[1.8.1 - 1.9.1] Realistic Atmospheres

[OhioBob 3,483]

 Realistic Atmospheres
Version 1.3.2

Realistic Atmospheres modifies the atmospheres of all planets and moons to conform to a more lifelike model. Temperature-height profiles are based on real life celestial bodies of similar type. Pressure-height models have been developed consistent with each celestial body's physical characteristics, and using real life gas laws. Models have been developed at real scale, and then scaled down to better fit the smaller size of the KSP universe.

While some properties of the original atmospheres have been preserved, Realistic Atmosphere is a complete makeover. Don’t expect what you know about the stock game to exist in Realistic Atmospheres. You may encounter a planet's atmosphere much sooner or later than you are accustomed to, and with different behavior, so beware.

Downloads

• Realistic Atmospheres, from GitHub
• Realistic Atmospheres, from CurseForge

Installation Instructions

1. Download the third party mod Kopernicus (or Kopernicus Continued for 1.9.1).  The Kopernicus version number must match the KSP version number.
2. Install by copying from [Kopernicus Download]\GameData\ to [KSP]\GameData\ the following folders and files:
        Kopernicus
        ModularFlightIntergrator
        ModuleManager
3. Download Realistic Atmospheres v1.3.1
4. Copy from [RealisticAtmospheres Download]\GameData\ to [KSP]\GameData\ the folder RealisticAtmospheres and all its contents.

License

This mod is licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by OhioBob

[Mecripp 1,043]

Sounds good will give it a try

[Nansuchao 502]

It sounds really interesting. I have a little question: is this compatible with FAR?

[OhioBob 3,483]

Just now, Nansuchao said:

It sounds really interesting. I have a little question: is this compatible with FAR?

Yes, it appears so.  I'm not a FAR user, but I did temporarily install it just to test the compatibility of the two mods.  From what I could tell, they worked together without any problems.  If you discover otherwise, please let me know.

[Nansuchao 502]

30 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

Yes, it appears so.  I'm not a FAR user, but I did temporarily install it just to test the compatibility of the two mods.  From what I could tell, they worked together without any problems.  If you discover otherwise, please let me know.

LOL, I was doing the same test and yes, they appear to cooperate pretty well.

 

Thanks for the quick answer btw.

[NathanKell 5,831]

Neat stuff!

 

Oh, hey, if you get bored it'd be awesome to have your better Earth model in RSS

[White Owl 556]

This sounds very interesting. Are there any conflicts with the various rescaled planet configs using Kopernicus? If a Kopernicus config changes some details about a planet but leaves the atmosphere at stock values, will this mod still add your atmosphere?

[OhioBob 3,483]

1 hour ago, White Owl said:

This sounds very interesting. Are there any conflicts with the various rescaled planet configs using Kopernicus? If a Kopernicus config changes some details about a planet but leaves the atmosphere at stock values, will this mod still add your atmosphere?

I just performed several experiments and here is what I've found.  When Kopernicus and Realistic Atmospheres are both installed, the atmospheres of the stock planets (Eve, Kerbin, Duna, Jool and Laythe) will be as defined in Realistic Atmospheres.  This is true even if Kopernicus attempts to make atmosphere changes; that is, Realistic Atmospheres will overwrite Kopernicus.  It appears that all other changes made by Kopernicus are unaffected by having Realistic Atmospheres installed.

If you want to have Kopernicus make changes to one of the stock planets while having Realistic Atmospheres modify the others, what you can do is this:  edit the RealisticAtmospheres.cfg file to completely remove the configuration data for the planet that you want Kopernicus to modify.  Realistic Atmospheres will ignore any bodies not listed in the configuration file.

[White Owl 556]

That sounds simply perfect! I'm in the early days of a career mode game with x2-scaled planets, and haven't yet sent any vessels past the Mun or Minmus, so sounds like this mod will integrate just fine.

