[1.0.5] Harder Solar System (Kopernicus) v1.2.0 11/20/15 - Axial Tilt and More!

[stevehead]

What is Harder Solar System?

Harder Solar System is a step up in difficulty from the stock system. The main difference between this solar system and stock is that the entire solar system has been rotated to simulate an axial tilt for Kerbin, the same concept that gives Earth an axial tilt in Real Solar System. Also, the Kerbal Space Center has been relocated to a higher latitude. The combination of these two changes forces players to plan launch windows for things that did not typically require them, such as LKO rendezvous and going to the Mun.

Other Changes

The Mun now has an identical inclination to the real-life Moon, relative to the ecliptic. Minmus was changed so it would not have a similar inclination to the Mun. Jool's mass has been increased to be more comparable to Jupiter's, relatively. Dres and Eeloo's orbit inclination has been altered to be more like Ceres and Pluto, respectively. Everything else is stock.

Outer Planets Mod Support (v1.8.x)

There is compatibility with this awesome planet pack. Only thing is I retained the same orbits for the inner moons of Sarnus because of the rings. Sarnus, Urlum, and Neidon have had their masses increased similarly to Jool's. Instead of Eeloo, Plock has had its orbit inclination to more like Pluto's.

Remote Tech Support

Remote Tech is actually a little easier than stock, because I added a Deep Space Network on Kerbin! I personally find it tedious and non-challenging to have to setup a satellite network in Kerbin orbit to communicate with distant planets (if Kerbals can launch rockets to space, surely they can setup ground stations around the planet ). I also have two short range ground stations specifically for launches (one for eastward launches, and one for polar orbits); not sure how useful this will be since they quickly become redundant once a simple comms setup is achieved, but added just in case.

Various Scales

Not only is this config available in stock size, I have included 2x, 3x and even 4x scales for additional challenge! A few notes: planetary rotation periods have been adjusted, atmospheres do not scale, and potato moons (Gilly, Pol, Ovok from OPM, etc.) do not scale. Remote Tech distances scale properly.

64K Support

There is a generic config that will add the axial tilt, make the inclination changes to Mun/Minmus/Dres/Eeloo, and increase Jool's mass. This config should also support most other stock-like solar systems.

How is this Accomplished?

Well, adding axial tilt to Kerbin isn't as simple as adding the intended tilt (~23.4° in this case) to every orbit's inclination in the solar system because of varying longitudes of the ascending nodes (LAN)--already confused? checkout this wikipedia article on orbital elements. If every planet and moon had the same LAN, then it would be as simple as adding 23.4 to each inclination. But that is not the case. It is, in a nutshell, a process of converting the given orbital elements into state vectors (which are vectors that describe the position and velocity of the planet/moon in 3D Cartesian space), rotating the vectors using a rotation matrix along the X axis, then converting those new state vectors back into the resulting orbital elements used in these configs. Ultimately, the only elements affected by this rotation are inclination, longitude of the ascending node, and argument of periapsis. To make things easy on me, I wrote a crude python script to compute all of these rotations for me, scale the solar system where applicable, and compile everything into the configs that I have released.

Why Change the Mun's Inclination?

For one, I wanted eclipses to be more rare. Two, it completes a specific purpose in addition to the KSC's relocation. Knowing why Kennedy Space Center is located where it is may clue you into an easy way to launch to the Mun in this form of KSP.

Why the Name?

Because it makes the solar system harder. Actually, I'm terrible with creative names, and this was the best I could come up with... you should see the names of my spacecraft and launchers: Alpha 1, Beta 2 Heavy, Duna Explorer 1, Jool Atmosphere Probe 2, etc.

Thanks

- Thanks to Paul Kingtiger for inspiration on several parts of this. Also, some compatibility came straight from KScale2.

- Thanks to NathanKell's RSS for inspiring the axial tilt simulation.

License

This is public domain. Do whatever you wish with what I have released.

Links

Source - GitHub

Manual Install Instructions

1) Install dependencies.

2) Download release from GitHub below, and choose the scale you want within the ZIP file for install.

Known Issues

- None ATM

Dependencies (Install Separately)

Kopernicus

Module Manager

Download

Current Release

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Various Information for Each Scale

Scale        Geostationary Altitude            ÃŽâ€V multiplier            Kerbin Rotation Period        Approx. ÃŽâ€V to LKO
1x           2868.741 km                       1.0                      6 hr                          3500 m/s
2x           5470.389 km                       1.4                      8 hr                          4500 m/s
3x           8342.662 km                       1.7                      10 hr                         ???
4x           11474.965 km                      2.0                      12 hr                         6000 m/s

ÃŽâ€V multiplier is what you would multiply the ÃŽâ€V amounts from a ÃŽâ€V map such as this one to give you a rough approximation for that scale. Since atmospheres do not scale with my configs, the ÃŽâ€V for atmospheric bodies will be lower. These values will obviously not be accurate with any potential changes I may do in the future that affects the masses/orbits of the planetary bodies.

