HafCoJoe

Not a replica. The video points out the the main differences. EDIT: Although if you have a dime...

The Astraeus Orbiter The race has begun Hello everyone, Avera9eJoe here with the latest and greatest in space shuttle technology. Originally named the "Zephyr", I started this craft in the early days of 0.90 and after progressing through iteration 24 ("mk. XXIV"), I can finally catch some sleep with a full release. I hope you all enjoy Download: Astraeus Orbiter (Dropbox) Control Points: Control from the large probe core the vectors are attached to when you jettison the boosters. When firing the rapier engines in space you'll want to control from the small probe core on the tail. When docking in orbit you'll want to control from the docking port on the nose. For reentry it's best to control from the main cockpit but you can chose the vector-probe core if you want a more steep angle of attack. Action Groups: Toggle main engines and main engine gimbals. Use after separating from main tank to stop them from wiggling when in space or reentry. Switch engine mode on rapiers. The rapiers are intended to be used as both OMS engines and as rocket engines as in their original purpose. You can spy the intakes on top of the Big-S wing strakes (The nose ones are for aesthetic but also work). Toggle tail antenna. It is extended by default and isn't needed to be retracted ever, but you can if you so chose to. Toggle bay doors. Usually it's simpler to just click it, but still. Toggle docking port on nose. Again it's probably easier to just click and open but it's still handy. Tips & Tricks: WATCH THE VIDEO!!! Examples will always make better descriptions than words. While you reenter, have SAS set to prograde. This helps significantly with stability and makes the ride go along smoothly. As you land, try using only the roll axis when steering to the left or right. It's the most stable. Pressing brakes will also toggle the tailfin flaps. Extend the flaps as you reenter to help slow you down. You can toggle it on and off with brakes depending on how steep of a landing you are making or to control drag/lift a bit better. It looks really cool to just open the cargo bay doors once free from the main tank. It isn't necessary for ship function although it is realistically accurate, as the radiators are mounted inside the craft similarly to how the space shuttle had radiators inside the bay doors Well, it's 1:00 AM once again and that's all I have for now. See you all later!

I was noticing in making WindowShine that the entire surface of every part was reflective. It's just that every face except the windows have an almost invisible alpha channel. - Would there be any way to make reflections only apply to faces with an alpha channel above a certain percentage? This might optimize.

Sadly you'll have to wait until Shaw's reflection plugin in TextureReplacer is further updated. Currently it is overwrites all other part shaders on anything it's applied to. I'm in the same boat.

I would love for other mods to have reflections built in but it's a bit tricky to do... bare with me while I explain. The thing with reflections in KSP is that it is based off of the part texture's transparency. The more visible a specific portion of a part's texture is the more reflective it is. If you open up one of the textures included in my DL you can see that everything except the windows is almost completely transparent. Technically the entire texture has a visibility of 1% with exception of the windows which have normal transparency levels. Following this same logic, technically all surfaces of the parts in WindowShine are reflective, it's just that they are only 1% reflective where the windows are ~100%. I hope this makes sense. The thing with having reflective windows in all mods at download is that it would require the mod developers to change the transparency levels of their textures to match, as well as write a ModuleManager .cfg file for all the parts in their mod which they want reflective (It's very easy, but it still would take extra work). I don't think that's going to happen . In all honesty I would be very happy if everyone had reflective windows in their mods. I would be more than happy to help any modders who want reflective windows added to their mods by default. I don't even need to be given any credit. I just want it to happen.

Nothing wrong with a little bit of science, eh? Or watching a show until the crack of dawn.

Me irl: *Checks KSPRC thread* *Reads new posts* *Looks at time* *3:08AM* ** Me too brethren... me too...

Np! I'm just glad I didn't already delete it

I'll see if I still have it in my dropbox. EDIT: WindowShineTR-v9 (Dropbox)

Many thanks! I would be more than happy to add it to the OP with your name if you want that. - I'm probably too much of a fan of personal installs

Omg that response couldn't have been better...

Kopernicus had a release today! Is this the release you where waiting on? [1.0.5] Kopernicus Beta (0.6) December 12 Also... may I ask what features of Kopernicus you are using in KSPRC? Particles? Rings? The Mafia?

I sadly am without any pictures as well, as I started playing in 0.21. Best of luck with this.

Congrats on the new release!

Yes I can confirm that this is a bug. The mainsail and rapier are the only engines that have reflections added through WindowShine, and thus they are the only engines that are missing their part highlighting. Shaw's reflection shader plugin has the unfortunate effect of removing/breaking all other shaders applied to the same part. This used to include alpha channel (artificial shadow depth on flat textures), but Shaw fixed that in one of the more recent TextureReplacer patches from what I am hearing (I've been focusing on compatibly of textures recently and haven't yet looked closely into that). I'm not sure if Shaw will be able to get other shaders running. I sincerely hope he is able to though. Unity 5 might bring about more possibilities in this regard. tl;dr: Yes this is a known bug that is caused by Shaw's reflection plugin .

Hmm... It's good to know I'm not the only one noticing little to no difference with this slider (other than shadows). I still don't know what else it effects other than shadows though. It says it effects "graphical quality" but what that means I still wish to know. Thanks Sal_vager though. EDIT. Also way to be in the season with your avatar! I think I'll do the same when I get home

I have been wondering this for a while now, and there hasn't been a very specific answer. When I last tried figuring out what this slider does I found this thread which I quote down below. This is the best definition I can find of what Render Quality does, but it doesn't fully answer. Also it appears to conflict with what Vexx32 says a few lines lower about Shadow Cascades: Can someone give a list of exactly what Render Quality does visually inside KSP and anything else pertinent? The wiki also doesn't give a good answer as it directs you towards reading Unity's documentation. Many thanks and likes to those of you who can answer!

American politics... What do I tell ya... Anyhow we're going into two things, both of which aren't allowed on this forum for good reasons . Interesting... so I'm not the only one who has no clue what that slider effects. I'll start a question thread on that. Thank you!

You know I've been wondering this for a long time... do you know what "Render quality" does? Not sure if I've just been blind or not, but I have noticed absolutely no difference between when it's set to fastest versus fantastic. Edit, also I much approve of your Christmas-y signature @V8jester.

D'oh! Man this mentioning function sure makes this interesting . @UpsilonAerospace?

I really hope you make a Modding Monday with this when it's released

Interesting... I can't wait to see how it plays out.

Black oceans as in the EVE terrain texture for the seabed is black? Or is it the TextureReplacer kerbin texture that has black oceans?