Exo's Lab

September 24, 2020

I would like to formally apologize for my inactivity on the forums. Life has been busy and I have been focused on other endeavors over the summer. I am honored to see that people still talk about and report bugs for this mod even during my radio silence, which I once again apologize for. This mod isn't dead, but my motivation to work on it was. That is changing now, and I am in the beginning phase of resurrecting this mod using skills I have gained while working on a different mod (which will now be taking a back-burner to a major MPE update). I have some big plans and I now know what I'm doing.

If you would like to contact me, you can reach me much easier through discord, you can find me on the Gregrox Mods server where I have my own channel.

Thank you for your continued interests in MPE, I will make it up to you.

On 7/30/2020 at 10:18 AM, Coolguybest said:

I noticed a number of inconsistencies while visiting a few of the bodies added in this mod, and decided to do a deep-ish dive into the files. Here are some of the errors I found (and fixed, but I don't know how I should distribute them):

Archae re-added Lonely Glacier (91b4cc)
Fixed Edas biomes (incorrect colors in .cfg) [b3b49e, d4d4d4, a0a19b] (Can't remember what the hex numbers were before I changed them)
Ervo re-added Minor Glacier Field (Iuvenis Planitia) (9e9e7b)
Havous re-added Valles Parvus (ffafaf)
Lint-Mikey now refers to the proper biomes.png (Which I just noticed was already fixed)
Soden re-added Liber Planitia (895d55)
Vant fixed multiple biomes [ffffff, 810d96, 7867d8, ff7b00, a7b4a8, a3f0ff, 283a3d] (a number of the biomes had bad hex numbers, leading to multiple colors being assigned to the same biome; can't remember which ones)

I also noticed that, while descending to Vant, the asteroid will simply... disappear/become invisible within mid-altitude ranges, only to reappear on getting slightly closer. It appears that there is some discrepancy between the distant rendering and the up-close rendering of the asteroid- whatever the technical terms of this are, I don't know, but I do know the issue exists.

<s> I wasn't aware of any stealth technology mods that I may have had installed, so it really made me scratch my head </s>

Yikes, MPE is full of rookie mistakes like this, I will see to it that these config issues are corrected in the new version.

On 9/13/2020 at 1:04 PM, Relonsk said:

Soden Terrain is broken in 1.9.1 Kopernicius, please try to fix the issue.

I will do my best, has Kopernicus been updated or are you using KopContinued?

On 9/22/2020 at 2:27 PM, Gordon Dry said:

This pack needs its own repository for easy contribution of fixes.

Even it there is no release for months there will be a fork with a branch with all fixes to be downloaded in one .zip for everybody, instead of digging the forum page by page to gather thoses fixes.

You should contribute that as a Kerbalism support patch to Kerbalism itself to unclutter the mod folder.

My contributions so far (see, we need a Github repo):

GameData\MPE\Localization\ResearchBodies.cfg


Localization
{
	en-us
	{
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Archae = Archae gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Crokslev = Crokslev gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Edas = Edas gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Ervo = Ervo gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Flake = Flake gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Geito = Geito gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Havous = Havous gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Kal = Kal gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_KiKi = Ki'Ki gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_LintMikey = Lint-Mikey gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Lon = Lon gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Mracksis = Mracksis gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Soden = Soden gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Vant = Vant gibberish.
		#autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Zore = Zore gibberish.
	}
}

GameData\MPE\Patches\MPE_ResearchBodies.cfg


RESEARCHBODIES:NEEDS[ResearchBodies]
{
	loadAs = mod
	name = MPE
	ONDISCOVERY
	{
		Archae = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Archae 
		Crokslev = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Crokslev
		Edas = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Edas
		Ervo = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Ervo
		Flake = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Flake
		Geito = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Geito
		Havous = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Havous
		Kal = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Kal
		Ki'Ki = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_KiKi
		Lint-Mikey = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_LintMikey
		Lon = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Lon
		Mracksis = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Mracksis
		Soden = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Soden
		Vant = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Vant
		Zore = #autoLOC_RBodies_discovery_Zore
	}
	IGNORELEVELS
	{
		// body = easy normal medium hard
		Archae = false false false false
		Crokslev = false false false false
		Edas = false false false false
		Ervo = false false false false
		Flake = false false false false
		Geito = false false false false
		Havous = false false false false
		Kal = false false false false
		Ki'Ki = false false false false
		Lint-Mikey = false false false false
		Lon = false false false false
		Mracksis = false false false false
		Soden = false false false false
		Vant = false false false false
		Zore = false false false false
	}
}

