How do I get explore Jool contract to show up?

[thereaverofdarkness]

I have been more than capable of going to Jool for quite a while now but the explore Jool, Eve, Moho, Dres, and Eeloo contracts just won't show up. I even tried sending a probe to Eve but all it did was make the Explore Gilly contract show up, and I think it prevented me from getting the Eve contract entirely. Now I have sent a probe inside Jool's SOI and it left again without making any orbit or visiting any other moons, but the Explore Jool contract still won't show up. What am I doing wrong?

edit: I have now completed the explore Duna contract. I got a contract to collect science data from space around Jool, but no mission to explore Jool or any of its several moons. Why can't I get the mission??

Answers:

How to make Explore Jool show up naturally:

Follow explore contracts and avoid entering planet SOIs that you haven't got an explore contract for yet. Order: Mün, Minmus, Duna, Ike/Eve, possibly Gilly, by then Explore Jool should have shown up. If not, wait a few days or drop some contracts.

How to force Explore Jool to show up:

Either take an existing explore contract or create a new one with the alt+F12 debug menu, then open up your persistence file in notepad or notepad++ (file location: KSP_win\saves\<your game name>\persistent.sfs) and search for the explore contract. Press ctrl+f and do a search for: type = ExploreBody

The contract should look something like this:

            CONTRACT
            {
                guid = 4917a44d-f897-47bf-b11b-277a5c675018
                type = ExploreBody
                prestige = 2
                seed = 254211797
                state = Active
                agent = Vac-Co Advanced Suction Systems
                deadlineType = None
                expiryType = None
                values = 0,0,64667.5201840209,325358.454180507,72201.6007141113,0,287.1959,600,0,27868008.5158417,0,0
                body = 6
                PARAM
                {
                    name = EnterOrbit
                    id = Orbit
                    state = Incomplete
                    values = 36000,0,0,72,0
                    body = 6
                }
                PARAM
                {
                    name = CollectScience
                    id = ScienceSpace
                    state = Incomplete
                    values = 36000,0,120,36,0
                    body = 6
                    location = Space
                }
                PARAM
                {
                    name = LandOnBody
                    id = Land
                    state = Incomplete
                    values = 54000,0,0,72,0
                    body = 6
                }
                PARAM
                {
                    name = CollectScience
                    id = ScienceSurface
                    state = Incomplete
                    values = 36000,0,120,36,0
                    body = 6
                    location = Surface
                }
            }

What you want to do is copy this segment and paste a copy right below it. Then you want to change the "body =" value to 8 (Jool) or any value from 9-13 for any of the Joolian moons (the "body =" segment shows up 5 times, make sure you change all of them). For Jool, you'll also want to erase the two bottom PARAM sections ("id = Land" and "id = ScienceSurface") because you can't complete those on Jool and the Explore Jool contract does not have those.

Edited January 3, 2015 by thereaverofdarkness

[Anquietas314]

You probably need to explore both Duna and Dres first. I never got around to doing that in a career save before 0.90, and I'm not quite there yet . If you've already sent a probe to Jool it probably won't show up at all. Apparently those work the same way as the altitude record contracts at the start of the game. You should still get the contracts to explore the moons though

EDIT: Nope, apparently just Duna and Ike.

Edited January 1, 2015 by armagheddonsgw

[ghpstage]

I'm fairly sure doing the Duna and Ike contracts opened it for me, even without Eve being done.

As mentioned above, goign into the SOI of a body you haven't accepted the contract to explore prevents you from ever getting access to it.

Edited December 31, 2014 by ghpstage

[thereaverofdarkness]

Oh my gosh that's retarded. I never had a problem getting it to show up in other games when I was ready, but now I'm supposed to go to Dres first? I've never even gone to Dres once, not in any game!

Is there some way I can fix it so it doesn't act like I've been there, or force it to give me the missions?

[Anquietas314]

Oh my gosh that's retarded. I never had a problem getting it to show up in other games when I was ready, but now I'm supposed to go to Dres first? I've never even gone to Dres once, not in any game!

