hmmm I thought I fixed most of those to be more reasonable.. I will work on them..

[Ph34rb0t]

A wholehearted "Thank you!" for this one! This is just what I've always wanted for KSP!

No more text file based record keeping, no more self-motivation. Awesome!

One quick bug report: The whole module seemed to have crashed after failing the "Sputnik I" mission. Stupid me did not pack a parachute for landing and the whole probe smacked a nice crater into Kerbin. Anyway, the icon for the module vanished from every menu after mission failure.

[maackey]

The descriptions are plagued with terrible grammar and punctuation, and it really detracts from the whole experience. But it seems like your original post doesn't have the same level of mistakes (well, double periods show up again..), surely this isn't intentional? Do you proof-read the descriptions at all?

[malkuth]

The descriptions are plagued with terrible grammar and punctuation, and it really detracts from the whole experience. But it seems like your original post doesn't have the same level of mistakes (well, double periods show up again..), surely this isn't intentional? Do you proof-read the descriptions at all?

I wrote the missions a long time ago With notepad. Wasn't very easy to make the punctuations in those type of conditions. When I get the time I will try to fix them.. More important things to take care of right now. There are other mission packs if the ones I supplied don't make you happy. The default one is pretty good.

[malkuth]

Changes In .14:

More updates Yay. This time From NathanKell Thank him! he did some pretty neat things in this version.

1. Cost in VAB Displays are now in Line with MC. Pretty big change now is that you can see exactly how much that part is going to cost you in the parts description. MC Brings all part cost to its formula and rewrites them to The Description of that part.

2. Added a comma for those big numbers.. IE MAX AP MINPE and other mission goal numbers now should read with a comma.. And also prices in the MC window.

3. All Mission Times in My Mission Packs have been edited to more reasonable times… I think the largest one is now only 4 hours. Which is only minutes in time acceleration.

4. Part names from Description Now Show Up in The Mission Goals.. Before it was Part .cfg file names.. This should help you with what part it is you actually need. ##For Mission Editors only ## you still need to use the Part .cfg name! Don’t forget to replace Underscore with a period (Example Part_Coolname_Awsome.. Will be written like this in mission Part.Coolname.Awsome))

5. Last Update and what we would like you guys to test out for us. The Auto Recycle of Spent Stages has been implemented. These are some of the rules for this new AutoRecycle.

A. Notes on auto-recycling: This is a test Version Of Auto Recycle.

B. You need 70 drag per ton (approx 0.15 parachute mass per ton, more if using drogues)

C. You only get 60% of dry cost (and nothing else) back. Crew is still dead, for example.

Check the Main post for download.

Just in case something is up with this I will keep the download for .13 up.

Edited August 3, 2013 by malkuth

[Sandworm]

Is there some way/place where we can share mission packages? I'm working away on a couple, but don't want to spam the thread each time I post an update.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ipk5xlroqaq2qj9/Sandworm_Civilian_ALPHA-2.mpkg (Requires Kethane for some, but not all, missions)

[NathanKell]

Ph34rb0t, has it occurred again? Do you have output.log? Can't do much without that I'm afraid.

Sandworm, no place as yet. Please feel free to spam so far, and maybe malkuth can use the bottom of the OP to list packs?

A note on costs:

All costs in the VAB/SPH are correct for DRY costs. Wet costs, i.e. fuel, will not show. That's why tanks look so cheap. Don't be fooled, however. There's no good way that comes to mind to have fuel costs show up in the VAB but not mess up launch and recycle costs. Maybe I'll think of something, but for now, accept that you'll only see dry costs.

A note on autorecycling:

PLEASE test this out and let me know how it works. For now it only works with parachutes; there's no support for gliding or powered descents yet.