@PART[TrackBodiesTelescope]:NEEDS[!OPM,MPE,!GPP]:AFTER[ResearchBodies]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleTrackBodies]
	{
		showUpgradesInModuleInfo = true
		UPGRADES
		{
			UPGRADE
			{
				name__ = RB_Upgrade
				scienceReward = 50
				difficulty = 6
				minAltitude = 500000
				maxTrackDistance = 9E+11
				@maxTrackDistance *= 13.44
				electricChargeRequest = 75
				description__ = Upgrade for ResearchBodies Telescope.
			}
		}
	}
}

@PART[TrackBodiesTelescope]:NEEDS[OPM,MPE,!GPP]:AFTER[ResearchBodies]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleTrackBodies]
	{
		%showUpgradesInModuleInfo = true
		@UPGRADES
		{
			@UPGRADE:HAS[#difficulty[6]]
			{
				@maxTrackDistance *= 13.44
				@electricChargeRequest = 75
			}
		}
	}
}

PARTUPGRADE:NEEDS[!OPM,MPE,!GPP,ResearchBodies]
{
	name = RB_Upgrade
	partIcon = TrackBodiesTelescope
	techRequired = artificialIntelligence
	title = Discovery Telescope Upgrade
	basicInfo = Upgrade ResearchBodies Telescope
	description = Increases the telescope's range to ~12.1 Tm, roughly 302.4x its original range and nearly 26.9x Plock's distance from The Sun.
	entryCost = 3375000
}

@PARTUPGRADE[RB_Upgrade]:NEEDS[OPM,MPE,!GPP]:AFTER[ResearchBodies]
{
	@techRequired = artificialIntelligence
	@description = Increases the telescope's range to ~12.1 Tm, roughly 302.4x its original range and nearly 26.9x Plock's distance from The Sun.
	@entryCost = 3375000
}

I also put that Kerbalism patch there for now and renamed it according the same pattern.

Thank you for this very useful repository, I'm sure people will find it extremely helpful. The next release should patch out the major bugs, keep an eye out.

July 29, 2020

On 7/26/2020 at 12:32 AM, R-T-B said:

Thanks. I will assume other mods or maybe even hardware issues are at play until told otherwise in a reproducible fashion.

This is not to say this pack runs perfectly, I've no idea, but at least that bug doesn't seem valid.

I have never seen such an issue with terrain itself flickering, I have seen some occasional issues with shaders moving incorrectly (which is hard to fix when your computer can't run them :/), but nothing as dramatic as in this bug report. I'll look into it once I get the chance.

July 24, 2020

On 7/21/2020 at 5:45 PM, hemeac said:

Where can I find the invite to Gregrox's Discord Server?

Gregrox posts links to his discord server on the pages of all his main mods, you can find a link at the top of the Whirligig World forum page.

On 7/22/2020 at 12:09 AM, Iodyne said:

Ha, I haven't done that much (yet); just love any mod that adds planets well (especially those that fit the kerbal-analogue format). I just noticed GPP added support for MPE so how about that!

Any amount of fan work is nonetheless extremely flattering, and I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying MPE! As for GPP support, that's interesting, I wonder how they handled the positions of my objects, as well as science defs that point towards objects from OPM, very interesting indeed.

July 21, 2020

8 hours ago, hemeac said:

@Exo's Lab, In case you are interested, I made some ribbons for MPE that work in the Final Frontier mod (Dropbox).