Then perhaps Dres is not a factor I did make it clear it was an educated guess.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Long story short, in trying to make my Explore Jool contract show up, I possibly prevented it from showing up. I still have done zero exploration of Jool, one pass through its SOI with a science-less probe, and I have fully explored Duna and finished its contract, twice at once actually. I tried using the debug options to force the contract to show up but that didn't work either.

Anyone know what I can do to make that contract show up? I don't care what it involves, cheating, code-writing, I'll do it. If I can't find a way to make this happen, then this game I've spent dozens of hours on is a bust.

[Anquietas314]

I'm not certain this will work, but you could try deleting the Jool section of your persistence file in the "ProgressTracking" scenario. That is, all of it. In my file, it only lists the bodies I've been to.

[Claw]

Threads merged, carry on.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'm not certain this will work, but you could try deleting the Jool section of your persistence file in the "ProgressTracking" scenario. That is, all of it. In my file, it only lists the bodies I've been to.

It didn't seem to work. I deleted the entry and then finished up my Explore Gilly and Explore Ike contracts, so I had no more explore contracts available, and Explore Bop showed up, with none for Jool or any other Joolian satellite.

I finally just made 5 copies of the Bop contract and changed the relevant body to all 8 through 13. Now I have all the contracts, and they all have exactly the same rewards and are from the same company. ~X(

*walks away muttering about KSP being broken*

edit: I'm still looking for an answer!

[Postron]

You could try starting a new game and copy everything related to jool from it's persistence file into you current save (overwriting the respective sections in your current save), but you probably also have to edit anything else related to this jool-pass you did (like for example kerbal-logs) since the persistence file seems to auto complete it self correcting any inconsistencies.

[thereaverofdarkness]

What is the actual method to cause the Explore Jool contract to show up? I still haven't figured that out because everything I tried failed to do it.

[Greep]

I've played career a few times and Jool always shows up for me and I do Duna, eve, ike, and gilly first usually. But I get jool before actually doing eve/gilly.

My guess is reputation. I never touch rep admin and have about 900+ by the time jool shows up, so it's prolly that?

Also contracts are weird. You may have to accept reject a bunch first or finish some of your existing contracts for new contracts to generate, or wait a while for existing contracts to expire or something.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Greep

[thereaverofdarkness]

I did have a lot of contracts left to be done, so that might have had something to do with it. It wasn't rep as I also had over 900. I hadn't yet bothered with exploring Duna because I wanted to go to Jool. I don't see why I should have to do Duna first but maybe that's it. I also suspect that with any contract in which completion unlocks another, failing to get the first one will jinx your entire game and prevent you from getting all the rest that follow. For instance: if finishing Duna explore unlocks Jool explore, visiting Duna SOI before being given Duna explore contract would prevent Jool explore from ever showing up.

[Greep]

Yeah I don't think I've ever gotten jool without actually completing duna, so that's probably it. I'm guessing what you said preventing jool is wrong, though, as you said gilly showed up by visiting eve without eve ever showing up right?

[tater]

Contracts for exploring bodies outside of Kerbin's SOI should be tied to ideal launch windows, and should explicitly mention the best (lowest dv) window to launch. So you get one for each body that might suggest launching to Duna on days 210-250, for example.

[Laie]

The contracts are strictly ordered:

1. mun
   
2. minmus
   
3. Duna / Ike / Eve (all three become available after you have hit Minmus)
   
4. gilly
   
5. Jool
   
6. bop
   
7. pol
   
8. tylo
   
9. laythe
   
10. vall
    
11. dres
    
12. eeloo / moho
    

You can have at most four contracts where nothing has been done yet. Fly to any of these destinations in order to unlock the next exploration contract. Entering the SOI of Eve may suffice to unlock Gilly, achieving Orbit around Eve will suffice. In that fashion, it is possible to have all exploration contracts open without having completed any of them.

Beware: Explorations are three-star contracts. Your reputation determines how many three-star contracts will be available to you. Once the buffer is full, you will have to actually finish one in order to make room for the next. Also, keep in mind that exploration contracts can't be declined: once they show up, they will be around until completed, crowding out other three-star contracts.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Laie

[biohazard15]

Explore Body contracts are pretty much messed up at the moment.

Just got "Explore Ike" contract. Funny thing is that I didn't even completed "Explore the Mun" contract (I've did only the orbital part). And there are no Explore Minmus or Explore Duna yet.

