[1.2.1] Outer Planets Mod (2.1) - Active development has moved, see first post for new thread

[lajoswinkler]

I've sent an impactor to Neidon. Periapsis was set few kilometres below its atmosphere edge, so it was basically grazing. Results are the same - extreme decceleration below Mach 1 and, as the probe slowly falls down, ever faster precessions like a wacky spinning top.

Any news on DRE-OPM compatibility?

[Borisbee]

Sounds like I need to make a modulemanager patch for DRE. The temperatureMultiplier needs to be lowered in order for it to not act like it's hitting a brick wall. If you want a quick fix, edit the tempMultiplier yourself from 5 to 2.5.

[CaptRobau]

I need some help. I accepted a contract to explore Tekto, and as soon as I entered the VAB, all of my contracts were gone. Also, the rings of Sarum and Urlum were not showing.

I had a large problem with this in my last save with this. I found that if you clear our the VAB of any vehicles before accepting contracts it helps, though not 100%.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a game install that this happens about 80% of the time if your interested.

PM me with details. Operating system, version of KSP (32 or 64-bit), other installed mods, etc.

I've sent an impactor to Neidon. Periapsis was set few kilometres below its atmosphere edge, so it was basically grazing. Results are the same - extreme decceleration below Mach 1 and, as the probe slowly falls down, ever faster precessions like a wacky spinning top.

Any news on DRE-OPM compatibility?

I can't replicate it. I'm not hitting sudden deceleration at altitudes just below the atmosphere edge, so the solution is a WIP. Want to get it right you know, which is hard to do when I can't get it to malfunction like you do, you know?

Sounds like I need to make a modulemanager patch for DRE. The temperatureMultiplier needs to be lowered in order for it to not act like it's hitting a brick wall. If you want a quick fix, edit the tempMultiplier yourself from 5 to 2.5.

Would the temperaturemultiplier impact the 'brick wall' at all? Temperature would only impact the sudden heat, not the deceleration right? It's difficult for me to understand the problem without being able to replicate it myself.

[lajoswinkler]

Don't worry, I'm not trying to create pressure on you. I'm merely reporting.

[Eudae55]

I've sent an impactor to Neidon. Periapsis was set few kilometres below its atmosphere edge, so it was basically grazing. Results are the same - extreme decceleration below Mach 1 and, as the probe slowly falls down, ever faster precessions like a wacky spinning top.

Any news on DRE-OPM compatibility?

What altitude did you set our periapsis?

[Captain Planet]

The work you guys have done on the Sarnus system has me very excited to see the rest! Everything looks super high-quality.

[Yargnit]

So does including the configs to work with Astronomers Visual Pack actually serve any good? I ask because even with nothing else of consequence running for mods, and using aggressive active texture management, KSP still won't get through loading before crashing using outer planers with AVP. It gets through the loading bar at like 3.2GB used, but crests above 3.7GB before the actual scene will load even with the aggressive settings being used.

[lajoswinkler]

What altitude did you set our periapsis?

I forgot the exact numbers, but my plan was close to 5 km below the atmosphere edge noted in the map view and that was what I did.

[Tellion]

So does including the configs to work with Astronomers Visual Pack actually serve any good? I ask because even with nothing else of consequence running for mods, and using aggressive active texture management, KSP still won't get through loading before crashing using outer planers with AVP. It gets through the loading bar at like 3.2GB used, but crests above 3.7GB before the actual scene will load even with the aggressive settings being used.

You *should* be able to get away with it using the low res options from astronomers pack. If that does not work, there is not much more you can do except maybe switching to linux. However, there are configs for KSPRC (not sure if that one is any easier on your RAM) and AVP:Oblivion. Especially the latter I would give a try in your case.

I forgot the exact numbers, but my plan was close to 5 km below the atmosphere edge noted in the map view and that was what I did.

This is quite the vexed issue you are having there, mainly because we have hardly any reproducibility. What you are describing should definitively not be happening, and it does not seem like you are making any mistakes in the execution of the aerobraking maneuver either...

Does it occur when you use the latest stable DRE with the latest OPM only? Toss FAR in and out of there, any differences? All on a clean savegame of course, mods downloaded from the links in their respective threads.

