Whitecat106

Hello there thanks for that Okay 1. This is a preventative measure for 32 bit games, since this updating causes some small lag, although with 64 bit this is pretty much gone. However if you go onto the Ui, in the settings tab you can select the update planetarium tracking option and voila your orbits will update and continue updating. 2. This is more serious, are you running with Rss or stock? I thought I had removed these kind of bugs before but obviously not, I will work on this today. 3. Currently the mod is limited to using one fuel at a time for every vessel (selectable from the settings tab in the Ui) to Stationkeep, clunky I know but I will sort this out for the next update. Best thing to do: go to the spacecetre, select Xenon in the settings menu, then switch to your vessel and you should now be able to station keep! 1.2.0 will be a fixing release to address the issues above and anymore that I can find - loads at the moment... It's a clunky system Whitecat106

If you use the contract configurator menu (Alt - F10) you can toggle the type of contracts you want to see! As for censorship; my thoughts: Its historical, it happened and without it the 'birth' of rocketry just wouldn't have happened, a different image could have been used but why should it be when that was history? When it comes down to it the Challenger (STS-51-L) or Columbia (STS-107) disasters or the Soyuz-11 accident could have been removed from the pack; but since these effected the course of history and spaceflight - it wouldn't be a very Historical Contract Pack and more of an 'edited' contract pack! I am glad you are enjoying the pack!

Brilliant! Thanks for that!

Hello again everyone, I am currently having issues trying to revive one of my old modifications but after compiling to KSP 1.1 I have noticed that the CelestialBody.pqsController function no longer has any attached subroutines for example, CelestialBody.pqsController.GetSurfaceHeight(Vector3d) In KSP 1.0.5 pre Unity 5, was a valid function. However now this does not seem to exist, throwing the following error during compiling: Error 2 'PQS' does not contain a definition for 'GetSurfaceHeight' and no extension method 'GetSurfaceHeight' accepting a first argument of type 'PQS' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) C:\Users\Marcus\Documents\KSPModding\MaritimeRelease\Source\BackgroundScene.cs 212 52 BoatNavigation I am assuming members of this function have now been changed to Private rather than Public somewhere in the transition to Unity 5 and 1.1? Or that another reference is required from the KSP Managed folder? If there is no apparent solution does anyone know another method of getting surface height from a vector? The vessel in question is Inactive and unloaded due to the nature of the plugin which is why I think I used this function in the first place Whitecat106

Solar Cycle Simulator (SCS) Hello everyone! Whitecat here, creator of the Historic Missions contract pack, Orbital Decay plugin and the Boat Navigation Plugin. Here I present to you a small project which I required as an addon to my Orbital Decay mod. This plugin simply generates and tracks the constantly changing solar cycles of the sun, this can be used in conjunction with RSS or a Stock game. This however is more of a tool for modders than an actual plugin, installed on its own it will simply track and display information on the solar cycle in the Tracking Station, but together with some programming skills a mod maker could create accurate (realistic) solar flare, coronal mass ejection, solar storm or other interesting solar activity based plugins. For Players: Simply download the pack and install the GameData folder into your GameData directory; remember this does not add much appart from a small tracking station UI! (It is also a dependency of Orbital Decay). Download: Dropbox For Mod Makers: Download the pack from the link above and install into your GameData directory, remember that this pack will be a dependency of any mods you create using it, so ensure you provide a link to this page for the latest release. You can include the latest version of this plugin as a reference in your C# development project, from this you will be able to access the following functions: (limited at the moment I know, but bear with me and I will add some more!) The following can be retrievied by using for example: SCSManager.FetchCurrentF107() or SCSManager.FetchCurrentAp() Here are the available functions: Of course there are more Static functions in the code but these will require a little digging into the source but it should be relatively easy for anyone to find anything you are looking for! As I said this is a little bare-bones at the moment, I will include more functions as time progresses and if anyone takes an interest in this small tool! License: This code is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) creative commons license.

