[WIP][1.8.1, 1.9.1, 1.10.1, 1.11.0–2, 1.12.2–5] Principia—version ‎Καραθεοδωρή, released 2024-04-08—n-Body and Extended Body Gravitation

[SmugglingParts]

hi, I'm in love with Principia!

Just asking: 

is there the opportunity to set the Principia GUI show on/off functionality via a keyboard hotkey? 

I find myself opening and closing the GUI pretty often since it's pretty big on screen, and also, I have the Principia plugin icon right down my list on the toolbar, which makes pretty slow to scroll, open and close it every time.

If not, are you able to provide a simple way to make me write down an MM patch or a C# function for it? 

thanks! 

Edited April 3 by SmugglingParts

[eggrobin]

For the new moon (lunation number 300), which is a total eclipse, the new release (Καραθεοδωρή) is out.

Some crashes that could occur when looking at trajectories in map view using the surface frame have been fixed.

See the change log for more details.

[DA299]

How can I get this mod to work in KSP 1.12.0?

[DA299]

Nvm I got it. This is a truly awesome mod, perhaps the best if I'm judging by the sheer technical/coding ability required to make one.

I'm playing with this mod in KSRSS, with BetterTimeWarp, and Kerbalism. Few questions I wanted to ask the good people here:

1) I managed to send a probe to Earth-Moon L2; and the orbit seems to be unstable? It requires course corrections roughly every 14 days... I remember reading that orbits around the Lagrange points are very stable orbits, so I'm not sure what gives? Is this a problem because of the rescale of the real solar system or is it because of something else?

2) The game seems to hang when I warp. It does so for a second or two and then returns to normal. Is this because of the vast (I presume) number of calculations going on the backend? I do have a fairly modern processor (12th gen i5) so I thought it should run smoothly... or is this to be expected?

3) When making a new flightplan and adding maneuvers; the framerate drops for ~30 seconds or so before returning to normal. Not sure what is causing this.

Again, not meant as a knock on the mod creators, I actually love this mod, but I just want to understand a few things.

https://imgur.com/a/0gQPIGi

https://imgur.com/a/cRtdGii

https://imgur.com/a/mmM9HFZ

Edited Tuesday at 12:14 PM by DA299

[pleroy]

1 hour ago, DA299 said:

1) I managed to send a probe to Earth-Moon L2; and the orbit seems to be unstable? It requires course corrections roughly every 14 days... I remember reading that orbits around the Lagrange points are very stable orbits, so I'm not sure what gives? Is this a problem because of the rescale of the real solar system or is it because of something else?

Congratulation for discovering that orbits around L2 are unstable. I invite you to consult Wikipedia for details about this instead of trusting what you remember reading.

1 hour ago, DA299 said:

2) The game seems to hang when I warp. It does so for a second or two and then returns to normal. Is this because of the vast (I presume) number of calculations going on the backend? I do have a fairly modern processor (12th gen i5) so I thought it should run smoothly... or is this to be expected?

3) When making a new flightplan and adding maneuvers; the framerate drops for ~30 seconds or so before returning to normal. Not sure what is causing this.

Note that "12th generation i5" covers a broad variety of processors, including both desktops and laptops, so it's impossible to say if that's a good choice for Principia. In general the more cores, the better.  Also, we recommend destroying debris and disabling the asteroids as they burn CPU for little value.

[DA299]

57 minutes ago, pleroy said:

Congratulation for discovering that orbits around L2 are unstable. I invite you to consult Wikipedia for details about this instead of trusting what you remember reading.

Note that "12th generation i5" covers a broad variety of processors, including both desktops and laptops, so it's impossible to say if that's a good choice for Principia. In general the more cores, the better.  Also, we recommend destroying debris and disabling the asteroids as they burn CPU for little value.

Thanks for the quick response. I apologize if my tone was rude or if I offended you. Its just been a while since I was into KSP. I have a i5-12450h laptop processor with around 8 cores.

Also, another thing I wanted to ask is does Principia model tidal effects. For example, in Earth orbit, a satellite which is very long (mass concentration like a cylinder) will tend to orient itself in the radial direction due to tidal effects. So, if I were to make such a satellite in KSP, and then turn SAS off in Earth orbit, would it also do the same over a long enough time-period?

If I understand correctly how Principia works, in that it models n-body gravitation on each of the parts making up a vessel; in theory it should be perfectly capable of modelling these tidal effects.

Edited Tuesday at 02:32 PM by DA299

[pleroy]

1 hour ago, DA299 said:

If I understand correctly how Principia works, in that it models n-body gravitation on each of the parts making up a vessel; in theory it should be perfectly capable of modelling these tidal effects.

This is not how Principia works.  Gravitational forces are applied to the vessel, not to its parts.  Vessels can have hundreds of parts, the performance would be horrendous.

Consequently, there are no tidal effects.