[1.2] Galileo's Planet Pack (development thread) [v0.9]

[eddiew]

1 hour ago, OhioBob said:

I'm going to try to use a scientific rationale for everything I do to make things as realistic as possible (except of course that everything is scaled to stock sized proportions and densities).  Whether or not a planet can retain an appreciable atmosphere is a function of its temperature and escape velocity.  As a gas heats up its molecules move faster, and if they exceed escape velocity the atmosphere will leak away leaving behind an airless world.  I plan to test each body to see if it's even feasible that it could have an atmosphere.  If so I'll give it one, but it's far to early to know any specifics.

It's logical and I respect the process   I would even suggest that it's hard for a planet in tight solar orbit to maintain either an atmosphere, or a moon. IIRC, the Messenger probe has to expend fuel whenever it's on the sunward side of Mercury, because on the night side the sun and the planet line up and drag it down into a lower orbit.

But it's just my 2p that from a gameplay perspective, there's nothing more dull than a vacuum world without a moon... Moho, Eeloo, Dres... #foreveralone   It's probably as much a thought for @Galileo as yourself, but my gut feel is that for gameplay and interest, the only justifyable single vacuum world is Moho, or the innermost planet. Even then, the New Horizons pack puts a hot jupiter there, and makes Moho a moon. It's pretty ferocious trying to get to it, but it's certainly not dull

Other than saying that, I will step out and just let you two do your things because it's really nothing to do with me and it's not my intent to be critical, especially at a concept stage ^^;  Will be looking forward to future developments  

[Galileo]

6 minutes ago, eddiew said:

It's logical and I respect the process   I would even suggest that it's hard for a planet in tight solar orbit to maintain either an atmosphere, or a moon. IIRC, the Messenger probe has to expend fuel whenever it's on the sunward side of Mercury, because on the night side the sun and the planet line up and drag it down into a lower orbit.

But it's just my 2p that from a gameplay perspective, there's nothing more dull than a vacuum world without a moon... Moho, Eeloo, Dres... #foreveralone   It's probably as much a thought for @Galileo as yourself, but my gut feel is that for gameplay and interest, the only justifyable single vacuum world is Moho, or the innermost planet. Even then, the New Horizons pack puts a hot jupiter there, and makes Moho a moon. It's pretty ferocious trying to get to it, but it's certainly not dull

Other than saying that, I will step out and just let you two do your things because it's really nothing to do with me and it's not my intent to be critical, especially at a concept stage ^^;  Will be looking forward to future developments  

The moonless vacuum planets in my layout will have gilly and bop type satellites if that makes you feel better

[OhioBob]

@Galileo,

One of the things that I'd like to do is to make sure the sun has a realistic mass-luminosity relationship.  Clearly Gael's orbital properties and temperature are closely linked to the sun's mass and luminosity.  Also note that the calendar in KSP is hardwired to 426 days (not the orbital period of the home world).  If we want to force Gael's orbital period to be 426 days to be in sync with the calendar, while also receiving the correct amount of solar radiation to have Earthlike temperatures, Gael must be about 14 million kilometers from the sun.  That's doable, but with Gael being the fourth planet from the sun, the distances between those inner planets will have to be compressed.

If we want to space those planets out and move Gael to a greater distance from the sun, that's also doable, but it will mean that Gael's orbital period is no longer 426 days.  Having a longer orbital period is no big deal, but the calendar will still turn over to a new year after 426 days.  Obviously having a calendar year that's different from the solar year is undesirable.  Surely the calendar can be fixed with code, but I don't know how to do it.  If you don't know how either, we may need to recruit a third party to help us out.

Also note that if Gael is placed farther out, the sun will have to be slightly bigger and more luminous than the stock sun.  This will increase the delta-v requirements for interplanetary travel, but unlikely enough to cause any real problems.  It should still be easy enough to do with stock parts.

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by OhioBob

[Galileo]

@OhioBob or I can reposition the planets to avoid the headache altogether

[OhioBob]

1 hour ago, eddiew said:

It's logical and I respect the process   I would even suggest that it's hard for a planet in tight solar orbit to maintain either an atmosphere, or a moon. IIRC, the Messenger probe has to expend fuel whenever it's on the sunward side of Mercury, because on the night side the sun and the planet line up and drag it down into a lower orbit.

