Cydonian Monk

The amount of space used by the switches will make such a yard nearly useless. Might only fit one or two cars once you consider clearance points, etc, and it might fit fewer cars than it would if it was just a straight section of track. One idea: Use a similar design in the same location and have only two or three tracks: specifically for locomotives or storing other non-revenue cars (ex: cabooses, if they're still a thing). Not a bad design if it has a purpose. The radius of the loop may or may not be a problem, depending on what you try to run on it. Many HO-scale locomotives will have problems on that tight of a radius, unless they're small locos. I know modern Brazilian locomotives are basically the same thing we have in the US, but 4-axle units not coupled to anything may be fine with 27.5cm.

Which country's railroads are you modeling? The first thing that jumps out at me is that bubble loop. What is that, a 25cm radius? Presumably it's only for turning locomotives, and very small ones at that. I'd be inclined to add more to the yard lead for the large yard at the top of this sketch. You need some space to pull cars from the tracks as you're working them. You have a bit of that at the top, to the right side of that middle yard ladder, which is good. I'd almost pull the two other tracks in at that point, so you can get to all five of the main yard tracks from that one ladder. What's the diamond yard for? It seems rather short, track-length wise, with a lot of mechanical complexity. If it's serving a specific goal, then ok. Which side is against the wall? I'd be concerned about being able to reach either the top or bottom of this from 1 meter out, especially if working the yard. The passenger part doesn't need to be in reach so much, as I'd assume any train building for such would take place in a coach yard.

Thanks. For what it's worth that's not my layout, though I did build and/or paint everything in that scene except the post office and the Thurmond depot, so it might as well have been. Here's a slightly different angle: Yes. Start small. Figure out what works for you and what doesn't. Don't be afraid to throw everything out and start over. Actually throw everything out and start over. Avoid the temptation to put in too much track. Never have track parallel to the front of the layout. Never take any rule too seriously. I'd start by digging through the LD Sig literature, though I'm not sure how much is available for free or even still relevant. http://ldsig.org/ Also check out the ARM website. Dan has some nice sketches of small yards that might be right up your alley. http://appalachianrailroadmodeling.com/ I've found small, less complex, less cluttered scenes with larger buildings work best. Here's one of my late friend's scenes, part of the Rochelle, IL section of his layout. Over the five or six feet of that scene there's really only six car spots. Four on the opposite side of the mains, two on the front side. (The rest of the CalPac plant is just to the right, out of view.) Of course there's more work for the train crew to do in Rochelle, but this scene really came out nice.

Maybe...... Why do you ask?

There really isn't much else similar to Planetes though, at least for hard science fiction..... That series is simply amazing. Still there's plenty of good fantasy sci-fi anime out there, several already mentioned. Two series I'd recommend that haven't been mentioned: "Outlaw Star" and "Vision of Escaflowne." (For Escaflowne: avoid the movie. It's ok, and uses the same voice actors, but tells an entirely different story.) (I also have a soft spot for Mononoke Hime and Nausicaa. And basically everything Ghibli has ever produced, but they're outside the scope of what you're asking for.)

And Aluminium doesn't mix too well with Sulphuric Acid....., or rather it mixes quite well. It just produces Hydrogen and Aluminium Sulfate, which as it so happens mixes extremely well with water.

Thanks. Speaking of Ad Lunam, I've recently been editing it, mostly to clean up the Forum Migration bugs but also to fix certain problems. My writing style has matured over these last two years, and much of how Ad Lunam was written wouldn't make it through my present standards. The story and the spirit are remaining the same, of course, but that particular bit of prose has always needed an editing pass. So far the only edits I've posted are the first post (very minor sentence structure change) and the Epilogue (which needed a good bit of cleanup). After @Kuzzter's Jool comic panels yesterday I figured I might as well post the updated Epilogue.... Seemed to be relevant again. Cleaning up those tables in the second post might be beyond my patience, so it'll likely get spoilered-away.