Hello everyone, I have just released 1.1.0, this version contains realistic decay (RSS compatible), KSP 1.1 support, the Solar Cycle Simulator plugin and alot more. I will be releasing 1.2.0 in the near future which will add realistic active decay and new resource/area/engine requirements! Until then I will be able to patch any issues that you can find! Enjoy, Whitecat106

Hello everyone, I have updated to version 2.0.1 which fixes the R-1V contract and subsequently fixes Soviet Missions - sorry about this one! I will soon put out 2.1.0, hopefully I can add the NewVessel parameter to each contract. I am currently looking for a program to allow me to do this in bulk; otherwise I will have to manually copy and paste the parameter into all contracts in each pack (about 2000.cfg files! ), if anyone has any suggestions please let me know! Whitecat106

I have just sent you a PM but after looking at this I think I should get @nightingale's opinion. I reckon that the offending line in the contract may be: PARAMETER { name = IsNotVessel type = IsNotVessel vessel = V-2N20 title = Must be a new vessel upon accepting this contract. } Within the R-1V contract. This was not written by myself as far as I recall... Probably part of the community contributed 1.6.0 contract way way back.... could this have remained undiscovered until now though?

Hello there, I am sorry to hear you are having issues and I am sorry for taking so long to address this, it sounds like a small corruption with your Contract Configurator save file, if you would like I can have a look at the issue if you send me your Persistence file in a personal message (preferably via uploading it to Dropbox). I have checked over the files on my end and I cannot see any inconsistencies, I will double check though. Whitecat106

That is a good idea, I have already released 1.0.9.5 on SpacePort (check through the downloads as it is not set as the default) which contains some of the 1.1.0 features but is compiled against KSP 1.0.5 (At the request of @Svm420). I will release 1.1.0 as soon as I can fix some irritating UI bugs, (the toolbar button copies itself and will not disappear between scenes!) I also want to get the Realistic Active Decay working and a new logo before I update.

Thank you! The mission will reappear eventually (give it 30 in game days or so!) However if you really do not want to complete a certain mission you can use the KSP Alt -F12 menu to complete the contract! So don't worry, failing or forgetting will not break the game!

Ahh, in that case I will release regardless, I will adjust some settings on the plugin so that realistic decay is only enabled if RSS is installed, (removing the UI option). But since realistic decay in the stock game is pointless (with the mass of kerbin being so low, various calculations yield results several powers of ten smaller than in real life, making decay rates unrealistic anyway!).

Interesting, do you have an example of the debug log (Alt f12) when this occurs? Which version of the mod were you using? Which other mods do you have installed? I am working on 1.1.0 now, just tweaking some UI things and fixing some more little issues that have popped up with Unity 5, however I may wait until RSS is updated to KSP 1.1 before I release, just so I can check the realistic formulas as well as the stock model. Whitecat106

At the moment the Mod is not compatible with KSP 1.1, I am working towards fixing the UI now, everything else has been updated so version 1.1.0 for KSP 1.1 could be released this evening or tomorrow. I apologize for stating that this mod was compatible with KSP 1.1, I had not even realised the official 1.1 was released until yesterday! Not to worry the next version will be 1.1 compatible, just getting my head around this new UI stuff now. Whitecat106

Thanks for this Sero! That report was very helpful and I believe everything is now fixed in this new release! Version 2.0.0 - Added SpaceX contracts (24 in total) - Added Alternate History Missions (Moonbase Project Horizon and Space Shuttle Missions) - Bugfixed RSS version - Balanced contracts across the pack This will be the last release for a little while for this pack, I must focus on my other mods for KSP 1.1. However if there are any other issues I will patch asap! Thank you to everyone who has downloaded and left feedback on this mod, I hope to continue with version 2.1.0 as soon as the new version of KSP is finalized and released! Whitecat106

Since both Decay Formulas will be present in 1.1.0, and since these are toggleable by the user, the SCS will be included but will only be used if the Realistic Decay setting is enabled (but by default it will not be if RSS is not detected). Having some really big issues with ConfigNodes now, getting pretty annoyed. The issue seems to be from RSS, the game seems to load the initial menu transition to the Space Center twice rather than just once, this causes confignode changes to be deleted and I cannot find a workaround.... if anyone is good with confignodes and .cfg files please do get in touch and hopefully this release can be sped up! Sorry for the delays everyone

Okay everyone I discovered that Highlogic.CurrentGame.UniversalTime produces the proper time, it would appear Planetarium.GetUniversalTime() only works after the Planetarium has been initialized.

