Jump to content

[1.8.1 - 1.12.1] Tidally Locked Kerbin [v1.0.3] [3 August 2020]


OhioBob

Recommended Posts

Tidally Locked Kerbin

Tidally Locked Kerbin is a mod for Kerbal Space Program that reimagines Kerbin as a tidally locked world orbiting a smaller and dimmer Sun. Kerbin is completely redone with new terrain and textures. One side is a hot desert forever bathed in sunlight, while the other side experiences the cold of an unending night. In between these extremes lies a wet and lush habitable zone.

While Kerbin is brand new, most other things about the stock system remain the same. The changes made are brought about only by the need to account for the smaller Sun. While some of the changes are subtle, they impact the game enough to alter the game playing experience. This mod is for players who want to start over and shake things up just enough to have to rethink some strategies.

Download (GitHub)

Mod Highlights

  • Aside from Kerbin, all celestial bodies retain their stock appearance.
  • The Sun is now a K-type main-sequence star, having about 60% the mass and 14% the luminosity of the stock sun. While the Sun is now smaller, its apparent size in Kerbin’s sky is unchanged.
  • All planetary orbits have been reduce to about 37.5% of their stock values so that each planet continues to receive the same amount of sunlight. Kerbin now lies at a distance of about 5.1 million kilometers from the Sun.
  • Along with Kerbin, Moho and Eve are also now tidally locked. Planets beyond Kerbin are far enough from the Sun to have escaped the fate of tidal locking.
  • Because planets lie closer to the Sun, they have smaller spheres-of-influence. Kerbin’s SOI is now about 37,000 kilometers.
  • Orbits of Gilly and Minmus have been reduced in size to keep them inside their planets' SOI. This is the only change to any of the moons.
  • Kerbin retains its 6-hour day, though a "day" no longer has the same meaning as it does for us. Perhaps it is defined by biological rhythms rather than astronomy.
  • Planets now orbit faster with shorter orbital periods. Kerbin’s year is now 120 days in length.
  • Travel times between planets are much shorter, about 28% as long, saving on consumables if life support mods are used.
  • Delta-v requirements for interplanetary flights are greater, varying from about 10% to 35% more depending on the planets involved and the technique used.
  • Eastward launches from Kerbin no longer benefit from the planet’s rapid rotation, thereby requiring more Δv to attain orbit. On the flipside, westward launches are just as easy.
  • Synchronous orbits are no longer possible around Kerbin and Eve.
  • While the atmospheric pressures on Kerbin and Eve are unchanged, temperatures have been reworked consistent with being tidally locked.
  • Kerbin retains all of its launch sites and anomalies, located at the usual coordinates.
  • Tidally locked planets are oriented so that their prime meridians (0° longitude) face the Sun.
  • This orientation places KSC conveniently in daylight near the western terminator, making eastward launches over sunlit terrain.
  • Unfortunately the Woomerang and Desert sites are located on the dark side of the planet. To compenstate, a new daylight space center is added using Kerbal Konstructs.
  • Only 13% of Kerbin’s surface is water, compared to 52% in stock.
  • Kerbin contains 20 biomes, 9 more than stock Kerbin.

Requirements

Kopernicus
ModularFlightIntegrator
Module Manager

Recommended Mods

Kerbal Konstructs  Adds a new space center, designed by @JadeOfMaar.
Kronometer Changes the calendar year to 120 days.

Provided Compatibility

Tidally Locked Kerbin (TLK) is fully compatible with Scatterer, Environmental Visual Enhancements (EVE), and Stock Visual Enhancements (SVE).  TLK provides its own configs and textures that overrides all others, while scatterer, EVE and SVE will apply their visuals to the remaining bodies.

TLK is also compatible with Realistic Atmospheres.  When installed together, TLK provides new atmospheres for Kerbin and Eve, while Realistic Atmospheres provides atmospheres for the remaining bodies.

TLK works seamlessly alongside Outer Planets Mod and Minor Planets Expansion. Planetary orbits are rescaled to maintain their proportional relationship with the stock planets.

Licensing

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

iTdY3Fu.png

Review of Tidally locked Kerbin by KottabosGames:

 

Edited by OhioBob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Below are my estimates of the delta-v require for interplanetary transfers between Kerbin and the listed planets.  Computations are for a Hohmann transfer with a mid-course plane change.  Delta-v varies from one launch window to the next, so the values are given in ranges.  Your results could be different depending on your transfer method.

    Moho Eve Duna Dres Jool Eeloo
Ejection m/s 1810-2750 1100-1120 1120-1220 1780-2140 2510-2610 2530-2980
Plane change m/s 0-2320 0-500 0-12 0-990 0-260 0-1260
Capture m/s 3390-5140 185-225 330-530 1250-2080 280-340 1080-2370
Low orbit insertion m/s 295 1280 360 150 2770 235
Total Δv m/s 6630-9990 2600-3070 1900-2040 4020-4920 5620-5900 4910-6330
Time of flight days 32-38 48 81-89 143-198 297-336 304-606
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm seriously thinking about a second install for KSP to use this mod.

