[1.8.x] DMagic Orbital Science: New Science Parts [v1.4.3] [11/2/2019]

[Holyvision]

This happens when there is some conflicting or duplicate science experiment definitions. It has happened before with older versions of the Lionhead landers and probes; the latest version won't have that problem. I don't see anything in your list that would cause this conflict, but maybe there is some stray ScienceDefs.cfg file hiding somewhere in your GameData folder.

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I don't expect anything to be broken here by 0.24.1, but if anyone notices any problems let me know.

Thanks for tip I'll check it out

[DMagic]

i think this was a mistake myself. not even science alert works right with this mod since then. if i have say 2 goo containers then science alert will only open the first one and ignore that i have 2. mod worked great before you changed to this new science monitoring system.

Science Alert should work fine as it is the only mod to properly handle custom science experiments. When my mod is used with Science Alert there should be no functional difference between how it worked in version 0.8.1 and how it works now.

I'm not sure that the behavior you describe has anything to do with how I've setup my mod. Are you talking about stock goo containers or my Universal Storage goo containers? Science Alert doesn't treat the two differently, it just checks if the experiment can be conducted in the current location and how much it is worth.

I'm curious as to the logic behind putting the multi-spectral scanner in the construction branch.

The lower branches of the tech tree are already too packed with science experiments, so I put somewhere else.

Edited July 25, 2014 by DMagic

[gooddog15]

yay, new parts!

[ranathane]

Magnetometer Boom not working in 0.24.2. Can't deploy. Neither US or reg can be deployed. Neither in x32 or x64. Using biomes, proc fairings, kw rocketry, infernal robotics, modmanager 2.2, FAR, MechJEB2, ScanSAT, US, Lazor, Editor Extensions. All are 24.2 versions. Probably something simple. Love the mod!

Disregard!!! Had an old DMagic.dll hiding in the ksp\plugins folder. Working good now. Sorry.

Edited July 27, 2014 by ranathane

[DMagic]

I've been working on several contract types for the next update.

All of these contracts are only given in limited numbers, preventing contract spam, and all of them require that you at least reach Kerbin space before being generated. When a contract asks for a specific experiment it also checks if the part associated with that experiment is actually available, so no impossible contracts will be generated.

There is a config file with settings that allow you to modify the amount of Funds given (and taken in case of failure), the amount of science returned, and the amount of reputation earned.

This config file also contains a list of all the science experiments. Each experiment has several values associated with it that are used in assigning different contract types. All of my experiments (except the anomaly scanner, which requires special treatment) and all of the non-Kerbal (this is an unmanned-focused mod after all) stock experiments have been added. Any standard science experiment could be added so long as the proper format is followed.

Contract descriptions are also included in this config file, allowing for easy creation of more; they make sense too.

The simplest type of contract is just an extension of the regular science contracts. Instead of asking for any science from a particular body these will ask for a specific experiment in a specific location, and biome in some cases. These contracts are selected based on the currently available science parts and your progression through career mode. These contracts aren't repeatable and they are only given for experiments that still have remaining science to collect, ie. they won't ask you to conduct an experiment with only 1 or 2 remaining science points to recover, so it is possible to finish all of them.

There are also several survey types of contracts. These contracts ask you to perform a number of experiments from a given location. There are four of these type: orbital surveys, ground surveys, biological activity surveys, and asteroid surveys. These contracts select experiments of the appropriate type from categorized lists and assign a target planet for you to study. Planets are selected based on the contract prestige (the number of stars) and your progression through career mode. Only untracked asteroids can be selected for asteroid surveys. These don't actually consider the amount of science remaining for any given experiment, but since they are only given in limited numbers I don't think that's too much of a problem. I also might reduce the science gain from contract completion based on how much science the experiments actually recover.

I'm currently working on anomaly contracts. These will focus heavily on the Anomalous Signal Scanner, obviously, but I also want to incorporate other experiments. The back-end for all of these contracts is fairly similar, so adding different types isn't all that complicated.

I have a few other ideas in mind and I hope to have this update out by this weekend with a few other fixes included as well.

