[0.25] Kerbal Warp Drive! Procedural systems from a seed you choose! v1.1.0, 16 Nov.

[bigbadben]

sweet man, you're doing something pretty amazing with all this

[_Augustus_]

I couldn't get the warp drive working. Also, when I installed this mod the texture on the large RCS tank dissapeared.

[_Augustus_]

As a former dev of StarSystems, I think this mod is really nice and hope to see improvements in the future.

You should add some star creation, solar panel/lighting fixes for the new stars, and changing of star colors to make binary/triple/quadruple star systems.

[English Mobster]

I couldn't get the warp drive working. Also, when I installed this mod the texture on the large RCS tank dissapeared.

Huh. That's weird. I don't even touch the RCS tank. I do copy the large ASAS, but I don't actually modify anything. Could it be related to the number of mods you're using? I would imagine that if a lot of memory gets taken up KSP might not load stuff or might "forget" stuff in memory. That's speculation, however.

As a former dev of StarSystems, I think this mod is really nice and hope to see improvements in the future.

You should add some star creation, solar panel/lighting fixes for the new stars, and changing of star colors to make binary/triple/quadruple star systems.

In the future I do plan to expand the planetary creation out, yes. I also plan to try and have binary systems and stars of various masses. However, at the moment that's beyond my current scope. At a future date, perhaps, but as for right now I want to focus mainly on getting persistence files working (which they now do 95% of the time -- working on that last 10%), improving the current randomization code (using normal distributions for some of the orbital properties such as inclination and such), and allowing users to name planets (and hopefully share their names with others!).

Once these major milestones are accomplished, I plan to look to things like that. Ideally, I'd like some sort of simulation of an actual system being formed. It would have to be heavily simplified, of course, and it would be a LONG way out. There's the simple stuff, like putting gas giants further out and rocky planets closer in, but eventually I would at least like the option for the whole stellar process to be simulated. A random age for the current system would be determined by the RNG, and the randomizer would simulate stellar development until it reaches that age. It would also simulate the formation of binary systems and the like, although I believe black holes are beyond the reach of KSP. Obviously you'd orbit it fine, but when you crash into it I'm not sure what would happen. Perhaps the Kraken will be purposely summoned?

I think this idea would be really cool since it would allow you to explore a star that will soon go supernova or a system which just formed. However, it would be a LOT of work, and even a simplified stellar formation simulator would require quite a bit of processing power. I would likely have to add load times inbetween jumps. At this stage, it's just an idea, but I'm going to see how viable it would be.

[_Augustus_]

Huh. That's weird. I don't even touch the RCS tank. I do copy the large ASAS, but I don't actually modify anything. Could it be related to the number of mods you're using? I would imagine that if a lot of memory gets taken up KSP might not load stuff or might "forget" stuff in memory. That's speculation, however.

It was PlanetShine, DistantObject, and Kerbol Positioning system that caused the problems.

Also:

You should at least have the mass and radius change, if not the color of the stars.

And you could just have a smaller star orbit the primary, no barycenter.

And finally, clouds still apply to the new bodies and all ships/asteroids come to the new system..

Edited November 8, 2014 by _Augustus_

[_Augustus_]

In the future I do plan to expand the planetary creation out, yes. I also plan to try and have binary systems and stars of various masses. However, at the moment that's beyond my current scope. At a future date, perhaps, but as for right now I want to focus mainly on getting persistence files working (which they now do 95% of the time -- working on that last 10%), improving the current randomization code (using normal distributions for some of the orbital properties such as inclination and such), and allowing users to name planets (and hopefully share their names with others!).

Once these major milestones are accomplished, I plan to look to things like that. Ideally, I'd like some sort of simulation of an actual system being formed. It would have to be heavily simplified, of course, and it would be a LONG way out. There's the simple stuff, like putting gas giants further out and rocky planets closer in, but eventually I would at least like the option for the whole stellar process to be simulated. A random age for the current system would be determined by the RNG, and the randomizer would simulate stellar development until it reaches that age. It would also simulate the formation of binary systems and the like, although I believe black holes are beyond the reach of KSP. Obviously you'd orbit it fine, but when you crash into it I'm not sure what would happen. Perhaps the Kraken will be purposely summoned?