If yes, well, some people more apt at reading logs will definitely ask for your player.log or output.log depending on your OS (what OS is it btw?). Post them here, that will lead to more people seeing them and help anyone else who might encounter the issue in the future.

If not, there is something specific about your install or mod combination that you have to identify with the old "remove one at a time" method.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Tellion

[Yargnit]

You *should* be able to get away with it using the low res options from astronomers pack. If that does not work, there is not much more you can do except maybe switching to linux. However, there are configs for KSPRC (not sure if that one is any easier on your RAM) and AVP:Oblivion. Especially the latter I would give a try in your case.

Low res options in Astronomers pack didn't do it, but I was finally able to make it work with the -opengl flag. Funny enough using -opengl I sit at under 2.3GB RAM used without having ATM installed at all, compared to crashing above 3.7GB with agressive ATM using DX mode.

[Borisbee]

I'm going to take another look at the DRE issue later since I know I had the same issue and had to tweak the atmosphere before it would work correctly.

- - - Updated - - -

Low res options in Astronomers pack didn't do it, but I was finally able to make it work with the -opengl flag. Funny enough using -opengl I sit at under 2.3GB RAM used without having ATM installed at all, compared to crashing above 3.7GB with agressive ATM using DX mode.

I figured everyone was running opengl or linux at this point, at least if you're into mods.

[Yargnit]

I figured everyone was running opengl or linux at this point, at least if you're into mods.

I've never ran any part mods really, and just lightly play with visual mods. Also last time I tried the opengl version the performance was bad, either my new video card handles it way better, or performance got much better than it used to be.

[Tellion]

I'm going to take another look at the DRE issue later since I know I had the same issue and had to tweak the atmosphere before it would work correctly.

Okay, that lightens it up a little! I have also managed to reproduce it now, massive g-forces but no heating here. Most interesting, because I failed last time I tried. I used my main install for testing now, so there might be some mod interaction after all.

What I wonder though, if this really is as simple as a single parameter that does not fit, why doesn't it occur for everyone?

EDIT: Is there any chance that nobody has actually tested this with and without FAR? because I can reproduce with OPM(64k)+DRE+FAR but not without the latter. I dont quite believe that, surely some of us here run FAR...

Alright, not sure if this goes for you too lajoswinkler, but the reason is tied to 64k for me. It seems that orbital velocities increase so damn much that the default parameters do not cut it in this case.

Whatever the problem is, it does exist in vanilla OPM (with FAR) - the deceleration is much higher than it should be. I reach about 5 g at 303km height, that is 900m below the boundary to space, and obviously way too much. It does not kill any kerbals however, since the orbital velocity is cute and fluffy and at no point enough to even drain a single point of ablative shielding away before you lost all your velocity.

All of those issues go away when running without FAR; at that point reentry behaves as expected both in vanilla OPM and in 6.4x. OPM So basically, what we seem to have here is a FAR incompatibility - probably some value that FAR dislikes. Most likely I am just restating what Borisbee already found out, but maybe it helps nonetheless.

Doing the same reentry profile (DRE, FAR, 64K, hyperediting into the edge of the atmosphere) on Jool [like 21km/s initially] displays no such effects, so we should be able to find out what changes are responsible and revert those. The FAR window also has an Atmospheric Composition section, I noticed Gas Molecular Mass and Gas Viscosity differing significantly between Jool and Sarnus, Urlum und Neidon there.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Tellion

[_Augustus_]

Okay, that lightens it up a little! I have also managed to reproduce it now, massive g-forces but no heating here. Most interesting, because I failed last time I tried. I used my main install for testing now, so there might be some mod interaction after all.

What I wonder though, if this really is as simple as a single parameter that does not fit, why doesn't it occur for everyone?

EDIT: Is there any chance that nobody has actually tested this with and without FAR? because I can reproduce with OPM(64k)+DRE+FAR but not without the latter. I dont quite believe that, surely some of us here run FAR...

I run FAR on my Koviet install. I am thinking about installing OPM on there.

