The White Guardian

Well... considering I still have a very long way to go with Evo, that's gonna be a long wait. You're probably better off making the patch yourself. For that, download an older version of SPE, take old Grillian's config file and maps and add them to the latest version (of course, rename them to not overwrite stuff) then update the filepaths in the config to link to the correct textures. After that you need to update the name of the generated cache file, the name of the moon (there cannot be two objects named Grillian) and update the orbit data to move it to Jool. referenceBody: the celestial body that this object orbits inclination: the angle (in degrees) between the equator of the referenceBody and the orbit eccentricity: the ratio between the semi-major and semi-minor axis (basically the greater the eccentricity, the more oval-shaped the orbit is. Should always be smaller than 1) semiMajorAxis: the average distance from the object to referenceBody (the radius of the orbit if eccentricity is 0). Keep in mind that this counts from the core of the referenceBody. longitudeOfAscendingNode: (in degrees) rotates the orbit around the vertical axis of the universe argumentOfPeriapsis: (in degrees) rotates the orbit around the vertical axis of the orbit (basically, for oblate orbits, this allows you to rotate where the moon shouts out to) meanAnomalyAtEpoch: (in radians) the placement of the object along the orbit at t=0. Use meanAnomalyAtEpochD if you want to enter this in degrees instead.

Thanks for the heads up! If anything it'd be an extra challenge because lava. As for the orbit, I kinda guessed it for Klan. You could always edit it in-game through HyperEdit. Note that HyperEdit will not save orbit adjustments made to planets to those planets' config files, therefore note the values and paste them into the config afterwards. I'd do it for you were it not for the fact that I'm typing my fingers off at the moment, Evolution's source code is gonna be massive...

I was working on some of the rings for my mod Evolution and, to ensure I had everything named right, looked up the RingLoder in Kopernicus' source code. After that I, out of curiosity, looked up the code of the ring shader, and came across the notes regarding up-close noise. I wonder if that fade would be possible through some of the layer sorting modes used in programs such as Photoshop. Out of curiosity I decided to load up a ring texture of mine in GIMP, rendering a procedural noise, then using different layer sorting modes to see which ones yielded the best results without destroying the quality of the ring texture. I would present screenshots here were it not for the fact that Imgur is giving me an 'SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_ALERT' error at the moment, so that's bloody brilliant. Anyhow, back to my point. I have found that the best-looking results were the layer sorting modes 'Dodge', 'Soft Light' and 'Overlay'. For these, the maths are as follows: Dodge: E = (256*I) / ((255-M) + 1) In which E is the resulting pixel color, I is the pixel color of the original image, and M is the pixel color of the noise we are applying on top. Soft Light: E = (((255-I) * M + Rs)/255) * I In which E is the resulting pixel color, I is the pixel color of the original image, and M is the pixel color of the noise we are applying on top. Note the Rs factor, which is computed through: Rs = 255 - (((255-M)*(255-I))/255) And lastly Overlay: E = (I/255) * (I+(2M/255)*(255-I)) In which E is the resulting pixel color, I is the pixel color of the original image, and M is the pixel color of the noise we are applying on top. (Note: these are the equations GIMP uses for layer sorting. Therefore, because image editors use a 0-255 color range and Unity uses a 0-1 color range, adjustments to the equations will be necessary for them to work correctly in Unity.) I will be testing these sorting modes further and, should they work, will try adding the best one to the ring shader (after thorough testing for glitches and memory problems before submitting a pull request of course). Here's hoping we will soon have the best ring detail, even from up-close. Don't expect this to be possible though:

I'm very glad to hear you like what I did to the moons with the last update! I got burnt out of KSP too a while ago and started playing Overwatch more and more, and I recently picked up Space Engineers again too, so... Anyhow, I'm so glad I got to do that idea justice. It's still not finished however. For the next update of SPE, I have several things planned. From surface dust to KSPedia integration. From a massive science overhaul to adding some more lore to the moons. This is only just beginning.

