[1.0.4] Kerbin 365 Version 0.4.1 -3.2x/6.4x Solar System Rescale- (50% Less Bees! Edition)

[Nolnoc]

First up, Pics for Clicks:

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What is this mod?

Kerbin 365 was created with the goal of making space travel harder for veteran players, while still allowing the use of Career Mode and custom rocket packs. K-365 re-scales all planets and orbits to make both achieving orbit and traveling between planets much more difficult than it is in stock. This makes large manned interplanetary travel near to impossible with either single launch ships or conventional chemical rockets; making orbital construction and NERVA engines needed for manned travel past Kerbin orbit.

What does this mod do?

This mod is full of changes to the Kerbol system designed to make it look and feel more like the real solar-system we all know.

- All planets are now 3.2 times larger and have their atmosphere re-scaled to be 16% larger.

- All interplanetary distances are 6.4 times farther, making all celestial bodies much farther from each other (includes moons).

- Kerbin time is now congruent with standard earth time; 24 hour days, 365 days per year.

Why these re-scale factors?

Through testing I found that 3.2x planetary re-scale is nearing the limits of what is possible in career mode. In 3.2x even putting a single tonne into orbit will require all 16 tonnes available at Tier 1. This plus the additional 2x re-scale to orbital distances pushes any pre-built launcher pack, such as Beale's N1 Rocket, to the absolute limit while still being completely possible and in my opinion, more realistic.

Sounds pretty neat, what's the download?

THE DOWNLOAD IS HERE!

Download BETA v0.4.1

* NOTICE! *

-As of Version 0.4 the config file name has been changed. Completely delete the old Kerbin365 folder prior to upgrading to the new version.

-This version up-scales the size of the atmosphere on all applicable planets, including Kerbin. This means the lifting capacity of pre-built vessels has been altered, and any craft orbiting in the range of 70 to 81 kilometers around Kerbin is now considered inside the new atmosphere, and is subject to probable re-entry. Please take this consideration before updating.

Install Instructions:

Simply drag the Gamedata folder included into your KSP file and merge it with the stock Gamedata file.

Version 0.4.1

-Fixed bug that made K-365 unplayable without Outer Planets Mod installed.

Version 0.4

- Re-coded entire mod to run more efficiently and be better compatible with other planet packs.

- Added Outer Planets support.

- Up-scaled atmosphere heights on all applicable planets by 16%.

- Up-scaled temperature curves on all atmospheric planets by 16% as well.

- Fixed solar heat curves for all atmospheric bodies for new atmospheres.

- Changed file structure to be easier to install.

- Updated to Kopernicus BETA edition.

- Removed KSCSwitcher dependency.

- Removed PQS changes (temporary until I sort out better values)

- Edits to Norah's description (Refinement will come later)

- Added 90% more freedom.

Version 0.3

- Completely rebuilt mod around Kopernicus insted of RealSolarSystem.

- Added KSCSwitcher to fix some PQS issues.

- Bundled Kopernicus and KSCSwitcher with download.

- Returned Bop to original orbit and name.

Version 0.2

- Fixed several minior bugs, PQS bugs continue to be a pain though

- Moved Gilly to orbit Duna in a low, inclined orbit.

- Renamed Gilly Norah; added new planet description.

- Moved Bop to orbit Kerbol in a stationary orbit to Kerbin (at a lagrange point)

- Bop renamed Holo, added new planet description.

- Bop planet orbit color changed to black (its now hidden on map view)

- Changed Eve's rotational period to 225 days, could not fix negative values for clockwise rotation; scrapped for now.

-Recolored several planets orbit color.

Version 0.1

- Initial testing release!

Legal Swizz

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

Uses the Kopernicus (Included in download)

Planned Features

- Bundled config for Astronomer's Visual Pack

- Change Eve to be more inline with IRL Venus.

- Modify current planet orbits to be more challenging to reach.

- Custom Asteroid support. (seems to natively work ATM)

- Support for other planet packs.

Current Bugs

*Please report any bugs if you find them*

Edited August 25, 2015 by Nolnoc

[Lucius]

Hey NolNoc,

This week i'm probably gonna take this universe for a swing (was excited to see it on the KSP forums).

Anything else you've found since posting that might be an issue?