I think this idea would be really cool since it would allow you to explore a star that will soon go supernova or a system which just formed. However, it would be a LOT of work, and even a simplified stellar formation simulator would require quite a bit of processing power. I would likely have to add load times inbetween jumps. At this stage, it's just an idea, but I'm going to see how viable it would be.

You don't have to necessarily create a barycenter. You could have a smaller star orbit a bigger star.

Also, I have it working fine now.

But can you at least use some KittopiaTech code to randomize the color, or at least have the mass and radius change?

- - - Updated - - -

In the future I do plan to expand the planetary creation out, yes. I also plan to try and have binary systems and stars of various masses. However, at the moment that's beyond my current scope. At a future date, perhaps, but as for right now I want to focus mainly on getting persistence files working (which they now do 95% of the time -- working on that last 10%), improving the current randomization code (using normal distributions for some of the orbital properties such as inclination and such), and allowing users to name planets (and hopefully share their names with others!).

Once these major milestones are accomplished, I plan to look to things like that. Ideally, I'd like some sort of simulation of an actual system being formed. It would have to be heavily simplified, of course, and it would be a LONG way out. There's the simple stuff, like putting gas giants further out and rocky planets closer in, but eventually I would at least like the option for the whole stellar process to be simulated. A random age for the current system would be determined by the RNG, and the randomizer would simulate stellar development until it reaches that age. It would also simulate the formation of binary systems and the like, although I believe black holes are beyond the reach of KSP. Obviously you'd orbit it fine, but when you crash into it I'm not sure what would happen. Perhaps the Kraken will be purposely summoned?

I think this idea would be really cool since it would allow you to explore a star that will soon go supernova or a system which just formed. However, it would be a LOT of work, and even a simplified stellar formation simulator would require quite a bit of processing power. I would likely have to add load times inbetween jumps. At this stage, it's just an idea, but I'm going to see how viable it would be.

You don't have to necessarily create a barycenter. You could have a smaller star orbit a bigger star.

Also, I have it working fine now.

But can you at least use some KittopiaTech code to randomize the color, or at least have the mass and radius change?

And asteroids and all ships come to the new system, and clouds still work on the new planets.

Finally, could you make the probability for high eccentricity for the larger planets/moons (Jool, Kerbin, Tylo, Vall, Mun, Laythe, Duna, Eve, Eeloo) lower or better still, adjustable??

Also I'd really like the planets to have randomly generated names, and for the coords to go to the same system every time.

And no more of this:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

When I tried to approach this planet I flew off on an escape trajectory out of the entire star system. Landing here is impossible.

Edited November 8, 2014 by _Augustus_

[mysteriosmind]

In the future I do plan to expand the planetary creation out, yes. I also plan to try and have binary systems and stars of various masses. However, at the moment that's beyond my current scope. At a future date, perhaps, but as for right now I want to focus mainly on getting persistence files working (which they now do 95% of the time -- working on that last 10%), improving the current randomization code (using normal distributions for some of the orbital properties such as inclination and such), and allowing users to name planets (and hopefully share their names with others!).

Once these major milestones are accomplished, I plan to look to things like that. Ideally, I'd like some sort of simulation of an actual system being formed. It would have to be heavily simplified, of course, and it would be a LONG way out. There's the simple stuff, like putting gas giants further out and rocky planets closer in, but eventually I would at least like the option for the whole stellar process to be simulated. A random age for the current system would be determined by the RNG, and the randomizer would simulate stellar development until it reaches that age. It would also simulate the formation of binary systems and the like, although I believe black holes are beyond the reach of KSP. Obviously you'd orbit it fine, but when you crash into it I'm not sure what would happen. Perhaps the Kraken will be purposely summoned?