I also wanted to let you know that the biome map for Lint-Mikey is pointing incorrectly to Geito's biome map. As you had pointed out, fixing the name of the normal map for Geito has fixed the sun being incorrectly offset.

Awesome work and good catches!

8 hours ago, Iodyne said:

https://github.com/IIodyne/MPE_Additions (was gonna call it MPE Expanded but then saw @Exo's Lab, if you added more bodies you'd call it that, so I changed the name.

Currently just the Principia patch I posted earlier and a Kerbalism radiation belt for Ervo. I plan to add axial tilt configs to the Principia side of it, as well as science values for the Kerbalism radiation. And then dust and etc. for compatibility with SVE/AVP/Spectra and whatever else I decide to get to.

If you want to compile the FF stuff in there eventually lmk.

Wow, you two are doing a lot of good work! I must say I'm quite flattered!
If you'd like to talk to me more directly, you can find me and progress on my current project in the Gregrox Mods discord server!

July 19, 2020

On 7/15/2020 at 8:54 PM, Iodyne said:

Additionally, I'm experiencing an issue with lighting on 1-P Geito in Both the tracking centre and map view, but not in flight mode. (So I'm guessing a scaled-space issue?) It doesn't seem to affect the other celestials as far as I could tell, although perhaps I missed something.

Thank you for this bug report, the issue has been identified as a simple typo in Geito's config, and the fix will be released in the next update.
This will likely be accompanied by a minor improvement to said normal texture.

July 11, 2020

2 minutes ago, hemeac said:

I looked closer at screenshots of planets from OPM and noticed they were darker as well, so it isn't just MPE, just not as dark. I looked through GEP and while I don't fully understand light intensity, it has a config which presumably lowers the light intensity. If I remove that config, your planets are as bright as they are without GEP. Apologies for the false alarm.

No problem, thank you for getting back to me quickly! I hope you enjoy MPE!

July 11, 2020

1 hour ago, hemeac said:

@Exo's Lab, thanks so much for this planet pack, they look great and am really looking forward to exploring them. I've just started a career in 1.9 using stock planets + OPM + MPE with Kopernicus 1.9.1-4 and have also found this is bare install with 1.8.1 using Kopernicus 1.8.1-1 that if I also add in a planet pack that adds a second sun such as Extrasolar or Grannus Expansion Pack, your planets become quite dark. I believe it is something with your planets as Stock, OPM, GEP DO NOT become any darker. I've attached a couple of screenshots of Soden for reference, but have found this for all of your planets. This seems to happen both with your current release and your 1.03 release.

Just in case they are helpful, attaching 1.8.1 log files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aOp9pk2Fl03hgxGPHt_a_khtC2lnW7_q/view?usp=sharing

Screenshots:

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I will look into this, thank you for the bug report.

Can you confirm this happens for all of my planets? Even those in the asteroid belt?
Mods that add additional stars usually add a lightcurve to the sun, which stock does not have. I would've expected Soden to become quite dark under that circumstance. If this happens to objects like Vant and Zore, then there's a problem here I can get at.

July 6, 2020

On 4/16/2020 at 4:24 AM, JareeZy said:

Hey, still enjoy your mod tremendously (on a mission to Zore and just entered oribt around Vant), but Vant is invisible for me, onfortunately. It only becomes visible when I zoom out (and it is visible in map view), which makes landing a probe on it difficult. I assume LOD shenanigans. Any idea what I could change in the settings to make things reappear? I do play with scatterer, AVP and EVE.

If you still experience this issue, it is now fixed for sure.

July 5, 2020

On 7/1/2020 at 2:48 PM, KSPrynk said:

@Exo's Lab, now that KSP 1.10 has dropped, have you thought about adding the new comet coma/tail FX to Geito and Lint/Mikey? That would look fantastic.

Once Kop 1.10 drops, that is the plan!
I'll need some time to figure out how comets work, hopefully they're as simple as you say they are.

June 23, 2020

On 5/30/2020 at 12:50 PM, zeant93 said:

Hi, is Principia compatible with this mod?

