For issue #56

[GrubbyZebra]

Here are the files I've changed/added for the new Kerbin Programs.

Made 2 small changes to the strategia source code to support whatever homeworld the player has set up.

Included the strategy and contract files. There is a strategy for both unmanned and manned exploration. The unmanned strategy is only available before orbiting Kerbin.

[jrossignol]

Looks good at a glance. Will have to spend some time taking a closer look at it (hopefully over the next few days).

[jrossignol]

I think everything looks good from a technical standpoint. My concern is that the contract asks too much. Specifically:

1. The first part (break the sound barrier) feels like it's an x-plane type of requirement (which doesn't necessarily fit). But it doesn't really have any "plane" restrictions (parts, horizontal velocity check or altitude ceiling), so the player could end up doing this one and reach the upper atmosphere with the same vessel (one after the other because of the New Vessel requirement). So I say drop this (but consider folding into an entirely separate x-plane strategy...

2. The last two Rendezvous + Dock feel like too forcing the player too much down a path they may not want to go down. If I wanted to rush to the Mun, but wanted to take this as the "early" strategy then I don't think I'd want to do these (and I definitely wouldn't want to have to Rendezvous and Dock seperately). My suggestion here is a whole new strategy (ie. Gemini analogue).

3. The NewVessel parameter may not be doing what you think - it means "the vessel must be launched after the contract is accepted". So technically, one vessel could do all the different parameters in the contract (although the RecoverVessel actually ends up making this impossible). But I don't think this is necessarily bad - I would remove the NewVessel/RecoverVessel and embrace that - it gives the player more flexibility which feels more like what Strategia should be to me. To avoid cheesing though, I'd change the Strategy requirement from "not having ReturnFromOrbitManned" to "not having OrbitManned".

4. If we embrace the "one vessel can do all the steps", then I'd suggest splitting the EVA + 1 week into different steps.

Let me know what you think.

EDIT: And sorry it took so long to get this feedback to you.

[GrubbyZebra]

No worries.

1. I wanted to keep the "first launch" and "high altitude" as separate goals for folks playing stock, but agree that the "sound barrier" verbiage makes it sound like a plane contract and not a rocket. SoundBarrier has been replaced by FirstLaunch in the contract.

2. Ideally I wanted the Gemini contract to be a separate strategy from the Mercury stuff, and have it be optional to the moon programs. I couldn't get it to work properly under the Kerbin Program, but thinking about it this morning I think I can get it as a +1 under the Moon Program strategies. This give the player the most flexibility as they can either choose to start exploring the moons immediately after orbit or build (and get some bonus awards) up to an Apollo-style mission.

3. I realized on my play-thru that the new vessel only needs to be in once per contract, but forgot to go back and strip the duplicates out. Will take care of that tonight (trying to use the github editor at work is a pain).

4. I'm torn on this one. The one-week is really only needed if the player has a life support mod installed. And having the EVA on the 1 week requirement is there to give the player something to accomplish during that week other than just launch and forget. Without LS, the entire thing is pointless and the EVA milestone could be accomplished on the first orbital mission.

Gonna play around with it some more this weekend (building a new comp atm so don't have KSP or VS installed).

Thoughts?

[jrossignol]

Sounds good - on the LS one we could just do a NEEDS[TacLifeSupport|USILifeSupport] for that node. Not sure if there are others we'd want to support? I assume Kerbalism is so out there it wouldn't play with Strategia well anyway...

[theonegalen]

Snacks! support, please?

[GrubbyZebra]

TACLS, USILS, and Snacks added to the 7d endurance parameter. Left the 2-crew launch and EVA in place.

Now on to figuring out how to get "ReachBodyMannedRequirement" to reference a body other than the one in $body, or to implement a "LeaveSOIMannedRequirement", which may be better. Once I do this I think I can split the Gemini contracts into a second Kerbin Program that can be optional to going to the Kerbin moons until a moon is visited.

[GrubbyZebra]

finally got my new computer set up and can start back on this.

One thing I noticed inadvertently today is that Kerbin Probes doesn't check for the "first launch" milestone but has a reward for "first launch (just a contract param, not the milestone". Wondering if I should require no launches to take the strategy or reword the contract parameter....

[jrossignol]

I'd go with rewording the contract parameter - limiting it to before first launch is extremely strict.

[GrubbyZebra]

Been playing through Kerbin probes with different parts packs, and have realized that the requires science and requires 2 electricity is too restrictive (e.g. BDB probes have science experiments in them that aren't registered by the parameter). Will strip those out of the contract but leave in the transmit or recover parameter.

Also I need to recompile my test version for the current version of Strategia.

[GrubbyZebra]

Edit: NM, went back and re-read my comment that you were responding to and figured out what you meant.

Will change parameter to "Launch into Lower Atmosphere"

[GrubbyZebra]

Have there been any changes that would effect:

EFFECT
    {
        name = ReturnFromOrbitMannedRequirement
		
		invert = true
    }

In testing, I completed the SETI contract to return a probe from orbit, and it kicked the manned kerbin strategy with this flag in it, causing it to become unavailable and the moon programs to become available (which also require a manned orbital return in my version).

Thanks for your help, as always.

EDIT: The issue was with how KSP recorded the return. It used completed instead of completedUnmanned. Not sure why but nothing to do with this so....