I'll give you a full report, pictures and all, when i've taken it for a brief test drive!

[Nolnoc]

Anything else you've found since posting that might be an issue?

I'm on vacation right now so I don't have my main computer with me but but from what I remember no, there have been no other major problems I've seen. Most issues with Enviromental Effects are because the rescale cfg I made for it is rather basic, and others seem to stem from issues with the base game itself, IE the PQS glitches over distance. The only real issues I'm trying to track down are planets "jumping" when switching loading methods and Eeloo's fo-atmosphere.

[FreeThinker]

This mods seems like a good mix between Kerbin 3.2x and 6.4x. 6.4x is nice when you have Interstellar NTR engines. But in career, before you get access to them, it is quite hard to bring any significant amount of mass into orbit. Stock Kerbin carreer is simply not made for 6.4x scale.

Edited April 1, 2015 by FreeThinker

[Lucius]

So i have to say, i've been REALLY enjoying this.

It takes *time* to get into a proper orbit with the size of the planet, but i always found SKRX 1/4/7 and 6.4 made the planet, as mentioned before, just a little too big for stock parts to be worth having at all. I rarely venture away from stock or Tantares with these, and they all seem to work as their real life counterpart intends as well with this scale size!

The planet distances is FANTASTIC as well. I've been to Mun and Minmus a handful of times, and Duna once now, and each time it felt like i had to pack for a JOURNEY. Even just to Minmus (with a life support mod) i had to do a multi-launch system where i had life support station orbiter, a lander, a re-entry craft, and the burn vessel all seperately brought up and assembled (the 2200+ dV to get there now makes it very justifiable, as well as the fuel needed to get off the surface into orbit ... no more Toyota Corolla Landers)

*MY* Main problems so far are this:

1) I use Better Atmospheres (never been an Astronomer's Pack person, meh. Have you SEEN how Mun looks in BA?). Now i think this would be a universal problem for any atmo pack but, i can definitely say from BA: there is some serious atmospheric anomalies: Clouds clipping into weird circles etc, clipping through mountains causing z fighting issues when in orbit, city lights HAVE to be raised or they're invisible LOL. Putting in the good time to make the atmosphere mods work with this would, i feel, make a hell of a difference to the mod. If i can manage to get a half-decent looking BA one i'll post it here myself.

2) Diversity. Maybe this is just me, but i would LOVE to have something stand this pack out *juuuust* a touch from just being a rescale. Honestly, i wouldn't mind if you went crazy like SKRX resize and did some super-hot volcanic planet, or rings to Jool, or recolors, you don't even need to add new planets just re-arrange the ones we have now. I'd really, REALLY like to see this have a little flavour of its own.

3) Deadly Re-entry, as its prone to do, and i think you mentioned this above, was either WAY WAY too easy, or insanely too hard. I kinda rolled my own config in the end that was RSS setting, with 1.2* to all the top modifiers. Ended up about right for me. But again thats all personal taste. I want to feel like my ablative shielding had a use, but not have it all burnt out halfway down and suddenly have a capsule explode even though i had a super shallow entry.

And i think that about covers it for starters. Love the mod, know you're crazy busy, but please don't drop it, it'd be a shame, especially once 1.0 finally drops.

[Lucius]

Hey all:

Been fiddling with configs and clouds and all manner of little things, just thought i'd show off a few "concepts" I've been enjoying.

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[Nolnoc]

Hello KSP community! I'm back from holiday and am settling back into the old grind at university, but in my free time (what little there is ) I've been working on the next update for K-365. This far I have finished Eve's new design, (it now rotates clockwise and has a light inclination), squashed the bugs with Eeloo having an atmosphere, and have begun laying the ground work for the next phase of the mod, based on making more locations to visit in the inner solar-system. The testing for this will be included in the next demo release which should be out sometime next week.

[Lucius]

Awesome! Fantastic news!

Let me know if you surf through your inbox mate!

[Spacepetscompany]

Can the Eve rotating clockwise be made optional? If not can a configuration file be provided to return it to rotating pro-grade? I'd love to see OPM integration BTW!

[djnattyd]

This is brilliant, I can't believe there hasn't been more interest in it. Getting to LKO is now challenging enough to be interesting without the OTT-ness that 6.4 brings.

