[0.22] KSP Story Missions

[Stodgy]

The problem with the current "mission controller extended" is that there is no actual challenge in that you cannot lose if you go broke. This needs to be in the mod : maybe "lose" is the wrong word.

With KSP Story Missions you can only go up in rank if the budget is in the green. If it goes into the red your progress is halted. If it stays there for too long you will not be able to unlock the higher up missions.

There's no direct penalty for killing Kerbals but you have to pay for new recruits. So if you kill too many or leave them stuck in space it will cost you. Try starting a new game and recruiting as many Kerbals as you can from the astronaut complex, then watch how fast the budget goes down.

There's no charge for recruits on easy difficulty, so use that if you like killing Kerbals.

[Stodgy]

I faced this bug as well. It seams you can only track one mission at a time.

Never seen this myself but I'll look into it.

[sfrazer]

Just updated to the latest version after playing around with version 5.1 for awhile.

Is it expected that "revert to launch" or "revert to vehicle assembly" after a launch attempt will still make you use lose money from the budget? Not sure I like that, especially in easy mode. It really punishes experimentation.

[Stodgy]

Revert to Launch and quick loading shouldn't lose you money, except in hardcore mode. Are you really losing money or is just that you see the launch cost pop up every time?

As of version 0.7 a special save file is created at launch time and is loaded when you use revert to launch. This restores everything, including the budget, back to how it was before launch.

There is a bug where it sometimes doesn't work if you use 'Revert to vehicle assembly' then exit to the space center. But exiting the VAB to launch is safe.

[sfrazer]

Ah, maybe I was hitting the bug you mention. Or maybe I'd just been playing for too long yesterday. :-)

Thanks for the reply, and the mod!

[Stodgy]

Version 0.8.3 is available to download from the space port.

It's mostly fixes to handle all the revert to launch edge cases. Reverting to the VAB or going to the space center after launch now work correctly.

The only way I've found to break it now is to use Alt-F4 immediately after launch then load the old save. So don't do that.

Download link

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-22-kspstorymissions/

[Guest]

I just downloaded this and and started The Height Stuff to get an idea of how the plugin works. I must say I am very excited and impressed with what I am seeing so far. This is exactly what I've been waiting for. There is something that concerns me however, and that is the costs for the stock parts, which make little sense to me. For example, a FL-T100 fuel tank that holds 45 liquid fuel costs 110 while the FL-T200 tank which holds 90 liquid fuel costs 225. Shouldn't the fuel/cost ratio remain consistent? Or even a little cheaper because of buying in bulk? There are more examples of this throughout the part inventory. Should I start discussing this here or maybe start a new thread to start getting an idea of what costs should be? For the time being, I'm gonna go ahead and modify the part cfg's to reflect what I think are more logical costs and get going with my space program.

Thank you so much for this, Stodgy. You have renewed my interest in KSP again.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Otis
grammar

[diomedea]

@ Stodgy:

I had a go with your mod, like the idea behind it and think more of it is better.

As I like to play with a number of other mods as well (e.g., RT2, Kethane), I would like to make missions relevant to those, not only to stock KSP. I figure I could make so if it was possible to have conditions for success be based also on the following:

- Orbital parameters: success is achieved only when my ship is within a set tolerance from: requested apoapsis, requested eccentricity (and a derivative: requested orbital period), requested inclination, requested ascending node longitude, requested argument of periapsis and requested anomaly at a set time; not all of them always required, but success depends on having reached all the set parameters at the same time.

- Land position: success is achieved if landed within a set distance from a requested latitude/longitude on a specific body.

- Activation of one or more devices (and possibly other specific actions connected with the peculiar devices) while in a specified orbit or land position.

The above should be repeatable, so to have a single mission require more than one device activation, while in different spots.

While I'm here, I would suggest a small config file was created with each game. Every time I restart KSP and enter any of my games, your mod pops up with its welcome @ the space center proposing a mission; if I am not interested to play with your mod in a specific game, I must always disable it at each game restart.

[chlue]

Hello I so far played about halfway trough the available missions and came here to say that I really like the addon.

Primary things that I enjoyed so far:

- the humor of the missions fits the game style quiet well

- ship name proposals --- actually removes the hardest job in the assembly building

- good matching with the progression in career mode

- so far the variety of missions ensured that the science hunting does not get boring

There are certain points I disliked trough:

- I found 'The Height Stuff Part 7: The Mun Mission' quiet hard with the given budget. This is primary caused by the fact, that the high fuel pipe and stack separator prizes ensure that a medium rocket does not really get cheaper with better staging (lower rocket mass) and some of the more efficient rocket parts were not unlocked by the time I did the mission.

- The orbit precision for 'Nothing on TV' is too hard for my taste. My upper stage had a flywheel included and even quickly rotating the rocket messed up the orbit. I guessed it would have been easier if I had made my transfer stage separateable, but then I had another piece of space junk flying around.