But it's just my 2p that from a gameplay perspective, there's nothing more dull than a vacuum world without a moon... Moho, Eeloo, Dres... #foreveralone   It's probably as much a thought for @Galileo as yourself, but my gut feel is that for gameplay and interest, the only justifyable single vacuum world is Moho, or the innermost planet. Even then, the New Horizons pack puts a hot jupiter there, and makes Moho a moon. It's pretty ferocious trying to get to it, but it's certainly not dull

Other than saying that, I will step out and just let you two do your things because it's really nothing to do with me and it's not my intent to be critical, especially at a concept stage ^^;  Will be looking forward to future developments  

I appreciate your input.  If the bodies in Galileo's illustration are drawn to scale, and I assume they are, then I'm willing to bet that most of those are going to have some type of atmosphere.  Icarus likely won't because of its high temperature and strong solar wind, but I'm reasonable confident that all the other planets will.  The small inner moons will probably not have atmospheres either, but I suspect that many of the Gas Giant moons will be big and cool enough to have atmospheres.

Also note that the calculations of which I spoke will determine the minimum molecular weight gas that a planet/moon can retain.  So I may find that a body can't hold onto lighter gases like nitrogen and neon, but it might be able to hold onto heavier gases like carbon dioxide and argon.  So this will help me decide not only if a body has an atmosphere, but what kind of composition it might have.

If a body ends up being borderline, I can always give it a thin atmosphere.  However, if the calculations show that there is just no how no way that a particular body could ever have an atmosphere, I would have a hard time deciding to give it one.

(edit) I just noticed that Gael placed a "not to scale" note on his illustration.  That could change some of what I wrote above.

44 minutes ago, Galileo said:

@OhioBob or I can reposition the planets to avoid the headache altogether

Yes, if you want to flip-flop the positions of a couple planets and place Gael third from the sun, that will solve the problem.  I can figure out the exact number later, but for Gael to have the right combination of temperature and orbital period, it will need to have a semi-major axis of about 14,000,000,000 meters.

Edited September 2, 2016 by OhioBob

[Galileo]

I just got home and I'm going to put out as many planets as I can

[OhioBob]

2 minutes ago, Galileo said:

I just got home and I'm going to put out as many planets as I can

Looking forward to it.

[Shadriss]

59 minutes ago, Galileo said:

@OhioBob or I can reposition the planets to avoid the headache altogether

 

54 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

Yes, if you want to flip-flop the positions of a couple planets and place Gael third from the sun, that will solve the problem.  I can figure out the exact number later, but for Gael to have the right combination of temperature and orbital period, it will need to have a semi-major axis of about 14,000,000,000 meters.

^ This.

I like putting Gael in the 4th slot, but if there's a hard code limit like the calender, than what is liked pretty much has to go out the window. Regardless, I do find it interesting that either A) Your thoughts on the system composition were similar to mine or B) You just really liked my ideas. Probably A, but hey, I can dream.

That said, you mentioned in another post that you wanted a moon to have a moon... neat idea, but I have to ask if this is A) Possible under Kopernicus (assuming Yes) and B) in any way realistic. At a minimum, that moon of a moon would be fighting several major gravitational pulls, and I can't help but wonder if such forces wouldn't tear it apart? At the least, it would have to have a huge amount of tidal activity or tectonic activity, I'd think, and since as far as I know tides aren't a thing in KSP, we'd be looking at a volcanic body. Which, honestly, would be pretty cool as well.

[OhioBob]

@Galileo, I just remembered that the textures you are creating are completely independent of the sizes of the planets.  We can always adjust the sizes after the fact if we need to force a particular result.  For instance, if we want a particular moon to have an atmosphere but we initially made it too small, we can simply make it bigger.  For some reason I was thinking the sizes were locked in, but obviously we have quite a bit of flexibility.