Those were not textures... the older versions of SPE used no heightmaps and were all entirely procedural, save for Driea. Therefore I could reuse the codes indeed, though old Grillian would be the only suitable candidate, and because old Grillian and new Grillian are mostly identical, there isn't really a need for that. Of course, there is no set number of moons, soooo...

I didn't really have a specific moon to make Froth an analogue of in mind, so it's up to the player I suppose.

I actually put it around Neidon because both Sarnus and Urlum have an abundance of moons, therefore I decided to give Neidon some love.

I reply with memez. "YEAH I DO!"

Caves and tunnels would be a neat feature, but it won't be happening anytime soon. You see, KSP currently uses a system called 'Procedural Quad Sphere' for the planets. Basically, the system creates a bunch of built-in Unity terrains and links them together to form a deformed sphere. The thing is that Unity terrain does not support caverns. It is of course possible to rewrite the PQS system to use a voxel-based terrain instead. This would result in terrain more similar to that of Subnautica. The thing is that it would demolish computers. Voxel terrain is pretty heavy. Now, the Tylo cave. Tylo's cave is nothing but a premade object slapped onto the surface. It's not actually part of the terrain, it's an object imported into Unity with a texture slapped on and a mesh collider component. Of course, you can make a mesh for a planet and use it to create caverns, but that would mean carving the entire planet by hand. Besides that, KSP cleverly renders terrain and terrain detail depending on distance. It does not load the entire planet, but only the visible terrain quads. This prevents computers from dying en masse. The mesh planet approach would be so immensely hard to render that only the most powerful supercomputers would be up to the task. So, sad to say, a voxel update will not be happening anytime soon because it would require remaking the game from scratch.

Memory search conclusion: SPE OPM Total size 138 MB 231 MB Terrain tex 15.5 MB 21.3 MB Planet maps 122 MB 204 MB I have the following hypothesis. Looking at the texture save mode, I see that @Galileo made sure to save everything as DDS, whereas SPE also uses PNG for some maps, leading to larger sizes because the textures are uncompressed. I'll fix this with update V3.0, it should reduce the size by about 66%.

...no actually. Glad you pointed that out, I'll do some digging into what is eating so much memory so I can optimize it. Thank you! Hotfix released, with lots of thanks to @psamathe. @Red Shirt I'll now start analyzing the memory distribution for SPE versus OPM to see what is using so much memory.

Thank you! I'll release a hotfix this afternoon.

The update is here at long, long last. Enjoy, Kerbals! I nearly forgot to post the changelog. Version V2.0 [For KSP 1.3.0 and 1.3.1] - Updated to Kerbal Space Program versions 1.3.0 and 1.3.1 - Slight Grillian and Froth overhaul (though the moons have kept their original style) - Completely redid Driea, Trao, Smov, Prolla, Dres-1 and Dres-2 - Added a new moon named Klan - Some under-the-hood changes to reduce lag - Made the moons much more colorful and diverse - Terrain texture rework - Removed some hidden space tacos Planned features for the next update: - Biomes & science defenitions - EVE support - Scatterer support - Second terrain overhaul

Sorry folks, I'm not gonna get it done tonight. It's 12 AM here, so I did all I could for today. I'll continue in a few days, I got some studying to do. I can't be 100% certain because I haven't tried it myself, but I don't see why it wouldn't be. I'll check it out to be certain.

Update: Klan has been created. Some last bug fixes on the moons are now being done. I aim to get an update out TODAY.

"Yeah I do!!!" - Terry Crews

@JacobJHC I have a few small adjustments to make to Froth, D1 and Smov, and I have yet to add that fourth Joolian moon named Klan. Once that's all done, SPE will be good to go. Shouldn't take too long.

COMING EVEN SOONER THAN SOON TO A UNIVERSE NEAR YOU!

Still workin' on it! I'm giving a few planets a facelift, then it should be good to go.

I could do that, I'd have to upgrade those to 1.3 first though.

Have you ever thought "Man, that's a good idea for a planet, but I just don't have the PQSMod for it..."? Then look no further! This is the thread for planet makers to share their ideas on new PQSMods, some of which actually may become a reality!