*grumble* *grumble* IPS decided to double-post that last, so let's pivot and make this a 1.2 update comment. I think I've found a launch profile for the LDAV in 1.2 that works, so the plan is to update this save the rest of the way to KSP v1.2 now. It'll be in the middle of the next update. Also means I can stop using Alt-F12 to turn on "no collision damage" just to avoid the exploding landing gear on the Aluminium 10.

It's a reference, just not to that. Think Long-term, not short. (Though argueably that visit in Interstellar was the longest of terms.)

I swears officer, I don't know nobodies named no Checkhovs and don't have nones of their guns hangings on no walls. None them Russian types rounds heres now, see.

I Could Fly Here Forever And so it was time for Gletrix to take flight once more. Taking off from the LDAV's landing site was easy - just throttle up and point downhill. Between the thrust and the gravity the Aluminium was up to speed in no time, and gently lifted itself into the cerulean skies. She forgot to pull the ladder in before take off. Its rattling noise outside the cockpit went unnoticed for several kilometers. After she heard it, she first thought there was something wrong with the jet engines, or the port wing, or the landing gear. All manner of terrible things ran through her mind. And then she remembered, of course, the ladder, and pulled it up in short order. The flight plan was simple. Gletrix would circle the bulk of the island they had landed on, verifying the map data collected in orbit. On the way back she would head inland to stop at the ground contact their Calcium 7 probe had discovered. The strange probe. If possible she would head down to the lake where the Calcium 7 had been deposited. The first landmark she reached was a nice, peaceful-looking bay. She reasoned it might make for a nice place to build a base, with the smooth slopes near the shores and the gentle slopes of the land around it. Perhaps some future crew could make use of it. Maybe even build ships here to sail out into the endless sea. Surely no tsunamis could disturb this tranquil shore. Otherwise the flight along the western coastline was remarkably unremarkable, with constant yet inconsistent dunes and bluffs jetting out of the ocean. She cut inland some distance south of the bay, wanting to fly over their mystery probe. No need to fly all the way to the southern tip of the island - nothing to see there except more sands and rocks. Let some future beachgoer leave their footprints there instead. The land was beautiful, especially with the noxious air casting it into varying shades of lilac and aquamarine. It was strange to Gletrix how the air could behave so differently here than back on Kerbin. It was essentially the same air, but the presence of just a small amount of sulphur and other poisonous gases twisted it. Made it more attractive yet more deadly. She came in low over the probe, flying over it several times to get a good view. IPX-10, its icon flashed on her mapview. It had power apparently, spitting out an occasional atmospheric reading. Not likely strong enough to be heard in orbit, but at this distance the data was loud and clear. It had landed in a nice spot. Flat, level dunes surrounding it, only a few large boulders visible above the sands. She brought the Aluminium down gently and drifted over to it. It seemed so perfect, sitting there in the sands, perched on its tiny, bird-like legs. How long had it remained there, undisturbed? Laythe was volcanically active, that much they knew. For a small probe such as this to still be upright meant this particular location was relatively safe. Perhaps this island was a good spot for a base. She brought the Aluminium's systems down, set the brakes, cut the engines, lowered the ladder, and radioed back to the LDAV that she was going on EVA. Macfred advised caution (what else is new?), Agake made her promise to pull any science data the probe might still have. Thomlock asked how his plane was handling. The ground was in good shape. These dunes had formed long enough ago that they were starting to settle. The composition felt more like soil than sand, thikcer and heavier than the salt, sand, and ash she had found on the more northern parts of the island. It made walking over to the probe all the easier. It also meant her plane wasn't slipping off the side of the dune. The builders plate dated the probe to roughly the same age as Kelgee Station. Other paraphernalia suggested it was likely built by the same program, too. Many, many decades previously. The probe's internal clock suggested it had launched some 42 years and 61 days previous. An ancient artifact, as far as space probes go. She ended up spending several hours with the probe. Agake was trying to run science