Are you currently running KSP 1.1? This may be an issue on my part here This is compatible with persistent rotation! Hello everyone, Having some major issues with ConfigNodes at the moment and trying to merge my SCS plugin with the Decay Mod, hopefully this will be sorted out ASAP. As for KSP1.1 support, I can see some issues are popping up here that I had not expected, not to worry I think the only problems should be UI issues (Unity 5 broke things I guess..), but hopefully once everything on my list is finished I can compile with KSP 1.1 and see what the issues are. My list so far: (High priority) (Low priority) - Fix VesselData cfg file read/write issues - Fix SCS merge issues - Add eccentricity adjustments for SMA changes - Adjust Realistic Active Vessel decay - Add engine support (Maybe in 1.2.0) - Tweak new realistic decay prediction model - KSP 1.1 changes So at the moment quite afew things are going on, I would like to add at this stage that very little will change for the Stock game, this next update is solely focused on RSS compatibility, 1.2.0 will focus on stock (linear) decay management. As for gameplay at the moment, well it works, the only issues are under the hood right now, I might consider releasing a intermediate version on the old development thread for this for anyone wishing to play around abit. Satellite management is now rather challenging. - Heavier smaller satellites will remain in orbit for the longest time across altitudes. - Decay rates are so realistic now (with the calculated F10.7 flux and Geomagnetic Indexies) that spaceflight is challenging. - Light satellites (around 100kg) below 400km have lifetimes of just afew days, where ISS style structures could last for up to 400 days in orbit. - And finally... Try keeping Skylab in orbit whilst developing the Space Shuttle in time yourselves now! Of course I must also manage my other mods (Boat Navigation and Historic Missions) to make sure these are ready for KSP 1.1 too so I am pretty busy at the moment! Patience is a virtue and if anyone is willing to help me set up a github repo for this (to aid me in getting some community help and feedback) it would be greatly appreciated! Whitecat106

Hello everyone, Whitecat again; so here's a really annoying issue I have discovered. Basically I have been building a Solar Cycle Simulating plugin for my Orbital Decay mod, everything is going fine, data is being loaded from a config file into a config node and subsequently manipulated and saved again. However, my program relies on knowing the total elapsed time in the game to determine the position along the 11 year solar cycle. This is required on each scene transition and works for every transition except for one. When loading the SpaceCenter screen from the Main Menu for the first time, the function Planetarium.GetUniversalTime() returns a number from 0.0 - 0.2, irrespective of the current game duration; (for example, my testing scenario is currently at year 52, so the number of seconds since the save beginning should be around 506912827 seconds and not 0.2). In any other transition, for example, from the TrackingStation to the SpaceCenter, the function works fine and returns the correct value (Being called in either the Awake() or Start() subroutines), but just not after the initial transition from the MainMenu... Any ideas on this one? Seems like a pretty big issue, I have replicated the problem by calling the function within the first 2 seconds of the scene being loaded and still no change. Furthermore I tried using the function of Planetarium.fetch.time and this returned a similar false number. Whitecat106

At the moment the Station Keeping fuel can be chosen through the Settings menu in the Orbital Decay UI, you can choose any resource that has been loaded into KSP (So this mod has compatibility with the Community Resource Pack and any other resource). As for engines, the mod does not currently check for engines on a craft (only requiring the volume of the set resource), however I may include this as part of the next 1.1.0 update. (Since ISP would be pretty useful in calculating resource efficiency). So at the moment any fuel based resource will work, engines and the efficiency calculations are in the works for 1.1.0. As for the next update; I am still working towards implementing the SCS system (Having issues with ConfigNode parsing errors?) and working on the Resource Efficiency, (I will now also play around with requiring an engine on the vessel). So look out for an update by the end of the week! Whitecat106

