[0.90.0] Fine Print vSTOCK'D - BETA RELEASE!!! (December 15)

[kormer]

I have a mission for a seismic scan from the surface of minmus's great flats. I'm in the right biome with a double-c seismic accelerometer and gotten science from that instrument, but it isn't completing the mission. Are there any other instruments I might be skipping over for this contract?

[FunnyBunny14]

I have a mission for a seismic scan from the surface of minmus's great flats. I'm in the right biome with a double-c seismic accelerometer and gotten science from that instrument, but it isn't completing the mission. Are there any other instruments I might be skipping over for this contract?

Did you transmit or recover the science?

[kormer]

Transmit, and I did get science from it.

[FunnyBunny14]

Transmit, and I did get science from it.

Then there probably is something you're missing. Check the mission again, and if you haven't missed anything, maybe you could post a screenshot?

[Arsonide]

I have a mission for a seismic scan from the surface of minmus's great flats. I'm in the right biome with a double-c seismic accelerometer and gotten science from that instrument, but it isn't completing the mission. Are there any other instruments I might be skipping over for this contract?

This isn't something that's added with Fine Print. It sounds like it might be one of the science mods.

[Castun]

Well, they are working on making the mod stock, and with all the new biomes who knows what will happen. I personally feel that biome specific contracts aren't any fun, especially since we can't actually see where the biomes are. I'm fine with the current rover and plane missions. They are challenging enough (and extremely fun!).

If you use a mapping mod such as ScanSAT, you can see the map of biomes. I think that perhaps in the future, science and exploration could be branched apart a bit. Contracts should mainly be for bringing in extra money via parts testing, and launching satellites and craft. Exploration and experimentation shouldn't be performed simply because someone contracted you to do it, unless they come from the Kerbin government I guess. I think the game sorely needs it's own checklist of experiments categorized by body and biome, whereas right now science archives are kept in a messy list sorted by body only. There is a browser based plugin someone linked me to on the KSP subreddit that can help do this though.

[Hyomoto]

It's funny you say this, giving players contracts for the things they want to do means they'll do them for the contracts instead. It's the reason why there are so many suggestions for types of contracts to be added, but the contract system itself needs to be looked at. Or put another way, there should be a reason why you would do a mission without a contract. Something like taking a contract to return science from the Mun, you don't get the science because it was the nature of the contract. I'm not really sure how something like that could be handled but the opposite is that people will play the game according to the contracts that are available instead and I could be wrong but I believe that goes against the intention of the system from being optional.

[Wanderfound]

It's funny you say this, giving players contracts for the things they want to do means they'll do them for the contracts instead. It's the reason why there are so many suggestions for types of contracts to be added, but the contract system itself needs to be looked at. Or put another way, there should be a reason why you would do a mission without a contract. Something like taking a contract to return science from the Mun, you don't get the science because it was the nature of the contract. I'm not really sure how something like that could be handled but the opposite is that people will play the game according to the contracts that are available instead and I could be wrong but I believe that goes against the intention of the system from being optional.

Weirdly though, it's stock that's the main culprit here. I now tend to avoid going to places until the "Explore X" contracts appear. OTOH, Fine Print tends to push me to do things that I might not have done (e.g. land a base on an asteroid) instead of discouraging things that I may have done.

And I'm still launching non-contract stuff: Scansat probes, refuelling stations, etc. But if I can make that Scansat probe into a Fine Print satellite that also does the first Munar orbit and fulfils a science contract, then win/win/win/win.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Wanderfound

[Spheniscine]

Does / would Fine Print recognize crawler rovers (exempli gratia)? It would certainly make those particularly hilly areas a bit easier

[Threadsinger]

Actually, you may have a point there.

Doesn't matter; they still make good Scansat and lander carriers.

Actually, that messes up my other plan, too; I was going to send up a stash of satellites into orbit so that the spaceplanes could reload without having to come back down. Poot.

One thing you can do is satisfy several contracts at once; or at least, it's worked for me for orbital stations (which can land) which then satisfy the surface base requirement on touchdown. I'm at work right now but I'll post a pic of an example station once I get home.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Another of a million contract suggestions. It might be fun to combine 'base' style contracts and 'navpoint' style contracts. I can easily imagine a mission where I navigate to specific places on Kerbin to deliver a powered probe core with some science equipment.