reports remotely over their tenuous data link, but the probe never responded quite like they wanted. Eventually Macfred authorized her to climb onto the probe to see if she could get into its computer core. What could it hurt? There was really only way to get on top of this thing - climb one of the legs. She checked her footing, checked the ground underneath her chosen leg, then grabbed onto the lowest part of its supports. Just as she put her weight on the leg, the entire thing exploded into a cloud of dust. More concerning was what happened next. The probe, having sat upright on this dune for 39 or more years, came toppling over towards her. She backed away quickly, pushing off of another leg as it too disintegrated at her touch. It was all over in a few short seconds, the damage done. She hopped up, brushed herself off, and debated whether she should radio back to the base. They would never find out if she didn't tell them, and she could just claim the lander was locked up tight once she got inside of it. No, best to be honest with Macfred. What was there to be afraid of? "The good news is I can reach the probe core." "You're implying there's bad news." "Yeah. About that. When I pulled myself up onto the lander's leg it exploded." The flurry of noise on the radio over the next few seconds was best ignored. Macfred was already deep in damage assessment mode when Agake pushed her way onto the radio. "What do you mean by exploded? Did it combust? Or was it rotted out?" "Rotted. Dry rotted, I guess. Almost like it had been hollowed out or something." She spent several minutes describing the legs and what stubs were left of them. In the end Agake had her collect several samples of the legs to bring back. None of the rest of the probe was anywhere near as brittle as the legs. And it seemed the probe itself was still functioning, though one of its antennas was now bent beyond the point of repair. The sun was falling low in the sky by the time Agake had finished quizzing her over the decayed probe. She decided it was best to skip the southern tip of the island and move towards the Calcium probe next. Its final resting place was the lake just to her northeast. Not far away, really, just a few kilometers. She taxied over to the edge of the lake, discovering there was no safe way to get to their Calcium probe. Macfred instructed her to head back to the LDAV. It was growing late, and he didn't want her airborne after dark. It was hard enough to land on the dunes during the day, landing in the pitch black was simply not going to happen. Liftoff was just as easy here as it was at the LDAV. Aim downhill, throttle up, hope for the best. She skimmed the surface, hoping for a sighting of their probe, finding nothing. By now it had definitely sunk to the bottom. Probably dissolving in whatever caustic mix an inland lake such as this was made of. Still, it was an attractive body of water, glowing green and orange with the reflected sky. Simple beauty. Nature at its finest. From there she turned due-East until she reached the shoreline. There were a few really nice spots for bases on this side, too. One peninsula that jutted out nicely, though no bays as attractive as that on the westward side. She marked it on her map and turned inland. There were three lakes she wanted to check out. Three lakes she had seen when she was first coming in to land. The sunset was breathtaking. All of Laythe was breathtaking. She could fly here forever. Gliding down over the lakes, skimming the surface, enjoying the beauty and the colors that enveloped the entire scene. Such a perfect place. They should have come here ages ago. How could such a tiny moon be so much more beautiful than Kerbin? Far too soon she had crossed over the lakes, and the LDAV and its landing site were crawling over the horizon. She was tempted to fly to the North, explore a bit more of the land as the sun set, but Macfred had already spotted her and was expected her to land. Probably for the best, as the intoxicating sunset could only lead to disaster if she stayed up too long. She took the same approach used previously, landed well away from the LDAV and drifted up to the party. The crew had gathered to watch the sunset, four kerbals silhouetted against the the glittering ocean. Thomlock suggested she just leave the samples, come watch the sun slip beneath the sea. All the science and other data could stay in the aircraft until morning. She knew Agake would never last that long, but waddled over to them anyway. She could pick it up on the way back. Night on Laythe were long, very long. The sunsets more than made up for the long dark. The distant sun faded away, five kerbals absorbing the tiniest bit of its light on these alien shores. One day down, many more to go. Navigation: Next Post

