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Actual Sites: Airports - 600 Real Runways for RSS - (1.0.1) Runway ground level hotfix!


Nightside

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Actual Sites: Airports adds 600 real runway locations.

These locations are defined as "Large Airports" from GIS data in the public domain. Each of those little gray boxes on the map is a runway you can launch from and fly to to. No need to switch KSC, you can fly amongst any number of landing strips.

Adding all these showed no noticeable effect to performance on my machine. 

screenshot21

The dataset I used to build this project does not include number of runways or their orientation, so these are generic for now. If people are interested in contributing, I may come up with a form to submit better details for your favorite airports.

 

Currently each airport only has a single runway, at a random heading. There are no other buildings

 

I have built and tested this on KSP v 1.8.1.

Required Dependencies

Real Solar System (and its dependencies) (Seems to work with KSC Switcher)

Kerbal Konstructs

 

Recommended

NavUtils

Mechjeb

 

TODO

Fix graphics on runway

Add some variety to airports, tower, hanger, etc.

Add missing airports (?)

Look into a more comprehensive data set that defines runway (not just "airports") so that all real runways are represented.

Add ~3800 "medium" sized airports

Add ~4200 "small" airports

Use this bulk config generation method to add 100’s of airports on Kerbin, too.

Add detailed version of real SPACEports.

Generate configs for NavUtils

Known issues:

Elevations for high altitude locations are messed up. Fix coming soon...

Changelog:

0.0.1 - Alpha 

1.0.0 - All 600 "Large" airports around the world

1.0.1 - Fixed runway elevation/ground level mismatch (most noticeable at high altitude locations)
          - Added an empty facility. Currently users will have to turn on the merchant feature themselves, and select a fuel type when they arrive at each airport. Hope to get this working better soon.

Edited by Nightside
update 5.11.20
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The ZIP contains no files:

$ unzip -l Actual_Sites_Airports-0.0.1.zip 
Archive:  Actual_Sites_Airports-0.0.1.zip
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
        0  2020-04-24 09:02   ActualSitesAirports_v0.0.1/GameData/
---------                     -------
        0                     1 file

 

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20 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

The ZIP contains no files:


$ unzip -l Actual_Sites_Airports-0.0.1.zip 
Archive:  Actual_Sites_Airports-0.0.1.zip
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
        0  2020-04-24 09:02   ActualSitesAirports_v0.0.1/GameData/
---------                     -------
        0                     1 file

 

Modding is hard! Download fixed.

Thank you @HebaruSan

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This is pretty cool!  I don't Real Solar System (yet, this'll drive me to do so after my current career, however), but I do sometimes Flight Gear.  Their dataset is all of the world's airports with all of the runways, etc.  Could you somehow use their data set(s)?

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1 hour ago, jamesf said:

This is pretty cool!  I don't Real Solar System (yet, this'll drive me to do so after my current career, however), but I do sometimes Flight Gear.  Their dataset is all of the world's airports with all of the runways, etc.  Could you somehow use their data set(s)?

Welcome to the forums @jamesf , I wasn't familiar with Flight Gear. It may be promising, but I don't see a way to access their data at first glance. But if I can find something it looks like their license allows sharing.

Thanks for the tip!

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I hope that links outside are allowed.  Good thing my posts are still under review, I'll find out soon If they are.

First, there's the data spec link:

http://wiki.flightgear.org/File_Formats#apt.dat_file

Then there's the actual download link, scroll down to the Download Scenery section:

https://www.flightgear.org/download/

With the above, your greater licensing knowledge, and the availability of the source code I'm sure it could be figured out how to a) get their scenery and b) parse out the airports from it.  I'll keep Bing-ing a bit to see if I can find an earlier source of their airport data so maybe _all_ of the scenery won't have to be downloaded.

I'm a developer, but behind closed doors in a firewalled GIS data shop, so I don't know too much about Creative Commons, MIT, etc. licensing but I do do c# for a living, and I know how to write geographic data converters if you need.  You might also be interested in the GIS related "proj4" project, started in FORTRAN and brought forward.  It does data conversions between real-world Earth-based coordinate systems, of which there are many indeed.

