Coherent Contracts [WIP]

[peadar1987]

"It's no secret that no amount of theory would be enough to prove that undergoing rapid unplanned disassembly was part of the reason that, however, an engineer from C7 aerospace found it lacking that the amount of times we underestimated the volatility of common rocket fuel. As you probably guessed, this is where you come in."

If sentences like this make your eyes bleed, then maybe you'll be interested in this project.

Description

I've been through the contract generator thread, and tried to simplify things as much as possible.

Now the generic contract flavour text should at least make grammatical sense most of the time, and have some sort of rational structure and flow.

Installation

This is now being handled here

Future/How can I help?

The next steps are as follows:

-Increase the size of all of the lists in the contract file. Give more job descriptions, more actions, more verbs, nouns, and adjectives, more failed science experiments in the background.

-Define new structures of contract text, so you don't always get the same ones over and over again.

-Find out a way of having separate flavour text for each type of contract. No more rubbish about dumpster diving when your mission is to do with a Kerbal trapped in orbit, for example.

If you want to contribute, or if you have any suggestions, reply to the thread.

**Disclaimer: No responsibility taken for any ocular bleeding caused by the contracts generated by downloading and installing this file. I haven't tested every possible combination of text!

Edited July 25, 2014 by peadar1987

[redmario14]

Good idea!

[DMagic]

I'll post the same thing about overwriting stock files here as I did in the other thread.

This should probably be done with a module manager config file, rather than asking people to overwrite the stock storydefs file.

[twisted666]

thumbs up

[peadar1987]

I'll post the same thing about overwriting stock files here as I did in the other thread.

This should probably be done with a module manager config file, rather than asking people to overwrite the stock storydefs file.

Okay, thanks for the advice, I have no experience with module manager. How difficult is that going to be to achieve for a newbie? Are there guides out there to using module manager?

[WintericeUK]

Thankyou! This has been inducing OCD in me for the past few days, now I need to do something about the ones asking me to test a turbojet engine on the Mun...

[DuoDex]

I know -kinda- how modulemanager works and will write up a working file for you if you want.

Here's a not-working file. I will take it down s soon as I have tested it because it won't work.

See my below post for a working file.

Edited July 22, 2014 by DuoDex
added possible modulemanager bit

[peadar1987]

Thankyou! This has been inducing OCD in me for the past few days, now I need to do something about the ones asking me to test a turbojet engine on the Mun...

Haha, don't thank me just yet, I'm still finding some bugs. However, at least the sentences end up being coherent most of the time now, even if the context can seem a little out of whack.

I know -kinda- how modulemanager works and will write up a working file for you if you want.

That would be brilliant, thank you so much!

[nobodez]

Thankyou! This has been inducing OCD in me for the past few days, now I need to do something about the ones asking me to test a turbojet engine on the Mun...

Doesn't seem that hard. Intakes store "intake air", just make sure they have sufficient quantity before closing them off, right?

Unless they purge the intake air upon hitting vacuum.

[DMagic]

I tend to rely on others to create my Module Manager configs, but I think the format should be somewhat similar to what I'm using for additional stock science reports.

I think something like this might work

@STORY_DEF[*]
{
	%ContractBackstory
	{
              generic = more story defs
        }
}

[Justin Kerbice]

Good idea but on the other hand, contracts will become boringly serious .

And why "coherent" word in title ? Contracts are not incoherent (unless you fix such thing like "testing TT-18a on Mun" or "testing jet engine in space") they just have have a messy introduction.

[DuoDex]

Right. Here's a working ModuleManager file (works with MM 2.2.0), you might want to tell users that they need that and put a link in. Make sure to test it yourself because I'm lazy and just looked at the log to see if MM loaded it.

I'd package it in a folder named [Your Corporation] with the file inside.

Credit to DMagic (hi again, I made the Scansat flag ) for actually knowing what he was doing. I just followed instructions.

Does this work?

Edited July 23, 2014 by DuoDex

[Xacktar]

So..... it appears I just spent all day working on the exact same project as you, peadar1987 , with no clue you'd already done this. XD

I made a basic version of the same idea HERE or, alternatively HERE.

I rewrote large sections of the inputs to fix a lot of verb tense agreement problems and cut quite a bit of the more verbose pieces. All the new ContractBackgrounds are new and simpler in construction. I also added a new class of references called 'Objects.'

Maybe you can merge some of this into your work if you want or I could make a second option for the same result. I would hate to waste all the things I've done.

EDIT: Oh, I'll also edit the Curse link title since you definitely got the name first. I'm looking now to see if I can edit it.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Xacktar

[peadar1987]

So..... it appears I just spent all day working on the exact same project as you, peadar1987 , with no clue you'd already done this. XD

I made a basic version of the same idea HERE or, alternatively HERE.

I rewrote large sections of the inputs to fix a lot of verb tense agreement problems and cut quite a bit of the more verbose pieces. All the new ContractBackgrounds are new and simpler in construction. I also added a new class of references called 'Objects.'

Maybe you can merge some of this into your work if you want or I could make a second option for the same result. I would hate to waste all the things I've done.

EDIT: Oh, I'll also edit the Curse link title since you definitely got the name first. I'm looking now to see if I can edit it.