- One could argue if it would be better to have some mission delta-v infos when starting the mission. Due to cost reasons I usually temporary disabled the addon and did some quick test launches/burns before starting to build a fitting rocket. On the other hand finding out the necessary delta-v is actually a nice part of the missions.

- Due to the imbalance of fuel tanks I started to build my rockets mostly with FL-T200 tanks. It would be nice if the addon would limit the price of the imbalanced fueltanks to 2.5 $/fuelunit when calculating the spacecraft cost.

- Science parts are very expensive so additional science parts blow the budget quiet fast. I would like to have the cost of science parts excluded from the rocket cost. This way I don't need to replay a similar mission out of scope of the addon to collect my science points and still keep within budget for the missions. Lets say I always find an anonymous sponsor for my additional science parts who pays the instrument bills as long as I handle the additional rocket costs due to higher mass/instability/enery ussage.

So far keep up the nice work.

[Stodgy]

While I'm here, I would suggest a small config file was created with each game. Every time I restart KSP and enter any of my games, your mod pops up with its welcome @ the space center proposing a mission; if I am not interested to play with your mod in a specific game, I must always disable it at each game restart.

Uploaded version 0.8.4. Use KSPStoryMissions.cfg to change what happens when you start a new game.

[Morashtak]

Hello I so far played about halfway trough the available missions and came here to say that I really like the addon.

Primary things that I enjoyed so far: (ditto)

There are certain points I disliked trough: (ditto)

So far keep up the nice work.

Pretty much this^^ So far I generally enjoy this mod.

A couple of the ideas you mention, chlue, would seem to be something the team and community would have to commit to.

Science items: Yes, these items could not be counted against the take-off budget but could be a end-of-mission cost/reward based on the science points collected. If the user can collect more points than the item costs then a profit is generated. Science points could be converted to cash using the logic that the science would be licensed to outside developers.

Parts/Items: Parts currently fall into the no/no-go category. If the challenge/mission doesn't specifically call for it and the user has not unlocked that part but has a suitable substitute they are not able to complete the mission. Ex. Docking ports - one mission call for a Clamp-o-tron Jr. even tho' the standard Clamp-o-tron is unlocked first. Either one waits until the part is unlocked or one goes into the file and changes the part list requirement. Another problem arises when a mod changes a name of a part to differentiate it from the stock part.

Possible solution: As with classifying plants and animals the community could classify, for example, a Clamp-o-tron Jr as Utility/Docking Port/Clamp-o-tron/COT Small/Clamp-o-Tron Jr. This way a mission could call for any docking port, or any Clamp-o-tron (which rules out anything not in the sub-classification or lower), or any Clamp-o-tron in the small category, or just the COT Jr.

This would make a bit more work for the parts designers but would add a lot more flexibility to mission and challenge designers.

Probably an idea to toss into the General forums for discussion/cussing once I get it all mapped out but that's the skeleton of it.

[Stodgy]

- the humor of the missions fits the game style quiet well

Thanks, I found writing the mission descriptions the hardest part of creating the plugin.

- I found 'The Height Stuff Part 7: The Mun Mission' quiet hard with the given budget.

You're not the only one but most find it hard because of the lack of parts. I think I'll add a mission or two before it to get more science.

[diomedea]

Uploaded version 0.8.4. Use KSPStoryMissions.cfg to change what happens when you start a new game.

That was fast. Thanks.

All fine and smooth with the save I use with your mod. However, with other saves where I don't use your mod, the welcome window proposing the first mission still opens at restart. But now the correct setting is already pre-selected, so I have just to close that window to proceed (one clic, it was three clics before).

However, I may have found a trick. If I edit the file 'KSPStoryMissions.sav' stored with my game, and at line "NextMission = " change the mission to 'nil', no more welcome window opened, just the stock KSP space center.

[sfrazer]

I have a suggestion for the initial "Two is bigger than one" missions:

Require parachutes. Because I am dumb. Not being able to revert or go back meant I had to make a third mission to go rescue Jeb and Bill. And because the first and second ships were unable to de-orbit safely, I got stuck in the mission progression. Had to edit my save file to set myself back to the first mission in the series.

I guess the larger issue is what happens if you mess up an early mission that a later mission depends on. How can you reset?

But yeah, I'm dumb and never realized the goal was to bring them back :-)

[sfrazer]

- The orbit precision for 'Nothing on TV' is too hard for my taste. My upper stage had a flywheel included and even quickly rotating the rocket messed up the orbit. I guessed it would have been easier if I had made my transfer stage separateable, but then I had another piece of space junk flying around.

- One could argue if it would be better to have some mission delta-v infos when starting the mission. Due to cost reasons I usually temporary disabled the addon and did some quick test launches/burns before starting to build a fitting rocket. On the other hand finding out the necessary delta-v is actually a nice part of the missions.

My solution for this was another mod: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-1-kerbal-engineer-redux-v0-5/

The nice thing about Engineer is that you can stick the part on during build and remove it before liftoff if you don't want the expense/information it provides, or put the flight engineer on there and you've got much better information about orbits and surface heights than the stock interface provides.