Count me in as another voter for OPM support.

[Spacepetscompany]

Any news on an update?

[Nolnoc]

Any news on an update?

I released version 0.2 earlier today! version 0.3 is shaping up for a few more weeks, longer if I make some new planets in Kopernicus.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Nolnoc

[Lucius]

Please don't add any new planets with kopernicus!

We have so many planets that are bland/unused/unvisited that can be rearranged and spruced up with some atmospheric work, without using buggy and fairly unsupported Kopernicus.

JUST MY HUMBLE OPINION, but had to weigh in. My little album earlier was a collection of things you can do with just EVE overhaul and RSS.

[Nolnoc]

Please don't add any new planets with kopernicus!

I feel the same way. The only reason I would add new planets is because the changes I've made to the system have left some... holes... in the stock planet design. Wether this is good or not I have yet to decide.

[Lucius]

Mmmmm i know what you mean:

What I found myself focusing on most when i was tooling around with planet redesigns in this mod were:

-Like you did, slapped Gilly on Duna, removed Ike and threw in Bop instead. Made it much more Mars-y, and the little asteroid moons made a fun reason to float around Duna other than just the mandatory "I went to Mars!" reason.

-Added a LOT of environmental effects to Eve. Like you see in the album before, anything that makes it feel like a more interesting less "purple" sort of planet, deadly and worth respecting in the same way we respect Venus

-HEAVILY considered taking dres, slapping it with Eeloo, and making them a binary system on the fringes with some interesting effects to it, maybe adding an atmosphere to Eeloo too. Give SOMETHING interesting to make the trek to the furthest reaches worthwhile

-Rings for Jool. The rings i added in those pictures are adapted from an idea from Skyrex who i have already contacted and politely consented to let the idea be distributed with this pack if you find you like it. I'll gladly distribute the atmospheric presets for Env.Vis. Overhaul that i used to get that effect, if you want to incorporate it. This just makes the Jool trek all the more appreciable.

In my tiny opinion, the kerbal system is already pretty small, if you're looking to maintain a "stock"ish feel just upscaled, you'd do better to make each planet that already exists INTERESTING rather than cramming even more planets in.

BUT, yes, its totally true that in my experiments it was damn hard to add atmospheres to anywhere without just resorting to Kopernicus. But again if you want i'd be more than happy to send you my little tinkered up take on some of the planets that you're free to incoporate any of. I love what you're doing, and looking forward to giving v0.2 a shot over the next couple weeks til 1.0 release.

[Hodo]

I love the work on this mod. If I had more time this would be my second install of KSP. OUTSTANDING WORK!

[Spacepetscompany]

Personally, I'd prefer to keep the Kerbol System unique, and not a clone of ours, but that might be just me.

[Lucius]

Mmmm i see where you're coming from, and at first that's exactly how i felt too,

But I feel, for a lot of people at least, there's just not much drive to kick around the Kerbin system. Everyone does the mandatory trip to Duna (how many million pictures of that have you seen...), and most will at least hyperedit to Jool just to see Laythe with the gas giant in the back.

But how often do you see people clamoring to go to Eeloo, or Dres the sad space potato? I feel like there are a LOT of completely ignored parts of the solar system that just need a dust up, a recoloring, a nice graphical overhaul that make them worth SEEING and landing on, instead of just letting them float out like sad grey meteors.

[CitizenAerospace]

so how much dV does it take to get to orbit? Looks really good.

[Lucius]

Depending on the efficiency of your ascent:

Around 5500. Not too bad for LKO.

But expect 1800 dV to reach Mun, and a good 800 dV landing or taking off. The real catch here isn't orbit, its getting anywhere from orbit. You need to bring a load of fuel if you want to go anywhere, which makes that 5500 dV interesting.

[CitizenAerospace]

Hmm... this seems unbalanced to me... your essentially doubling planetary distances scaling vs planet scaling.... why?

[Lucius]

Because ... thats the point of the mod?

There are dozens of rescales that just rescale if you want that.