Haha, great minds and all that...

I've been pretty busy the last day or two, but it would be cool to team up on this. I'll take a look at your stuff and we can work out how we might be able to put the two things together if you want?

[Xacktar]

Haha, great minds and all that...

I've been pretty busy the last day or two, but it would be cool to team up on this. I'll take a look at your stuff and we can work out how we might be able to put the two things together if you want?

Sounds good to me. I made significant modifications already so I'm not sure how things will merge but I'm going to look at what you've done and play around with it. . I took a peek at your file and I like how you cleaned up the organization of the word parts, I just need to boot it up in game a few times to see how it reads. Looking forward to it.

EDIT: Diving into the stuff now. You've done great work, my feeble attempts pale in comparison. XD I'm tweaking a few things to fix syntax problems I ran into, changing certain words to work in both plural and singular. I'll see how it pans out.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Xacktar

[tygoo7]

I'm really enjoying this. The contract descriptions actually make sense now!

[Xacktar]

Ok, took a shot at merging the two sets.

Download Link

I saw some of your custom conclusions were missing punctuation so I fixed that and tweaked a few of the adjective sets to sound better when working with the other sections. Feel free to delete, change, or not even use anything in this if you don't like it. I'm really impressed with what you've done so far and hope I can help a bit.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Xacktar

[peadar1987]

Sounds good to me. I made significant modifications already so I'm not sure how things will merge but I'm going to look at what you've done and play around with it. . I took a peek at your file and I like how you cleaned up the organization of the word parts, I just need to boot it up in game a few times to see how it reads. Looking forward to it.

EDIT: Diving into the stuff now. You've done great work, my feeble attempts pale in comparison. XD I'm tweaking a few things to fix syntax problems I ran into, changing certain words to work in both plural and singular. I'll see how it pans out.

Aw, thanks mate! Yeah, I saw you changed a lot of the original structures, so I'm not sure how well they'd all actually work with the way I've organised the word categories. I suppose the only way to find out is to test it in-game. I like how they look though, we just need to make sure they're not going to throw up anything ridiculous with what I've done.

I'll have a look at your edited file today, but do you reckon if your new file is creating briefings that make sense, we can scratch this thread, and make a new joint one in the add-on releases section? I think we're getting towards something that's ready to show off to all of Kerbin!

[Xacktar]

Aw, thanks mate! Yeah, I saw you changed a lot of the original structures, so I'm not sure how well they'd all actually work with the way I've organised the word categories. I suppose the only way to find out is to test it in-game. I like how they look though, we just need to make sure they're not going to throw up anything ridiculous with what I've done.

I'll have a look at your edited file today, but do you reckon if your new file is creating briefings that make sense, we can scratch this thread, and make a new joint one in the add-on releases section? I think we're getting towards something that's ready to show off to all of Kerbin!

They make more sense, for sure, but I think it can still use some small changes... testing with the huge variety of possible options takes time. I'm sure you've figure that out already. XD

Still, I've gotten some great summaries with the merged file while testing, like this one:

and this

So, yeah, it's getting close to something great here.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Xacktar

[peadar1987]

Haha, yes, the temptation is to just go a bit nuts and add every quirky thing that comes into my head, but it's probably more important to check all of the structures make sense, which isn't nearly so much fun

[Xacktar]

Haha, yes, the temptation is to just go a bit nuts and add every quirky thing that comes into my head, but it's probably more important to check all of the structures make sense, which isn't nearly so much fun

The good part is that once you get the structures set and know the rules for the pieces, you can then go crazy adding more and more pieces and the structures will keep flowing well.

I've got some more fixes and changes I'm workin' on now, its flowing much better. I'll upload a new version soon-ish. (Feel free to PM me, btw.)

Edited July 24, 2014 by Xacktar

[DuoDex]

Em...did anyone see if that ModuleManager file works? Sorry.

[acc]

Follow this link (it goes to google docs, not some shady file-sharing dungeon)

I was laughing so hard as I read this. Sure, Google does all better

BTT. I'm happy about everything that improves the contracts, because it's boring and not much fun.

[Xacktar]

I was laughing so hard as I read this. Sure, Google does all better

BTT. I'm happy about everything that improves the contracts, because it's boring and not much fun.

The system has a lot of potential. I'm sure the awesome mod community will really do amazing stuff.

Anyhoo, here's some more fixes and stuff, Peadar1987: LINK

Some of the conclusive predicates were giving choice modifiers as well as non-choice modifiers. I changed that so it was non-choice for all conclusive predicates. Also did some other tiny fixes, but that was the big one. I'm done editing for now.. only so much time you can spend making new games and reading contracts. XD

[DuoDex]

The system has a lot of potential. I'm sure the awesome mod community will really do amazing stuff.

Anyhoo, here's some more fixes and stuff, Peadar1987: LINK

Some of the conclusive predicates were giving choice modifiers as well as non-choice modifiers. I changed that so it was non-choice for all conclusive predicates. Also did some other tiny fixes, but that was the big one. I'm done editing for now.. only so much time you can spend making new games and reading contracts. XD

Want a ModuleManager file for that?