Hello everyone, Thanks @Cerebrate, rookie mistake on my part! Recompiled with 3.5 for 1.1.0. As for 1.1.0 I have a pretty comprehensive list of fixes and additions and bugs, these are: - Removed lag spikes (only present at scene load and scene destroy), converted everything to ConfigNode processing (no more saving and loading constantly) - Implemented realistic decay rates (atmospheric drag and solar radiation pressure) - Implemented resource efficiency - Fixed Area and Mass calculation issues - Fixed UI colour and sizes - UI Size change in Tracking station? - Why? - How? - When? - Decay rate and decay times in UI vanished since 1.0.9.... Don't worry I'll fix this! - Added reliance on my new Solar Cycle Simulator plugin (SCS.dll) (packaged with 1.1.0) - Implemented realistic active vessel decay - Fixed stock active vessel decay So at the moment I am just working on the bugs and the realistic vessel decay. As I have mentioned above the SCS plugin will be packaged with the Orbital Decay mod; this introduces simulation of the 11 year solar cycle which causes variations in Orbital Drag based on levels of solar activity (most prominently the Geomagnetic Index and F10.7 radio flux) - More realism yay! The SCS will also be released in its own thread in add on development, I have designed this as a framework for Solar Cycles, allowing other mods to be developed to take advantage of its features, such as Solar Flare effects, Geomagnetic Storms or Coronal Mass Ejections (the latter of which I hope to mod myself after 1.1.0 of this mod). So expect a 1.1.0 release within the next week or so, depending on how these new bugs are resolved and on the accuracy of the SCS model. Hopefully I will also do some more balancing of the decay formulas, since even the realistic decay formula seems to be too fast. At the moment the equation dictates that the rate of decay is a factor of 10 or so out compared to the real life estimation that the ISS looses about 2km of Altitude each month (Equating to 4Km Semi Major Axis loss per 28 days). In the meantime please do try and 'break' the plugin in your games as much as possible so I can fix anymore bugs! Whitecat106

