KerikBalm
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Posts posted by KerikBalm
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So its been some time since I made a planet, but I am trying to make a titan analogue (Tekto is nice, but not what I'm looking for), and I'm having the same problem.
I don't remember what I did last time.
Can anyone tell me what needs to be done to generate a proper normal map from a heightmap?
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My main use of the Kal was for differential torque/throttling of engines/motors for quad copters and similar vtols.
Anyway, I consider it better than making history.
Robotics open up so many possibilities (particularly with underwater exploration, which may not be expected), and surface features add a little something to surface exploration (I love the animated geysers and cryo volcanoes)
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On 9/10/2023 at 5:46 PM, Shpaget said:
.Are you proposing an electrical heater to heat a some inert fluid and achieve thrust that way, without a chemical reaction? Something line NERVA, but electrical? But in that case, there is no combustion.
Ignoring his lack of understanding of what combustion is - you are, and I guess he is, describing a resistojet rocket
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistojet_rocket
They are pretty bad, but better than cold gas thrusters.
I wouldn't use them for more than RCS - or maybe station keeping on a small satellite
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On 9/13/2023 at 1:27 AM, HephaistosFnord said:
I'm hoping KSP2 eventually gives us a 6.4x scaleup option in the 'difficulty' settings
I prefer 6.25x, ie 2.5^2.
It's easier to multiply orbital periods and dV requirements by 2.5x than... checks sqrt 6.4= 2.529822
I would have there be various difficulties
Difficulty: rescale factor: orbital period and approximate dV multiplier
Easy: 1x: 1x
Medium: 2.25x: 1.5x
Hard: 4x: 2x
Expert: 6.25x: 2.5x
Or maybe, depending on bodies and part stats:
Easy: 1x: 1x
Medium: 4x: 2x
Hard: 9x: 3x
Hard would be close to "real" scale, and would require parts with stats quite a bit better than those found in KSO1.
In all cases, I wouldn't scale the atmosphere up by more than 1.25x
On 9/13/2023 at 8:18 PM, Alexoff said:The small size of planets is compensated by the low efficiency of kerbal's rockets. Empty tanks are too heavy; with such rockets we would not even reach orbit.
Not true, you can make orbit in RSS with stock parts, payload fraction is terrible though.
1x scale is still much easier than real life - compensation is partial at best.
I find 3-4x rescales to be about right for balance purposes. 6.25x gets to the limit.
With a 350 isp LFO engine (poodle), you're getting a proportional dV less than that of a hyrdolox engine, while being saddled with poor mass ratios due to heavy empty tanks, and poor rocket TWR.
For saves where I enable KRnD in KSP1, I play at 6.25x
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On 8/29/2023 at 3:51 AM, Alpha_star said:
Might be a bit too personal, but from what I have observed, the community has divided in to three groups.
The first one is the normal players/ community members without a very clear opinion. I’d say that they like to post mission reports and wacky creations. From my observation, most members of the KSP2 community belongs to this group.
The second group is what I call the “haters”. Now this might be somewhat impolite but please don’t attack me for this. They are often focused on the game’s slow progress and how buggy/unoptimized it is without acknowledging the fact that some progress has been made. People belonging to this group are often overly pessimistic and love attacking others in-person, especially the developers.
Now the third group is what I call the “ white knights”. People of this group defends the game from anything, even constructive critism. Apart from being completely different, people of this group are similar to the “haters” in many ways.
I don't fit any of those.
I don't have a positive opinion of the product as is, and I don't have confidence that they will sufficiently remedy the situation.
I hope they remedy the situation. I'm not going to be on here much, spreading the pessimism, because that may become a self fulfilling prophecy. I'm not going to blow smoke and say everything is great, because if the devs believe it is, that's not good either.
So, I think it's best to sit back and be generally silent. Give praise where praise is due, and greet disappointment with silence.
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On 3/25/2023 at 5:42 PM, evileye.x said:
Hint: you don't need all the torque those engine provide to spin the blades or propellers. And if you will limit max torque, you'll greatly reduce fuel consumption
^this^
As far as control, I haven't really made any helos that I would describe as "nimble"
Quad copters are technically helicopters, you can make an ok control system with the KAL controller modifying rpms of the 4 rotors. I've made workable quad tiltrotor cargo aircraft that are controllable enough to land on top of the VAB, hangar roofs of the island airfield, etc. They are ponderous and require patient and gentle maneuvering in hover mode
Other than quad copters, I do contrarotating rotors, Kamov helo style. With enough reaction wheels, they can be fairly nimble
Another thing is the speed we expect from the helos. IRL, most helos fly slower than 200mph/320 kph, or less than 90 m/s.
