Random question - any way to convert a Sandbox Save to Career Mode?

[darkstrike]

Hi all!

I figure there is a way to do this, but I'm not sure how! Would there be a way to adjust a persistence file to change it from Sandbox mode to Career Mode, and give yourself like....40 starting science or some such? I'm proud of what I've done in my latest, recently-started Sandbox mode game, and would love to be able to continue it in Career mode

I would think there would just have to be some lines I edit in the persistence file to change it....?

[RunningGloves]

Backup your saves, create fresh Career and Sandbox games, compare them to find differences and edit away. At a glance in a career save the persistent.sfs file has something near the very top called Mode set to 1, maybe changing that to a 0 might swap it.

There's also a block headed SCENARIO with a line reading sci = [number]. I'm guessing that's the stored amount of science you've got.

Just bear in mind that brute-forcing a career into a sandbox or vice-versa may have unintended consequences. Unless you know the system inside and out like a Squad dev then you may never track down all of the things which might affect the conversion.

[KatzOhki]

I'm hoping so. I think once I complete the tech tree in career I will eat to do that too.

[darkstrike]

@ RunningGloves - Yeah, I've noticed one or two things as well....the Mode switch, and also the title reading "Sandbox" rather than "CAREER"....I'll probably back up my save and see what I can do!

[Scarecrow88]

I struggle a little to understand why someone would want to do this. As far as I am concerned, Sandbox and Career are distinctly different games and give the player the opportunity to play two styles of KSP. Want a bit of fun with no restrictions or thought process with regard to where your actions take you, play Sandbox style. Want something with a bit more structure to give purpose to each of your flights, play Career. Why would you want to mix the two, unless you are really impatient and want to 'cheat' your way through the Career tech tree?

With the game as it currently stands, it's not an either/or situation; you can play both.

[JumpsterG]

I think there could be circumstances where you'd like to prepare a world by playing in sandbox first, then start playing career with various objects already launched or set in place.

For example, you might use sandbox combined with hyperedit to build scenarios in which abandoned satellites/vessels from other failed space programs are still floating around. Or create "alien" objects of interest to visit. Then, switch the game to career mode and set yourself interesting goals around these objects: capturing and deorbiting junk satellites, reactivating abandoned stations, visiting the historic first Mun landing site, rescuing a Kerbal stranded by another space program, rendesvous with a "mysterious" object found in solar orbit...

I think I might have to look into creating scenarios... This sounds like a lot of fun.

[Scarecrow88]

As there will be no science reward for rescuing abandoned craft or de-orbiting junk etc., why not just set yourself those goals within Sandbox mode?

[capi3101]

Ain't really much of a point in converting a Sandbox save to a Career save for now - right now the point of Career appears to be unlocking the tech tree so you can get all the parts. Converting the Sandbox defeats that purpose (let's face it: we've all become attached to our Mainsails).

Now, this might be useful in the future (when money comes into play). I can also see someone who's already unlocked the entire tech tree wanting to convert it over (that way they get in all their expensive missions now, before money counts for something).

[RunningGloves]

I struggle a little to understand why someone would want to do this.

The thing with single player sandbox games is that there's always going to be a small number of people who want to do something obscure which probably isn't going to appeal to the majority of people. Just look at Whackjob's crazy contraptions, I'm sure they can think of something which would really help them in their crazy quests but which wouldn't help the majority of people who stick to sane builds.

It might be something as simple as not wanting to lose all of your old ships/probes/flags, but wanting to run through the tech tree as well. Just imagine it as a new storyline:

To celebrate their latest launch, the KSC staff organise a party. Jeb is mortified that nobody organised fireworks, and stomps off to make his own out of the only things he could get his hands on: rocket parts. Fifteen minutes later and the launchpad has been obliterated, the rest of the KSC is damaged beyond repair and the engineers have run for the hills.

After building a new KSC out of cardboard, Jeb tries to restart the space program. Unfortunately, the schematics for all of the old parts went up in smoke with the old KSC and the only parts which Jeb didn't use were the ones which he thought were too puny for his badass fireworks display.