[NathanKell 5,831]

All the changes made here can be done by Kopernicus too of course, BodyLoader can be a considered a much-lighter-weight, fewer-featured kind of plugin (indeed, it's a partial rewrite of RSS-the-plugin for 1.0, rather than something big like Kopernicus). It runs on Main Menu, after the system is created; Kopernicus interrupts (and rewires) system creation itself.

[ZobrAA 135]

On 31.12.2015 at 5:04 AM, NathanKell said:

All the changes made here can be done by Kopernicus too of course, BodyLoader can be a considered a much-lighter-weight, fewer-featured kind of plugin (indeed, it's a partial rewrite of RSS-the-plugin for 1.0, rather than something big like Kopernicus). It runs on Main Menu, after the system is created; Kopernicus interrupts (and rewires) system creation itself.

Really? I cannot find how to define in Kopernicus those:

• atmosphereAdiabaticIndex
• atmosphereTemperatureSeaLevel
• atmosphereTemperatureSunMultCurve
• latitudeTemperatureBiasCurve
• latitudeTemperatureSunMultCurve

[NathanKell 5,831]

@ZobrAA: https://github.com/Kopernicus/Kopernicus/blob/effc3ff10ba282eee470383ac0194b28b96e4e93/Kopernicus/Configuration/AtmosphereLoader.cs#L115-L209

 

Edit: and scroll up for atmosphere adiabatic index and molar mass.

[ZobrAA 135]

@NathanKell OMG! So this means, we could just use Kopernicus to load RealisticAtmospheres.cfg and not bother about BodyLoader?

[CaptRobau 1,130]

Interesting mod.

[NathanKell 5,831]

@ZobrAA You may have to change the names of some curves, and you will *certainly* need to change the node structure, they are completely different. But yes, anything BodyLoader can do, Kopernicus can do.

[Gnoyze 28]

On 12/28/2015 at 4:47 PM, OhioBob said:

Eve
The sea level conditions on Eve are unchanged from the stock model; however, at higher altitudes Eve’s atmosphere is significantly modified.  The planet’s crushing gravity compresses its atmosphere to a total depth of only 50 km, which is much less than the 90 km depth found in the stock game.  The mean temperature-height profile between 0 and 50 km altitude is the same in both the stock and modified atmospheres, though changes have been made to the latitudinal and diurnal temperature variations.

And Eve(venus) was why I'm here... I'm looking for a mod that makes Eve like Venus so that the large atmosphere gets very dense and very hot at the surface. The barometric pressure is high, which would cause most things to float higher in the atmosphere (very soupy works too). I plan to use such an atmosphere along with a mod that allows me to stop and save mid-flight in atmo. This is all in my goal to simulate Project Venus. Thank you.

Spoiler

 

Ninety percent of the atmosphere of Venus is within 28 km of the surface; by comparison, 90% of the atmosphere of Earth is within 10 km of the surface. At a height of 50 km the atmospheric pressure is approximately equal to that at the surface of Earth.

The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa). Despite the harsh conditions on the surface, the atmospheric pressure and temperature at about 50 km to 65 km above the surface of the planet is nearly the same as that of the Earth, making its upper atmosphere the most Earth-like area in the Solar System, even more so than the surface of Mars. Due to the similarity in pressure and temperature and the fact that breathable air (21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen) is a lifting gas on Venus in the same way that helium is a lifting gas on Earth, the upper atmosphere has been proposed as a location for both exploration and colonization.

