Looking to make a contract exclusion mod, need help getting started

[SkyRender]

The current contract system is badly in need of an option to specify what kind of contracts you do not wish to take (meaning they'll never be generated when you've told the game not to spawn them), and I figured that would be a good mod to start work on. The only problem is this: I don't know where to start! I could code it easily enough, but I don't know what tools I'll need, what resources from KSP I'll need to access/modify, etc. If someone could point me in the right direction on where to get started with this, I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you!

[Shinsaka]

Maybe take a look into the MissionController2's source code ? It have options to activate/deactivate some types of missions.

[SkyRender]

Well I was kind of hoping for advice on what programs to use for this endeavour as well. There isn't really any "getting started" topic here that flat-out tells you what software you need to code and compile a mod for KSP, at least that I could find. A couple of high-level ones like the "help a fellow modder out" and "debugging" topics, but that's definitely more advanced than someone who's completely unaware of where to start is going to be helped by.

[DMagic]

This [thread=94638]thread[/thread] is primarily concerned with modeling, but at the bottom has a number of useful links for plugin development. The tutorials by TriggerAu and TaranisElsu are extremely helpful.

There are also a few threads further down this page that address basically the same thing.

[SkyRender]

Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for! No wonder I missed it, it's in the general forum for add-on development...