There's some valuable discussion on this page regarding apt.dat (airport data) and rendering the data in that into the scenery mesh, along with a ref to a Linux tool, terragear:

https://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?t=32510

Edited by jamesf
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On 4/24/2020 at 3:43 PM, jamesf said:

I hope that links outside are allowed

They are allowed, although links to the sketchier download hosts are discouraged.

On 4/24/2020 at 3:43 PM, jamesf said:

Then there's the actual download link, scroll down to the Download Scenery section:

https://www.flightgear.org/download/

Thank you @jamesf , I will look into this. I need to deal with some more rudimentary problems first. For some reason the ugly VBA script I wrote to build the config files from my data stops before adding all the airports (although it works ok for ~200 North American Airports, it stops before finishing all 600 world airports. 

I already solved one strange problem that crashed my work, where windows cannot have a folder named "PRN" (which is the IATA code for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pristina_International_Airport). 

But after that I'd like to add more accurate runways.

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Thanks for making this, as I'm a fan of both kerbal aircraft and RSS.

Not a criticism just a question - this doesn't let you take off from one airport and land at another, right? Basically only your active launch site exists in the world at one time? Aside from trying to get around that by changing your active launch site mid-flight. I guess multiple concurrent sites would be more a function of something like Kerbin Side and Kerbal Konstructs, but I don't know of anything like that for RSS. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited by illmatic
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2 hours ago, illmatic said:

Thanks for making this, as I'm a fan of both kerbal aircraft and RSS.

Not a criticism just a question - this doesn't let you take off from one airport and land at another, right? Basically only your active launch site exists in the world at one time? Aside from trying to get around that by changing your active launch site mid-flight. I guess multiple concurrent sites would be more a function of something like Kerbin Side and Kerbal Konstructs, but I don't know of anything like that for RSS. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

This uses kerbal konstructs, so you can visit as many airports as you like without leaving the flight scene!

sorry if that wasn’t clear.

3 hours ago, pt1243 said:

This looks amazing! I am looking forward to giving this a try later this week!

Just in case anyone is curious, Tom Scott has a video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6tngl0PTI

 

Never in my life would I thought I would be curious about such a thing, and yet somehow KSP has led me here! Thanks for sharing, I’ll give it a watch.

3 hours ago, Siama said:

Maybe this is the sign to use ICAO codes?

Tell me more about ICAO codes...

I just went with IATA since those names are what I’m familiar with.

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MOAR AIRPORTS!!!

screenshot22

I haven't heard of any trouble with the alpha, and I rooted out an issue that was preventing me from building the full "Large Airport" data (there were a few duplicates in the table).

So I am releasing version 1.0.0 !!!

Please find and fly to you favorite airports around the world. Check out NavUtils or the KerbalKonstructs ILS navigators to find your destination.

In a future version I'll provide better support for NavUtils and MechJeb autopilot.

If you have any ideas, requests, or corrections, please let me know. 

Fly Safe!

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Basically you have to avoid filenames that are also device names, and from back in the DOS days the standard device names are, um, NUL(L), PR(I)N(TER), CON(SOLE), COM(1,2,3,4), you get the drill.  The parts in parenthesis above are explanatory only and have no true part in the limitation.  LPT?  Line Printer, that one, too, IIRC.  Accidentally create a file named NUL and watch the hilarity ensue!  :v/

If you do decide to keep the IATA three letter codes, maybe prepend filenames with IATA_?  A suggestion, not a request.

I have downloaded this, RSS, a bit more, and started a new career.  Other than discovering my own ineptitude at RSS career mode I've had no untoward surprises.

One question, though:  KK has a setting whether or not "new" launch sites must be discovered/landed at before you can use them.  Do your airports fall under that setting?  (I am _really_ inept at RSS career mode.)

Edited by jamesf
Clarification of suggestion
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1 hour ago, jamesf said:

Basically you have to avoid filenames that are also device names, and from back in the DOS days the standard device names are, um, NUL(L), PR(I)N(TER), CON(SOLE), COM(1,2,3,4), you get the drill.  The parts in parenthesis above are explanatory only and have no true part in the limitation.  LPT?  Line Printer, that one, too, IIRC.  Accidentally create a file named NUL and watch the hilarity ensue!  :v/

If you do decide to keep the IATA three letter codes, maybe prepend filenames with IATA_?  A suggestion, not a request.