How the Mass Changes Affect Jool

                         Stock            HSS-1x           HSS-2x           HSS-3x           HSS-4x           HSS-64K
Jool Mass                4.233e24 kg      1.219e25 kg      4.877e25 kg      1.097e26 kg      1.951e26 kg      4.994e26 kg
Jool Escape Velocity     9704 m/s         16469 m/s        23290 m/s        28525 m/s        32938 m/s        41664 m/s
Jool SOI                 2.455e9 m        3.749e9 m        7.499e9 m        1.125e10 m       1.500e10 m       1.910e10 m

Edited November 21, 2015 by stevehead
v1.2.0 release

[Lucius]

OOOO i'm very interested, especially in the larger scale packs.

Commenting here so i can come back and try this at home. I'll give a full report after some playtime! Good ideas stevehead!

[Varsi]

Indeed, seems very interesting. Seems I have my plans ready for the whole weekend...

[stevehead]

Just did a pull request to put these configs on CKAN. Hopefully it shouldn't be too long for them to be on there.

[G'th]

If atmospheres scaled with this I would be awash with glee.

[stevehead]

My thought process behind not scaling the atmospheres is that the stock atmosphere is already quite high relative to the size of the planets. Kerbin's atmosphere height is ~12% of its radius, but Earth's atmosphere in RSS is ~2%. That's one reason Earth looks so huge in RSS (and real life), not just from the simple fact that it is much larger than Kerbin, but also that you are orbiting very close to the surface, relatively. You would need about a 5x scale for a 70 km orbit to have Kerbin look as large as Earth from a 130 km orbit. I didn't release a 5x scale version because it's getting pretty close to 6.4x scale, which I may release a MM patch for sometime soon to accomplish the same thing I have done here.

Also, another challenge is having to spend more time burning horizontally since you do not gain as much horizontal speed when getting out of the atmosphere since you do not have to go up as high. That is a big thing in RSS. Doing an efficient launch to get into a 80km orbit in 4x scale requires a lot of time burning towards the horizon, and it's easy to fall back to Kerbin before circularizing if your launch profile is off.

[stevehead]

Version 1.0.1 released

Fixed a small scaling issue for a couple of RT ground stations. Also, prepared the distribution for CKAN.

CKAN Support

Pull request accepted. Should be available on CKAN soon.

Future Ideas

The goal of this series of configs is to provide an experience very close to stock, but with some additional challenges taken from real life (e.g., axial tilt and a space center not on the equator). One thing I have noticed is how Jool's gravity well is much weaker than Jupiter's, based on scaling. I was thinking of scaling the mass of Jool up to achieve a comparable experience. It would make leaving Jool's SOI more difficult. I could also apply a similar change to the OPM gas giants. Any thoughts let me know!

Observations

Honestly, I was hoping this set of configs would be a little more well received. I thought it would be fun to put a little "spin" on the stock solar system, pun intended . It's a little discouraging to put a good bit of time into researching how to properly rotate the 3D space of the solar system, writing a python script that generates all 4 configs with a press of a button, and making sure I have compatibility with OPM and RT, only to end up (so far) with a 1 star rating on the forums. If there is a legitimate issue with what I have released, please report it here or on the GitHub issues page--it's the only way I can know, and AFAIK there is nothing wrong with the configs from what I have tested and played. If this is just not for you, please respectfully move along and not low-rate this thread just because this doesn't fit your play style. I know the distribution isn't optimal at the time of this posting, but once CKAN gets the configs listed, it'll be easy to install.

Edit: This thread is getting a little more love now. Thanks for the support! One bad apple can really make things look bad in the beginning.

Edited November 2, 2015 by stevehead

[Pak]

This is great. I was messing with a similar set-up using hyperedit, but this is much cleaner.

Definitely going to use this for my 1.0.5 career. Thanks

[Quorthon]

This looks very interesting and seems to provide the right amount of challenge for me without having do delve into RSS.

Perhaps you could post some screenshots of the new orbits in the OP?

I'm definitely looking forward to your 64K MM config.

[stevehead]

Yeah, I'll try to throw some pics on here. It's tricky to notice any visual differences since the orbits are all oriented the same relative to each other as in stock, its just everything is rotated by ~23.4° along one axis in Cartesian space. The visual differences would be the orbits relative to the galaxy plane in the stock skybox, and the fact that Kerbin (actually all the planets/moons now) has seasons: at UT time 0, it is the vernal equinox (aka first day of Spring for the northern hemisphere). Actually it might be easier to showcase everything through a Youtube video, which I'll try to get around to soon.