[Hyomoto]

Weirdly though, it's stock that's the main culprit here. I now tend to avoid going to places until the "Explore X" contracts appear. OTOH, Fine Print tends to push me to do things that I might not have done (e.g. land a base on an asteroid) instead of discouraging things that I may have done.

And I'm still launching non-contract stuff: Scansat probes, refuelling stations, etc. But if I can make that Scansat probe into a Fine Print satellite that also does the first Munar orbit and fulfils a science contract, then win/win/win/win.

Fine Print has this same effect on most people I think, but its pretty easy to see why. Normally you aren't rewarded for putting a satellite into space or flying over a specific part of the planet. Fine Print gives you a reason to try these things and it's there that it is at it's best, but at the same time it also detracts from some of the free-form gameplay because contracts = reward, non contracts can yield science but less than you'd get for also doing a contract.

[Wanderfound]

Fine Print has this same effect on most people I think, but its pretty easy to see why. Normally you aren't rewarded for putting a satellite into space or flying over a specific part of the planet. Fine Print gives you a reason to try these things and it's there that it is at it's best, but at the same time it also detracts from some of the free-form gameplay because contracts = reward, non contracts can yield science but less than you'd get for also doing a contract.

I think the coming biome completion should reduce this a fair bit. When there's more science available for exploration, there's less motivation to grind Kerbinside science.

The increasingly Tycoon-ish nature of the main game is inevitably going to make it a bit less sandboxy, but that's why sandbox mode will always remain available.

[eddiew]

I think the game sorely needs it's own checklist of experiments categorized by body and biome, whereas right now science archives are kept in a messy list sorted by body only. There is a browser based plugin someone linked me to on the KSP subreddit that can help do this though.

You could try X Science - does exactly what you describe, and is searchable. Really handy to combine with Scansat and work out which bits of a body you've not landed on yet.

And I'm still launching non-contract stuff: Scansat probes, refuelling stations, etc. But if I can make that Scansat probe into a Fine Print satellite that also does the first Munar orbit and fulfils a science contract, then win/win/win/win.

Heh, that is the best way isn't it All of my Scansat mappers start out as something for FinePrint, I just overspec them a tad (extra can or two of xenon) and usually break even (playing at 40% funds with no strategies, so this can be tough). So far my FP probe for Kerbostationary orbit has mapped the MKS resources on Mun, and on Minmus, and probably has delta-v enough to go to Duna at next window

[psyper]

I've done a fair amount of satellite launches now and space is getting rather crowded. I'm thinking of doing a satellite retrieval mission where I send a ship out to defunct satellites (probably in the order they were launched) and drain their fuel and bring them back down to kerbin for retrofitting ready to be used again. Or use the remaining fuel to decommission them in to a fiery grave on kerbin itself. I'm wondering what other people do?

[Eleven]

I've done a fair amount of satellite launches now and space is getting rather crowded. I'm thinking of doing a satellite retrieval mission where I send a ship out to defunct satellites (probably in the order they were launched) and drain their fuel and bring them back down to kerbin for retrofitting ready to be used again. Or use the remaining fuel to decommission them in to a fiery grave on kerbin itself. I'm wondering what other people do?

I've been leaving my completed missions right where they are (unmanned and satellites only, I always bring back the manned missions) so I don't have a ton out there, maybe a dozen. Some of those have old parts and some use mods that I would like to get rid of, but I can't think of a way to incorporate that scenario into the game, other than just deleting the ships. I don't want to have to do that but I'm getting to the point where I want to trim down my mods and get rid of the ones I'm not using any longer.

I have a ship on Eve, it's not going anywhere but as soon as I get rid of the mod with parts on it, *poof* it's gone...I don't like that idea at all

I have several satellites out there that could make it back to Kerbin, but they can't land. I even have a rover on Tylo that can't go anywhere but I'd love to have some way to end those missions and clear out the active stuff, all within the realm of the game universe.