6 minutes ago, Shadriss said:

That said, you mentioned in another post that you wanted a moon to have a moon... neat idea, but I have to ask if this is A) Possible under Kopernicus

Yes, it is definitely possible because it's been done before.  One of the moons in OPM has a small moon of its own.

[Galileo]

11 minutes ago, Shadriss said:

 

^ This.

I like putting Gael in the 4th slot, but if there's a hard code limit like the calender, than what is liked pretty much has to go out the window. Regardless, I do find it interesting that either A) Your thoughts on the system composition were similar to mine or B) You just really liked my ideas. Probably A, but hey, I can dream.

That said, you mentioned in another post that you wanted a moon to have a moon... neat idea, but I have to ask if this is A) Possible under Kopernicus (assuming Yes) and B) in any way realistic. At a minimum, that moon of a moon would be fighting several major gravitational pulls, and I can't help but wonder if such forces wouldn't tear it apart? At the least, it would have to have a huge amount of tidal activity or tectonic activity, I'd think, and since as far as I know tides aren't a thing in KSP, we'd be looking at a volcanic body. Which, honestly, would be pretty cool as well.

It was B.  And the moon having a moon would just be a cool thing.  Complete disregard for physics 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Galileo

[JadeOfMaar]

On 9/1/2016 at 1:28 AM, Galileo said:

Loving the layout map and that Icarus moved, and that Gauss has nested moons! I'm curious to the identity of Augustus' new parent, since he's no longer bound to Gauss.

Augustus and his brothers (or the three of Nero's four moons for RSS goodness) should have the Galileans orbital resonance pattern, 1:2:4. (Giant easter egg)

Also, will there be an ice world? And I wanna ask about Tylo (The gladiators among us will love to know that there's that one moon.....) but it looks like there at least two who will fit his boots.

I'd like to contribute CRP configs because I have plans for that and have studied them some, but I haven't the experience yet in writing and testing them. It would be even more awesome for certain planets to willingly bear, or lack, certain resources... like Augustus' parent hoarding Oxygen, a radioactive world strikingly rich in Uraninite and (unless @RoverDude has any qualms), a Karborundum presence... Which reminds me! I have an Eeloo window coming. I should equip the NANC Brown with mining gear for that.

I also really like the idea of Gael being the 4th planet. Maybe the 2nd and 3rd could be the result of an impact with a rogue object, and one of the two (particularly world #3) have a combination of: inclination, eccentricity, epic deformity, lack of size?

Edited September 3, 2016 by JadeOfMaar
adding 4th world suggestion

[Nhawks17]

4 hours ago, Galileo said:

 

 

This makes me so happy

[sDaZe]

1 hour ago, Nhawks17 said:

This makes me so happy

Weren't you doing something like this at some point? 

[Shadriss]

3 hours ago, Galileo said:

It was B.

O.o

Yay me? On another front... I'm not seeing anything recognizable in terms of a theme for the planet/moon names. Is there one and I'm not seeing it, or is it completely random?

[Galileo]

Just now, Shadriss said:

O.o

Yay me? On another front... I'm not seeing anything recognizable in terms of a theme for the planet/moon names. Is there one and I'm not seeing it, or is it completely random?

Random. I'm not into themes.  Plus they have all been used and I'm not going to stoop down and start naming them after avengers

[Shadriss]

In that case... *ahem*...

 

Minorca (Sun) -> Icarus -> Calladan -> Akka -> Gael -> Sheol -> Iskandar -> Gauss -> Nero -> Askone -> Mara

Calladan -> Sikun

Gael -> Doroth -> Strom

Sheol -> Ghul

Iskandar -> Augustus -> Koba -> Shinain

Gauss -> Akton

Akton -> Hirona

Nero -> Mithra -> Ratoon -> Thule -> Sendar

Askone -> Kalgan

 

Hope that's clear - if there's no real theme anyhow, why not put in suggestions? Of course, if I'm overstepping bounds here, PLEASE let me know - I know that sometimes, people wanting to help can step on a creator's toes too much, and I really don't want to go there. I do, however, really get into this kind of creation process, so forgive me if this is a bit over the top.

[daniel l.]