I think this idea would be really cool since it would allow you to explore a star that will soon go supernova or a system which just formed. However, it would be a LOT of work, and even a simplified stellar formation simulator would require quite a bit of processing power. I would likely have to add load times inbetween jumps. At this stage, it's just an idea, but I'm going to see how viable it would be.

This and the mod in general are quite amazing, so amazing in fact that I had to create a forum account just to give praise and add my two cents to it! How you created the possibility for a universe full of star systems for exploration and exploitation while circumventing the memory problems of having more than one system loaded is really quite something. I really like the idea of simulating the formation of star systems as well, for example arriving in a system during heavy bombardment or maybe when some planetory chrashes are imminent!

As for the simulation taking time ... how about you let the travel to different star systems take time as well so that the calculation could run in the background in the meantime? I am thinking of having some kind of starmap that you randomize with a seed the first time you open it, that shows the star systems around but only the distance they are away. Now you can pick one and observe it for some time to get additional information like star type/age, likeliness to have planets of maybe even lets you spot some planets ... or you just chose a ship to go there. So when you activate the warp the ship vanishes from the system and appears as a dot on the star map, along with the time it will take to arrive in the target system. So during the travel/observation time your system creation could take place in the background and when the ship arrives you can use the star map to switch systems.

This whole thing could be way out of scope, but travel taking time would add some sense of achivement that instantaneous arrival is lacking and maybe make other things possible, like the first part of the warp journey taking place in the system and only vanishing to the star map when reaching a certain distance from the system's star as well as arriving at the border of the target system; making the warp drive consume fuel, as well as diffrent versions of them with different speeds, etc. .... All would definitively add to make interstellar travel more difficult/rewarding.

[English Mobster]

It was PlanetShine, DistantObject, and Kerbol Positioning system that caused the problems.

Also:

You should at least have the mass and radius change, if not the color of the stars.

And you could just have a smaller star orbit the primary, no barycenter.

And finally, clouds still apply to the new bodies and all ships/asteroids come to the new system..

Ah, okay. I'm not sure if there's a way I can fix that, but I'll put it on my to-do list and see what happens.

As for the persistence thing, I failed to mention that asteroids and stuff will be regenerated as of the next version, not this one.

[bludclot]

Is it possible prevent it from doing anything to the size of kerbin? I want to have kerbinside in the new dimension I just opened...

[bigbadben]

got a question for you:

When you randomize the Kerbol system, do you 'have' to keep the same number of planets and planet types?

In that, the seed spits out one modified Kerbin, one modified Duna, one modified Jool, etc.

Or have you figured out how to randomize the number and type of modified planets?

For example, one system only has two modified Jool's, while another system only has four modified Kerbins and three modified Dunas.

The reason I was wondering, was that procedural planet generation seems to be a show stopper for modders. Planet Factory is no longer being updated, Star Systems original dev went silent, Kopernicus is close but still in development.

Seems you could skip all that, if you could randomize the total and type of planets in a new seed.

Wouldn't be as pretty as full procedural planets with unique terrain and stuff, but would be an easy stop-gap until you decided to take a crack at the procedural stuff.

And, for those of us looking forward to a Star Control map, we could get started laying out the framework for the system map

[_Augustus_]

I made a map for the stars.

Stars are not actual size. The unlabeled white dots next to stars are white dwarf companions.

This is just an idea at this stage, but I thought I would create it anyway.

Edited November 9, 2014 by _Augustus_

[Abusing F9]

This looks so awesome! I cannot wait to see this mod in action. I'll be keeping an eye on this project for sure!

[bigbadben]

I made a map for the stars.

Stars are not actual size. The unlabeled white dots next to stars are white dwarf companions.

This is just an idea at this stage, but I thought I would create it anyway.

Was thinking about that stuff, and discussed some different ideas on it earlier. Seemed a lot of the ideas were too much of a headache and needlessly complicated for what English Mobster's trying to do(or just plain wrong lol).

As far as creating a map, why not start simple?