[Shania_L]

From OP, Known Issues,

-Recovery values on Kerbin can be off, which is a Kopernicus bug

Is that related to the KSC behaving as though it is 90 degrees around the planet to where it actually is?

I have been getting 'trivial' contracts for crew reports in flight which are usually within 100km of the spacecentre appearing consistently in the same place about 90 degrees East of KSC.

Also in relation to the previous post, I run an x64 scale OPM, with DRE and FAR, I have not encountered any re-entry problems on the very basic Kerbin re-entries I have done so far.... or is the problem only with the new gas giants? (My puny space program hasnt got that far yet)

Edited February 15, 2015 by Shania_L

[Right]

For anyone interested, here are my delta-v requirement findings for ascending to low orbit of each body.

Hale: 42

Ovok: 80

Eeloo: 600

Slate: 2670

Tekto: 2600

Plock: 450

Sarnus, Urlum, & Neidon: Like Jool, no way to land! However, from the theoretical surface ~9km dV for Urlum & Neidon, ~20km dV for Sarnus.

Double the dV requirements for a lander + back to orbit (Minus Tekto, it has an atmosphere)

If someone feels like putting a dV map together, heres the rest of the numbers...

Hohmann Transfer (AKA Intercept) dV Requirements (This includes low orbit escape burn):

Kerbin->Sarnus: 2270

Kerbin->Urlum: 2470

Kerbin->Neidon: 2580

Kerbin->Plock: 2588

Sarnus->Hale: 540

Sarnus->Ovok: 650

Sarnus->Eeloo: 1120

Sarnus->Slate: 1460

Sarnus->Tekto: 1540

Low Orbit (Circularization Burn):

Sarnus: 1980 (Aerobraking Possible)

Urlum: 1310 (Aerobraking Possible)

Neidon: 1310 (Aerobraking Possible)

Plock: 1190

[From Low Sarnus Orbit]

Hale: 420

Ovok: 480

Eeloo: 470

Slate:880

Tekto: 360 (Aerobraking Possible)

Low orbit is defined, as it traditionally is, 10km above the highest obstacle or atmosphere (whichever is higher)

One really needs time controller to get these values though. You have to wait ~180 years for ideal Plock transfer window, and its a 40+ year transit.

Wow that took a long time to get all that.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I should mention that something is off with Tekto's atmosphere. Trajectories thinks it starts at 138km, the stock 'knowledge base' says its 119.5km, but its actually 100.5km. Some food for thought: since you include a change to the power curve for solar panels, why not set up your own Kerbol warp rails? Maybe something that can be switched on/off.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Right

[Yargnit]

After finally figuring out how to not run out of memory running this with AVP, (-opengl) I took a venture to 4 of Sarnus's moons to check it out. Landed on Tekto, Eeloo, Ovk, and Hale all in one trip. I love Tekto, it's absolutely beautiful. (And takes more d/v than you'd think to make it back to orbit from the surface!) Hale is crazy, the SOI barely extends 3.5km above some of the peaks, there's hardly room to leave a mothership in a stable orbit while you land. (Not complaining, it's neat)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I did notice a glitch when I tried to burn directly for Kerbin intercept from Hale orbit, crossing SOI's between Hale and Sarnus I got like 6k Kraken Drive d/v throwing me out of Sarnus's SOI. After reloading and just tossing myself into Sarnus's SOI before going home it worked fine. Also can report Kerbal Engineer works fine now.

Nice work, can't wait to see moons for the rest of the outer planets!

Edit; Notice you say in the opening post Hale is supposed to be tidally locked to Sarnus, it wasn't for me.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Yargnit

[CaptRobau]

Okay, that lightens it up a little! I have also managed to reproduce it now, massive g-forces but no heating here. Most interesting, because I failed last time I tried. I used my main install for testing now, so there might be some mod interaction after all.

What I wonder though, if this really is as simple as a single parameter that does not fit, why doesn't it occur for everyone?

EDIT: Is there any chance that nobody has actually tested this with and without FAR? because I can reproduce with OPM(64k)+DRE+FAR but not without the latter. I dont quite believe that, surely some of us here run FAR...