[A9p]

Thank you so much for this . I love the extra experiments for my probes, the universal storage bays are very cool also. Very excited to see what you do with the contracts system when that's ready also.

[vardicd]

I'm some issues with the US parts, they don't open anymore, the US magnetometer extends through its casing. looks weird. doesn't seem to affect gameplay, but it kinda bugs me. is this a known thing, or did I break something on my end?

[DMagic]

I'm some issues with the US parts, they don't open anymore, the US magnetometer extends through its casing. looks weird. doesn't seem to affect gameplay, but it kinda bugs me. is this a known thing, or did I break something on my end?

It works fine for me. Any more specifics? If you toggle the US parts on and off repeatedly and rapidly it can sometimes screw up the animations, but otherwise it should always play both the magnetometer and the science bay animations.

[AlphaAsh]

I've been working on several contracts <snip awesomesauce>

Could you work on cloning yourself next? That way we get this sooner.

[vardicd]

Well, if its working for you, then I've probably broke it on my end. Screens:

Persist and logs:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gtv3zrxszpn5ql7/AABg7oX0lgmkIUROcsSk8QDpa

Edit: Pulled the Dmagic mod and reinstalled from a fresh download copy. works now. maybe I got a bad download.

Edited July 29, 2014 by vardicd

[rockshow4070]

External science monitoring/activating mods now require explicit support from me to function properly

- Only mods the have a 'deploy experiment' type of button affected

i think this was a mistake myself. not even science alert works right with this mod since then. if i have say 2 goo containers then science alert will only open the first one and ignore that i have 2. mod worked great before you changed to this new science monitoring system.

Would this be why I don't see any of the experiments in Science Library?

[SRiley77]

Only tried it in .23.5 and .24.. but love the mod.. Keep up the good work!!

[akron]

This is pretty much the first mod I look for after a fresh install. Thank you

[mecki]

I think that the combined PresMat and the combined Gravitational thingie are explored too early in career mode. They appear as soon as the first of their stock parts appears. So you get the other part way earlier than you would in stock game!

And: How about integrating the MKS mod resources into the scanners?

[DMagic]

I think that the combined PresMat and the combined Gravitational thingie are explored too early in career mode. They appear as soon as the first of their stock parts appears. So you get the other part way earlier than you would in stock game!

Yeah, the tech tree placement is always subject to revision, I'll think about moving these combined experiments around a little.

Would this be why I don't see any of the experiments in Science Library?

The specific issues Teeton was detailing are, as far as I know, standard behavior for Science Library. But yes, the changes I made will prevent my experiments from showing up or being deployed in Science Library.

[Cydonian Monk]

Oooh. I like your ideas for contracts. I _just_ started a playthrough using your mod and think I might just hold off on using your science parts until the contracts are added. (Or maybe I'll just magically hack the persistence file to clear out completed science later.....)

[adalast]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, and tbh, I am being lazy and not looking. I have found that I am unable to use ShipManifest to transfer science out of your parts. This is not always a problem, but with things like the gravity scan, it would definitely save time. Not such a huge deal, but something to look into.

[mecki]

How does this play with RSS and Realism Overhaul?

[DMagic]

Oooh. I like your ideas for contracts. I _just_ started a playthrough using your mod and think I might just hold off on using your science parts until the contracts are added. (Or maybe I'll just magically hack the persistence file to clear out completed science later.....)

Just a little bit longer.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, and tbh, I am being lazy and not looking. I have found that I am unable to use ShipManifest to transfer science out of your parts. This is not always a problem, but with things like the gravity scan, it would definitely save time. Not such a huge deal, but something to look into.

It's a known issue, I don't think there's anything I can do on my end, but PapaJoe is aware of it.

How does this play with RSS and Realism Overhaul?

No clue, but probably fine.

After extensive testing over the weekend I came up with a list of all of the bugs and issues that needed fixing for my new contract types. I think I've worked through all of them, at least all of them that don't require an overhaul of how I handle asteroid science... I still want to run through some things again to make sure it's all at least working mostly right, but I'll try to release a test update tomorrow. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to break my contracts that I haven't though of. The rewards and other parameters aren't balanced at all, that's something which other people probably have a better idea of than me, so that will need work too.

