[1.0.5] RSS Planets & Moons expanded v0.12.0 Sedna is finally here!

[Einkleinermensch]

Anyway, about the Earth-intercepting asteroids... I think that it will be not the best idea to do bodies with intercepting orbits until we have them on rails. It looks very unrealistic and, to my mind, it'll be better to do asteroids with stable (resonances are good too) orbits.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Einkleinermensch

[pozine]

Anyway, about the Earth-intercepting asteroids... I think that it will be not the best idea to do bodies with intercepting orbits until we have them on rails. It looks very unrealistic and, to my mind, it'll be better to do asteroids with stable (resonances are good too) orbits.

Aren't ksp bodies on rail?

[Einkleinermensch]

Yes, they are. But IRL when asteroid flies near the Earth, it will change it's orbit. KSP physics cannot do this now (until eggrobin's n-body mod is WIP), so it would be better not to do bodies on potentially unstable orbits.

[pozine]

I don't think it would break anything, unless the asteroid enters earth soi

- - - Updated - - -

Sadly, I couldn't find any precise calculator for Ida's orbital elements. I will have to guess with help from space engine.

[wasml]

Were these the numbers you were looking for?

Num Name Epoch a e i w Node M Ref

243 Ida 51200 2.8606634 0.04538179 1.13674 112.20040 324.39462 174.1937499 DKY0294

Sorry - can't get the formatting to stick

Edited July 21, 2015 by wasml
fix formatting

[pozine]

Were these the numbers you were looking for?

Num Name Epoch a e i w Node M Ref

----- ----------------- ----- ---------- ---------- --------- --------- --------- ----------- --------

243 Ida 51200 2.8606634 0.04538179 1.13674 112.20040 324.39462 174.1937499 DKY0294

May I kiss you?

Which calculator do you use?

[pozine]

It doesn't look so good with oblateness...And my spacecraft can't land on it, it goes straight through the asteroid.

I can't make it oblate since it doesn't work in scaled space. And you will not be able to land on it. So I will ditch oblateness for now

Edited July 21, 2015 by pozine

[Einkleinermensch]

Hmm, it looks strange. Maybe decreasing noise seed for heightmap can help?

[pozine]

Hmm, it looks strange. Maybe decreasing noise seed for heightmap can help?

Which version of Ida looks strange?

I need more feedback, really

[Einkleinermensch]

Both of them look too sharp

The real Ida has more flat surface, afaik.

- - - Updated - - -

http://imgur.com/a/PcUAj#0

Ceres and Ida both look much bumpy than IRL

[pozine]

Both of them look too sharp

The real Ida has more flat surface, afaik.

- - - Updated - - -

http://imgur.com/a/PcUAj#0

Ceres and Ida both look much bumpy than IRL

I totally agree for Ida. It is a placeholder until I find a better model in Space engine.

Real Ceres looks like this :

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19185-cr.jpg

Edit :sorry I read too fast. Ceres looks a little bit softer IRL indeed. But I have to be cautious because IRL lighting is different than in game

Edited July 21, 2015 by pozine

[pozine]

Updated 243 Ida. It will be in the next version.

I think it is good enough for now. I might have to update its color though.

Pics :

Edited July 21, 2015 by pozine

[Einkleinermensch]

Wow, it looks great!

If you are searching for Vesta heightmap, maybe you can look for the SpaceEngine forum? There are a bunch of threads about celestial bodies textures.

[pozine]

Wow, it looks great!

If you are searching for Vesta heightmap, maybe you can look for the SpaceEngine forum? There are a bunch of threads about celestial bodies textures.

I already have the heightmap for Vesta . The problem is to make the body appear oblate. The PQSOblate plug in doesn't work well yet.

I might have a look on Celestia forum. Maybe they made a special oblate height map

[pozine]

Ida's moon Dactyl is a wip. Will post an update tonight.

Edit : Update will be delayed. Sorry. Ida's moon is too small to be drawn correctly by ksp.

Edited July 23, 2015 by pozine

[NathanKell]

I...really don't have anything to say except keep being awesome!

[pozine]

UPDATE 2015/07/23

Added Ida's moon Dactyl ,the only known moon of an asteroid​. Escape velocity is 0.9m/s....Yes your read right. Diameter of 1.4km.

Added (2) Pallas, the second largest asteroid in the solar system. It has a proper inclination of 33 degrees. Such an inclination made impossible for Dawn to make a flyby of this asteroid.

Added Pan, the closest moon of Saturn. It orbits inside Saturn's ring. (I had to cheat for this one. I changed a little bit its semi major axis so it orbits where it should)

Pics on page 1

[pozine]

Added to planed features : Change Saturn's texture and maybe the rings texture too

[MoeKitsune]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are a lot of other asteroids with moons. Some even have 2 moons.

[Trinzilla]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are a lot of other asteroids with moons. Some even have 2 moons.

I was about to say just that.

Great mod, though.

[pozine]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are a lot of other asteroids with moons. Some even have 2 moons.

Oh damn. Will fix that

[Borisbee]

Just popping in to say I see in your screenshots that some of the terrain can be a bit blocky. Good news is you can fix that by playing around with the PQS maxLevel parameter. Try adjusting it much lower to smooth out your terrain and get rid of any pixelation or blocky step-like terrain. Really small bodies should have maxLevel fairly low.

[pozine]

Just popping in to say I see in your screenshots that some of the terrain can be a bit blocky. Good news is you can fix that by playing around with the PQS maxLevel parameter. Try adjusting it much lower to smooth out your terrain and get rid of any pixelation or blocky step-like terrain. Really small bodies should have maxLevel fairly low.

Ahhh thank you , I was wondering what these parameters were for. I thought the pixelated ground was because of the small size of my bodies

Edited July 25, 2015 by pozine

[pozine]

The blocky terrain was caused by a too small heightmap.

[pozine]

Tried a lot of different settings, without any conclusive results. The blocky looking pqs will stay this way until a fix is found. Sorry. :/