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

[Arsonide]

Please do that, the reason I got confused over the contract that I did, was because it was pretty much in the same orbit as the mun. Or at least make them only spawn within a certain altitude range i.e. 70km - 500km (that's a realistic range for satellites, right?) With maybe having contracts at semi- and synchronous orbits for higher difficulties?

That is already how it works. Contracts at higher difficulties do start appearing as synchronous, stationary, and semi-synchronous (tundra/Molniya). Lower difficulties are more likely to spawn polar or equatorial. The completely random orbits are fill ins, they have a small chance to appear anywhere, but for the most part, they replace synchronous for example if the body does not support synchronous orbits.

You can identify totally random orbits by the phrasing of the contract. They will ask for "a specific" orbit, rather than actually using a term to describe it, like polar or Molniya.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Arsonide

[james4832]

That is already how it works. Contracts at higher difficulties do start appearing as synchronous, stationary, and semi-synchronous (tundra/Molniya). Lower difficulties are more likely to spawn polar or equatorial. The completely random orbits are fill ins, they have a small chance to appear anywhere, but for the most part, they replace synchronous for example if the body does not support synchronous orbits.

You can identify totally random orbits by the phrasing of the contract. They will ask for "a specific" orbit, rather than actually using a term to describe it, like polar or Molniya.

Oh okay, thanks! Sorry that I didn't realize that. After re-reading your OP, I see that as well

Regardless, I still think that, if you can easily, you should limit the maximum orbit height to something more reasonable, or heavily favor lower orbits. I suppose that I could just not accept the contracts with ridiculous heights, but I would prefer that to just be in the stock mod.

Still, you have a great mod, and you should be proud of what you have accomplished. It is hundreds of time better than the part testing contracts!

EDIT: On that note of the testing contracts, could it be possible to put a variable inside your config to limit how many can spawn at once, similar to how you have your contracts set up? Sorry if you already have done this, but after a quick read of it, I couldn't find it

Edited September 4, 2014 by james4832

[Minwaabi]

Polar and equatorial orbits also have a large random factor as I have gotten polar orbits in excess of 20,000 km high and equatorial orbits half way between the mun and Minmus. However, I agree with the previous poster: still a great mod and I noticed yesterday that the Molniya orbits are perfectly spot on.

[Arsonide]

So I've given it some thought, and I think I know where I want to go with the general direction of development for the next few patches. As of now, I've added many complex contracts, and as you know, the more contracts you add to the pool, the less of a chance you have to see any particular one of them. This puts me in a dilemma, because people have so many good ideas, but I do not want to imbalance the game with a lot of contracts that are complicated and take a ton of effort. There should be an equal amount of complicated and simple contracts.

As of now, the contracts are generated using the Progress Tracker, which is what the game uses to keep track of what the player has done. However, it is using the Progress Tracker quite loosely. It only checks to see if the player has been to a planet or not. This means that if you do a simple flyby of Jool, even if you just graze the sphere of influence, your progress updates and contracts start appearing for Jool. What I'd like to do is leash the contracts to a much tighter usage of the Progress Tracker. There are progress tracks on everything...whether the player has flown by, orbited, landed, done an EVA, docked, all sorts of stuff, for each planetary body...and I can use those to gain a more accurate picture of what the player is capable of and give him missions that are much more tailored to his skills. For instance, only giving him rover contracts for planets he's at least established an orbit around before, or only building bases on planets he has landed on.

However.

This will also lower the general amount of complex contracts, leaving a void. This is where my next idea comes into play. I am calling them "breadcrumb" contracts. They will be similar to the World First contracts, with some differences. They will check for the next unvisited location and situation, and ask you to do something extremely simple. Like fly by Jool, or land at a specific waypoint on Pol. Very simple objectives, but utilizing my systems for waypoints and such to make them more interactive. These contracts would fulfill two purposes: they would balance the complicated contracts, and they would push out the player's progress tracker. How a bread crumb contract will differ from a World First contract, is that once a bread crumb gets to Eeloo, it will not stop appearing. It will push in a progression from Kerbin outward, but once it hits the edge of the system, it will fold back in, and unlock again for every planet, to create some contract variety, and continue balancing the harder missions.

I believe this is the best step for Fine Print to make next. It would give the contracts system some much needed balance and progression. Please let me know what you guys think.