I admit I'm not sure how Principia works, it wasn't a major focus during development. I'm not even sure if planet mods require a Principia config or if Principia makes its own velocity calculations. I'll ask some friends.

On 5/30/2020 at 4:50 PM, redbeard said:

I think the biomes on Edas might be a bit screwed up, but I'm not sure if it's a bug or something with my install.

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SCANsat lists there being three (Surface, Craters, Polar Crater), but all of the craters that ring the middle of Edas are showing as being Polar Crater rather than Craters (which was confirmed upon landing at one). I looked at Edas_biomes.png and it looks like the Polar Crater biome at the top isn't showing up as it should, with that area showing as the Surface biome instead (with its grey coloration, see linked image).

I tried deleting Cache/Edas.bin, but nothing changed after it was regenerated.

Edit for two more Edas oddities:

While in map view, the Ap marker for the orbit never appears, despite being in a stable orbit.

Orbital surveying also seems to be busted. Whenever I try to perform an orbital survey with the scanner, it tells me I need to be in a stable polar orbit between 25km and 4km (with the range in that order, higher value first). However, I can't seem to meet these requirements- I've tried a variety of polar orbits with Ap & Pe being various values between 4km and 25km, but still get the same message.

Yikes, I'll look into Edas' issues, they don't sound terribly hard to fix, so that might've been some ill configuring on my end.

On 6/22/2020 at 7:32 PM, Cubivore said:

Been checking this mod out in sandbox in preparation for a new career. I cheated craft out to Lint/Mikey, Zore, Geito and Ervo and landed on all of them and they are all pretty rad. Made sure to land in a lake on Ervo.

I'm really glad a mod like this exists. Combining this with Outer Planets really makes the Kerbol system feel complete, plus I'm a huge fan of Gilly so a mod full of objects as small or smaller than it is all the way my jam, and Sedna is my favorite real-life solar system object so a Sedna analogue also rules. I'm looking forward to how much a nightmare it will be to actually reach these places (especially Geito) in career mode.

I'm really glad to hear it! MPE was created for the exact reason of making the stock solar system feel as populated as the real one, I hope you enjoy exploring my passion project!

April 26, 2020

1 hour ago, JareeZy said:

Hey. So I did try this method and unfortunately it didnt work but I just landed on laythe and have the same thing happening to the ground belonging to the dunes biome (I assume you used those for vant?) SOOO I guess something is wrong with my install and not your mod. But thanks (and thanks madbi36) for trying to help me out!

Hmm, that's interesting. Ervo does use Laythe as a template but Vant doesn't use a thing from Laythe.
This might be an issue with your install, and maybe you should report the bug to squad.

April 26, 2020

On 4/15/2020 at 1:36 AM, mabdi36 said:

Also, can you take suggestions? If so, I would love it if you could add analogs for Orcus and Vanth

Orcus and Vanth have actually been suggested in the past, and I currently am debating whether or not I want to add more objects to MPE's already decently sized object roster. I can say that if more was to be added, it would be in a separate pack, a "MPE2" or "MPEE" or something.

April 26, 2020

On 4/23/2020 at 4:01 PM, KSPrynk said:

I've been meaning to check to see if there was more than one surface biome per planetoid.

I can confirm that there are indeed unique surface biomes for every object in this mod! Ervo has the most with 12 unique biomes, no object has under three biomes. Unique science defs will not be found in every single biome, as not all conditions don't always change in different biomes. However, most every biome has unique Crew/EVA/Surface Sample reports.

On 4/21/2020 at 1:03 AM, Mr. Ship Crasher said:

This should be compatible with DMAGIC orbital science/scansat.

DMAGIC and Kerbalism compatibility may come in the next update, but life is really busy right now so it that probably won't come until summer.

