In the Game
The Sidebar
Everything the add-on does in game is reached from one panel that expands out of the middle of the screen. The toolbar button is the only way in, and it is the only thing the add-on adds to the game's own UI.
The panels
Missions
The week's community missions, with what each one pays and whether you have already claimed it.
Contracts
The inbox. Offers waiting on an answer, your active work, week groups, a local bin and multi-select. In the editor on an active contract it also shows the contract's part limits and the switch that arms the editor restriction. Rescue wrecks are spawned from here.
Profile
Your balance, XP, level and rank, without leaving the game to check.
Feed
Notifications from the server merged with local ones the add-on raises itself. Mark read and dismiss from either here or Discord; the unread count follows.
Market
The selling half of the marketplace. List the craft on the stage, set a price, and open the website to browse.
Tools
Quicksend a craft to a friend, export a craft to a file with everything packed in, import a flag, file a bug report with your KSP.log attached, and repair a roster with broken crew professions.
Settings
Server address, notifications, data sharing, the craft transfer switches, and whether the interface opens in your browser instead.
Submitting is a window, not a tab
Submission opens in a draggable window rather than as a sidebar panel, because it is read against the scene behind it: the craft on the build stage, or the navball in flight. A centred panel that owns the middle of the screen is the wrong shape for that.
Drag it by its header, put it where it does not cover what you are looking at, and it stays inside the screen no matter what resolution you remembered a position from. Physics Range Extender is paused while it is up.
Blueprints
When a craft is submitted, listed or sent, the add-on renders it rather than asking you for a screenshot. An off-screen camera shoots eight views, six orthographic and two perspective, against a black and then a white background so exact per-pixel transparency can be recovered from the pair, and composites them onto a blueprint sheet.
A capture that comes back with no vessel pixels in it falls back to a plain screenshot rather than submitting a blank image. ConformalDecals decals are re-issued onto the capture layer so they appear, since a decal has no renderer of its own and would otherwise be culled out. Where Deferred is installed the capture runs on the deferred path instead, with supersampling standing in for the MSAA that path ignores.
Editor restrictions
A contract can limit which parts the contractor may build with. When one is active and you switch the restriction on from the inbox, the VAB and SPH part list is limited to what the contract permits. It is opt in per contract rather than forced, so the editor stays usable for unrelated work.
What is deliberately not on the sidebar
A handful of screens are drawn separately, because each of them exists for a moment when the sidebar itself may not be available or may not be trustworthy.
Consentfirst run | The privacy and terms gate. Everything else waits on it, so it cannot depend on anything. |
The update gateversion mismatch | Shown when your add-on is older than the published version. It offers a re-check and a download link, and narrows the rest of the interface to the panels that work without a server. |
The suspension noticeaccount suspended | Reason, a live countdown and a check again button, plus the reassurance that nothing was deleted. |
Device verificationsecurity | A prompt about this specific machine. Answering it inside a screen the prompt is about would defeat it. |
The link screenbefore linking | The toolbar opens the sidebar only once you are linked. |
The data paused noticesharing switched off | Shown while you have turned data sharing off and the add-on is running inert. |
It hides when the game hides its UI
The sidebar respects F2 and every screenshot capture, so it does not end up in your screenshots. That is also why the submission window no longer needs to be closed before taking a shot for a submission.
If you would rather use a browser
There is an optional browser interface that serves most of the same screens on a second monitor. It is off by default and the sidebar is not going anywhere. See Browser Interface.