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

[acc]

Tested again and now it works fine. So lets tag it as random bug/crash on x64.

[biohazard15]

Go to Bop in 174 days? Yup, Gene, I totally agree with you on that contract.

[vardicd]

I love your mod, however, the US parts for the mystery goo and material science bay, allow science spam, unlike the stock ones, which become non-functional if you pull the science out of them. I would like to see this added to the US parts as well, for balancing. If this isn't something you want to add, perhaps someone could explain how to add this to the parts myself?

[DMagic]

Go to Bop in 174 days? Yup, Gene, I totally agree with you on that contract.

Well, I did say some contracts might be difficult to complete in the time given , you just have to get really creative.

I love your mod, however, the US parts for the mystery goo and material science bay, allow science spam, unlike the stock ones, which become non-functional if you pull the science out of them. I would like to see this added to the US parts as well, for balancing. If this isn't something you want to add, perhaps someone could explain how to add this to the parts myself?

What do you mean "pull science out of them"? They work fine for me. The popup message telling you that the experiment will be non-functional doesn't appear when you collect science on EVA, but the experiment stops working after that. Regular transmission also works the way it's supposed to with non-repeatable experiments.

[larkvi]

http://i.imgur.com/DwlxFXw.png

Go to Bop in 174 days? Yup, Gene, I totally agree with you on that contract.

You beat me to it--I got a very similar contract, and came to this thread to post the screencap. Gene gave me 1y, 294 days, which is more generous, but still well outside of the means of my fledgeling space program, which has never left the Kerbin SOI.

[vardicd]

What do you mean "pull science out of them"? They work fine for me. The popup message telling you that the experiment will be non-functional doesn't appear when you collect science on EVA, but the experiment stops working after that. Regular transmission also works the way it's supposed to with non-repeatable experiments.

Oh, erm, I may not have actually tested whether or not I could DO the repeat science, 'cause I didn't want to be cheating it. I just thought I could 'cause I didn't get the warning about it not working anymore.

[biohazard15]

Well, I did say some contracts might be difficult to complete in the time given , you just have to get really creative.

Well, my MJ navsat tells me that the next Jool transfer window will be in 35 days, and transfer time will be around 270 days. Sure, it can be wrong, but 174-day KSC launchpad-Bop Kraken transfer is outright extreme without something like Interstellar.

Also, rewards are laughable, to say the least.

By the way, how "Maintain proper orbit for X days" work? Can I switch crafts, or decouple\undock crafts? I'm in process of designing multi-mission flight to the Mun now (couple of orbital tests, rover for MCE contract, orbiter for your long-duration contract, SCANSat satellite (which will be decoupled and maneuvered to 250x250 polar orbit after insertion)). How should I proceed with these goals?

You beat me to it--I got a very similar contract, and came to this thread to post the screencap. Gene gave me 1y, 294 days, which is more generous, but still well outside of the means of my fledgeling space program, which has never left the Kerbin SOI.

Yeah, that's another problem here - contracts should be limited to explored bodies. I've explored only the Mun so far - why the system gives me contract for Bop?

[DMagic]

Oh, erm, I may not have actually tested whether or not I could DO the repeat science, 'cause I didn't want to be cheating it. I just thought I could 'cause I didn't get the warning about it not working anymore.

That's something I need to get around to fixing. I think I know how to do it now, so it shouldn't be a problem. You're report did lead me to discover two new bugs with external collection and reset though, so it was worthwhile to look into it.

Well, my MJ navsat tells me that the next Jool transfer window will be in 35 days, and transfer time will be around 270 days. Sure, it can be wrong, but 174-day KSC launchpad-Bop Kraken transfer is outright extreme without something like Interstellar.

Also, rewards are laughable, to say the least.

By the way, how "Maintain proper orbit for X days" work? Can I switch crafts, or decouple\undock crafts? I'm in process of designing multi-mission flight to the Mun now (couple of orbital tests, rover for MCE contract, orbiter for your long-duration contract, SCANSat satellite (which will be decoupled and maneuvered to 250x250 polar orbit after insertion)). How should I proceed with these goals?

You did read the release post and changelog right?

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
...

and

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.

Decoupling/undocking is something that I'm not entirely sure about, but it should still work.

Edit: Now that I look at it again, this might screw things up; I'll need to test things out, but I probably need to change it to handle this. But as long as the the orbital eccentricity and orbital inclination parameters stay complete (their text is green in the contracts window) it should work.

These magnetic survey contracts are by far the most complex, they require constant passing of data between different objects and are sensitive to errors and things like loading order.