The safest way to get them is to make a separate save on space center screen, and then use Alt-f12 menu to spawn them. If you get a several identical contracts (which is totally possible) - reload your save and try again.

[LABHOUSE]

It is always after I finish a few duna contracts (four plant a flag on and one explore).

[thereaverofdarkness]

Yeah I don't think I've ever gotten jool without actually completing duna, so that's probably it. I'm guessing what you said preventing jool is wrong, though, as you said gilly showed up by visiting eve without eve ever showing up right?

Eve never showed up because I landed (read: crashed) on it too early. That must have made the Eve explore contract never show.

---------------------------------

I started a new game and blitzed through the explore contracts (with infinite fuel):

1.) After reaching orbit (or space perhaps), Explore Mün showed up.

2.) After exploring Mün, Explore Minmus showed up.

3.) After exploring Minmus, Explore Duna showed up.

4.) After exploring Duna (and avoiding entering Ike's SOI), Explore Ike and Explore Eve showed up.

5.) After exploring Ike, Explore Jool showed up.

6.) After waiting several days for new contracts to spawn, Explore Gilly and Set base on Pol showed up.

It looks like what Laie said is about right, and the explore contracts really must be completed in sequence. If I am also right about breaking the sequence, then you must be very careful to never enter the SOI of any body for which you have not received the explore contract, even Ike, which avoiding it is like missing the toilet seat.

[Anquietas314]

3.) After exploring Minmus, Explore Duna showed up.

4.) After exploring Duna (and avoiding entering Ike's SOI), Explore Ike and Explore Eve showed up.

In my save I've currently only been to Mun and Minmus (I have things on the way to Moho and Eve, but nothing that's actually arrived yet). I got Explore Eve, Explore Duna and Explore Ike all after completing Explore Minmus. Still waiting for Explore Moho, but I've set up the Eve probes (one to Gilly too) to arrive in a sequence that should allow me to unlock the contracts in the right order (Eve -> Gilly -> Moho I think).

[ghpstage]

For the Moho contract, I had to explore Jool, Bop, Pol, Gilly and start the Ike and Tylo ones before it popped up. Just orbiting, or collecting science around the target of an exploration contract seems to trigger new ones becoming available, I suspect entering the SOI is enough.

At some point during your explorations of the Eve and Duna systems the Jool, will become available.

Edited January 3, 2015 by ghpstage

[Aragosnat]

YEah. Weird that I have to run over Eve to get the Gilly Contract to show up? As The Duna/Ike one pops up by getting science and doing a pass and return with enough rep.

Strange that doing Minmus does not bring up Gilly along with Eve as one could accidently or intentionally get an intercept for it. As well as the fact that by going to Mün you get 3 contracts. Two of which share the same SOI more or less. Well one is in the other. I can sort of see why Jool is before Dres. Since it has such a large SOI which makes it hard to miss. But, the return from orbit around X moon eating up more Delta V then A Orbit Dres and leave. Plus shorter time for a return from back to Kerbin too.

Mün: Duna/Ike Gather did science and a pass; Minmus Think I landed and did transmite science from surface to get that to pop up or was that Orbit Mün to get. Sadly don't remember.

Minmus: Think All I had to do was transmit science from around Minmus to get Eve Contract to spawn.

Just weird that we dont get all the contarcts to pop up for a given planet. Since we could accidently get an intercept with one of the moons if they have any. Another is. Just wierd that if we do the Eve/Gilly contract we would get Jool and not Moho and The Duna/Ike one we don't get Dres. Since one could use Eve to sling shot/brake down to Moho. Eventually.

But, At least I know. I have to do Hit Eve to get Gilly Explore contract. But, I might find out after my Duna Probe gets some scince from Duna. Going to be long long time before that happens. 400+ days and counting

[MacroNova]

Contracts for exploring bodies outside of Kerbin's SOI should be tied to ideal launch windows, and should explicitly mention the best (lowest dv) window to launch. So you get one for each body that might suggest launching to Duna on days 210-250, for example.

This. It's very frustrating that Moho is the first launch window and one of the last explore contracts to appear. Bad design.