[0.90] StarSystems v0.7 (Dec 15) - Under New Managment

[Yaivenov]

So a practical question, exactly how large of a universe can we effectively simulate without borking something important? I'm referring to the physical constraints of our stellar sandbox, not the amount of items we can put in it. Is modeling something that is several/a few dozen light years in size possible?

[FluffySilverUnicorn]

So a practical question, exactly how large of a universe can we effectively simulate without borking something important? I'm referring to the physical constraints of our stellar sandbox, not the amount of items we can put in it. Is modeling something that is several/a few dozen light years in size possible?

Semi-relevant here:

When I get a sizeable distance from the black hole (about 19,000 Tm IIRC), I get the NaN Kraken without fail.

[crberus]

Awesome mod, but it needs specially made planets for Dolas and Corbo.

[medsouz]

I just released v0.4 on KerbalStuff

What is new?

Star colors are now defined in systems.cfg. This should allow people to add more colors without having to change the plugin source.

Example ModuleManager patch:

@KSPSystem
{
	@StarColors
	{
		StarColor
		{
			name = Blue
			LightColor = 0.0,0.15,0.6,1.0
			EmitColor0 = 0.357,0.588,0.405,1.0
			EmitColor1 = 0.139,0.061,1.0,1.0
			SunspotColor = 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0
			RimColor = 0.388,0.636,1.0,1.0
			CoronaTexture = path/to/corona/texture
		}
	}
}

[Artyomka15]

//==============================================
//            do not modify this file

????????????????????????????????????????

[medsouz]

You should use ModuleManager patches to add to the config. That way users can install multiple star system packs without them overwriting each other.

[temporalExile]

I would just like to thank you for saving this mod, and also congratulate you on the first completely new feature! The accommodations you made for planet packs were pretty cool, and simplified things quite a bit, but this is completely new, and wasn't possible in the original version. Also, I can finally give you some more rep, so YAY! Anyways, I'm looking forward to more awesomeness from you .

[_Augustus_]

Can you create a complete guide with images?

[medsouz]

I wrote a guide, I tried to keep it as simple as possible but if anything confuses anyone please let me know.

Guide

[eataTREE]

This is a great mod. I occasionally experience the "launch glitch to orbit" bug, but I find that if I just revert the launch once or twice, I will take off from the launch pad like I'm supposed to. Really my biggest obstacle in using this mod is all the extra RAM consumed by the additional planets and stars, but trimming my modlist, installing Active Texture Management in "aggressive" mode, and making a couple of other optimizations seems to have made it manageable. But all of this is well worth it in order to have something to DO with all the awesome future tech mods -- I don't use Interstellar, but I do use Near Future Propulsion, and now have a reason to build huge hydrogen-powered behemoth ships for century-long interstellar cruises.

I do notice another minor glitch: having this mod installed makes the day/night cycle as observed from the Space Center scene take about a minute and a half to go from day to night and back, instead of six hours. Kerbin's actual rotation as observed from orbit seems to be proceeding at a normal pace however. Just an observation.

Keep up the good work! I'm getting more RAM soon

[medsouz]

I'm pretty sure I just fixed vessels being launched into LKO, v0.5 is now on Kerbal Stuff

[AlonzoTG]

I got this stacked on top of DMP and a [few]dozen other mods, all tweaked and trimmed to work well together. All on Linux. The new version may be improved but my most recent launch attempt ended up frozen and just outside, and retrograde of the Kerbol system. Ship is an early "Bargain Rockets" trasheap. (career mode). To fix, I have to revert to VAB, reverting to launch does not improve the situation.

[colmo]

I just released v0.4 on KerbalStuff

What is new?

Star colors are now defined in systems.cfg. This should allow people to add more colors without having to change the plugin source.

Example ModuleManager patch:

@KSPSystem
{
	@StarColors
	{
		StarColor
		{
			name = Blue
			LightColor = 0.0,0.15,0.6,1.0
			EmitColor0 = 0.357,0.588,0.405,1.0
			EmitColor1 = 0.139,0.061,1.0,1.0
			SunspotColor = 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0
			RimColor = 0.388,0.636,1.0,1.0
			CoronaTexture = path/to/corona/texture
		}
	}
}

It's worth knowing a bit about star colours - the Sun is a 'green' star (peak emission is in the green wavelengths, it's why B&W film is mostly sensitive to green light also). It doesn't look like it's green because it's a black body, not an LED bulb! See Wein's displacement law.

There are some algorithms out there to help convert temperature to RGB http://www.tannerhelland.com/4435/convert-temperature-rgb-algorithm-code/

A red dwarf would have a surface temp of maybe 4000K, the sun is around 5720K, and a blue giant might be 10000K.

It appears brown dwarfs are extremely common. Some are so dim, they would barely emit in the visible wavelengths at all. They would make a good binary companion to a main sequence star.

How small can stars be in this mod? I'm wondering if neutron stars or white dwarfs would be possible?