Yeah, that's another problem here - contracts should be limited to explored bodies. I've explored only the Mun so far - why the system gives me contract for Bop?

Most contracts do check for this; the anomalies are different though. I'll change this to make sure they don't give you anything in the Jool system until you've visited there at least once.

Edited August 7, 2014 by DMagic

[vardicd]

Oh, erm, I may not have actually tested whether or not I could DO the repeat science, 'cause I didn't want to be cheating it. I just thought I could 'cause I didn't get the warning about it not working anymore.

That's something I need to get around to fixing. I think I know how to do it now, so it shouldn't be a problem. You're report did lead me to discover two new bugs with external collection and reset though, so it was worthwhile to look into it.

Well, there you, glad I could help.

[Cydonian Monk]

Question: Should the contracts you generate be suppressing the generation of stock contracts? No new "default" contracts have generated since I started playing with your contract system. Otherwise, no complaints yet.

[DMagic]

Question: Should the contracts you generate be suppressing the generation of stock contracts? No new "default" contracts have generated since I started playing with your contract system. Otherwise, no complaints yet.

No, I didn't do anything specifically to disable or prevent standard contracts (this is possible to do, but that's not going on here). Do you get stock contracts if you accept all of my available contracts? That should clear out room for regular contracts.

I've tried to limit the amount of my contracts that can be active at any time, most only allow for one active contract, the magnetic surveys allow for two because they can last so long, and the standard science collection experiments allow for three. I should probably lower that last one.

I think this is primarily a Squad problem. Only so many contracts can be displayed at once in the mission control center so any time you start adding mod contracts it tends to squeeze out the stock versions.

I'm still not entirely clear on how the contract system decides on which types to generate though. I'll look into it more and see if I can figure out some way to prevent crowding out stock contracts.

[Cydonian Monk]

No, I didn't do anything specifically to disable or prevent standard contracts (this is possible to do, but that's not going on here). Do you get stock contracts if you accept all of my available contracts?

That does seem to do it, sorta. I also had to cancel or complete one of the Squad contracts I had accepted, and that opened the flood gates again. Time warp alone didn't seem to be enough. FWIW the "Fine Print" contracts seemed to have much the same behaviour when I was looking at that last week, but I didn't have time to give it the chance to do much otherwise.

I'm still not entirely clear on how the contract system decides on which types to generate though.

You and me both. I was kind of poking at it this past weekend, and today (using your system) was the first time anything ever bothered to spawn a contract with the test agency I set up. Either I'm just not well liked by the RNG, or the Squad contracts only spawn for the agencies they set up in the GameData/Squad/Agencies folder.

[A9p]

Just dropping in for a minute to thank you for this, and the continued work you're doing on it.

The additional experiments/sensors have added so much to my probe missions, and the universal storage wedge versions are the most reliable way I've yet found of getting data safely home with Deadly Reentry running.

Fantastic stuff .

[McCloud]

Hey there,

i got a little problem with the Universal Mod extra parts. I Installed both mods correctly and the US Parts are missing in the VAB somehow. All other stuff is there from both mods. It worked for me a few days back but i just reinstalled the game with all my mods due to a new system. Anyone else got the problem ?

Greets

McCloud

[McCloud]

Hey there,

i got a little problem with the Universal Mod extra parts. I Installed both mods correctly and the US Parts are missing in the VAB somehow. All other stuff is there from both mods. It worked for me a few days back but i just reinstalled the game with all my mods due to a new system. Anyone else got the problem ?

Greets

McCloud

[DMagic]

Hey there,

i got a little problem with the Universal Mod extra parts. I Installed both mods correctly and the US Parts are missing in the VAB somehow. All other stuff is there from both mods. It worked for me a few days back but i just reinstalled the game with all my mods due to a new system. Anyone else got the problem ?

Greets

McCloud

You can use my regular parts and the regular US parts, but not my US parts right? Can you go into the R&D center and check if the parts are available in the tech nodes but not purchased yet? The only other problem I can think of would be some Module Manager issue. My US parts won't be available if Module Manager isn't installed and working correctly, but US comes with it, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[mjones1052]

Should the solar collector part be under advanced construction and not in with science in the tech tree? Not sure if someone mentioned it before, I checked briefly but didn't see anything.

[biohazard15]

Alright, looks like I found a bug there.

I've accepted an "Collect Mystery Goo data from Minmus orbit" contract. Two of them, actually - for low and high orbit.

Note that I've collected Goo science for these areas before (during Explore Minmus contract), so there is 0 science points there.