Can you imagine what would happen if someone named their airport NUL? Planes would probably just fall out of the sky...

I think in my next version of this I will change the names to the 4 letter code. This will also support the addition of smaller airstrips that do not have a 3 letter code in my data set, but do have a 4 letter code.

2 hours ago, jamesf said:

I have downloaded this, RSS, a bit more, and started a new career.  Other than discovering my own ineptitude at RSS career mode I've had no untoward surprises.

 

RSS is hard! Part of my interest in this project is making suborbital launches and flights more interesting by adding more detail to the ground.

 

2 hours ago, jamesf said:

One question, though:  KK has a setting whether or not "new" launch sites must be discovered/landed at before you can use them.  Do your airports fall under that setting?  (I am _really_ inept at RSS career mode.)

I set these airports to be default ON. I don't know if the KK Game Settings option overrides the default setting. I wanted to make them easy to find and easily compatible with NavUtils. 

As you said above, RSS is hard, and at this point I don't see micromanagement of runways as adding to fun. When I get around to adding/improving spaceplane specific runways, I might make those require funds to be opened, since they are more directly related to space.

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I can't get this to work.  It gets stuck loading on "Verifying expansion: Breaking Ground SquadExpansion/Serenity"

I heard this is caused using an outdated mod however the only warning I get is that Kopernicus is outdated.

I downloaded the latest version from the Kopernicus download section.

What am I missing here?

What versions of Kopernicus and KSP and the mods should I be using?

UPDATE.. Ok got it working.  Needed to roll back to 1.8.1

 


 

Edited by mcbmaestro
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On 5/3/2020 at 3:03 AM, ndiver said:

By curiosity, can you refuel on these airports? Has a mod even offered the possibility to refuel an aircraft at an airport?

This is possible with Kerbal Konstructs. However I have not implemented this feature yet. This think is still in a "proof-of-concept" mode. Currently each airport is only represented by a single runway. I'd like to have at least a hanger and a few other buildings to fill it out a bit.

First I have to fix an error with elevations. I made a good old fashioned unit conversion error that is only noticeable at high altitudes, which is why I didn't see it while testing around near Cape Canaveral.

On 5/1/2020 at 3:27 PM, mcbmaestro said:

...

What versions of Kopernicus and KSP and the mods should I be using?

UPDATE.. Ok got it working.  Needed to roll back to 1.8.1

Glad you got it figured out. The limitation is Kopernicus, it is not yet updated for for 1.9.1.

Since these are just configs, they will likely work with a wide range of game and mod versions.

On 4/29/2020 at 2:11 PM, jamesf said:

Odd you should mention that, used bing to search 'airport NUL' and got:

Nulato Airport

Bing Local
(907) 451-5217
Code: NUL
 
What'll your code do with that?  Might wanna check your output directory. ;vD  :v/  :v(

Ha, I should have checked!

I don't think that one made the cut of "Large Airport" in my data table! I've_abused_underscores_to_prevent_similar_issues_in_the_future.

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10 hours ago, Nightside said:

This is possible with Kerbal Konstructs. However I have not implemented this feature yet. This think is still in a "proof-of-concept" mode. Currently each airport is only represented by a single runway. I'd like to have at least a hanger and a few other buildings to fill it out a bit.

It would really be a killer-feature to have this possibility, even on a stock equivalent to your mod :)

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On 5/3/2020 at 3:03 AM, ndiver said:

By curiosity, can you refuel on these airports? Has a mod even offered the possibility to refuel an aircraft at an airport?

I'm working on adding this functionality. The upcoming update has a new empty facility, eventually it will be a fuel merchant. Currently users will have to turn on the merchant feature themselves, and select a fuel type when they arrive at each airport. I hope to get this working more naturally soon. 

I've got a question for people - what fuels would be needed at airports?

  • Does everyone using this mod also use Realism Overhaul and thus CRP?
  • Should typical airports only stock AvGas or should a wider range of fuels be available?
    • The UI for fueling would make it annoying to list EVERY CRP fuel type, so I don't want to do that.

 

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