On 4/20/2020 at 4:11 PM, "Our Benefactors" said:

Really Cool mod! I love the Trans Neidonian objects! Halfway through a mission to Havous right now!

https://imgur.com/7SLUWtS

Rings are showing, I'm just at Kal so the inclination is matched

Awesome! Always love seeing people's missions to MPE's objects! If you encounter any issues please be sure to notify me! Have fun out there!

On 4/24/2020 at 3:32 AM, Profiremu23 said:

You can make this awesome planet pack a Real Solar System config version?

This is an extremely interesting request, and one I have never considered before. I wouldn't count on it, but such an alternate config might not be too hard to whip up. I seem to recall there being a minor planets pack for RSS already, which includes things like the real Vesta, Ida Eros, ect. I would look into that pack first.

On 4/24/2020 at 11:17 AM, Drew Kerman said:

The discoveries begin.... orbital diagram via the Ops Tracker

This was the most exciting thing I've woken up to in a very long time!
I am more than honored that MPE has been included in KSA! If you encounter any issues (like the notorious spherical-Zore, which I believe was fixed in release 1.0.2), please tell me ahead of an objects discovery so that they can be presented as intended!
I hope that you are enjoying MPE as much as I enjoyed making it!

April 16, 2020

9 hours ago, JareeZy said:

Hey, still enjoy your mod tremendously (on a mission to Zore and just entered oribt around Vant), but Vant is invisible for me, onfortunately. It only becomes visible when I zoom out (and it is visible in map view), which makes landing a probe on it difficult. I assume LOD shenanigans. Any idea what I could change in the settings to make things reappear? I do play with scatterer, AVP and EVE.

I would do the quickloading that @mabdi36 suggested, I never had an issue like that while testing the mod, if quickloading doesn't solve the issue I'll have to consult some of my more experienced friends.

April 14, 2020

14 hours ago, mabdi36 said:

I tried setting it to True (as it was False), but that did nothing to solve the problem.

Ok, my bad I forgot the last step.
Go to Gamedata>MPE>Cache and delete Zore.bin, that will rebuild the object. Spacecraft on the surface and in some cases even orbit will be at risk of exploding.

April 12, 2020

On 4/11/2020 at 1:37 PM, Elidnas said:

Would this work with 1.7.3? I intend to try it out tomorrow but just wanted to find out if there would be any incompatibilities with running it on 1.7.3. OPM is already part of my game so I'm interested to see where each body lands up

Of course! MPE was actually built on and for 1.7.3 originally!

18 hours ago, mabdi36 said:

It seems that Zore is spherical though. I thought Psyche was irregular. Meh

Hmm, Zore is supposed to be irregular, something seems wrong...
I checked and the shape map seems to work on my end, perhaps something was wrong with the version uploaded?

If you want to have a proper Psyche, the fix shouldn't be hard, just go to Gamedata>MPE>KopConfigs and find Zore.cfg, and find this:
VertexHeightMap
               {
                   map = MPE/MPE_Textures/PluginData/Zore_shape.png
                   name = shape
                   offset = 0
                   deformity = 12000
                   scaleDeformityByRadius = False
                   order = 1
                   enabled = True
               }

Make sure that enabled = True, and if it still isn't working I'll have to look into this further...

April 10, 2020

24 minutes ago, Alaygrounds said:

Kottabos reviewed this mod but for some reason didn't include OPM
is he that stupid to not read past the first line or two?

Unfortunately Kottabos' review of my mod seems to be his laziest planet mod review yet.

April 9, 2020

21 hours ago, JareeZy said:

This has instantly become one of my favourite mods! I've always been fascinated by the lesser known and smaller bodies of our Solar System, which is a much more crowded space if you include them!

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Here I am, landing my all-purpose munar lander "Joyce" on the polar crater of Edas! Although "landing" is giving it too much credit, it's rather a gentle brushing against Edas' surface.

I'm happy to hear it! This mod was a lot of fun to make, and I'm glad you share my feelings in respects to minor planets! Nice Edas landing by the way! Or- should I use the word docking?

April 6, 2020

12 hours ago, Drew Kerman said:

oh wow I just noticed how the asteroids are using the asteroid icon for their body locations. Nice little touch!