EDIT: This does not mean work on more complex contracts is ceasing. I just need a method of balancing them out, and I think breadcrumbs are a good way.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Arsonide

[Minwaabi]

That makes a ton of sense. And I think the breadcrumb missions are a brilliant idea. I think those will help give the game more of a background story and make the missions seem a bit more cohesive.

[Hurry- Starfish!]

Will there be land-based rescue/pickup missions in the future?

That would be nice. Easy ones could be rescue missions from easy-to-access places on Kerbin, harder ones would be rescues from the mountains, the sea, or other planetary bodies. And since the Kerbals won't be floating in orbit, the mission could spawn a variable, potentially large number of Kerbals to be rescued from the same spot.

This would actually give a purpose to (subsonic?) passenger planes. And it would be unique in the sense that it would give players the challenge to land (and take off) something in mountainous terrain or water, which is currently something you dont ever have to do.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Hurry, Starfish!

[Arsonide]

There is actually a community member working on a rescue mission replacement on my Github repository right now. It looks fantastic but I don't want to say too much until I'm able to help him hammer out all the details and integrate it with the master branch.

It actually looks through your own vessels that are in the field that have no electricity or fuel, and tasks you with bringing the crew of those vessels home.

[forsaken1111]

It actually looks through your own vessels that are in the field that have no electricity or fuel, and tasks you with bringing the crew of those vessels home.

That... would never happen to me. I don't think I've ever planned so badly that my vessels have run out of fuel or EC.

That does give me an idea for a new mission type though. Crew rotation! Could that same code review how long the crew has been in those vessels and task you with bringing up replacements?

[Arsonide]

That... would never happen to me. I don't think I've ever planned so badly that my vessels have run out of fuel or EC.

That does give me an idea for a new mission type though. Crew rotation! Could that same code review how long the crew has been in those vessels and task you with bringing up replacements?

Crew rotation is already in this, above was a brief summary. It'll choose that for a random vessel if it can't find one that needs help.

[forsaken1111]

Crew rotation is already in this, above was a brief summary. It'll choose that for a random vessel if it can't find one that needs help.

Whoops. Its been a long day.

[FuzzyLlama]

I seem never to be able to complete base contracts anymore. They used to work... but... Using stock parts, the requirement to have power generation, an antenna, and a docking port is never fulfilled. I see in the savegame that all three of these (ex. hasAntenna) are set to False. My workaround has been deleting the entire PARAM section for this requirement once I've actually set the base up, and reloading.

(Linux x64)

[Jaxx]

This crashes me when using it in combo with Kerbal Engineer.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74775048/output%20logs/output_log.txt

[Arsonide]

This crashes me when using it in combo with Kerbal Engineer.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74775048/output%20logs/output_log.txt

(0x000000000EF4DF03) (Mono JIT code): (filename not available): Contracts.Parameters.PartTest:OnLoad (ConfigNode) + 0x1d3 (000000000EF4DD30 000000000EF4DF40) [0000000004804D48 - Unity Root Domain] + 0x0

It seems to crash when trying to load a stock Part Test contract, and that's probably because several of your parts from Universal Storage didn't load properly. The part test contract uses parts. If you search for "Null Ref" you will see that up above.

PartLoader: Compiling Part 'US_Core/Parts/US_P20_Wedge_Elektron/part/US_j_Wedge_Elektron'

(Filename: C:/BuildAgent/work/d63dfc6385190b60/artifacts/StandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 49)

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

There are a few of these. Your addon version checker is also throwing a few null references, but they seem kind of harmless. None of it seems to be related to Fine Print.

[John FX]

I like the breadcrumb idea and I`ve had a thought for a mission.

I would be interested in a thread of missions that ends up with a fully stocked orbital station around a body doing science missions. Like the agena missions but more. Probably after the breadcrumbs have run out.

There could be an initial station core delivered first then a series of missions to give it a science pod (with science parts as missions requirements), a power pod (with minimum battery and power gen mission reqs), a hab pod (amount of kerbals) and finally a fuel and engine part (amount of thrust and fuel, maybe that could be part of the first section). Then a series of missions involving moving to a different orbits and performing scientific tests and sending science data back to kerbin. Finally a mission to send a return craft, deorbit the station and return the crew home.