Not that Fine Print really needs to do stuff like that, but keeping with the feel of the game, a way to wrap up all that hardware floating around would be cool

[FunnyBunny14]

I've done a fair amount of satellite launches now and space is getting rather crowded. I'm thinking of doing a satellite retrieval mission where I send a ship out to defunct satellites (probably in the order they were launched) and drain their fuel and bring them back down to kerbin for retrofitting ready to be used again. Or use the remaining fuel to decommission them in to a fiery grave on kerbin itself. I'm wondering what other people do?

There is a terminate button in the tracking station. I just use that to destroy my satellites (they only cost about 5000 funds).

As for station missions, SSTO is the way to go! I literally fly an entire station to orbit and back. And it has wings!

[helaeon]

I saw earlier in the thread you can't do much about it but thought I'd leave the bug report anyway:

A mission to do an aerial survey above Duna at 810-1440m was generated and it was near Duna's south pole. This window was about 1500m below ground level at both waypoints. I tried flying around looking for a hole I could drop down into and nothing. I am on version .59, also have all the detail and terrain settings turned all the way up.

[Castun]

I saw earlier in the thread you can't do much about it but thought I'd leave the bug report anyway:

A mission to do an aerial survey above Duna at 810-1440m was generated and it was near Duna's south pole. This window was about 1500m below ground level at both waypoints. I tried flying around looking for a hole I could drop down into and nothing. I am on version .59, also have all the detail and terrain settings turned all the way up.

I'm also curious about this. Do these contracts take into account ground radar altitude? I've got one on Kerbin that would be under mountains.

[Castun]

You could try X Science - does exactly what you describe, and is searchable. Really handy to combine with Scansat and work out which bits of a body you've not landed on yet.

You somehow quoted the wrong person and post, but thanks!

[Wanderfound]

I'm also curious about this. Do these contracts take into account ground radar altitude? I've got one on Kerbin that would be under mountains.

If it's the mountains west of KSC, there are some deep valleys in there that you can dive into.

[Castun]

If it's the mountains west of KSC, there are some deep valleys in there that you can dive into.

No, they're the ones north of KSC. I get the message that I'm beginning aerial surveillance when I approach the waypoint, it just never completes. Would be nice if it could tell you if you're too high or low.

[Arsonide]

This seems like a good time to go over how aerial surveys and rover contracts have changed in 0.90!

The idea of aerial contracts was simple: to show the player new areas, and to do that, I required the player to visit every waypoint in a cluster. Rover contracts were similar, but instead of visiting every waypoint, you had to find the "correct" waypoint hidden in a larger cluster of them. This added some interactivity to the search, but was somewhat confusing at times. Both of these contracts had some pretty strict restrictions on the player and his vessel. Rovers required wheels to be on the ground, aerial contracts can only appear on planets with atmosphere, and require the player to be in a pretty tight flight envelope.

So these were the issues, the contract felt a bit restrictive on the player, rover was somewhat confusing, but aerial didn't have the interactivity I was looking for. So, I combined the strengths of both of them. Instead of rover or aerial survey contracts, you will now find...

Survey Contracts

In a survey contract, you still have to visit every waypoint, there's no "hunt" ala rovers, however to replace that interactivity, at each waypoint you need to perform an experiment. There can be more than one type of experiment per contract, but they are generally themed, like atmospheric surveys include pressure readings and atmospheric analysis. Each waypoint will also require you to be on the ground within a small area, below a certain altitude, or above a certain altitude. There are no vessel type restrictions anymore. The smaller ranged ground ones might be hard to hit without a rover, but if you have a lander or a VTOL, that will work just as well. The high altitude ones can even be done from orbit, if you pass over accurately enough. Right now there are five types of survey: seismic, temperature, atmospheric, gravimetric, and "visual surveys" which include samples, EVA reports, and crew reports. This gives the player a lot more freedom in how to approach each contract, while keeping the exploration aspect and the interactivity.

There's a lot more that has been added to Fine Print, but I figure this should tide you guys over for a while!

[bdito]

Now you've got me really curious with that teaser. What do the icons mean? Why are they green, red and orange?

[Crzyrndm]

Looks like the survey type is indicated by icon (green => temperature, red balloon => Atmospheric(?), yellow => Seismic(?))