Your priorities are:

• Use your collection of Puny Parts to collect observations and samples around Kerbin. These will help you to track down the wussy engineers who legged it during the fireworks display.
  
• Start sending basic missions into orbit and collect more science. The observations will help the few engineers who didn't run away to redesign the bigger rocket components from scratch.
  
• Make contact with all of your old missions. We can't remember how many astronauts we'd sent up before Jeb destroyed the old KSC, so you might want to send empty capsules in case anyone has been waiting for a taxi ride home.
  

It'd just be nice to run through the whole tech tree without getting rid of your old missions or having to switch back-and-forwards between saves I think.

[JumpsterG]

As there will be no science reward for rescuing abandoned craft or de-orbiting junk etc., why not just set yourself those goals within Sandbox mode?

It's true, you could just play scenarios through in Sandbox but playing through career would give you the option of attempting these with restricted tech levels. i.e. you may know about the Kerbal who was stranded on Duna right from day 1, but you'd have to decide at what point you have good enough tech and infrastructure to reach him. (Why another space agency has Duna-capable rockets and you don't notwithstanding...). Again, sure you could just restrict what tech you use manually in sandbox mode, but career gives you an in-game framework for the restriction and a gameplay way to lift the restriction as you need to.

Sure, no reward can be dispensed for these psuedo-missions, but you could either reward yourself a reasonable amount of science by editing your save, or understand that you're doing it for something interesting to do, rather than for a carrot on a stick.

[automcdonough]

If you're referring to a particular craft you built, I assume you could copy that file over.. then unlock tech tree until all the parts used on it are available. I have not tried this though.

As far as the whole save, I doubt it.

[Hurry- Starfish!]

Hi!

I wanted do the same thing, and I found out how:

Open your persistent.sfs in a text editor. Between the sections SCENARIO (with "name = ProgessTracking" in it) and FLIGHTSTATE (just to be sure, dunno if the location actually matters), add

	SCENARIO
	{
		name = ResearchAndDevelopment
		scene = 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
		sci = 40
	}

The sci value is your amount of science points.

The scene parameter seems to determine which "scenes"/screens of the game career mode is active in:

• 5 is the space center overview, which means you can open the R&D facility from there.
  
• 6 and 9 are the VAB and SPH respectively. If you remove those from the list, you'll always have all parts available for building. So you essentially get a sandbox mode, except you can do the science experiments in it.
  
• 7 and 8 I dunno, but they're probably flight mode and either the tracking station or the map view.
  

Also, at the top of your savefile, there are the lines

	Title = [...] (SANDBOX)
	Description = No description available.
	Mode = 0

You might want to change "(SANDBOX)" to "(CAREER)" and set the mode to 1 there. I haven't noticed any effect of this yet, but if nothing else it'll lower the probability of stuff breaking with the next updates.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Hurry, Starfish!

[darkstrike]

Thanks for the info Starfish, I managed to figure the same thing out myself! My save game is still working fine!

[Hurry- Starfish!]

I struggle a little to understand why someone would want to do this.

Ain't really much of a point in converting a Sandbox save to a Career save for now - right now the point of Career appears to be unlocking the tech tree so you can get all the parts. Converting the Sandbox defeats that purpose (let's face it: we've all become attached to our Mainsails)

For me, the appeal of career mode is the science experiments. I always thought there should be more science parts for cool space stations, elaborate missions and such. And now they're here - except they're unusable in my savegame. I don't want to lose my stations and satellites. And it hasn't been very long since I was a beginner at this game, so I don't feel like going through the tech tree and doing all the basic stuff over again just yet.

That's my personal motivation for this, though I don't know what darkstrike's is.

The thing with single player sandbox games is that there's always going to be a small number of people who want to do something obscure which probably isn't going to appeal to the majority of people.

And it's possible! Hooray for PC gaming and open games like this

[slaintemaith]

Open your persistent.sfs in a text editor. Between the sections SCENARIO (with "name = ProgessTracking" in it) and FLIGHTSTATE (just to be sure, dunno if the location actually matters), add

	SCENARIO
	{
		name = ResearchAndDevelopment
		scene = 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
		sci = 40
	}

Should one -add- these lines, or -replace- the existing lines with these lines?