[1.9.x] Kessler Syndrome 1.4 (19/02/2020)

[severedsolo]

On 17/04/2018 at 4:29 PM, Errol said:

In 1.3.1 I have seen craft with a periapsis near the atmosphere (<80km) disappear, as if they decayed to the point that they touched the atmosphere, but never saw any other craft decay at all. I was wondering if it was just me....

 

On 01/04/2018 at 2:04 AM, MaximumThrust said:

I have tested this mod in a 1.3.1 clean install, and under any circumstances or settings I observed any kind of decay in orbits above 70 km in Kerbin. It don't see to be working.

Anyone have a different experience?

I've just tested in a stock (1.4.2) install and as far as I can tell it's working as intended.

Decay ONLY happens in the flight scene. The mod will catch up when you switch back to the flight scene, but decay will not happen in the tracking station (or anywhere else for that matter). If that's not the problem, I'm going to need to see some logs (and maybe a test save with no/minimal mods that I can reproduce the symptoms in).

As an aside, apparently I forgot to update this to 1.4, so let's do that now:

Kessler Syndrome 1.3.0.1 Released

• Recompiled against KSP 1.4.2

 

Edited April 24, 2018 by severedsolo

[theonegalen]

Hey @severedsolo, did you ever consider tying this into Oh Scrap so that the simulated micrometeoriod causes part failures instead of part destruction?

It would be nice if this was optional.

[Errol]

4 hours ago, theonegalen said:

Hey @severedsolo, did you ever consider tying this into Oh Scrap so that the simulated micrometeoriod causes part failures instead of part destruction?

It would be nice if this was optional.

That is a really interesting idea, I love it. It would effectively make near-space around kerbin (or whatever other body) into a high-failure rate area. Perhaps there could be some sort of random element to it, like there is a chance that it only causes a failure to occur instead of destroying it. 

EDIT: @severedsolo I'll be sure to include this early in my 1.4.3 build so that I can start testing it against other mods as I gradually add them back in chunks of 5 or so.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Errol

[severedsolo]

On 4/24/2018 at 6:10 PM, theonegalen said:

Hey @severedsolo, did you ever consider tying this into Oh Scrap so that the simulated micrometeoriod causes part failures instead of part destruction?

It would be nice if this was optional.

Late post is late, sorry.

One day I will sit down and figure out reflection and how to write wrappers, at that point I can do cross support for my mods (alot of them would compliment each other)

[PataSolar]

Hey @severedsolo I love the mod (and your other ones). Maybe mention in the original post that there is decay and that >250,000 orbits can act as a graveyard etc. Luckily I read through the thread.

[severedsolo]

KesserSyndrome 1.3.0.2 Released

Version bump for KSP 1.6.x compatibility

[DStaal]

The 'Decay Percentage' slider appears bugged.  It starts at 1%, but if you try to slide it, it will only snap between 0% and 100%.

[severedsolo]

10 hours ago, DStaal said:

The 'Decay Percentage' slider appears bugged.  It starts at 1%, but if you try to slide it, it will only snap between 0% and 100%.

Why doesn't that surprise me. Seems like the difficulty settings break on every update. I'll take a look, thanks. 

[eightiesboi]

I have a question about the orbital decay and the option to affect non-debris vessels. Do the same parameters apply (1% decrease to SMA each time the vessel crosses an AP/PE marker)? Is there a height where this would not occur? I know you have no intention to absorb Orbital Decay and its ability to do station keeping; however, it would be nice to have functionality at lower altitudes that doesn't hamper keostationary sats.

Thank you for this mod and all of the others you've created and maintain!

Edited March 6, 2019 by eightiesboi
Orbital Decay may or may not be in-development by Papa_Joe

[severedsolo]

8 hours ago, eightiesboi said:

I have a question about the orbital decay and the option to affect non-debris vessels. Do the same parameters apply (1% decrease to SMA each time the vessel crosses an AP/PE marker)? Is there a height where this would not occur? I know you have no intention to absorb Orbital Decay and its ability to do station keeping; however, it would be nice to have functionality at lower altitudes that doesn't hamper keostationary sats.