Really slow in ksp when you get used to jetting around at >mach 4
Helos don't do well at high speed, and retreating blade stall should also manifest in ksp
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On 8/22/2023 at 1:09 PM, Nazalassa said:
Hypothesis: place the ground anchor mid-water (as it is on the second picture), then use a piston to push it against the seafloor. May also works for cliffs, but it has yet to be tested.
No, it cannot be placed. Notice it is red. That is the preview for the placement, it won't get placed at all.
On 8/22/2023 at 11:47 AM, Hotel26 said:There is a certain number (2) of magic components in it to defeat the KSP buoyancy issues -
Yea, I'm trying to go full stock, but text file editing is needed to use a ground anchor. Of course, a ground anchor is only really needed with scatterer modding which goes beyond visual mods and adds wave effects to spalshed down craft.
So I had another idea, and that would be to: 1) send down a diving rig, while the floating part stays above, really light (floating high)
SpoilerI then use ladders, an engineer, EVA construction mode, and the offset tool to start raising parts one at a time. Ladders are used to secure the kerbals. The small radial ore tanks transfer their ore out to be light enough to be moved. For aesthetics, I attach fuel lines to the tanks, but the real thing here is just moving the ladders so that I can keep offsetting the docking port, which I only ever move straight up
Nearly there, just need to join the floating part to the mining part:
It was tedious, I stopped attaching the fuel lines for aesthetics:
The bottom miner wasn't quite straight, after docking, the base was not quite level:
but it worked, and was filling up:
Then after joining the floating part to the miner, the mined ore will weigh down the top part, which will be resting on the miner, preventing it from sinking down as it increases in mass - and hopefully it won't rise up with the waves, and will thus be stationary despite the wave action
But this was very tedious, so I turned to robotics
There were multiple candidate locations
A simple set of linked extendable pistons (one hinge to pivot 90 degrees to point the drill down, another hinge to swing 180 degrees to allow for the drill to fold in half for storage) can give quite some reach, the bottom was accessible here:
But one candidate location was almost too shallow, I had to drill at a slant - the next iteration will have the hinge oriented so that I can just point half the "drill" down, and leave the other half in the cargo bay:
Of course, this looks more like a boat than a fixed base like the others, but it can serve the same purpose.
Due to the robotic drift bug, in use I would just have it maneuver to one undersea mount, extend the drill, lock everything in place, and then stay there.
I may try to change the robotic mounting so that the drills are below the CoM, and have some supports so that the craft can rest on the drill arm as it gets heavier (again, to avoid going up and down with the waves)
So, EVA construction vs robotics:
EVA pros: Lower part count, more flexible?
EVA cons: Tedious to build, requires some precision to look right and be level, cannot get down lower than crush depth (if part pressure limits are turned on: 400 m for Kerbin, 500m for Laythe, about 235 for Eve I think)
Robotics pros: Easier and quicker
Robotics cons: higher part count, robotics associated bugs must be designed/worked around.
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One should always try to limit part count - so my fuel depot's are large 3.75 or 5m tanks
It's a fuel depot, there's no need to be fancy.
Some docking ports, a big LFO tank, and a big monoprop tank.
Throw on a reaction wheel, probe core, solar panel, and relay antenna for convenience.
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You don't have to turn them fast, any reaction wheel will work for eventually.
Or you could unclae, and re-claw facing the right direction
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Let's not forget that size and detail aren't the same thing.
In 1999, Arma:CWC (then called Operation Flashpoint/OFP) had maps 12.8x12.8 km, with almost 60 km^2 of land
17 years later, Arma 3's expansion came with a map.... 15.36x15.36 km, and about 100km^2 of land.
A modest increase in map size?
The maps went from a 256x256 grid with a 50x50m cell size, to a 4096x4096 grid with a 3.75x3.75m cell size.
The difference in the number of objects was astounding too.
You should also look at detail, and resolution.