Though, I do have a few questions. Is it possible to add this as an additional planet to visit as opposed to a full system change? It might be fun to visit a second Kerbin closer to the sun. 

Also, will this work with OPM?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Azic Minar said:

I'm seriously thinking about a second install for KSP to use this mod.

Though, I do have a few questions. Is it possible to add this as an additional planet to visit as opposed to a full system change? It might be fun to visit a second Kerbin closer to the sun. 

Also, will this work with OPM?

I didn't setup the configs in a way that would allow the new Kerbin to be installed as an additional planet.  It's currently either a replacement for stock Kerbin or not at all.

I didn't think about OPM when I made this.  There's no reason OPM won't work, but the added planets will be in their original orbits.  I should add a config that modifies the OPM orbits to bring the planets closer to the Sun proportional to the orbits of the other planets.

I've already found one small mistake in the atmospheres that I need to fix.  I'll add an OPM config as well.  I'm planning to wait a day or two before updating in case I find anything else that needs changing.

 

34 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

Cool, I did something like this ages ago but never released it.

I really didn't plan on releasing this as a mod when I started working on it.  I just had a vision of what I wanted this planet to look like and started working on it to see if I could do it.  Releasing it as a mod was an afterthought.
 

Edited by OhioBob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Azic Minar, regarding OPM, just add the following as a .cfg inside your GameData folder.  This should make OPM work seamlessly alongside TLK.  This will be added to the next release.

Spoiler

@Kopernicus:AFTER[OPM]
{
	@Body[Sarnus]
	{
		@Orbit
		{
			@semiMajorAxis *= 0.375
		}
	}
	@Body[Urlum]
	{
		@Orbit
		{
			@semiMajorAxis *= 0.375
		}
	}
	@Body[Neidon]
	{
		@Orbit
		{
			@semiMajorAxis *= 0.375
		}
	}
	@Body[Plock]
	{
		@Orbit
		{
			@semiMajorAxis *= 0.375
		}
	}
}

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/25/2020 at 3:28 AM, OhioBob said:

@Azic Minar, regarding OPM, just add the following as a .cfg inside your GameData folder.  This should make OPM work seamlessly alongside TLK.  This will be added to the next release.

[snip]

Will you work on a patch for minor planets expansion too?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ssd21345 said:

Will you work on a patch for minor planets expansion too?

I've never used that mod before so I'm not familiar with it, but there's probably no reason I couldn't make a patch for it.  I'll look into it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, siklidkid said:

well it still works

How are you playing in 1.10?  Have you recompiled Kopernicus?

There's not even a stable and bug free version of Kopernicus for 1.9.1 yet, much less 1.10.  Until there's an official 1.10 release of Kopernicus, bug reports for 1.10 really aren't helpful.  The bugs could very well be Koperniucs related and nothing to do with TLK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Azic Minar said:

@OhioBob The recompile done by the new maintainer doesn't have the version lockout like the original creator did. This one does seam stable in both 1.9.1 and 1.10 so far

My point still stands, however.  Reporting bugs when using a product in a manner in which it is not intended is really not helpful.  Although Kopernicus Continued may not have the version lock, it is still only version 1.9.1.  Until the devs say it is ready for 1.10 and officially release it as so, you're using it at your own risk.  Don't complain or bother third parties with bug reports when it doesn't work.

 

Edited by OhioBob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

How are you playing in 1.10?  Have you recompiled Kopernicus?

There's not even a stable and bug free version of Kopernicus for 1.9.1 yet, much less 1.10.  Until there's an official 1.10 release of Kopernicus, bug reports for 1.10 really aren't helpful.  The bugs could very well be Koperniucs related and nothing to do with TLK.

i don't know its better nowi  fixed it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Nebulagoodies said:

Should Gillys orbit reach outside of eves orbit? Gilly at its Apoapsis is 48,000 km but eves SOI is 37,000.

Nope, it shouldn't do that.  I need to fix it.  I already reduced Minmus' orbit because it was outside Kerbin's SOI, but Gilly slipped past my quality control testing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/3/2020 at 9:54 AM, OhioBob said:

How are you playing in 1.10?  Have you recompiled Kopernicus?

There's not even a stable and bug free version of Kopernicus for 1.9.1 yet, much less 1.10.  Until there's an official 1.10 release of Kopernicus, bug reports for 1.10 really aren't helpful.  The bugs could very well be Koperniucs related and nothing to do with TLK.

This bug was a Kopernicus bug, as OhioBob noted.

It's fixed now, but please file reports against us rather than planet pack authors.  They can't control the bugs creeping out of Kopernicus at the moment, and there are more of those than planet pack bugs, I assure you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...