The densest part of the atmosphere, the troposphere, begins at the surface and extends upwards to 65 km. At the furnace-like surface the winds are slow, but at the top of the troposphere the temperature and pressure reaches Earth-like levels and clouds pick up speed to 100 m/s

The atmosphere has a mass of 4.8×10²⁰ kg, about 93 times the mass of the Earth's total atmosphere

The mesosphere of Venus extends from 65 km to 120 km in height, and the thermosphere begins at around 120, eventually reaching the upper limit of the atmosphere (exosphere) at about 220 to 350 km.The mesosphere of Venus can be divided into two layers: the lower one between 62–73 km[27] and the upper one between 73–95 km.[17] In the first layer the temperature is nearly constant at 230 K (−43 °C). This layer coincides with the upper cloud deck. In the second layer temperature starts to decrease again reaching about 165 K (−108 °C) at the altitude of 95 km, where mesopause begins.[17] It is the coldest part of the Venusian dayside atmosphere.[2] In the dayside mesopause, which serves as a boundary between the mesophere and thermosphere and is located between 95–120 km, temperature grows up to a constant—about 300–400 K (27–127 °C)—value prevalent in the thermosphere.

 

Is it possible to edit the given data into the config? (thinking it may be necessary to give Eve a carbon dioxide ocean to replace the troposphere... that way you can actually float there. (How would you make the surface fuzzy, i.e. give it a gradual transition from sea level pressure of the ocean/tropo and the rest of the atmo being pretty close))

Edited March 16, 2016 by Gnoyze

[OhioBob 3,483]

@Gnoyze

If you want Eve to have a Venus-like atmosphere, I can easily do that.  I've already modeled a Venus atmosphere for RSS, so it wouldn't be difficult at all to adapt that model to fit Eve.  RealisticAtmospheres.cfg is just a text file that can be easily edited.  I can post the revised configuration data here and then you can just copy and paste it into RealisticAtmospheres.cfg to have your own customized Eve atmosphere.  In fact, if you want to change only Eve's atmosphere while leaving the other planets stock, you can delete from RealisticAtmospheres.cfg the data for all the others planets except Eve.

Of course the model that I come up with for Eve will be based on Venus, but it will be customized to fit a real-life analog of Eve.  An Eve analog is bigger than Venus, therefore the atmospheres won't be exactly the same.

[Gnoyze 28]

Actually, I do plan on just changing the atmo of eve (for now) so the config data would be awesome. Also, Eve's gravity stays slightly lower than kerbin's right? "crushing gravity" isn't really the same as "dense troposphere" (is Eve given an ocean to simulate the troposphere? and allow you to save your vessel "splashed down" on/in it?)

Edited March 16, 2016 by Gnoyze

[OhioBob 3,483]

Just now, Gnoyze said:

Actually, I plan on using RSS, so the fact that you've already made a config for that is awesome (must have missed it in the OP..)

If you are using the most recent version of RSS, then you should already have a realistic Venusian atmosphere.  The atmospheric model that I wrote went into effect with, as I recall, version 10.5.0.  RSS is now up to version 10.6.2.

[Gnoyze 28]

Just now, OhioBob said:

If you are using the most recent version of RSS, then you should already have a realistic Venusian atmosphere.  The atmospheric model that I wrote went into effect with, as I recall, version 10.5.0.  RSS is now up to version 10.6.2.

Changed my mind. XD I need to save ram atm so I'm trying to thin down on the mods I'm using. The Venus-like Eve config will be fine. I mostly will be simulating atmospheric colonization.

[OhioBob 3,483]

9 minutes ago, Gnoyze said:

Changed my mind. XD I need to save ram atm so I'm trying to thin down on the mods I'm using. The Venus-like Eve config will be fine. I mostly will be simulating atmospheric colonization.

OK, I'll see what I can come up with.

[Gnoyze 28]

Thanks man. Looking forward to it. Also, is it possible to "splash down" and save a vessel as "landed" in the upper troposphere? (the really dense ocean of carbon dioxide)

[FungusForge 305]

1 hour ago, Gnoyze said:

Thanks man. Looking forward to it. Also, is it possible to "splash down" and save a vessel as "landed" in the upper troposphere? (the really dense ocean of carbon dioxide)

Probably not quite what you're looking for, but AFAIK its the only mod out there that can save in flight vessels.

[Enceos 1,763]

2 hours ago, OhioBob said:

OK, I'll see what I can come up with.

