Hello everyone!

As we are getting closer to the release of Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion, the first ever KSP expansion, it’s a good time to start detailing how some of the features will actually work. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be posting articles with the purpose of preparing you for the launch of the expansion.

If you have been following us, by now you should be aware of the Mission Builder, an exciting new feature that puts the process of creating and editing missions in your hands, using an intuitive and powerful interface.

In this article, we will detail how the you can use the tools of Mission Builder to create all sorts of exciting and inventive missions. By following this guide, you’ll be able to create and play missions from day one.

To illustrate this tutorial, we’ll create a mission, where the player will have to build a vessel that will be launched from a mobile launchpad located on the Mun and head to Eve to rescue a stranded Kerbal orbiting the planet. During the flight, a random part will fail and the player will have to perform an EVA to repair the vessel. Finally the player will continue with the rescue mission, return safely to Kerbin and land at a designated area. So without further ado, let’s begin!

After entering the Start Game screen, you’ll find the expansion’s game modes listed below Scenarios.

Enter the Mission Builder and you’ll see the Mission Canvas in the center of the screen, the Sidebar holding all the nodes on the left, and both the Setting Action Pane and Graphic Action Pane on the right (both are blank as nothing is selected yet).

In the sidebar a wide selection of nodes is available for you to choose from. These are grouped in different categories, depending on their function and purpose, for example, location related actions.

By default, a new mission includes a Start Node and a Create Vessel node. The Start Node defines the starting parameters for our mission and by Left-clicking it you’ll open its Setting Action Pane, where you can adjust the Difficulty Settings and the Mission Start Time amongst other things. For our mission we’ll leave those settings as they are. Each node has different settings, so we’ll be making adjustments to the other nodes we’ll include for our mission.

Moving on to the Create Vessel node, you’ll notice that it’s docked right under the Start Node. Nodes docked to the start node define the vessels and launch sites that are created at the start of the mission.

Let’s open the SAP for the Create Vessel node. We want to have the player build their own vessel, so we’ll leave the “Player Built” selected under the “Create Vessel” Tab. Under the “Location” Tab, you can define the situation of the vessel, whether it will be landed, in orbit, or at a launch site after the player finishes building it and hits the Launch button. We want to launch from a Launch Site, so we’ll select that option. You can also define the Facility where the player will build the vessel and select a default Launch Site. You can also create a vessel for the player to use and add Vessel Restriction here, but we won’t do that for the purposes of our mission. Before moving on, let’s name the vessel, “La Rescatadora” seems like a good name.

You can display the tooltips by hovering the mouse over the nodes in the Sidebar, and by right-clicking them you can pin them as you would with parts in the VAB.

Lets left-click on the LaunchSite node, drag it to the canvas and dock it under the Create Vessel node. This node allows us to create custom launchpads and we want to launch from Mun, so let’s do that.

In the SAP you’ll find a “Create LaunchSite” tab, where you can set the Site Name and the Planet Body where it will be located, let’s name our site and select Mun as our Planet Body. By doing this, a Graphic Action Pane (GAP) is displayed, showcasing the body you selected. You can interact with the GAP: Right-clicking the body lets you move around the planet and left-clicking defines the location of the mobile launchpad. You can also set the location by defining the desired latitude and longitude.

Let’s return to the Create Vessel node’s SAP by left clicking the Create Vessel node in the canvas. Now, under the Location tab we have our custom launch Site among the launchsite options. Let’s select it. Now our player will have his vessel launched from our mobile launchpad.

The second part of our mission requires the player to head towards Eve, so let’s do that. Go to the Sidebar, and drag the Reach SOI node to the canvas and connect it to the Start Node. You can do this by left-clicking the grey arrow found on the right side of the Start Node and then left-clicking on the circle found on the left side of the Reach SOI node. You can include multiple mission paths by connecting different nodes to a single node, but we won’t be doing that today.