Edited November 30, 2014 by colmo

[Burnes]

This is a great mod i've already begun populating other star systems with planets.

Is it possible to alter Kerbols SOI with the configs? I've tried changing the mass setting but no effect there. I really need to extend its SOI as my current game uses PF:CE planets along with some of my own that are beyond Eeloos orbit and i really don't want to lose them mid video career..

Edited November 30, 2014 by Burnes
spelling error

[AlonzoTG]

Here is a config based on actual astronomical data of Earth's sun Sol. doesn't seem to be any documentation on "solar masses", logically should be exactly 1 in this case...

@KSPSystem
{
    @StarSystems
    {
        StarSystem
        {
            name = Solar
            Sun
            {
                SolarMasses = 7700
                Type = 0
                CelestialBody
                {
                    name = Sol
                    BodyDescription = Old Sol. Not sure what it's doing in this game.
                    flightGlobalIndex = 511
                    Mass = 1.9891e30
                    Radius = 6.9599e8
                    ScienceMultiplier = 10
                }

                Orbit
                {
                    inclination = 1
                    eccentricity = 0.1
                    semiMajorAxis = 1e13
                    LAN = 0
                    argumentOfPeriapsis = 300
                    meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 0
                    epoch = 0
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

[AlonzoTG]

Kerbol's SoI is a function of it's mass and it's distance from Blacky. To increase SOI, it would have to be moved further away from Blacky.

[AlonzoTG]

Hey, problem here. I just published my DMP modpak, it's looking pretty awesome but there is this major problem. I was flying my cardboard box back from minmus, I was on a nice return trajectory, game crashes, I reload and now my ship is several trillion km from anywhere. I turned on cheats and am burning like a mofo but it won't do any good because I'm like 27 years from anywhere. =( ship was also duplicated, the other version is close by but is on collision course with blacky. =(

[FluffySilverUnicorn]

Instead of having the colors defined in the config, you should add a temperature line to the stars, and then the plugin would use an algorithm like the one on here to generate the RGB values. It could look like this:

CelestialBody

{

Temperature = 5000

Blah Blah Blah

}

[_Augustus_]

Instead of having the colors defined in the config, you should add a temperature line to the stars, and then the plugin would use an algorithm like the one on here to generate the RGB values. It could look like this:

CelestialBody

{

Temperature = 5000

Blah Blah Blah

}

Brilliant, but it should also take mass into account.

[colmo]

Instead of having the colors defined in the config, you should add a temperature line to the stars, and then the plugin would use an algorithm like the one on here to generate the RGB values. It could look like this:

CelestialBody

{

Temperature = 5000

Blah Blah Blah

}

I stopped short of suggesting this earlier, because I figured star system designers would prefer to work out the values themselves, as the calculation would only need doing once; no need burdening KSP with unnecessary extra code.

Brilliant, but it should also take mass into account.

Why? The age of the star would influence surface temperature also. Some white dwarfs are very high temperature, yet only weigh in at 1.4 solar masses and are the size of the Earth.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Allow me to further contribute to the scope creep: parameters which can change with time. Because why not make a solar system orbiting a variable star?

[Burnes]

Kerbol's SoI is a function of it's mass and it's distance from Blacky. To increase SOI, it would have to be moved further away from Blacky.

I found that by lowering the root SolarMasses parameter the SOI of the orbiting stars increased. i eventually settled on a root solar mass of 500.

[AlonzoTG]

Update: I took one of my two ships over to a planet that I had been meaning to visit since I first got Planet Factory. The little ....... is now at Corbo. I think there's some kind of time warp bug either in this mod or DMP. I had matched altitudes with the target out to six decimal places. My Apoge was higher so therefore I was a few hundred m/sec faster than the little ........ (orbit = ~ 8387m/sec), yet still I was falling behind at a breathtaking rate as if the planet were experiencing more time than my ship. I eventually caught up with it using the brute force method. I dunno... I had an earlier experience that I had attributed to integration pains where I had a lander and a 200 ton orbiter at Ike. The orbiter had been in an extremely stable orbit. The lander and ground crew were just fine but the orbiter was out in interstellar space on an interglactic trajectory... =( I had to cheat-burn about 40 km/sec to get the thing into a circular orbit over the course of like two hours. The orbiter was a design intended for extreme range but poor acceleration. I'm about 14.7 billion km above Blacky right now.

[FluffySilverUnicorn]

Is it possible to edit moon systems with a MM config at the moment?

[FluffySilverUnicorn]

This is a great mod i've already begun populating other star systems with planets.

Is it possible to alter Kerbols SOI with the configs? I've tried changing the mass setting but no effect there. I really need to extend its SOI as my current game uses PF:CE planets along with some of my own that are beyond Eeloos orbit and i really don't want to lose them mid video career..

There's no way to change the SOI directly, it's calculated as the region where Kerbol's gravity is stronger than the black hole's. This is the reason that Moho's SOI is so much smaller than Eeloo's, even though they are basically the same size. What you CAN do is move Kerbol into a higher orbit around the black hole.