You could go MechJeb if you wanted, as well, but then I'm tempted to make use of the automated stuff.

- Science parts are very expensive so additional science parts blow the budget quiet fast. I would like to have the cost of science parts excluded from the rocket cost. This way I don't need to replay a similar mission out of scope of the addon to collect my science points and still keep within budget for the missions. Lets say I always find an anonymous sponsor for my additional science parts who pays the instrument bills as long as I handle the additional rocket costs due to higher mass/instability/enery ussage.

Agree with this. Maybe some sort of optional science budget addition? X for the rocket and Y additional for science projects.

[sfrazer]

As I like to play with a number of other mods as well (e.g., RT2, Kethane)

I was playing one of the early versions of Story Missions with RT2 and all of sudden the probe missions were CRAZY out of budget. Because you needed MASSIVE amounts of energy compared to stock. And getting 4 or 5 geo-stationary satellites to stop converging on each other is _really_ difficult :-)

[sfrazer]

So I'm redo-ing the Two is Bigger than One missions. There's a weird bug in the second mission where after I dock the two ships, I can't fast-forward time to complete the 2 minute requirement. If I accelerate time, the clock resets to 2 minutes.

[Stodgy]

So I'm redo-ing the Two is Bigger than One missions. There's a weird bug in the second mission where after I dock the two ships, I can't fast-forward time to complete the 2 minute requirement. If I accelerate time, the clock resets to 2 minutes.

I had the same thing happen to me but never worked out why. What's crazy is when that happens and you go to the space center or another vessel then back to the craft it starts working correctly in fast forward.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Is it compatible with the Kerbal Economy mod?

[diomedea]

I was playing one of the early versions of Story Missions with RT2 and all of sudden the probe missions were CRAZY out of budget. Because you needed MASSIVE amounts of energy compared to stock. And getting 4 or 5 geo-stationary satellites to stop converging on each other is _really_ difficult :-)

Well, yes, I believe that. I know what it takes to build a comms infrastructure using RT2, and you get nowhere without having built it. Indeed my plan would be to add new missions and modify the ones standard to StoryMissions, to accommodate for RT2 and other mods.

I know that getting in a perfect KSO orbit is a daunting task. Even more so, if I want my satellite to be exactly at a specific longitude. I am rather proud having been able to place one of my main comms relay sat within 0,2° on the vertical of KSP, and to make it remain there within 0,1 sec/orbit (I have two such sats in KSO, almost opposite, and they are all I really need in terms of comms to support any other mission). Even so, it takes only 600 orbits (150 days) before moving 1° out of position and needing realignment. But that is what is done IRL with geosync sats, and I don't want (yet) this game to become too easy.

[Stodgy]

Geosync orbits can be hard. In the TV mission I made it easier but less accurate and gave the orbit a 2km height window.

Trying to make the missions compatible with every other mod out there would be an exercise in futility. The included missions are balanced to work with stock costs and parts and that's how it's going to have to stay. But you are free to modify them and/or add missions so they work with another mod. If someone wants to make an RT2 compatible mission pack available for download I'll add a link to the Story Missions spaceport page.

[diomedea]

Trying to make the missions compatible with every other mod out there would be an exercise in futility. ...

But you are free to modify them and/or add missions so they work with another mod. If someone wants to make an RT2 compatible mission pack available for download I'll add a link to the Story Missions spaceport page.

Agreed. My interest for now is in making missions for myself, with the mods I like. Will of course test myself each mission and see to have them balanced in playability, required techs and budget. If I ever get good enough at scripting missions, I may prepare some mission packs to publish with your mod's page.

[Stodgy]

Version 0.8.5 is available for download. Only change is a couple of extra missions in The Height Stuff so you can do more science before the Mun landing. Should make it easier for anyone who was having trouble with that mission.

[DennyTX]

well, i just checked docking/undoking (v 8.4)

	
***
	SuggestedVesselName = GEMINI-MINMUS
	Part = Gemini Command Pod  //(1)
	Part = Gemini Lander Pod      //(2) 

***
prev obj. current vessel 2.
***

OBJECTIVE = Launch  (work)
	{
		Body = Minmus
	}

OBJECTIVE = Dock (not work, i c it in goals, but it want not to perform)
	{
		TargetRequiredPart = 1
	}

EVENT = ForceChangeVessel
	{
		TargetRequiredPart = 1
	}

HINT = Transfer crew back to main Pod.

OBJECTIVE = Undock
	{
		TargetRequiredPart = 2
	}

***
next obj
***

want not work for me. i did it in Chellenge.

[Stodgy]

Send me a private message with the full mission and I'll have a look at it. It may be a bug in the plugin.

One thing I did notice:

Part = Gemini Command Pod //(1)

Part = Gemini Lander Pod //(2)

I'm a bit lazy when loading the configs. Comments have to be on there own line so change that to:

Part = Gemini Command Pod

Part = Gemini Lander Pod