Thank you for this mod and all of the others you've created and maintain!

Off the top of my head, I think it stops when you cross the high /low space threshold (250k for kerbin). Might look at making it configurable though

Edit: Just checked the code, it is indeed the space high/low altitude. The decay happens when the craft crosses the Pe Marker

Edited March 7, 2019 by severedsolo

[eightiesboi]

7 hours ago, severedsolo said:

Off the top of my head, I think it stops when you cross the high /low space threshold (250k for kerbin). Might look at making it configurable though

Edit: Just checked the code, it is indeed the space high/low altitude. The decay happens when the craft crosses the Pe Marker

Got it, and thank you for the quick response!

[severedsolo]

This is probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make, but it’s time to face the truth.

Regular followers will probably have noticed that I’ve been a bit less communicative recently, and when I do reply, the replies can be a bit curt.

I mod for myself, and the truth is that I really haven’t played KSP since 1.4.x came out (even then it was becoming less and less). This means that I just don’t have the motivation to bring stuff up to date, or address issues, and quite frankly it’s showing.

Every time I load up the forums, or get an email on one of my threads with a bug, I groan to myself. This is not a reflection on you guys, you are all almost exclusively a very nice bunch of people who are very helpful in helping me track down issues, and the rare one or two who haven’t been have usually been put off by my generally grumpy attitude to those kind of requests, so don’t tend to stick around. The problem is with me, I just don’t want to do this any more, and that’s not fair on you guys, who need someone who will actually dedicate themselves to it.

With that, it’s time for me to announce my retirement from modding. I don’t plan to just disappear, I’ll still be around, and I plan to get all the mods to a point where someone else could take them over easily (at the very least they will be getting a 1.7 update), and I’ll try and resolve any outstanding issues on Github before I call it a day. I still want to be a part of the community, I just don’t want to mod.

I believe everything is licensed MIT, but for anything that isn’t, it will be changed over to make any handover as smooth as possible. If anyone is interested in adopting any of my mods, please let me know.

I’d like to thank every one of you for your support and encouragement over the years, I’d like to thank the amazing modding community for all their help, especially the guys on Discord (you know who you are) and just generally everyone on this forum for being awesome.

The fact that somebody like me, who started with literally zero programming experience can become one of the big names in modding (well, I like to think I am anyway) simply by teaching myself and following other modders examples, is testament to how helpful this entire community can be.

If your just interested in my retirement, you can stop reading here. If you’d like to know what I’ll be doing next, check the spoiler (it's in no way KSP related just FYI).

Spoiler

I’ve mentioned several times that I have an autistic daughter. One of the things that REALLY bugs me, is that there are very few apps that allow you to use PECS* in a helpful way, especially when children are first learning it. To start with, children don’t understand symbols, you use photographs instead, but the apps almost exclusively have symbols and nothing else.

 

So, what I want to do, is use the programming skills that I have learnt here, to develop an app that will allow parents of autistic children to take pictures of objects, record their parents voice saying what that object is, and then when the child pushes the photo on the app, it will say the word.

 

*For those who don’t know, PECS stands for “Picture Exchange Communication System” - basically for non-verbal autistic people it gives them a voice, they can communicate what they want / how they are feeling by handing you a picture/symbol of that thing/emotion etc.

[BadModder54]

Ah yes, time to make my life even harder in my hardcore RSS/RO career

 

 

(and to reenact Gravity)

[severedsolo]

Kessler Syndrome 1.3.0.3 Released

• Version bump for KSP 1.7.x

[eightiesboi]

Hey @severedsolo,

I have two questions and possibly a request. This is not at all urgent, and if you don't have the time or inclination to do any of this, no worries!

First, the questions. When orbits decay at whatever rate (say, 1%), is that applied symmetrically? Do circular orbits remain circular and elliptical elliptical, or is the decay only applied to the PE (or AP)? And does the orbital decay only happen for Kerbin, or does it happen for every celestial body?