In the Reach SOI’s SAP and under the SOI Reached tab, we select Eve as the Planet Body and “La Rescatadora(Player Created)” as the vessel that needs to reach Eve’s sphere of influence. As our stranded Kerbal is orbiting around Eve, we don’t have to land on the planet. We also want this to be an Objective Node, which will have this node flagged as an objective for the Mission App.

The next part of the mission will trigger an event to cause a part failure after reaching Eve’s SOI. So let’s drag the Part Failure node from the sidebar into the canvas. Connect the node to the Reach SOI node and within the Part Failure node’s SAP lets select “La Rescatadora” as the Vessel“ under the Part Failures tab. As our vessel is player created the failure will be applied to any part, depending on what the player builds. If we had selected a default vessel for the player to use, we could select the specific part in the GAP and the failure from a list.

In order to continue with the rescue mission, we want the player to perform an EVA and repair the part that failed. To do this we’ll drag a Test EVA node into the canvas and connect it to the Part Failure node. Within its SAP we’ll select the following settings: Kerbal Type - Crew;  Kerbal - Any Crew; Location Type - Celestial Body; Planet Body - Eve; and Vessel - La Rescatadora.

Next we’ll drag a Part Repair node to the canvas, connect it to the last node, within the SAP select “La Rescatadora” as the Vessel, and “Entire Vessel” as the Repair Type. We’ll also make this a an Objective Node.

Wait, we forgot about our stranded Kerbal! But don’t worry, no kerbal is going to be left behind. Before rescuing it, though, we have to place it around Eve’s orbit. In order to do that we have to drag and dock a Place Kerbal node under the Start Node.In the SAP select “Crew” as the Kerbal Type. Now we have to select a Kerbal. Maybe Valentina got lost on a previous mission and now we have to rescue her, so let’s select her. We also want her to be orbiting Eve, so we have set “orbit” in the Location option and Eve as the Planet Body. Don’t forget to set her as “Stranded” too.

Now we have to set the objective of rescuing her, so let’s drag a Kerbal Rescue node to the canvas and connect it to the part repair node to continue with our narrative. In the SAP select the “Crew” as Kerbal Type and “Valentina Kerman” as the Kerbal to be rescued. She’ll have to board the vessel to be rescued so click on that checkbox, and make this an Objective Node as well.

Why don’t we add a Message Dialog to congratulate our rescuers? Let’s drag a Dialog Message node to the canvas and connect it to the last one. We want the message to be shown in the screen, so let’s click on that checkbox. Now, we only have to add a Heading, a Message and select the Instructor Avatar who will deliver that message.

We’re almost there, now our Kerbals need to return home and land safely. Drag a Go To node into the canvas and connect it to the last node. In the SAP mark it as an Objective Node and set Kerbin as the Planet Body. Landing in Tut-Un Jeb-Ahn (-6.5057 : -141.6856) could be a nice finale for the mission, so let’s set those coordinates. Oh and don’t forget to set “La Rescatadora” as the Vessel!

To end the mission we want to test if the player landed safely on Kerbin, so drag a Vessel Landed node into the canvas and connected to the previous node. We want to set this as the End Node, so mark that checkbox in the upper part of the SAP, as well as the Objective Node option. Let’s include a Mission End Text for a Success scenario, “La Rescatadora” as the Vessel, “Celestial Body” as the Location Type, and “Kerbin” as the Planet Body.

To finish off, let’s run a validation.This system checks the structure of a mission and looks for issues that may prevent the mission from working or that could cause the player of a mission issues when they play it. It gives feedback on issues and highlights the Nodes on the canvas that need attention.

Luckily our mission is free of issues!

Save your mission and include a Mission Briefing.

Wait! I think our rescuers would like to see the mission briefing at the beginning of the mission. To do this we have to left-click the Start Node and click on the Show Mission Briefing  checkbox, then we only have to select the Instructor Avatar. Gene Kerman seems fit for the job.

That’s it, you are now prepared to design missions in Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion! Next time we’ll show you how to export, share, and play other people’s missions!  

Happy launchings!

[Click here for high-res images]

*Node names are still subject to change