No more "Test" option for engines in 0.25?

[zarakon]

I could swear that before, I was able to test engines for contracts by right clicking and choosing a "Test" action. Did they get rid of that for some reason? Or am I just remembering wrong?

It's really dumb and annoying that I can't test an engine in orbit just because I activated it earlier. Why can't just USING it count for testing it? Or at least shutting down and reactivating?

[Superfluous J]

I just did it the other night, though I've seen before where there is no option. I think maybe some engines you can and some you can't. The 48-7s you can, that's the one I did.

[tater]

I get those contracts all the time and have a test button.

[zarakon]

Hm. I don't see it on the LV-909 or the LV-T30

[LethalDose]

It probably depends on the contract's conditions.

Some contracts require you to click on the engine and hit the test button. Others require you to activate through staging. If you have the latter contract, you may not get a "test Part" button in the dialog.

[Commoble]

It probably depends on the contract's conditions.

Some contracts require you to click on the engine and hit the test button. Others require you to activate through staging. If you have the latter contract, you may not get a "test Part" button in the dialog.

Yep, that's correct. Read the fine print, folks!

[Kerano]

From my experience it's only the smallest engines (the "ant" ones) which have the "test part" option. The rest you have to activate at the right time via staging.

I agree it's slightly weird you can't test some parts after they're used while you can for others, but on the other hand it adds a nice challenge. I think my trickiest one to date has been testing the supersized KR-2L engine on the surface of Duna... that required a bit of thought in the design.

[magnemoe]

Just a few liquid engines miss the test button.

None of the single use stuff like parashutes, decoplers and SRB have it, you have to stage them, right click and activate don't work either you have to stage.

Looks a bit to me that the lack of test button is an bug, the cost of testing an large enigine like the KR-2L is many times higher if you are not allowed to use it going where but they don't pay more.

[Streetwind]

All of the explanations attempted so far are wrong It doesn't depend on the contract. It doesn't depend on the type of the part to be tested. It also isn't a bug that you're sometimes getting a button and sometimes not, and it's certainly not random!

It actually depends on each individual part's configuration.

Observe an excerpt from the config file of the BACC solid booster:

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleTestSubject

	// nowhere: 0, srf: 1, ocean: 2, atmo: 4, space: 8
	environments = 15

	useStaging = True
	useEvent = False
}

And here's the same section from the config file of the LV-1 "ant engine":

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleTestSubject

	// nowhere: 0, srf: 1, ocean: 2, atmo: 4, space: 8
	environments = 8

	useStaging = False
	useEvent = True
}

Notice something? The BACC booster can be tested via staging ("useStaging = True"). In fact, it must be tested via staging, as it doesn't respond to a UI button ("useEvent = False"). For the ant engine, it's the other way around: staging will not complete the contract. You must use the UI button in this case.

If you really wanted to, you could manually change all instances of "useEvent" on all parts to true in order to make you able to use the UI button in all cases. Heck, you could even set both to true, the game accepts this no problem. The best way to do this is via a custom ModuleManager config.

[Superfluous J]

All of the explanations attempted so far are wrong It doesn't depend on the contract. It doesn't depend on the type of the part to be tested. It also isn't a bug that you're sometimes getting a button and sometimes not, and it's certainly not random!

It actually depends on each individual part's configuration.

I suspected something like that but didn't expect it to be in the configs. It is a bug, though, as the parts aren't working consistently compared to each other. I can see solid rockets requiring staging to boost but there is NO logical reason the ANT engine can't be tested with staging when other similar engines must be. It just adds confusion to the already confusing engine test mechanism.

[Streetwind]

"Bug" implies that the code broke. This case really fits the old saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature".

It may not be a very well thought out feature, but it's certainly working properly, just as it was pre-configured Mind you, .90 will include a pass of contract system, so maybe it'll get tidied up into something more consistent then.

[Superfluous J]

"Bug" implies that the code broke. This case really fits the old saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature".

It may not be a very well thought out feature, but it's certainly working properly, just as it was pre-configured Mind you, .90 will include a pass of contract system, so maybe it'll get tidied up into something more consistent then.

Broken features are bugs. Doesn't matter if you can see what they typed (in these configs) or not (in the source code). They explained how it worked and it doesn't work that, way. It's a bug. If they had said (or say now), "Some engines you have to stage, some you have to "run test" on, and some you can do both. Have extra fun figuring out which is which!" then it'd be a feature. A stupid feature, but a feature.

[numerobis]

My concept is that it should count as testing the engine only when you run fuel through it, and that staging should have nothing to do with it.

Right-click works for me, but even better I'd like the test condition to be "engine is thrusting, and you satisfy the conditions."

[Torquemadus]

Or at least shutting down and reactivating?

You can "activate" the same engine multiple times by editing your staging sequence mid-flight. Note that this does not turn the engine back on, you have to do that manually. The same goes for parachutes that have been used and re-packed, you can "activate" them through the staging sequence, but they won't deploy, you have to deploy them manually.

You can even do this with solid rockets. If you need to test a solid rocket in flight, you can ignite the solid rocket at launch, edit the staging sequence in flight, and then "activate" it again while the rocket is still burning or after burnout.

[numerobis]

Broken features are bugs. Doesn't matter if you can see what they typed (in these configs) or not (in the source code). They explained how it worked and it doesn't work that, way. It's a bug. If they had said (or say now), "Some engines you have to stage, some you have to "run test" on, and some you can do both. Have extra fun figuring out which is which!" then it'd be a feature. A stupid feature, but a feature.

The contracts have a "[+] more info" button in blue. Click on it, and it will tell you which to do.

Bug or Feature is irrelevant. Anything that gets in the way of the purpose of the software is a problem, doesn't really matter whose fault it is.