Alright, not sure if this goes for you too lajoswinkler, but the reason is tied to 64k for me. It seems that orbital velocities increase so damn much that the default parameters do not cut it in this case.

Whatever the problem is, it does exist in vanilla OPM (with FAR) - the deceleration is much higher than it should be. I reach about 5 g at 303km height, that is 900m below the boundary to space, and obviously way too much. It does not kill any kerbals however, since the orbital velocity is cute and fluffy and at no point enough to even drain a single point of ablative shielding away before you lost all your velocity.

All of those issues go away when running without FAR; at that point reentry behaves as expected both in vanilla OPM and in 6.4x. OPM So basically, what we seem to have here is a FAR incompatibility - probably some value that FAR dislikes. Most likely I am just restating what Borisbee already found out, but maybe it helps nonetheless.

Doing the same reentry profile (DRE, FAR, 64K, hyperediting into the edge of the atmosphere) on Jool [like 21km/s initially] displays no such effects, so we should be able to find out what changes are responsible and revert those. The FAR window also has an Atmospheric Composition section, I noticed Gas Molecular Mass and Gas Viscosity differing significantly between Jool and Sarnus, Urlum und Neidon there.

Thanks for the research. I can use that in finding a workable solution to the problem.

Is that related to the KSC behaving as though it is 90 degrees around the planet to where it actually is?

I have been getting 'trivial' contracts for crew reports in flight which are usually within 100km of the spacecentre appearing consistently in the same place about 90 degrees East of KSC.

Also in relation to the previous post, I run an x64 scale OPM, with DRE and FAR, I have not encountered any re-entry problems on the very basic Kerbin re-entries I have done so far.... or is the problem only with the new gas giants? (My puny space program hasnt got that far yet)

For anyone interested, here are my delta-v requirement findings for ascending to low orbit of each body.

-snip-

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I should mention that something is off with Tekto's atmosphere. Trajectories thinks it starts at 138km, the stock 'knowledge base' says its 119.5km, but its actually 100.5km. Some food for thought: since you include a change to the power curve for solar panels, why not set up your own Kerbol warp rails? Maybe something that can be switched on/off.

That is very handy. Didn't know about the wrong atmo height. I'll fix that in the next update. What do you mean with warp rails. The altitudes that 50x, 100x, etc. timewarp can happen or do you mean the time warp speeds. The latter can be done only with the TimeControl mod and it's zero effort to do it yourself. Adding a config file for that would only overwrite those that people made themselves.

After finally figuring out how to not run out of memory running this with AVP, (-opengl) I took a venture to 4 of Sarnus's moons to check it out. Landed on Tekto, Eeloo, Ovk, and Hale all in one trip. I love Tekto, it's absolutely beautiful. (And takes more d/v than you'd think to make it back to orbit from the surface!) Hale is crazy, the SOI barely extends 3.5km above some of the peaks, there's hardly room to leave a mothership in a stable orbit while you land. (Not complaining, it's neat)

http://imgur.com/a/awtYp

I did notice a glitch when I tried to burn directly for Kerbin intercept from Hale orbit, crossing SOI's between Hale and Sarnus I got like 6k Kraken Drive d/v throwing me out of Sarnus's SOI. After reloading and just tossing myself into Sarnus's SOI before going home it worked fine. Also can report Kerbal Engineer works fine now.

Nice work, can't wait to see moons for the rest of the outer planets!

Edit; Notice you say in the opening post Hale is supposed to be tidally locked to Sarnus, it wasn't for me.

Strange Kraken bug. Well Hale is tidally locked to me. Since the change I've never seen it not tidally locked. Very strange that you didn't have that on your end.

[Drakoflame]

Hey CaptRobau, I seem to be having an issue with OPM and KT 0.12... After I updated to .12, none of the OPM (heh, saying it fast sounds like Opium) planets show up... there were for a while, but they suddenly *poof*! Do you have any Ideas? I currently have TK (Trans-Kuptonian) and am going to add the 1.22 of Minor Bodies (another cool planet addon) But I really want to visit Tekto (I'm even going to try installing some sort of cloud mod onto my crappy computer after finding out running it in opengl mode helps with ram).