A 1000x1000km featureless plain is not really "bigger", computationally speaking, than a 4x4km jungle map just packed with objects, and with a 1m terrain resolution
Ksp planets, for the most part(including mods), are rendered from 1024x2048 (or 2048x4096) height map and texture, or simply from procedural generation, and have simple procedurally generated ground scatter.
It actually not that impressive. It's the physics system that is impressive for KSP
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I don't know about the mods, but the stock one can't be placed by a Kerbal underwater, which was quite a disappointment for me.
I had to place it on solid ground and text edit it underwater.
So much for an underwater sub fueling/ballasting station - transfer too much stuff out of it, and it floats up, no sea anchoring.
Also would be useful for floating bases with a seafloor connection and scatterer oceans that make waves actually move your craft up and down if floating
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On 5/15/2023 at 9:14 PM, Batrachos said:
Yeah I've made submersibles before, with stock parts using loaded up ore tanks as ballast (the thing was absurdly heavy, i had to roll it off the runway very slowly). It's just so awkward as is, and having to use jet engines producing smoke clouds underwater is hilariously out of place. Not to mention it really is just a vastly empty place down there, nothing but clear water and a featureless sea floor. Would be very cool to explore coral reefs on kerbin, or weave between massive ice crystals forming downwards from the ice shell on Vall
With breaking ground in ksp1, you could have electric rotors propel your sub, powered by RTGs.
Simple text editing could make surface features show up there
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On 5/25/2023 at 10:14 PM, Madishmike said:
Wings with fuel would be nice
Wings can't carry fuel in ksp 2?!
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Do they have the equivalent of a Kopernicus mod for KSP2 yet?
This would also be a big factor for whether I purchase the game.
I'm not interested in playing at 1x anymore
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3 hours ago, regex said:
Are you saying that I'm somehow dishonest or something for claiming I like and enjoy the game, and that I'm fine with the price?
No, I am not saying that at all.
You have your opinion, I have mine. I am saying that our opinions different markedly, not that you opinion is dishonest.
I just want them to do better. What I have seen is not enough, and I wouldn't want them to think their progress so far is satisfactory
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1 hour ago, regex said:
The science and career modes are uninspired and dull gameplay at best,
I absolutely agree that the science and career modes are lacking. I was quite disappointed by the "First Contract" update. It remains to be seen if KSP2 will do any better
1 hour ago, regex said:and the terrain is extremely polygonal and boring.
Agreed, the increased terrain detail was one of the things that excited me about KSP2 (I said as much on the giveaway thread). I'm sure the terrain is still polygonal, but I am guessing the "grid size" is much smaller (like arma:cwc's islands being about the same size as arma 3's Tania island, but the original had a height map with a 50m grid size, and tanoa's grid size was 3.75m).
I haven't been able to judge that well from videos though. Can't tell how much is due to more detailed geometry vs just textures
1 hour ago, regex said:Then don't buy it! Clearly it's not a game that's going to make you happy.
Not in it's*current state*.
I do still hold out hope that it will get good. However I am not going to contribute to any impression that what they've done so far is satisfactory for the price
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7 hours ago, regex said:
Depends on what you want out of the game. For me it's better in pretty much every aspect except for stability, which I'm happy to be patient about.
Can you be more specific? From what I understand:
Pros- graphics (debatable vs modded KSP1), paint schemes, procedural wings (are there any KSP1 my DS for that?), And UI (in most aspects)
Cons: poor performance, wobbly rockets, fuel transfer doesn't work right, docking summons the kraken, collision detection on celestial bodies often doesn't work, trajectories don't display correctly, maneuver nodes are harder to use (?), No robotics and even old KSP1 style stock-non-DLC rotors don't work, no reentry heating, I'm guessing no com-net, no career/progression mode, very limited mod options...
As far as I can tell, it's barebones KSP1, plus some graphics mods, minus a lot of other features, and with major game breaking bugs.
I am absolutely not sold on its current state, and will wait for the game to get better and/or the price to come down
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So it's not SAS that is broken, but reaction wheels?
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2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:
And? It's still a point for the new maneuver planner, when you can do such maneuvers with low-TWR engines.
You could with the old maneuver planner too
2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:you're blatantly ignoring things the game gives you to initiate maneuvers.