Now, the request:

@Papa_Joe has unfortunately been gone for a bit and one of the casualties of his absence has been the Orbital Decay mod. Although it still functions to some extent, it does seem as if there are problems with using the last version on 1.7.3. As I've said before, I know you have no intentions of adding all of the functionality (like stationkeeping) from that mod into this one; however, it occurs to me that this mod could potentially duplicate the effects of Orbital Decay with little change. However, I am not a coder and I may be entirely wrong in my assumptions. Here's my thought though:

In Kessler Syndrome, there is an option to include non-debris vessels in the orbital decay computation. I was thinking that if an option were added to have all vessels EXCEPT for one (or two) specified types to be subject to decay, it would function as a poor man's stationkeeping. So, for example, if the option allowed for all vessels except for stations and / or relays, then probes and ships in LKO would decay (and obviously, anything above 250k regardless of type would be unaffected) while stations and relays remained untouched.

Lastly, would it be possible to get a display of how long it will take something to deorbit? I am always curious as to the endurance of my debris. Lol.

As always, thank you!

Edited September 8, 2019 by eightiesboi
Correction of satellites to relays

[severedsolo]

On 9/5/2019 at 9:07 PM, eightiesboi said:

First, the questions. When orbits decay at whatever rate (say, 1%), is that applied symmetrically? Do circular orbits remain circular and elliptical elliptical, or is the decay only applied to the PE (or AP)? And does the orbital decay only happen for Kerbin, or does it happen for every celestial body?

It just reduces the SMA by the desired amount. So it's a bit of both. It's a very lazy way of doing it

For the second: Any body with atmosphere where the Pe is below the spaceAltitudeThreshold (which is the altitude at which you go from being "in space low" to "in space high".

On 9/5/2019 at 9:07 PM, eightiesboi said:

In Kessler Syndrome, there is an option to include non-debris vessels in the orbital decay computation. I was thinking that if an option were added to have all vessels EXCEPT for one (or two) specified types to be subject to decay, it would function as a poor man's stationkeeping. So, for example, if the option allowed for all vessels except for stations and / or relays, then probes and ships in LKO would decay (and obviously, anything above 250k regardless of type would be unaffected) while stations and relays remained untouched.

Shouldn't be too difficult. You are right that it's pretty easy to do. So at the moment, if you have "debris only" turned on, it goes "is this debris?" before applying the decay. The other option just skips that check. Adding new checks is childs play. Raised #3

On 9/5/2019 at 9:07 PM, eightiesboi said:

Lastly, would it be possible to get a display of how long it will take something to deorbit? I am always curious as to the endurance of my debris. Lol.

Uh, that's a big fat maybe. Raised #4 but I'm not going to commit to it. (UI work is, not my favourite thing to do, and the current system generates alot of garbage. I need to move it over to PopUpDialog at some point but have been putting it off, so probably I'll do both at the same time.

Certainly don't expect anything until 1.8 hits.

Edited September 8, 2019 by severedsolo

[eightiesboi]

Thank you for the answers and the potential enhancements! 

KSP is funny in that it is one of those games that I go away from for a while and then get sucked back in. I hope that you're not just modding and that you take some time to ignore the boards and just build some rockets! 

Oh, and if I can help in any way, scream. I have no experience coding but I can test and I know how to follow instructions.

[severedsolo]

Kessler Syndrome 1.4 Released

• Update for KSP 1.9
• Removed Decay Manager*

*Yes, I can hear the complaints already, but it's stopped working properly at some point anyway, and it's another "wrote when I didn't know what I was really doing" thing, so it's not worth saving. By removing it, it makes it very clear that the mod does not do that (because it wasn't doing it anyway). Plus it always felt like a "tacked on" feature anyway.

Current plan is that it won't be gone forever, but more split into a sort of "Orbital Decay Lite" type mod.

[Errol]

@severedsolo Sorry about the necro, I know this horse has been beaten to death, but I've had a thought for a different, much simpler way to abstract orbital decay as a mod for ksp.

No modifying the orbital parameters of anything gradually over time, instead when debris is created (vessel type is switched to debris), check if periapsis is in low-space and if the parent body has atmosphere, and if yes then set a timer to delete that piece of debris. Timer length is calculated based on semi-major axis and/maybe mass. The timer could also be disabled if you change the type back to anything other than debris.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Errol