Silly question: Have you enabled KerbNet for the Emiko save? (Check the in-game/in-save settings menu, even if you turned it on maybe it got toggled back off....) As for RCS/SAS not working: More often than not I've found that to be a clock skew issue. The action groups for each ship keep track of what time they were last pressed (and SAS/RCS are action groups as far as the game cares). If that time is a) after the game clock or b) garbage, then that action group won't work. Might also be something else though. I've also seen the greyed out RCS/SAS thing caused by a mod.... Don't recall which.

Not every question needs an answer. Some are best left dangling forever. (How do Kerbals get to space?)

Sadly the forum only lets me press the like button once. (Ok, so I guess I could keep pressing it, but only half of them would end up as likes.....)

Less so than Eve Henge, I would hope.... Regardless, future archeologists in the Kerbol System are going to be soooooooo confused. Laythe's oceans have nothing on the salt I have over KSP v1.1.x's wheels. Paint is peeling on the wall behind my PC from the copious amounts of nautical terms oft rattled off or thought of. *grumble* *grumble* (The above image is not canon... merely an artifact of my 1.2 testing. No, Thomlock is not really stranded on the other side of Laythe because a quicksave was loaded while he was in flight. Nope.) Things are getting better though. Yep, they are.

That channel seems like a fraud. I've never once seem them play anything except the same pre-recorded footage (which was captured during an EVA), even when the ISS is in daylight. When that video was first recommended to me by YouTube the description had commands for how you can rotate/pan the camera on the ISS _in real time_, which also worked with the pre-recorded footage. That said, it's not a terrible channel, it's just not the official NASA live feed. I won't be giving them any more views, but it's a decent presentation, even with the flat-earther trolling.

I plead the fifth and will make no mention of my experience with jazz......

Don't Adjust Your Radio Dial February 2nd, 1953 Houston, TX: The Gulf Coast's resident rocket program has borne fruit of an annoying sort. A small machine launched yesterday morning from the shores of South Texas has become the first artificial object to enter Earth's orbit. Officially named Gulf Zeta and designated 1953-001A, the craft has been nicknamed Zinger by the many who have heard its zinging and beeping sound on the 740 kHz frequency, interrupting radio news programs from here to Canada. Officials at the Federal Communications Commission were unavailable for comment regarding the illegal use of this radio space. The Texas-based Random Aerospace was believed defunct after facing heavy fines and penalties in the first quarter of 1952. The largest of their losses were due to the failure of the Gulf Delta spacecraft and the contract attached to it. Despite having won an astronomical lawsuit against the rocket firm, their primary benefactor instead offered yet another launch contract of the same rates and term. The advance of said contract offset the losses incurred by failing the previous, and allowed these pesky mad scientists to continue to annoy the hard-working citizenry of the world. Allegations of money laundering between the two firms has attracted the interest of the Texas Attorney General. The previous four launches in this class have mercifully ended in failure, otherwise our skies would be polluted with who knows how many zinging objects of major annoyance. The most recent of these failures, Gulf Epsilon, was blamed on issues in the machine's control mechanisms. Gulf Delta, the subject of last year's legal dispute, tore itself free from its moorings, leaving a large portion of the spacecraft on the launch pad while continuing onwards to space, only to rain burning hot death down on unsuspecting retirees in the Florida Keys. A lucky accident nearly saved us from this fate, as one of the engines on the Zinger's many rocket "stages" suffered what the mad scientists called a "burn-through" event. Said engine was unfortunately able to continue powering its way through its appointed task and onwards to its eternal rest in the black beyond the sky. A rather nondescript metal barrel resembling a trash can or small oil drum, Zinger is expected to remain in orbit for the indefinite future. Its batteries will die out within the next several months, and our radios will hopefully return to their normal static. With luck one of the other great powers of the world will send a similar device with the means to silence this pest long before then.