Yeah, I'd love my Eve to have Venusian atmosphere as well. Thank you @OhioBob for taking your time. I'm not sure I know enough about gases to do this myself.

[OhioBob 3,483]

The code below will give Eve a Venus-like atmosphere.  Eve's surface temperature and pressure will be comparable to the planet Venus.  With increasing altitude, temperature and pressure vary in such a way that Venus' real-life temperature-pressure relationship is preserved.  However, both temperature and pressure decrease more rapidly than on Venus, which is partly due to Eve's greater surface gravity, and partly due to the scaled-down size of the KSP solar system.

To use, simply copy the code below into a file name Eve.cfg and place it in the folder GameData/RealisticAtmospheres/KopernicusCfg, replacing the existing Eve.cfg.

(edit 10-June-2016)  The code below and the installation instructions above have been updated for Realistic Atmospheres version 1.2.0.
 

@Kopernicus:FOR[RealisticAtmospheres]
{
	@Body[Eve]
	{
		@Atmosphere
		{
			// General atmosphere settings
			enabled = true
			oxygen = false
			maxAltitude = 70000.0
			// Constants
			adiabaticIndex = 1.21
			atmosphereMolarMass = 0.04345
			// Atmosphere Pressure
			staticPressureASL = 9423.225
			pressureCurve
			{
				key = 0 9423.225 0 -1.01324
				key = 2000 7570.83 -0.843398 -0.843398
				key = 5000 5368.84 -0.632818 -0.632818
				key = 8000 3729.01 -0.467192 -0.467192
				key = 12000 2208.34 -0.302711 -0.302711
				key = 16000 1240.62 -0.188358 -0.188358
				key = 20000 652.047 -0.111079 -0.111079
				key = 25000 260.704 -0.0512524 -0.0512524
				key = 30000 90.1993 -0.0209595 -0.0209595
				key = 35000 24.2365 -0.00714700 -0.00714700
				key = 40000 4.98634 -0.00166111 -0.00166111
				key = 45000 0.854591 -0.000321429 -0.000321429
				key = 50000 0.114810 -4.89050E-05 -4.89050E-05
				key = 55000 0.0124754 -5.69613E-06 -5.69613E-06
				key = 60000 0.00123817 -5.78099E-07 -5.78099E-07
				key = 63000 0.000300666 -1.43589E-07 -1.43589E-07
				key = 70000 0 0 0
			}
			// Atmosphere Temperature
			temperatureSeaLevel = 735
			temperatureCurve
			{
				key = 0 735 0 -0.0130
				key = 10000 601 -0.0137 -0.0137
				key = 15000 531 -0.0142 -0.0142
				key = 20000 460 -0.0137 -0.0137
				key = 25000 398 -0.0114 -0.0114
				key = 30000 332 -0.0164 -0.0164
				key = 35000 257 -0.0106 -0.0106
				key = 40000 233 -0.00290 -0.00290
				key = 45000 209 -0.00546 -0.00546
				key = 50000 184 -0.00432 -0.00432
				key = 55000 168 -0.00175 -0.00175
				key = 60000 162 -0.00149 -0.00149
				key = 70000 146 -0.000633 0
			}
			temperatureSunMultCurve
			{
				key = 0 0.1 0 0
				key = 23500 0.1 0 0
				key = 35000 1 0 0
				key = 41000 0 -0.00012 -0.00012
				key = 46750 -0.25 0 0
				key = 52500 0 0.000069 0.000069
				key = 70000 1.2075 0.000069 0
			}
			temperatureLatitudeBiasCurve
			{
				key = 0 4.25 0 0
				key = 38 0 -0.2 -0.2
				key = 90 -15.75 -0.4 00
			}
			temperatureLatitudeSunMultCurve
			{
				key = 0 20 0 0
				key = 60 10 -0.3 -0.3
				key = 90 0 -0.35 0
			}
		}
	}
}

 

Edited June 10, 2016 by OhioBob
Updated config for version 1.2.0 (Kopernicus)