[lincourtl]

I am calling them "breadcrumb" contracts. They will be similar to the World First contracts, with some differences. They will check for the next unvisited location and situation, and ask you to do something extremely simple. Like fly by Jool, or land at a specific waypoint on Pol. Very simple objectives, but utilizing my systems for waypoints and such to make them more interactive. These contracts would fulfill two purposes: they would balance the complicated contracts, and they would push out the player's progress tracker. How a bread crumb contract will differ from a World First contract, is that once a bread crumb gets to Eeloo, it will not stop appearing. It will push in a progression from Kerbin outward, but once it hits the edge of the system, it will fold back in, and unlock again for every planet, to create some contract variety, and continue balancing the harder missions

Yes! Fantastic!

You know, you're slowly implementing a Learning Management System.

Can we/will we be able to create our own contract types and our own "breadcrumb" trails?

[sp1989]

I love this mod it really a whole new level to career mode. Its stuff like this that makes you think that if the modding community can think of awesome stuff like this, then why can't squad? Anyway i have one issue, and i don't know if its been mentioned or addressed but it has to do with time/deadlines. I have gotten a few contracts now that are quite literally impossible. Like establish a base on Duna in 14 days. Now unless I have warp ships (which I don't) its impossible to get to duna and establish a base in 14 days. Is it possible to tweak this in the future to make it more reasonable?

[Arsonide]

I love this mod it really a whole new level to career mode. Its stuff like this that makes you think that if the modding community can think of awesome stuff like this, then why can't squad? Anyway i have one issue, and i don't know if its been mentioned or addressed but it has to do with time/deadlines. I have gotten a few contracts now that are quite literally impossible. Like establish a base on Duna in 14 days. Now unless I have warp ships (which I don't) its impossible to get to duna and establish a base in 14 days. Is it possible to tweak this in the future to make it more reasonable?

This is odd, most of the missions have extremely long deadlines, like 34 years or something. It's actually something I was looking at shortening in the future. Have you modified your configuration file?

[sp1989]

This is odd, most of the missions have extremely long deadlines, like 34 years or something. It's actually something I was looking at shortening in the future. Have you modified your configuration file?

Weird because I also got a misson to establish a base on Minmus in 4 hours.

[Superfluous J]

Weird because I also got a misson to establish a base on Minmus in 4 hours.

Are you SURE you had to do it in 4 hours? THere are two timers: The timer before the contract is no longer offered, and the timer for when you have to complete the contract.

The former is usually in the realm of a few days. The latter is usually in the realm of years.

I'd love to see a screenshot.

[sp1989]

Are you SURE you had to do it in 4 hours? THere are two timers: The timer before the contract is no longer offered, and the timer for when you have to complete the contract.

The former is usually in the realm of a few days. The latter is usually in the realm of years.

I'd love to see a screenshot.

Original post deleted - Edit: Problem solved I am an idiot I was looking in the wrong place.

Edited September 5, 2014 by sp1989

[OldMold]

If it's possible to create a way to disable certain types of contracts, that would be lovely. I'd disable all the "test blah at blah" contracts in a hurry - this would also leave more room for the more interesting contracts and help reduce the contract overload issue you described.

[Arsonide]

There is already a way to disable my contracts, but not stock (yet).

[BadManiac]

There is already a way to disable my contracts, but not stock (yet).

Can't wait for that! "Test decoupler on escape trajectory from Eelo" WTF WHYYY!?

Really only came here to say thanks. This mod is splendiferous and I'm having so much fun with KSP thanks to it! Stock contracts are... well, unimaginative might be a good word.

[StrandedonEarth]

Sorry for not wading through all 85 pages of posts to see if this was answered, but....

Do or Can the rover anomaly missions draw waypoints to some of the Easter Eggs? It would be a great way to experience them. Even if it needed Scansat (which I've never used) or some such to generate the waypoints to investigate.

Another feature I thought would be great is the ability to right-click a kerbal whom you just finished crashing on the Mun (for example) and find a "Generate Rescue Contract" button. Profit at the expense of Rep!

I'm having a great time with this mod, thanks for all the hard work you put into it. Finally a reason to build rovers!

[K3-Chris]

This mod confuses me, the premise sounds really nice from reading the OP, but all I get is missions to put satellites in incredibly specific and arbitrary orbits complete with longitude of the Ap/Pe etc, even a kerbostarionary orbit has a very long list of requirements including specific Ap and Pe that aren't the same, to get geostationary you just need a 6h orbital period, how high or low your nodes are doesn't matter, but if you want it somewhat neat, why not just make it 0 inc identical Ap and Pe? I thought this mod was meant to expand on the lack-luster stock contract offerings not require you to make very precise orbits you can't accomplish without external tools or mods.