What visual mods do you all use?

[322997am]

Title. I wanted to spice things up a little bit on my KSP install to make it look better. What mods are good? which ones do you use?

[Geonovast]

(Calm Nebula skybox)

 

[panzer1b]

Well as for ESSENTIAL mods, EVE using my own cloud/particle textures in my mod.

Thing is, while SVE looks good in screenies, im really not a fan of many of its cloud textures (they look pixelated and really bad at certain angles and distances, great from orbit, not so great when looking up from a tank on the surface) and it has major lag problems since its designed purely to look good and not so much in regards to performance.  That and i just have an aversion to the amount of washed out white present in that mod on planets like eve and jool, not that its bad (actually more realistic looking), but it just doesnt have that sci-fi feeling of highly saturated colors in my mod which was actually inspired by better atmospheres to an extent, a mod from 0.25 times...

Another mod i use is scatterer, which i mostly keep turned on unless im working with truly absurd ships where the part count is so bad lag gets unbearable.

This mod makes the atmospheric planets look amazing, and it comes with a very good atmosphere shader (sky effects), ocean shader (stock oceans look like garbage, and if you actually spend any time near the ocean turning it on is well worth the performance hit), and a few other fluffy features like terrain shadows, godrays, sunflares, ect.  Of the fluffy features, the only one i use is the sunflare and well i actually use a different sunflare texture i found as the stock one looks pathetic and ruins the games sci-fi atmosphere (its realistic, but not pretty).

https://www.spacedock.info/mod/998/Eden Sunflare

I only use the sunFlare.png texture out of that mod and replace the default scatterer one.  Alternatively, if you arent a big fan of that orangeish glow or dont like the way my setup looks, there are many sunflare packs out there that should fit everything from sci-fi to realistic.  Also, that screenie is kerbin with my mod setup as i normally play KSP, SciFiVE, scatterer, and that partial sunflare replacement.

Finally, i use texture replacer to both make the kerbals look a bit better (plenty of suit packs out there for everything from sci-fi to nasa replicas), and to replace the absolute garbage looking skybox with something a little bit better.  Like above, i use Poods calm nebula skybox, although ive modified my installation by seriously dropping the brightness levels and upping the contrast since i dont like very bright skyboxes as they ruin immersion for me and actually end up being brighter then my ships at night (i turn the brightness sliders way down to like -60 or so so at night you wont see squat without lights.

Aside from that, you can use planetshine, distant object enchancement, and one of many terrain packs made via kopernicus (SVT is the best example) if you want extra fluff that looks good, but isnt as noticeable or essential as clouds and atmo effects and dust particles provided by EVE+scatterer combo.  I dont use them myself as ive found that their effects are too minor to warrant any performance hit, but they really are nice (especially planetshine which illuminates your ship with glow from the planet you are orbiting, while distant object renders ships floating above you in orbit with glowy effects).

Also, another mod i really like is KS3P, but its not currently updated (and needs to be modified heavily as the stock configuration makes it very tough to see anything in darkness even when its illuminated.  Adds various post processing fx like bloom and depth of field, but i dont have it at the moment, and well it requires alot of fiddling with values and config files to get anything playable out of it.  Very easy on the CPU/GPU, so it wont really be noticed unless you go crazy with part counts and try to launch 1500 part vessels.  Worth considering once updated.

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by panzer1b

[0something0]

I have a potato so I'm limited to minior visual mods.

KS3P: It adds post-processing effects to make the game look better. I really like the glow effects as it makes the ships feel more metallic.

Engine Lightning: Make engine exhasts emit light 

Distant Object Enhancements: Makes the sky look more realistic by hiding the skybox when in sunlight(ever wonder why the Apollo surface pictured don't have stars in the sky?)

TextureReplacer: It allows parts and astonaut textures to be changed. I use it to get the reflective EVA visors though 

 

[Curveball Anders]

None what so ever, since I focus on gameplay and don't bother about the visuals. I actually tweak the built in visuals down.

[invision]

screenshots using EVE + Sci-Fi posted above...........................

 

[Kerbital]

Also this:

 

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of add-ons has been moved to Add-on Discussions. 

[Airdude]

I just use Distant Object Enhancement, I’m loving it so far.

[Supercheese]

I'm currently using Spectra:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/159443-13x14x-spectra-v117-visual-compilation-1st-april-18

[A Soviet Tank]

I love distant object enhancements. It's really cool to see a tiny dot in the distance and then realise that it's an old satellite from ages ago, or an old booster from an ancient rocket. 

[Dedpewlio]

I usually use things like Kopernicus, SVE, SVT, EVE, scatter, and Texture Replacer.