Continuing From Where We Left Off Laythe. It felt like munths since they'd arrived, or even minths, but Gletrix knew she just landed less than an hour before. And what a landing that was. She had barely put wheels onto the ground when the LDAV started its descent. She had hoped see it as it entered the atmosphere, streaking across the sky, but it landed so far to the West there was nothing more than a small flare. And that might have been one of the other moons. The ground at her landing site was strange. A mixture of ash, sand, and other inert matter, it was easy to lose your footing and go sliding down the hill. The Aluminium 10 was doing just that: sliding across the face of the dune. Wait any longer and she may not make it over to her friends. At least it wouldn't slide over her flag, as there's no way an aircraft can slide uphill. Once the team was down and safe, Gletrix relit the Aluminium's engines and prepared for takeoff. Time to join to party. Getting airborne again was a bit tricky, what with the strange surface, but in the end she pulled back on the stick and her metal steed soared into the alien sky. Because of course it did. And it was perfect, with nary an exploding wheel to be found. Thomlock had brought the Sulphur LDAV down on an isthmus at the far western edge of the island. From the air it didn't look like a bad place to land, but Gletrix changed her mind after the first flyover. The rolling dunes would force her to land somewhere to the North or South of the Sulphur and taxi over to the craft. That ridge was too dangerous looking to risk. No big deal, the tires and wheels of the Aluminium were up to anything, or so it would seem. Who would think they'd explode just for coming into contact with the ground? It's not like they blew up because she took off. No, that's crazy talk, and she wouldn't have it. The wheels were fine. No bugs to be found. Perfect round little examples of flawless software they were. Sure. A few minutes later and she was drifting up to the front door. And then through the front door. The inside of the shuttle was disorienting. Sulphur was designed as a lander, yes, but the internals were best suited to use in microgravity. The seats had swivels on them to point forward, upward, but not sideways, so most of the time they ended up sitting on the seatbacks. Thankfully the designers had to foresight to build a ladder into the floor. Macfred and Thomlock were discussing where best to plant the flag while Agake was trying (mostly successfully) to pull data from the various science instruments. She had already collected a handful of sand to experiment with once they were back in orbit. Gletrix had brought samples with her from the first landing site, and Agake was poking through them gleefully. Gletrix looked around. One missing. "Where's Jeb?" Macfred pointed towards the hatch. "He took off to play in the dunes. Said something about building a sand castle. He'll meet us at the flag planting." the flag planting. They had two chores to complete before the first exploration flight could depart, and Gletrix was anxious to get airborne again. First, they had to plant the flag. The official flag. And all the pomp that comes with that circumstance. Second, they need to remove the now-useless hardware from the LDAV. The less mass they had on ascent, the easier they could get to orbit. So one by one they filtered out of the lander. Each had already had their run-in with the Laythe air, having almost immediately taken their helmets off only to taste the terrible air. Was it breathable? For a short time, yes. Was it worth it? No, not really. Once all were outside and agreed on where to spot the flag they set out, single file. Walking over the dunes wasn't as easy as walking on Kerbin's beaches, though none of them quite understood why. Walking in general felt a tiny bit awkward, each step taking a short time longer to complete than their bodies were used to. Jeb was already waiting for them at the top of the hill, having happily and easily bounded up the hill from the beach. Gletrix couldn't help but wonder: Was everything always so easy for him? It was a good spot, perched at the top of the tallest dune between the lake and the ocean. To the south they had a clear view of the landing site. None of them knew much at all about the environment of Laythe, but they hoped this spot would be safe enough for the flag to survive. Macfred shepherded them, gathered them around his chosen spot. He shoved the flag into the soft soil, flipped the switch, and was about to start into a speech. A speech he never got to deliver because Agake jumped in fright. Behind them an