So, I fly to Minmus, do a Goo experiment, transmit it... and "This area already been studied, try to find another place to complete contract".

Funny. This is the first time I've got such thing. Magnetometer contracts works flawlessly (right now my second magsat is flying around the Mun).

Man, you owe me two Goo canisters now, since that particular ship wasn't designed to return

[larkvi]

I've accepted an "Collect Mystery Goo data from Minmus orbit" contract. . . .

So, I fly to Minmus, do a Goo experiment, transmit it... and "This area already been studied, try to find another place to complete contract".

I had this same issue, but with the Science Jr at the Mun.

[DMagic]

Alright, looks like I found a bug there.

I've accepted an "Collect Mystery Goo data from Minmus orbit" contract. Two of them, actually - for low and high orbit.

Note that I've collected Goo science for these areas before (during Explore Minmus contract), so there is 0 science points there.

So, I fly to Minmus, do a Goo experiment, transmit it... and "This area already been studied, try to find another place to complete contract".

Funny. This is the first time I've got such thing. Magnetometer contracts works flawlessly (right now my second magsat is flying around the Mun).

Man, you owe me two Goo canisters now, since that particular ship wasn't designed to return

I had this same issue, but with the Science Jr at the Mun.

I know what's causing this. I attempted to limit these contracts to only areas that would give you science, but I didn't properly account for instruments that don't transmit at 100%. Though in the case of the goo science it shouldn't be generating them at all if you've already collected science. I'll have to look at it again.

You collected all of the available science for Minmus orbit with the mystery goo? If you have less than 40% it shouldn't be generating the contract.

[biohazard15]

You collected all of the available science for Minmus orbit with the mystery goo? If you have less than 40% it shouldn't be generating the contract.

Less than 40% collected or less than 40% left to collect? That's what Wernher tells me:

[sreinmann]

I'm embarrassed if this has already been addressed DMagic, but I didn't see it when I searched through the last few pages of posts. The Universal Storage Wedge parts (2HOT/Press, Materials, Goo, Etc) are appearing in the tech tree in somewhat illogical positions in my opinion. For instance, I unlock 2hot stock part, then get the wedge for 2hot/press before I get the stock-pressure sensor. I would dare to suggest that you might position the wedges in the next progression after the stock part - sort of like, well you successfully got the basic part used, here have a cookie and a better version.

Now I realize that some people want to go straight to using the wedge, me included, but sometimes we gotta work for it right? You know, I hope that having an opinion at all tells you how much I love your mod. If you told me to blow it out my exhaust port I'd still sing "I'm Not Worthy" all the way to Minmus 'n back.

[DMagic]

Less than 40% collected or less than 40% left to collect? That's what Wernher tells me:

Actually it's 20%. So anything with less than 20% of its total value left shouldn't be assigned a contract. Experiments with less than 100% transmission will screw up in some cases because the value they send isn't worth enough. It's an easy fix.

The total science for the mystery goo in Minmus orbit should be 53 science, so your 13 remaining science is just enough to allow for the contract to be generated, but not enough to allow for it to complete after transmission; I'll fix that.

I've also gone through and adjusted all of the reward values and made the durations actually make sense. I've fixed the anomaly contracts generating difficult missions to early. I just need to get the magnetic survey contracts to properly handle things like undocking, and stack separators during the mission.

Now I realize that some people want to go straight to using the wedge, me included, but sometimes we gotta work for it right? You know, I hope that having an opinion at all tells you how much I love your mod. If you told me to blow it out my exhaust port I'd still sing "I'm Not Worthy" all the way to Minmus 'n back.

Yeah, I plan on adjusting part positions and cost in the next update too.

[biohazard15]

I've also gone through and adjusted all of the reward values and made the durations actually make sense. I've fixed the anomaly contracts generating difficult missions to early. I just need to get the magnetic survey contracts to properly handle things like undocking, and stack separators during the mission.

Good to hear that, since the only mag survey contracts that can be completed properly (without sending probe in advance) is the Mun\Minmus ones. Kerbin contracts are uncompletable at all (20 days to deadline and something like 35 days to survey)

[acc]

"position sat in a specific orbit around kerbin" gives no orbit data.

only conditions are:

- new probe with energy and antenna

- reach designated orbit around kerbin with a deviation of less than 3%

- have an accelerometer

- have a thermometer

- neutralize controls for 10sec (btw what does this mean exactly? sas off and not touching anything?)

even in the description is no orbit data mentioned. I'm stuck there

Edited August 12, 2014 by acc