Thank you! I don't think that KSP 1.1 has/will break anything so the mod should be compatible between both, but just incase there are changes, I will release a 1.1.0 on SpacePort compiled against 1.0.5 and a 1.1.1 compiled against KSP 1.1. Still working on some the decay formulas, at the moment the Realistic Decay Formula (Drag) works fine for altitudes between 225Km and 3000Km, but is somewhat too steep all round for example at low altitudes (A rate of 0.0102 m/s (SMA height) for 400km altitude, whereas a realistic drag rate at this height (experienced by the ISS) is around 0.0007716 m/s (altitude)). Shouldnt be too difficult to tweak this (Divide by 1000 here or there), however for altitudes lower than 225Km some major issues arise, the decay rate suddenly reduces and fluctuates... here is the code so far: float AtmosphericDensity = (Mathf.Pow(1.020f * 10, 7) * Mathf.Pow((float)((EquivalentAltitude) / 1000), -7.172f)); // Kg/m^3 // double MolecularMass = 27 - 0.0012 * ((EquivalentAltitude / 1000) - 200); double DeltaPeriod = (3 * Math.PI * InitialSemiMajorAxis * AtmosphericDensity * ((VesselArea * 2.2) / MolecularMass)); // Unitless double InitialPeriod = orbit.period; double FinalPeriod = InitialPeriod - DeltaPeriod; double FinalSemiMajorAxis = Math.Pow((Math.Pow(((double)FinalPeriod / (double)(2 * 3.14159265359)), (double)2)) * (double)StandardGravitationalParameter, ((double)1.0 / (double)3.0)); double DecayValue = InitialSemiMajorAxis - FinalSemiMajorAxis; The issue is within the DeltaPeriod line, as semi major axis reaches a certain value, the MolecularMass, AtmosphericDensity and SMA all 'cancel out' reducing the DeltaPeriod to close to zero, this happens multiple times (most obviously at around 192Km and 222Km (probably again around 162Km))... it would be easier to describe with a graphical representation and intersections but I'm far too lazy for that... As for the radiation pressure drag, well this comes up with a nice +Infinity meters when it should be around -3*10^-23 m... here's the code anyway: double SolarEnergy = Math.Pow(3.86 * 10, (double)26); // W double SolarDistance = vessel.distanceToSun; // m double SolarConstant = 0; SolarConstant = SolarEnergy / (4 * Math.PI * Math.Pow((double)SolarDistance, (double)2.0)); // W/m^2 double InitialSemiMajorAxis = VesselData.FetchSMA(vessel); double StandardGravitationalParameter = body.gravParameter; double MeanAngularVelocity = Math.Sqrt((double)StandardGravitationalParameter / (Math.Pow((double)InitialSemiMajorAxis, (double)3.0))); double SpeedOfLight = Math.Pow(3 * 10, (double)8); double VesselArea = VesselData.FetchArea(vessel); if (VesselArea == 0) { VesselArea = 1; } double VesselMass = VesselData.FetchMass(vessel); // Kg if (VesselMass == 0) { VesselMass = 1; } double VesselRadius = Math.Sqrt((double)VesselArea/(double)Math.PI); double ImmobileAccelleration = ((double)Math.PI * Math.Pow((double)VesselRadius, (double)2.0) * (double)SolarConstant) / ((double)VesselMass * (double)SpeedOfLight * Math.Pow((double)SolarDistance, (double)2.0)); double ChangeInSemiMajorAxis = -(6 * Math.PI * ImmobileAccelleration * InitialSemiMajorAxis) / (MeanAngularVelocity * SpeedOfLight); double FinalSemiMajorAxis = InitialSemiMajorAxis + ChangeInSemiMajorAxis; If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. As for everything else, I will be optimising the code for less lag in 1.1.0; it'll be annoying to code but its worth it! I have also noticed a bug in the vessel mass / aerodynamic area input (sometimes always being fixed at 1, and with the aerodynamic area never being calculated in the first place - (Ksp and the few things you can do whilst the vessel is inactive!)) Whitecat106

Hello everyone, I have just released 1.0.9, this fixes many bugs (including the blackscreen on startup bug), adds old style tracking station views (visually apparent decay in conics) and tweaks decay formulas to factor in vessel area and mass. This version has not been compiled for 1.1 (still on 1.0.5 here) but I believe everything should work fine, if anyone has any issues please let me know! Next up will be 1.1.0 this will include: - Adding toggled Realistic Decay Formulas and Predictions. Including Solar Radiation Pressure on all objects (Expect asteroids to decay into the sun in around 10000 years....!) - (Ready just needs some more testing!) - Adding menu option to Update decay formulas every x no of seconds up to 500 to reduce lag in game. - Adding batch Settings and VesselData fetches to limit fps drops (to around 24FPS) every x no of seconds (as above) - Adding fuel efficiency and UI beautification. - And anything else anyone would like to suggest! Whitecat106

Hello there, I am looking forward to the release of this for 1.1! Great work on what I have seen so far - I've been lurking in this thread for afew months now. I'm also glad someone is taking the time to possibly patch ESLD. I do not wish to advertise here but I have been developing a 'procedural wormhole' mod of my own for a while now (almost ready for Dev release) after an earlier suggestion in this thread, although not as realistic as ESLD it will hopefully fill the gap of 'wormholes/stargates' and 'jump/warp drives'. Whitecat106

Hello everyone, The download link was removed and readded last night (inorder to allow for the mod to be found easier on Ckan) this means that the previous download link and SpaceDock page have been replaced by another version, if you have subscribed to Historic Missions on SpaceDock I would recommend subscribing again to the new page to get updates! I am ready for the 2.0.0 release, just waiting on KSP 1.1 right now, however if anyone finds any issues with the pack I will put up a fix 1.9.1. Whitecat106