apparition had appeared on the sand, and they were all distracted by it. "Was that there before?" Thomlock walked to the mysterious square. It floated waist-high off the ground, and appeared to be level with the soil underneath. He ran his fingers along the edge and corner, then pushed his hand through the top of it. "The sides feel like they exist, but the middle is just, well, fog? Hard to describe." Gletrix didn't much care what it was made of, and was more than a little creeped out by it. "I've seen this before." Jeb, standing across the square from Thomlock. "They locked me up in a hospital for munths after I reported it." He cocked his head as though trying to remmeber something distant. "Come to think of it the hospital visit might have been after the plane crash. But these squares, I've seen them on Kerbin. Much, much larger than this. The size of a small city." Macfred walked up to the edge and started to pull himself on top when Agake and Gletrix stopped him. "Are you insane?!" "Possibly. Likely. Might be we're all insane, and Sieta and the rest are the stable ones. Let's see what happens." He lifted himself up onto the square, took one step forward, and then fell through it and onto the sands underneath. "Huh, weird. It's like it exists, but doesn't exist." Exists but doesn't exist. Why did everything have to get so weird? Gletrix had a good life back on Kerbin, back before she was recruited by the space program and trained by Thomlock. If she'd known everything was as weird as it really was, she would've stayed put. Lived on in ignorant bliss. They spent the next several minutes debating the strange black square. Well, the rest of them did. Gletrix had tuned out and was watching one of the small moons as it drifted behind Jool, barely visible in the haze. Eventually Macfred decided it was time to get their next chore, and agreed they would revisit the strange square apparition in the future. Next on the list was cleaning up the debris left by the Sulphur LDAV. When the heatshields were jettisoned prior to landing, they ended up creating a great deal of garbage. Structural pieces, I-beams, and whatnot. Macfred didn't want the garbage to still be laying around when they took off, so he sent the crew around to gather all the pieces. Gletrix found a few small cubic struts and an I-beam to drag back, much the same as everyone else. No doubt other pieces had slipped into the sand and sunk halfway to the core of Laythe by now. Pieces they'd never find. The heaviest piece had to be pushed end over end, a chore Macfred took himself. Before long all the bits were gathered in a pile at the lander. Afterwards, Macfred had them go around to remove excess mass from the lander. That "excess" mostly being the parachutes they used to land. "Won't we need those if something goes wrong during liftoff?" Macfred shook his head. "If the liftoff fails and we have to ditch the ascent stage, we land using the upper stage's engines. We'll be stuck here either way, but we may not be able to land at all with the extra mass still attached. It's safer this way." "If you say so." With all the pieces gathered, and all the excess stripped from the Sulphur LDAV, the next task was to build a small sculpture. Ok, so it wasn't officially on the flight plan, but all of them agreed it was the best way to tell leave their mark for future generations. (And much better than just leaving trash strewn about the surface.) Gletrix thought it was cool enough that she didn't even mind it cutting into her exploration time. It took the better part of an hour. All of them had to work together, most holding pieces while Macfred bolted them together with his space wrench. At first they weren't sure exactly what to make, but the pieces lent themselves to a certain shape, a certain build. A familiar shape. A shape from Kerbin's distant past. And so the Pyramid of Laythe was born. Future explorers would no doubt find it and wonder what lunatics had built it. Why would they keep so many parachutes and explosive decouplers here, on the side of a dune? What madness was this? Were the lights supposed to be eyes? Why didn't it have any power? Did those that built it intend it as an offering to the Space God Jool? To the Great Powers? Ws it intended as some magic ward, to protect travelers as they come to these shores? No, as with most things it was built because of boredom. Macfred shined the lenses on the lights, and tried in vain to turn them on. With that done he climbed down, turned to Gletrix, and said the words she's been waiting to hear for hours now. "You're cleared to fly." She could hardly wait. Navigation: Next Post