But to be less rude: The problem is addressing the fundamental limits of KSP, as well as personal playstyle:

FIRST OFF, let's talk stock vs modded: a lot of us really enjoy the stock-ish, "little green men" feel of KSP. It feels like a fun little not-crazy-realistic simulator that lets you enjoy your own personal head-canon solar system however you want to. Now this is ABSOLUTELY personal preference, and I mean no personal offense to the people who have made the incredible realism mods like RO and RSS and RP-0, but some of us don't want to get THAT in depth. There is an entire thread devoted simply to trying to design a way to get to Mars and return where people are mashing minds and problem-solving. That's great, in its own way! but its not what some people want from KSP.

THE STRUGGLE IS THIS: I like the KSP parts, i like the feel and the aesthetic and the un-realism that lets you laugh instead of get mad when something blows up. HOWEVER: I don't like being able to put a chair on top of a first tier solid rocket booster and reach orbit or even the mun with it. I don't like exactly what some videos have outlined: at tier 0 science you can fly to the moon and back on 3-4 pieces.

OKAY SO WHY NOT JUST SCALE THE PLANETS UP?

Well, i've tried those too, and actually they're not bad. I really liked a few of them, REALLY solid idea. But lets briefly discuss the problems those hit, i'm going to point to a few, but please remember i really love all the mod developers and i know they've put blood and sweat into it.

PQS/Scale distance problems: After about 3.2x planetary scale, planets start to look really ugly. You start to have a lot of problems in low orbit. If you've played 64k Kerbin or even to a lesser extend Skyrex's 1/4/7, you see the problem. you REALLY see it in RSS, and its what the developer of RVE has spent so long adjusting and trying to fix.

Career mode limitations: At this point in time we do not have the ability to mod the limits of each tier of the space center, so if you're trying to play a legitimate campaign and not cheat and immerse yourself, good ....ing luck getting into orbit at 64k with stock parts. Now you have to start modding parts and adjusting the whole system. So wham, you might as well be playing RSS with RO now, you're sinking a good amount of work into fixing the game to play like KSP already does

So, okay, we can scale the planets up a FAIR amount, but not an insane amount, for example purposes lets say 3.2x. However getting into orbit at 3.2x isn't that much more difficult than stock, and you want a reason to use the big parts. You want big rockets, you want a solid reason to really build large behemoths and not just so you can land an entire colony on duna in a single launch. You want large, immersive realistic feeling rockets, but with a realistic workable kerbin that falls within the limitations sort of .. served to us with the game's confines.

So why not scale the distances between planets up? The moon is a 3-4 day journey irl, not the 12 hour journey of stock KSP, so why not make the spaces further apart, where it won't graphically affect the gameplay, and the player can still get into orbit easily with the restrictions the career introduces, but if they're clever they can combine ships together and build their ACTUAL solutions to traverse planets, like the gemini/agena solution. I feel like, by making it easy to get into orbit but hard to get anywhere, you force the player to TRULY be creative within the confines of a system they can actually immersively work with. And it allows you to use mods like Tantares or FASA etc and still have them work without needing to mod them. The massive amounts of dV available in stock from things like a gemini launcher (Take a gemini pod on a titan rocket to duna one day, in one launch, and you feel the pain) will still make it easy to get into space, but good luck just "popping" over to Mun now!

Blah blah blah i know, but i hope you can see where this sort of thing would really appeal!

[CitizenAerospace]

Yeah, reading this now, I'm totally convinced. I play 64k, and I love the increased difficulity, but the problems with planet rendering are pretty bad. Although, that problem with career is easily solved with Procedural parts, real fuels, Dmagic orbital science and KW rocketry. Doesn't make it a lot more complicated, but makes the game a lot more involving, immeserive and more of a challenge. That is just me however.

Am thinking about starting a different save file with this however...

[Spacepetscompany]

So uh, how's this with 1.0 balance?

[Nolnoc]

So uh, how's this with 1.0 balance?

Ya about that.....

Bad news, with the new 1.0 Realsolarsystem is no longer supported (just yet at least) and word on the grapevine is that it will work differently in the new update.

The good news is that I have moved to make this mod based around Kopernicus instead of the Realsolarsystem plugin. The transfer is a longer process and has introduced its own brand of fun bugs. One major bug that is keeping me from releasing the new update is that with Kopernicus i don't seem to be able to relocate the KSC; which, do to the resale, is currently in the ocean. Once I find a way around this I will send out the new update so you guys can all play-test it and settle all those ants in your pants.