Another thing I noticed, that I'm sure pretty much everyone who has tried out career mode has noticed, is that the stock contract window isn't that helpful. It's ok for checking things at a glance, but I don't like that it's so small, can't be expanded, and can't be moved.

Consider this a very early preview, just imagine that it's a week from now and it looks prettier and has better functionality.

Right now it performs the basic task of showing you all of the your active contracts and changes color accordingly when they complete. I need to add toolbar functionality (which is simple), make a little grabbing icon to expand the window in the corner (fairly easy), and make the contract parameters collapsible like in the stock window (maybe not so easy, I have no idea really). After that I'll release it as a stand-alone addon for testing.

This is as much an effort to learn how to make a UI from scratch* as anything else, but I do want to add some more functionality. My plan is to have three modes (three widths for the window, basically): the compact standard mode, basically what you see above; an expanded mode that shows the expiration dates of each contract; and an extra expanded mode that shows expiration and acceptance dates, and reward amounts for contracts and their parameters. I also want to make it sortable by a variety of such factors. I don't want to add the ability to accept and browse contracts, the Mission Control Center is really best for that, I just want something to better handle displaying of active contracts.

*scratch being the nickname I've given to TriggerAu

[acc]

As I activated the scanSat multispec scan on the Multispectral Imaging Platform my game crashed: output_log. I've scanSat v6.1 installed, running on KSP 0.24.2 x64 (win)

[DMagic]

As I activated the scanSat multispec scan on the Multispectral Imaging Platform my game crashed: output_log. I've scanSat v6.1 installed, running on KSP 0.24.2 x64 (win)

The last action in the log file is activating the multispectral scanner, but the crash is attributed to RemoteTech, and the crash seems to occur soon after transmitting data through RemoteTech's transmitter. I've seen a few of these inconsistent crash files and they all come from Windows x64 versions, so I'm not sure there's anything I can really do.

[acc]

The last action in the log file is activating the multispectral scanner, but the crash is attributed to RemoteTech, and the crash seems to occur soon after transmitting data through RemoteTech's transmitter. I've seen a few of these inconsistent crash files and they all come from Windows x64 versions, so I'm not sure there's anything I can really do.

The transmitting was finished before. It instant crashed as I clicked "start scan". I've to go now, but I'll test it later against the regular scanSat parts and my actually sat again. Be back later with a report

[larkvi]

Looks intreresting, DMagic. Keep up the good work!

[DMagic]

Version 0.8.3 is released. Direct download from KerbalStuff*.

*Note that the default download is still v0.8.2. This release may contain contain some bugs and definitely needs much more balancing. Rewards and penalties are essentially random currently; there are also some missions that may be difficult to complete in the allotted time.

There is an included settings file in the DMagic Orbital Science/Resources folder. At the top are values that can be used to raise or lower the rewards, advance payments, science and penalty amounts. Below that are the experiments; more can be added but they must follow the format of the included config nodes, and they must be standard science experiments. At the bottom are the mission descriptions.

The only other thing I'll note is that missions with long orbital requirements can be carried out in the background. Once the right conditions are met, you can just leave the vessel in orbit until the contract finishes.

Otherwise these contracts should be self-explanatory, if they aren't this is a problem, so I won't go into any more descriptions for the time being.

Change Log:

v0.8.3
- Update for KSP 0.24.2
- **Experimental Release**

- Seven new contract types
    - New contracts may be buggy, consider this an experimental release
    - Procedural generated based on career mode progression
    - All science based missions
- Note that all contract reward and penalty amounts are extremely unbalanced; this will receive further attention later

- Incorporate Diazo's action group changes
- Magnetometer functions as crude anomaly detector
- Fix magnetometer connection nodes
- Properly detect atmospheric experiments

Edited August 7, 2014 by DMagic
change log

[larkvi]

I will try it out tonight. Sadly, my install is already experiencing some kind of memory leak or the like, which does not make it the best test-bed, but I will see if I can find anything obviously broken in your contracts.