I am not, see below
2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:Okay, now I'm getting the impression you haven't even touched the game or even so much as seen a screenshot or video demonstrating the maneuver planner,l
Hmmm, well, as the title of the thread suggests, I haven't bought the game - you are correct that I have not touched it.
I was unaware of this feature, and given all the videos leading to release featuring stuff that wasn't in the release, I was using (overall critical) videos of the post release product for information.
I guess if that maneuver planner is in and works as described, then the complaint of the burn timer not appearing until after the burn starts does seem to be a minor nitpick.
2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:Again... Not possible in KSP 1.
Agreed, but I was hoping for it to be possible in KSP2, I expected it to be, it was a not insignificant selling point for me.
2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:KSP 1 was only successful because of a lack of competition.
KSP 1 had virtually no competition- Orbiter would be the closest thing to competition before Simple Rockets.
I agree that KSP could have done many things better. There was certainly a lot of room for improvement, so it's not hard to imagine a superior competitor was possible.
We all knew it could be improved a lot, it's why we were so excited for KSP2.
I still hope KSP2 turns into a great product.
It's just not there yet for me.
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17 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:
Oh, right, you can do inclination changes properly with ion engines now and do your circularization and capture burns in one go,
That's not how ion engines should work, and the time warp factor was not what limits thatm
17 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:but oh no, a little UI element that appears when you begin your burn is absent prior to your burn beginning. Whatever. That does not constitute "even worse",
Considering that you need that information to time when to start a burn, and ksp1 gives it to you while KSP2 doesn't, yes it does constitute even worse.
17 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:Oh, they added persistent thrust? Are you sure about that? Because all I know is that they added persistent thrust.
No they added thrust under time warp instead of thrust under physics warp.
If the thrust doesn't persist when you switch vessels, go back to KSC, etc then it doesn't persist and it's not persistent thrust.
And if the vessel can't change orientation while under time warp thrust, then the sort of continuous low thrust trajectories that I was excited about aren't even possible, making this just a way to save time on long burns. All trajectories remain standard impulse trajectories, and it still doesn't allow for accurate modelling of how ion engines should work.
A big disappointment
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1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:
Maneuvers that aren't disgustingly inaccurate for anything but high TWR rockets, KSP 2 has already addressed tons of stuff Squad kept under the rug.
I thought maneuver nodes were even worse in 2 so far, not even showing burn time until you start burning
1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:So long as the nuclear engines have an ISP of 700, it's a bug.
It's 800, so, not a bug... I don't follow your logic here
1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:Then why did Squad make this supposed hydrogen so dense and unbalanced? It's a blatant mistake they either kept under the rug or somehow never noticed.
Yes, Lf only tanks are too dense, so are planets. Rapiers and whiplash Isp is too high for kerosene fuel, but appropriate for liquid hydrogen.
Aside from the bulk, does it matter? Tank mass ratios are too poor for kerosene or liquid hydrogen
1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:provide basic necessities like persistent thrustl
Have they though? All I know is that you can time warp during burns.
There's no persistent rotation that would allow a solar-ion thruster with realistic thrust to spiral outward. You can't plot a brachistichrone trajectory, you can arrange for a long burn on a craft and leave it burning while you switch to another craft.
Sooo.... they provide an alternative to 4x physics warp, with some upsides and some downsides
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4 hours ago, J.Random said:
You're subjecting yourself to the very fallacy I mentioned. You spent money on KSP2 0.1. That's it. You gave money, you received your money's worth. Neither developer nor publisher owe you anything further than that.
They owe you KSP2 0.2, 0.3, ... 1.0 etc *IF* they get made. That IF is important. I have heard some references/allusions to a dev that basically sold an EA game, and then when it was ready to leave early access, they changed the name and released it as a different game.
In such a scenario, I think that you are owed the finished game (since it exists in this scenario).
Then we have other intermediate scenarios, that nearly became an issue for KSP1's early adopters.
Buying the game in EA doesn't give you the right to future DLCs(KSP1's terms were ambiguous, and they did the non-jerk thing and interpreted the terms broadly instead of splitting hairs). They could take stuff from the roadmap, and release them as separate DLCs.
I wonder what would happen if they made a "colonies" DLC, and an "Interstellar" DLC, and EA buyers didn't get them
4 hours ago, J.Random said:EA is definitely not a way to catch more money. Ever since Double Fine incident,
What is this incident that you speak of?