Well then this Texas Two-Step Sounder might just be up your alley: If that ain't Texas enough for you, try on this here Texas Three-Step Sounder: Fresh out of cowboy hats. Sorry. Texas. It's like a whole 'nother place.

October Sky Spent several hours yesterday over on Twitch, mostly working on kOS scripts. (Really exciting TV there, boss.) I'm slowly refining my usual set of guidance scripts into something coherent, and finding out ways they just don't work. Debugging, basically, except I'm hurling hundreds of tons of metal and kerosene into the sky to do it. Sputnik was well represented, but poor old Luna 9 was constantly being burned up on reentry by my bad code. Also spent a good bit of time fiddling with EVE/RVE and scatterer settings. If anyone has a working EVE/RVE config for KSP v1.1.3 they'd be willing to share, let me know. At present I'm using a cubemap for a single layer of clouds (which doesn't look terrible, mind you), and trying to get a couple other layers working.... I'm just not convinced any of it is right. Random Aerospace (RP-0) In RP-0 News, Random Aerospace was established at the far southern tip of Texas (at kinda-sorta Brazos Island / South Padre Island), in little old Port Isabel, TX, just on the Mexican border. The fine folk over at the Schlitterbahn (which didn't exist in 1950) will have front-row seats once rocket launches become routine, assuming they end up building a Schlitterbahn there in this now screwed-up timeline. And Mexico may end up with some rockets that took wrong turns, but hopefully we can avoid provoking a war. The first object to slip above 100km was the first sounding rocket we launched: The Rio Grande Sounder. This brass-trimmed beauty propelled its steampunk bullet high enough to win a very small contract reward, and even survived reentry. The science payload was recovered in the deserts to the north of Brownsville. Next up were a long series of failures. Well, that's not entirely fair, as the launch of the Trinity sounding rocket did reach way up into space (apoapsis above 300km). Development of orbital rocketry is not proceeding well; and two variants have developed: Gulf (an R-7 clone) and Bayou (kinda-sorta-Atlas? using pieces from Gulf). The first launch of Gulf (Gulf Alpha: 1951 d302) failed milliseconds after launch when the onboard flight computer shut down. Apparently none of the engines were properly tagged for kOS. This caused minor damage to the launch pad and wounded the boss' pride a bit. The next Gulf launch, Gulf Beta, succeeded in reaching out into the Gulf of Mexico, before the flight computer shut down while attempting fairing deployment. The guidance script was expecting the fairings to use ModuleDecouple, when instead they're using something else that will need to be teased out of the system. Photographers also noted the fairings were exhibiting some "shader issues", otherwise known as Glitch. More debugging of hundred-ton kerosene-filed darts next time, whenever that is.

Yep! Distant little water moon of Laythe.

An observation or two on 1.2: Orbital ephemerides have changed. A certain quicksave at Laythe in 1.1.3 is a dozen or so minutes before sunset. In 1.2 the same quicksave is about an hour after sunset. I ran a test launch of the Sulphur LDAV from Laythe..... and..... uh.......... errrr........ I've decided to finish the initial exploration of Laythe in 1.1.3. The (slight) changes to the aero and the new fuel flow system have made the flight characteristics of the LDAV a bit on the instantly fatal side, and I can't see a way to change how the fuel flows in an already launched craft. Otherwise the migration from 1.1.3 to 1.2 looks straightforward and has no issues.

Eons ago, maybe back in the EVE Overhaul days, @rbray89 was replacing terrain detail textures of the planets. Things like rocks, grass, etc textures, not the entire body. I don't remember specifically what version it was, but I always had to remove the code and recompile because my PC absolutely despised what he was trying in the beginning. They looked pretty good when they worked, and I _think_ the City Lights in the latest post-overhaul release ended up using the same code. Edit: At the time this was added to EVE I don't think TextureReplacer supported replacing any texture, which I'm 99% sure it now does. So that might be a better option.

That sounds perfectly cool. Knock yourself out. (Well, not literally. )