Edited November 2, 2015 by stevehead

[stevehead]

Images added of the stock size version.

[davidy12]

What is Kerbostationary orbit for 3x?

- - - Updated - - -

So to get geostationary orbit do I just multiply the value in stock game by 2, 3, or 4?

[stevehead]

I'll get back to you on that. I plan to put in the OP some info regarding deltaV and geosynchronous info. The rotation periods for Kerbin are 8, 10, and 12 hours for 2x, 3x, and 4x scales respectively, so if you have KER or MechJeb, that will help until I get the exact altitude for you.

- - - Updated - - -

Geostationary Orbit Altitudes

1x Scale    2868.741 km
2x Scale    5470.389 km
3x Scale    8342.662 km
4x Scale    11474.965 km

Also (shameless promotion time), my Simple Orbit Calculator plugin can help calculate such things as this. It directly pulls the data from the game, so by default it works with any solar system provided (stock, my configs, 64k, RSS, OPM, etc.)

Edited November 5, 2015 by stevehead

[tygoo7]

This mod looks sweet! Definitely going in my mod list for 1.1.

[stevehead]

In the develop build on GitHub, I have increased the masses of the gas giants, fixed the runway orientation at the KSC, and increased the inclinations of Eeloo (non-OPM), Dres, and Plock (OPM) to be more like their real life counterparts.

As a note, the mass increase does not affect the 1:2:4 resonance of Jool's inner moons.

If anyone wants to, feel free to download the dev version and play around with the scale of your choosing.

[Rybec]

Well this is interesting. Part of me really wants to install this. But the OCD part of me has an issue, which maybe you can find a way to address:

Is there any way you can roll the camera in map view to be level with the ecliptic? That would make this perfect.

[stevehead]

I don't know of any way that can achieve that. It's the same in Real Solar System. Unfortunately it's something I don't think is possible.

[stevehead]

Scaled the high space science altitudes. Also, scaled the low/high flying altitude border for gas giant. Latest Github develop commit has these changes. Will do a proper release once I verify all new features are stable.

[Lucius]

Have to say stevehead: Would be VERY interested in a 6.4x rescale or even just 6x rescale of this system.

Though potentially it would be nice to have an optional more "equatorial" launch site even if via kscswitcher if things move up to 6x scale.

Other than that, so far nothing to say but good things: The axial tilt is a great little feature to add some depth to the experience! And i enjoy the kerbal system for a bit of a "realism remove" over the realistic system

[stevehead]

Thanks, glad people are enjoying it!

I'm going to focus on releasing the next version soon that contains a fix for the KSC runway orientation, gas giant mass increase, high space altitude scaling for science, and maybe some inclination adjustments to Dres and Eeloo (Plock if using OPM) to more real life levels.

Next up will be a config for 64K that makes the same adjustments without affecting the original work of Paul Kingtiger, et al.

I am definitely going to be adding a KSCswitcher config soon; I'd like to have equivalents for Baikonur and Guiana, and maybe a few others (Kodiak or Plesetsk), though adding the original KSC would suffice for Guiana. My only concern is that people will just end up using the equatorial site for everything, which takes out a major difficulty factor that I have worked to add.

Edited November 9, 2015 by stevehead

[Lucius]

Yeah,

It's hard to have something a certain way, know how you want people to experience it, and then put it out there and not have them get the experience you want.

I'll say though, people downloading your mod, literally titled "harder solar system", who then try to find an easy way out of it, are not really your target audience are they?

It would be nice to have the option, and in the end it really is your call, but i mean if people want to cheat themselves out of the harder, i guess that's their call?

[stevehead]

Don't worry, I wasn't planning to not include it. I agree most people would probably stick with the higher latitude launch sites for most things.

[damerell]

Gosh, I was just thinking this would be a useful thing to have, and it exists already! Thanks.

[stevehead]

Was about to release the new version when I realized my Python script has not been allowing Eeloo to scale in Outer Planets Mod; Eeloo receives special treatment since OPM modifies it. Will resolve that issue before releasing the new version.

[Jim Meillente]

Thanks, glad people are enjoying it!

I'm going to focus on releasing the next version soon that contains a fix for the KSC runway orientation, gas giant mass increase, high space altitude scaling for science, and maybe some inclination adjustments to Dres and Eeloo (Plock if using OPM) to more real life levels.

Next up will be a config for 64K that makes the same adjustments without affecting the original work of Paul Kingtiger, et al.

I am definitely going to be adding a KSCswitcher config soon; I'd like to have equivalents for Baikonur and Guiana, and maybe a few others (Kodiak or Plesetsk), though adding the original KSC would suffice for Guiana. My only concern is that people will just end up using the equatorial site for everything, which takes out a major difficulty factor that I have worked to add.

I'd like to thank you for this wonderful mod and look forward to the next release that includes a 64k config!