I'm running my current save in Science Sandbox and I want to send a "primitive" probe out into the Gas Giants, but it makes it hard to visit your planets when they arn't there...

The way I have my KT set up with the other planet packs, they are using KT's .dlls, and your planet pack doesn't seem to work with it. ATM saw the textures for your mod and compressed them, they just arn't showing up in game? Any idea how I can fix this?

[CaptRobau]

In 1.5.2 OPM still overwrites the System.cfg to add the planets and moons. When you upgraded KT you probably overwrote that file, meaning that the planets aren't loading. It won't be an issue in future updates as we're moving everything out of System.cfg, but for now the fix is to not overwrite the System.cfg that comes with OPM.

[Borisbee]

I have been playing around with DRE (without FAR) and I don't know if it happens without DRE or not, but when you get to about 315km altitude around sarnus, you get a instant drop of about 1000 m/s dv. I was coming in at around 5100 m/s and as soon as I hit that altitude my speed changed to 4000 m/s or so. The G level did not increase when it happened, so it was odd.

Edit: Ignore everything above, was me not noticing the change from orbit to surface.

Ok can confirm. The issue is not with DRE at all, but with FAR and that invisible line. Hitting the atmosphere causes instantanious explosions. I'll try to figure out what causes it.

I figured it out. The issue is the temperatureMultiplier is setting the aerodynamic stresses on the vehicle ridiculously high. Using FAR, you can open the flight data window and watch the Q as you enter the atmosphere. It will climb at an alarming rate and quickly reach into the 20k range and blow the ship apart. I recommend changing the multiplier back to 2.5 as that causes the pressure to stabalize. You can also tweak the amosphere scale hieight some to offset it a bit, but 5 is still way too high as even 3.3 will blow a ship apart.

Edited February 16, 2015 by Borisbee

[Right]

What do you mean with warp rails. The altitudes that 50x, 100x, etc. timewarp can happen or do you mean the time warp speeds. The latter can be done only with the TimeControl mod and it's zero effort to do it yourself. Adding a config file for that would only overwrite those that people made themselves

Point taken. I was talking about increasing the maximum warp. Its very important to get to the outermost bodies. But TimeControl has bugs and I theres no ETA. You could make OPM warp rails a toggle-able setting, defaulted to off. However, I know OPM doesn't have a settings window so this might be a lot of work. I don't know if its possible, but you could make patching a new set of warp rails conditional: TimeControl not detected->Patch improved rails.

I'm sure you've got plenty on your plate, I just want to keep the ideas flowing.

[Borisbee]

Point taken. I was talking about increasing the maximum warp. Its very important to get to the outermost bodies. But TimeControl has bugs and I theres no ETA. You could make OPM warp rails a toggle-able setting, defaulted to off. However, I know OPM doesn't have a settings window so this might be a lot of work. I don't know if its possible, but you could make patching a new set of warp rails conditional: TimeControl not detected->Patch improved rails.

I'm sure you've got plenty on your plate, I just want to keep the ideas flowing.

I feel like that's a little out of scope of this mod personally. If anything it should be added to Kopernicus (which I think it may be already, not sure on that).

[wallum61]

Bug report incoming. Well I hope it's a bug and not my incompetence. I have :

OPM 1.5.2, and the 1K-2K textures

Texture Replacer 2.2.5

AVP Interstellar

Distant Object Enhancement 1.5.2

When I have a satellite in orbit, occasionally, at every point in an orbit, the skybox re-appears to full visibility when looking at the sun.

This doesnt occur when OPM is not in.

If more information is needed, I can provide.

[Sigma88]

This mod made me interested in planet design, since I'd like to try making some moon if anyone has any suggestion on how to get such good results it would be very helpful. Feel free to pm me.

Since I'm not interested in making a mod for myself I'll probably send everything to captrobau so he can take from that whatever he is interested in.

For now I have some Ideas about some SolarSystem analogues like Triton and a charon/pluto system with the baricenter outside of pluto...

I don't really know what capt is already working on, I hope I'm not overlapping on anything

Also, I feel pretty confortable messing around with .cfg files, what I need suggestions about is textures