From Kerbol, you can jump to A, B, and C.

From A, you can jump to A1, A2, A3, from B jump to B1, B2, B3, and C jump to C1, C2, and C3.

Then, from A1 you can jump to A1A, A1B, and A1C, then A2 can jump to A2A, A2B, and A2C.......etc.

Would be simple, easy to program, and the initial name of the systems(A, B, C, A1, A2, etc...) can be the 'seed' for the system generation, so everyone has the same starmap. The map generation and looks of it would not be as elegant as some of the other generation methods, but it would be easily do-able. A proof-of-concept, if you would.

However, it would require a change in the warp generator logic. When you select it, it would only show the systems it can 'currently' jump to. Not sure if English Mobster could put that into it's current implementation, or would require a toolbar button addon.

Of course, this is just to make a starmap, instead of parallel dimensions.

Either way, I'm excited for what he's doing and am looking forward to where he decides to take this

Edited November 10, 2014 by bigbadben

[_Augustus_]

Was thinking about that stuff, and discussed some different ideas on it earlier. Seemed a lot of the ideas were too much of a headache and needlessly complicated for what English Mobster's trying to do(or just plain wrong lol).

As far as creating a map, why not start simple?

From Kerbol, you can jump to A, B, and C.

From A, you can jump to A1, A2, A3, from B jump to B1, B2, B3, and C jump to C1, C2, and C3.

Then, from A1 you can jump to A1A, A1B, and A1C, then A2 can jump to A2A, A2B, and A2C.......etc.

Would be simple, easy to program, and the initial name of the systems(A, B, C, A1, A2, etc...) can be the 'seed' for the system generation, so everyone has the same starmap. The map generation and looks of it would not be as elegant as some of the other generation methods, but it would be easily do-able. A proof-of-concept, if you would.

However, it would require a change in the warp generator logic. When you select it, it would only show the systems it can 'currently' jump to. Not sure if English Mobster could put that into it's current implementation, or would require a toolbar button addon.

Of course, this is just to make a starmap, instead of parallel dimensions.

Either way, I'm excited for what he's doing and am looking forward to where he decides to take this

I like your idea, but I think that the universe should be kept finite... for now.

[TonyC]

I made a map for the stars.

Stars are not actual size. The unlabeled white dots next to stars are white dwarf companions.

This is just an idea at this stage, but I thought I would create it anyway.

-image-

Wow ! This is already better than the version I was working on . Congratulations thought

I hope the bug squishing is going well.

EDIT

This is my first prototype GUI !

Sorry if the quality is extremely questionable, this is my first time I make a GUI.

Plans : Fill empty spaces with stuff

Make zoom buttons

-Add a cat holding a AK47-

Make a menu including ship stats

Scale meter

Edited November 11, 2014 by MegaUZI

[_Augustus_]

Wow ! This is already better than the version I was working on . Congratulations thought

I hope the bug squishing is going well.

EDIT

This is my first prototype GUI !

http://i.imgur.com/7KarQ2V.png

Sorry if the quality is extremely questionable, this is my first time I make a GUI.

Plans : Fill empty spaces with stuff

Make zoom buttons

-Add a cat holding a AK47-

Make a menu including ship stats

Scale meter

I added some stuff.

I present to you:

Kerbol's interstellar neighborhood Mark II!

Also, please note that Billy-Hadrick is the name of the black hole, not something orbiting the black hole.

Also I moved Billy-Hadrick to the nebula.

Edited November 15, 2014 by _Augustus_

[TonyC]

Nice Augustus ! I'll make a remix of it soon.

However, only the central rectangle was supposed to have the starmap, as the left empty space was for another box with the ship stats (Resources, jump range, mass, stuff like this.)

I also personally think the nebula shouldn't be a raw image, but instead a tinted color zone, which would keep the idea of a "computer map", although the black hole looks nice.

Amazing job, though ! And much faster than I could have ever done.

Edited November 11, 2014 by MegaUZI

[_Augustus_]

Nice Augustus ! I'll make a remix of it soon.