Looks great! One question though: Not everyone has the processing power to use Scatterer, What does this mod look like without it?  Looking forward to the day you publish it btw  *Clicks follow button*

[Nhawks17]

8 hours ago, sDaZe said:

Weren't you doing something like this at some point? 

I was but then life hit me like a freight train

[DasBananenbrot]

Daaaamn these are gorgeous.... You once have outdone yourself @Galileo . Your creations are masterpieces 

[OhioBob]

@Galileo and I have agreed that, because of the hard coded calendar, the solution with the least potential for problems is to move Gael to third planet from the Sun and give it an orbital period of 426 days (matching the length of the calendar year).  This decision has allowed me to go ahead and compute some preliminary physical and orbital parameters.

Main sequence stars follow well known mass-luminosity-radius relationships.  I want to make sure our sun obeys these relationships to appear as realistic as possible.  The formulas for these relationships are empirical, so they may differ from one source to another.  For my calculations I use the formulas found here:

http://faculty.buffalostate.edu/sabatojs/courses/GES639/S10/reading/mass_luminosity.pdf

There two things we know about Gael, (1) its orbital period is 426 days, and (2) the solar constant is 1360 W/m².  The value of the solar constant is defined in the game configs, and I see no reason to change it.  What it means is that Gael receives the same amount of solar radiation as Earth and will have Earthlike temperatures.

From these two pieces of information and the mass-luminosity-radius formulas, I’ve been able to compute the physical properties of the Sun and Gael’s distance from it.  We have:

Sun
Luminosity = 3.3422112E+24 W
Mass = 1.9106208E+28 kg
Radius = 70,980,000 m
Gravitational parameter = 1.2751483E+18 m³/s²
Surface gravity = 25.8 g
Effective temperature = 5524 K

Gael
Semimajor axis = 13,984,359,719 m
Orbital period = 426 days (2556 hours)
Solar constant = 1360 W/m²

Scaling it up to life-size, the sun would have 100x the luminosity, 100x the mass, and 10x the radius of its scaled down proportions.  In comparison to our own sun, this is a star with 0.87 solar luminosities, 0.96 solar masses, and 1.02 solar radii.  This sun is a yellow G-type main-sequence star very similar to our own (probably about a G6).

I don’t know if Galileo intends to give this star a name beyond “the Sun,” but if so, my entry is Sunna, the Norse goddess of the Sun.
 

Edited September 3, 2016 by OhioBob

[Fobok]

Totally off-topic, but OhioBob: Your website is amazing.

Back on topic: I do like Sunna. As far as sun gods and goddesses go, most are too recognizable and overused, or are so far afield from modern reference that they don't sound like a sun name. 

[Galileo]

1 hour ago, OhioBob said:

@Galileo.

I don’t know if Galileo intends to give this star a name beyond “the Sun,” but if so, my entry is Sunna, the Norse goddess of the Sun.

 

43 minutes ago, Fobok said:

Back on topic: I do like Sunna. 

I do like Sunna but I was leaning toward the Spanish name Ciro.  But if Sunna is more warmly received than that is what we can go with 

[OhioBob]

4 minutes ago, Galileo said:

I do like Sunna but I was leaning toward the Spanish name Ciro.  But if Sunna is more warmly received than that is what we can go with 

I like Ciro as well.  (But isn't the Kerbal language backwards Spanish?  So shouldn't it be Oric?   Just kidding.)

I will happily go along with which ever name the larger community prefers.

[Galileo]

2 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

I like Ciro as well.  (But isn't the Kerbal language backwards Spanish?  So shouldn't it be Oric?   Just kidding.)

I will happily go along with which ever name the larger community prefers.

I'm not gonna knock Oric either lol 

[Shadriss]

3 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

...But isn't the Kerbal language backwards Spanish?  So shouldn't it be Oric?...

Kerbal is backwards English at 10X speed, at least going by Chatterer. Ciro I like better than Sunna... if for no other reason than the word SUN is in it, and sounds like something a 5 year old would come up with.

Actually, the Norse were about at the same level as 5 year olds a lot of the time anyhow, so that may be somewhat appropriate for them.