They didn't say "more money" overall, but rather it changes the timing of when they get money, potentially allowing the dev budget to be extended
4 hours ago, J.Random said:if any developer or publisher states anything even close to this, their own legal will tear them a new one
[...]
at best - be viewed as a declaration of intentions, nothing more than that.
I agree, however, the way they phrase things does tend to mislead a lot of people, and I am sure that they know that
4 hours ago, RocketRockington said:Indeed. And I still go back to Nate's delay messages, for the sort of shady marketting techniques on display.
Here is one of them again for you to refresh yourselves
[...]
it's a clear implication that what they had at the time of the announcement of that delay was the issue with release wasn't 'none of our new features are even alpha ready'. No the implication was that they had them and needed to improve the quality, stability, and performance.
That was posted on Nov 5, 2020. 2.5 years ago.
If Nate was talking about the build that was released NOW and saying that, it would be a stretch, since the new features aren't even in the game to be 'woven together'. What the heck was he looking at 2.5 years ago
Yea, I have never gotten good vibes from Nate.
I also wonder, what the heck was he looking at.
What the heck have they been doing.
It seems like its KSP1 with some graphics mods and a planet pack oh and worse performance, more bugs, and other features removed
[snip]
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On 3/7/2023 at 10:05 PM, Dakota said:
None of us on the community team were affected.
"On the community team"
Well, aside from sympathy for other humans that we interact with, I think most don't really care- we're worried about how the development team has been affected
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18 hours ago, kerbiloid said:
Yet nobody complained about changes forced by the behemoth, in-game commercials, or microtransactions.
Indeed, so far that isn't the issue, just a lack of progress by the dev team. Maybe it has to do with that star theory drama, maybe the star theory drama was because of the lack of progress. I don't know where to put the blame
18 hours ago, kerbiloid said:If they had, how could they test it? A wobbling planetary base?
Have we actually seen video of them testing functional colonies? A wobbling base could be made just out of colony shaped parts, functionally the same as a normal can craft
18 hours ago, kerbiloid said:presume
Maybe, this is exactly what's optimized.
I am not presuming, I didn't make this idea up, it comes from here:
What did you do in KSP1 today?
in KSP1 Discussion
Posted
Clever, I'll have to make use of that sometime.
I don't have the screenshots, but I finally figured out what the problem was with my normal maps (or at least a way to make them work, I don't know why they weren't working before) for a new planet I'm working on.
Its meant as a titan analogue, and thus has many similarities to Tekto. Previously my personal planet mods all focused on the inner solar system, and thuse would be compatible with OPM, but no longer.
I added a Saturn analogue (can't get Kopernicus rings working, the textures don't show up, need to figure that out), that just uses a texture of Saturn. Jool's smaller sister I'm calling Soong.
At the moment, it only has one moon (I think I will move Minmus and Ike there to keep it company): Brumo
Brumo's stats are more like Titan than Tekto's: 0.14 G (vs 0.25 of Tekto), and 1.5 atmospheres at sea level (vs 1.25 of Tekto). The Mk2 lifting body parts + a few control surfaces are perfectly sufficient for touchdown at 10-20 m/s.
The heightmap is still WIP, there are large flat plains (from the sides of the heightmap) that I plan to add some more features to (respect to anyone who can identify what this heightmap is derived from)
The color map is even more WIP:
Titan may have polar lakes, but Brumo has polar seas (bonus: much easier to avoid artifacts at the poles).
Its got mountains, drainage channels, rivers, lakes (well, one, more to come), bays, a cryovolcano (smaller ones to be added).
I also plan on adding: undersea mounts (so you can make offshore mining bases like this):
or mining boats like this:
Undersea trenches and ridges,
some polygonal terrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterned_ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygonal_patterned_ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#Surface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)#Chaos_and_lenticulae
sand dunes; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)#Dark_equatorial_terrain
And, why not some mesas too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley
It's a really high res heightmap (8192x4096), about 4x most heightmap resolutions (2048x1024), so I want to pack a lot of detail and interesting features into this "medium-sized" moon.
I say medium-sized, because it is proportionately sized - bigger than Mun, but about half the size of the giant moons of Jool (Laythe and Tylo), which are significantly bigger than duna and moho, and are proportionately much bigger than the moons of Jupiter.