Thanks! Though I can't take credit for the idea itself, I realized it was possible thanks to GregroxMun's Whirligig World, which uses asteroid icons for its asteroids and minor moons. I couldn't resist asking him to help set up asteroid icons for my mod too!

April 4, 2020

Just now, KSPrynk said:

This looks fantastic, and really fills in a niche that should've been covered a long time ago. Any pointers on how to get a transfer when the SOIs are small, orbits are eccentric, and also fairly inclined?

I spent two hours trying to get to 433 Edas, and MJ and Astrogator didn't give much in the way of positive feedback. I think they make an honest attempt, but, yikes - SO many correction burns....

My advice would be to do a mid course correction burn to change inclination while on the way assuming a transfer window.
However you might want to try changing inclination with an assist off Eve, Mun, or Duna before moving to intercept Edas. These small bodies can require out-of-the-box thinking!

April 4, 2020

23 hours ago, biohazard15 said:

Same here

(I hope this would serve as a hint for guys and gals in BDB thread... Can you guess the spacecraft? It is modeled after a real proposal to this particular body!)

I know that one! I used a low-effort replica of that particular spacecraft in my screenshot of the object! I can't remember the name, but it would be unfair to spoil it anyways

On 4/3/2020 at 8:47 AM, mabdi36 said:

@Exo's Lab

i am currently running 1.8.1 and kopernicus 1.8.1-1 and I am happy to say that the ring shaders for the planets are indeed not broken and function as expected (in ScaledSpace anyway)

That is fantastic news!

I'll be sure to update the SpaceDock page promptly! Thank you so much!

April 2, 2020

1 minute ago, Morphisor said:

A small bodies pack add-on like this should a great and easy-to-add extra for most systems.

I would advise caution on adding more bodies however, more stuff tends to make it harder to achieve compatibility with all the other stuff out there. I'd recommend quality over quantity.

Of course! Quality over quantity is a very important thing that I feel some planet modders overlook. Even if I were to add in more objects they would be one or two at a time and would be added along side a lot of polishing to the already featured bodies.

April 2, 2020

To be fair, after some consideration with some other people who are also confused about the optional Ervo features, I might just remove the option entirely. It's no where near a major feature and doesn't add much at all.

However on the topic of features... this mod has had a much better launch thus far than I expected. I put together a list of 7 potential candidate minor planet systems (14 objects when including moons/binary companions) to considering adding in subsequent updates to the mod due to this positive reception. Can't confirm if I'll do anything like that at this point, since I am quite eager to do a system replacer in the near-ish future. However, that list does exist at this point and I may go ahead with adding those new objects sooner rather than later since this passion project is getting better traction than I anticipated.

April 2, 2020

1 hour ago, Drew Kerman said:

I'm confused as what to do with the Optional and Temp folders. They seem to hold the same thing. Looking at the folder names in the config file (I get you need to rename it to activate it) it seems you need to use the files to replace the config in /KopConfig and add the textures to /MPE-Textures/PluginData - and only do this if not using KSP v1.8.x. Correct? Is Temp not supposed to be there and just a dupe?

Yes, temp is a dupe. The textures simply need to be moved into the MPE>MPE_Textures>PluginData folder within the mod, and the Config into the KopConfigs folder. It uses Kopernicus Expansion regional PQS to give Ervo better, more realistic craters, it was more of an experiment a friend demonstrated to me rather than a proper intentional piece of the final product. That config may have some outdated features, I can't remember when I removed KopEx requirements from the base mod, but it may have been even before I added biome maps, so I wouldn't recommend it.

April 2, 2020

6 hours ago, Mlgisawsome02 said:

Once kopernicus 1.9.1 comes out will you update this to that version?

It depends. This version of the mod does work on Kopernicus 1.8.1 as far as I'm aware, however ring-shaders are very broken, making all rings appear very dark for both OPM and MPE. If this visual glitch is fixed in Kop 1.9.1, I will be more than happy to update the mod!

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