However, only the central rectangle was supposed to have the starmap, as the left empty space was for another box with the ship stats (Resources, jump range, mass, stuff like this.)

I also personally think the nebula shouldn't be a raw image, but instead a tinted color zone, which would keep the idea of a "computer map", although the black hole looks nice.

Amazing job, though ! And much faster than I could have ever done.

Can we keep it how it is?

[TonyC]

Sure !

I hope EM will take this design under advisement.

[_Augustus_]

I'm trying to render these in Celestia. Unfortunately when I try to add a nebula the nebula appears on the opposite side of the galaxy.

[temporalExile]

Hey guys, lets try not to hijack the thread. I recommend discussing the star maps somewhere else.

[English Mobster]

Whew! I have some catching up to do, looks like.

Was thinking about that stuff, and discussed some different ideas on it earlier. Seemed a lot of the ideas were too much of a headache and needlessly complicated for what English Mobster's trying to do(or just plain wrong lol).

As far as creating a map, why not start simple?

From Kerbol, you can jump to A, B, and C.

From A, you can jump to A1, A2, A3, from B jump to B1, B2, B3, and C jump to C1, C2, and C3.

Then, from A1 you can jump to A1A, A1B, and A1C, then A2 can jump to A2A, A2B, and A2C.......etc.

Would be simple, easy to program, and the initial name of the systems(A, B, C, A1, A2, etc...) can be the 'seed' for the system generation, so everyone has the same starmap. The map generation and looks of it would not be as elegant as some of the other generation methods, but it would be easily do-able. A proof-of-concept, if you would.

However, it would require a change in the warp generator logic. When you select it, it would only show the systems it can 'currently' jump to. Not sure if English Mobster could put that into it's current implementation, or would require a toolbar button addon.

Of course, this is just to make a starmap, instead of parallel dimensions.

Either way, I'm excited for what he's doing and am looking forward to where he decides to take this

Hmm. I'll have to consider it. The idea behind having users type their own seed is to create Minecraft-esque "infinite" systems. Someone can type anything they want into the RNG, and a system will be generated from that seed. When you limit the seeds to A, B, C, A1, A2, etc., you still have people exploring the same systems, even if the number of these systems grows exponentially.

It does add some additional exploration to the game, but nowhere near the level that can be achieved if a player can type their own seed.

Sure !

I hope EM will take this design under advisement.

I do have to say that I love the design. I'll try to look for a way to implement something like it at a later date, but I'm somewhat concerned that I won't have the tools available to do so. I would basically have to create my own scene containing a list of all the systems, and I'm not sure how much of that is doable.

If I were to have a starmap, I'd like for some sort of hybrid approach to the two systems. I'd generate galactic coordinates from each system's seed. I would need to make sure these coordinates are always unique, but that shouldn't be terribly difficult. I would populate the starmap with a few systems with randomly-generated seeds, but if you wanted to type in your own seed you could travel there and the star would appear on your starmap. Each person would get different randomly-generated seeds, but if they found a seed they really liked they would be able to share it with their friends and everyone would see the same system with the same coordinates.

I would need to look into the exact implementation a little bit more before I can make any promises. However, if I were to implement something like a starmap, that's likely how I would do it.

Now, as far as progress is concerned:

I'm basically done crushing bugs. Adding all this saving and loading made everything an order of magnitude more complex, so it's likely that the next release would have a few more bugs I didn't catch. I think I've gotten most of them, but there's a few I haven't been able to replicate.

Right now, however, I'm having issues entering the SOI of a body. It always says I will encounter the body in T+, but I never actually make the encounter. If I try to use Hyperedit to get myself into orbit, it doesn't change my orbit at all. The built-in KSP debugger says it's recalculating my orbit and I'm not sure why. Here's an example of what is spit out when I try to orbit another planet:

recalculated orbit for probeStackLarge (Warper): the Nepin
rPos: [-781129934.20732, -6521005042.28655, 390824550.506799]   rVel: [1415.5297083033, -22.618722349208, -4572.38091210196] |4786.53352302522|

I'm honestly not sure what's going on here. This happens even if I don't randomize the SOI of a body. I'm going to keep playing around with it and see what I can come up with, and once I get this bug quashed I should be able to make another release.

[_Augustus_]

Whew! I have some catching up to do, looks like.

Hmm. I'll have to consider it. The idea behind having users type their own seed is to create Minecraft-esque "infinite" systems. Someone can type anything they want into the RNG, and a system will be generated from that seed. When you limit the seeds to A, B, C, A1, A2, etc., you still have people exploring the same systems, even if the number of these systems grows exponentially.

It does add some additional exploration to the game, but nowhere near the level that can be achieved if a player can type their own seed.

I do have to say that I love the design. I'll try to look for a way to implement something like it at a later date, but I'm somewhat concerned that I won't have the tools available to do so. I would basically have to create my own scene containing a list of all the systems, and I'm not sure how much of that is doable.

If I were to have a starmap, I'd like for some sort of hybrid approach to the two systems. I'd generate galactic coordinates from each system's seed. I would need to make sure these coordinates are always unique, but that shouldn't be terribly difficult. I would populate the starmap with a few systems with randomly-generated seeds, but if you wanted to type in your own seed you could travel there and the star would appear on your starmap. Each person would get different randomly-generated seeds, but if they found a seed they really liked they would be able to share it with their friends and everyone would see the same system with the same coordinates.

I would need to look into the exact implementation a little bit more before I can make any promises. However, if I were to implement something like a starmap, that's likely how I would do it.

Now, as far as progress is concerned:

I'm basically done crushing bugs. Adding all this saving and loading made everything an order of magnitude more complex, so it's likely that the next release would have a few more bugs I didn't catch. I think I've gotten most of them, but there's a few I haven't been able to replicate.

Right now, however, I'm having issues entering the SOI of a body. It always says I will encounter the body in T+, but I never actually make the encounter. If I try to use Hyperedit to get myself into orbit, it doesn't change my orbit at all. The built-in KSP debugger says it's recalculating my orbit and I'm not sure why. Here's an example of what is spit out when I try to orbit another planet:

recalculated orbit for probeStackLarge (Warper): the Nepin
rPos: [-781129934.20732, -6521005042.28655, 390824550.506799]   rVel: [1415.5297083033, -22.618722349208, -4572.38091210196] |4786.53352302522|

I'm honestly not sure what's going on here. This happens even if I don't randomize the SOI of a body. I'm going to keep playing around with it and see what I can come up with, and once I get this bug quashed I should be able to make another release.

Can we have it with a starmap, but everything beyond is procedural?

[bigbadben]

So the transition from the sun's soi to another body's soi is not loading? Does this happen if you go from kerbins soi to the sun' soi? Physics not loading for new soi? Do the trajectories in map view show an encounter?

[philotical]

Just stumbled over this through MegaUZIs signature..

I love it :-D *dripping out of mouth*

May I submit a thought for consideration concerning the star map discussion?

The star maps are heavely inspired by elite and games like that - so even if you want to recreate the mindcraft thing (never played minecraft), the map as suggested is very compatible with your idea, at least historicaly.

Additional - a fixed star map (same for everyone) does not negate the ability to type in ulimited seeds on your own.

but it would allow for things like:

Scott Manley flyes a mission and everyone can recreate it! - with everyone I mean even those who are scared of terms like "seed" hahah

I think - if this is possible, you would love it too - no matter how your initial idea was..

but if you wanted to type in your own seed you could travel there and the star would appear on your starmap.

That's the right way to go in my opinion..

The biggest amount of possibilities is achieved like that..

People can colaborate in multiplayer and still have unique systems for them selfes.

The star map would be a convenient GUI..

I guess I'm Cpt. Obviouse right now..

oh well.. - your mod is a huge idea!

Thanks and keep up the good work :-)