[1.11.x] Snarkiverse v1.2: Rearrange the solar system for challenge & variety.

[Tivec]

I decided to give this mod a run, and it looks like a lot of fun. However, I'm a little concerned about the orbit of the Mun. Will I still be able to put up stationary satellites without them being pulled by the Mun sphere of influence? What would be the safe altitudes for constellations? I'd math it out, but my math skills are not quite good enough

[Snark]

4 hours ago, Tivec said:

I decided to give this mod a run, and it looks like a lot of fun. However, I'm a little concerned about the orbit of the Mun. Will I still be able to put up stationary satellites without them being pulled by the Mun sphere of influence? What would be the safe altitudes for constellations? I'd math it out, but my math skills are not quite good enough

Geosynchronous and geostationary orbits are absolutely possible, since the Mun orbits Kerbin exactly once every two Kerbin days.  It's just that there are certain Kerbin longitudes where you can't park a synchronous satellite because the Mun will hit it as it sweeps past periapsis.  I've never bothered to work out exactly what range of longitude is the "forbidden zone", but you can see it pretty clearly if you just watch the Mun as it passes through periapsis.  As long as your satellite isn't too close to that, you should be fine.  In particular, the Mun sweeps across KSC's eastern sky at periapsis, so if you park a satellite in KSC's western sky, I expect you'll be okay.

As for other "safe" altitudes for satellites:  it's pretty simple arithmetic to work out the range of altitudes.  Take the Mun's periapsis altitude, subtract its SoI radius, and anything under that will be safe.  Similarly, if you add the Mun's SoI radius to its periapsis altitde, anything above that will be safe.

You can also pretty easily make a safe orbit that spans the Mun's periapsis altitude, if you make it eccentric.  Set it up so that your satellite is orbiting in a plane roughly perpendicular to the Mun's, and with the Pe and Ap located such that the satellite's orbit and the Mun's are like two oval links in a chain (i.e. the satellite's Ap is above the mun's Pe, and vice versa.

 

[Tivec]

46 minutes ago, Snark said:

Geosynchronous and geostationary orbits are absolutely possible, since the Mun orbits Kerbin exactly once every two Kerbin days.  It's just that there are certain Kerbin longitudes where you can't park a synchronous satellite because the Mun will hit it as it sweeps past periapsis.  I've never bothered to work out exactly what range of longitude is the "forbidden zone", but you can see it pretty clearly if you just watch the Mun as it passes through periapsis.  As long as your satellite isn't too close to that, you should be fine.  In particular, the Mun sweeps across KSC's eastern sky at periapsis, so if you park a satellite in KSC's western sky, I expect you'll be okay.

As for other "safe" altitudes for satellites:  it's pretty simple arithmetic to work out the range of altitudes.  Take the Mun's periapsis altitude, subtract its SoI radius, and anything under that will be safe.  Similarly, if you add the Mun's SoI radius to its periapsis altitde, anything above that will be safe.

You can also pretty easily make a safe orbit that spans the Mun's periapsis altitude, if you make it eccentric.  Set it up so that your satellite is orbiting in a plane roughly perpendicular to the Mun's, and with the Pe and Ap located such that the satellite's orbit and the Mun's are like two oval links in a chain (i.e. the satellite's Ap is above the mun's Pe, and vice versa.

 

Thank you for the tips. I don’t have the game up and running but i suspect I have to figure out the altitude of the Mun as it passes through the equatorial plane of Kerbin. It should be doable. :) 

[Jognt]

1 hour ago, Tivec said:

Thank you for the tips. I don’t have the game up and running but i suspect I have to figure out the altitude of the Mun as it passes through the equatorial plane of Kerbin. It should be doable.

Place your sats when the Mun is there  if they’re safe then, they’re safe always. (In keosync anyway)

[The Minmus Derp]

This is awesome! I like that there is compatibility to KO now, however I find it weird that Keelon is at kerbin l3 point, as that is a very unstable place to put planets. They invariably get perturbed off that Lagrange point and then... things happen. *boom* 

[Jognt]

11 hours ago, The Minmus Derp said:

This is awesome! I like that there is compatibility to KO now, however I find it weird that Keelon is at kerbin l3 point, as that is a very unstable place to put planets. They invariably get perturbed off that Lagrange point and then... things happen. *boom* 

If you’re going to dissect KSP planets, there’s a lot more to see than just Lagrange points. 

Just assume its an alternate physics reality where our rules need not apply and enjoy the view.  

[Snark]

On 11/26/2019 at 7:53 PM, The Minmus Derp said:

This is awesome! I like that there is compatibility to KO now, however I find it weird that Keelon is at kerbin l3 point, as that is a very unstable place to put planets. They invariably get perturbed off that Lagrange point and then... things happen. *boom* 

Well, sure, but if you're gonna go there, let's talk about how you could never get Dres in that stable position relative to Kerbin, or how it would be essentially impossible for the Mun to be in an orbit like that (and never mind the fact that it's probably past the Roche limit, and what its tides would likely do to Kerbin even if it's not).  Or the impossibility of getting a planet spinning as fast as I've got Keelon doing, without disrupting its structural integrity.  And so on, and so forth.

And never mind the utterly implausible densities of KSP planets in the first place.

This mod isn't even slightly about "realism", and never has been.    It's about deliberately arranging things in a novel way to present some interesting navigational challenges and add variety to the game.

[tonybalony]

The odds of this system not becoming completlly unstable with realistic gravitation (Principia) are basically 0 right? It looks really cool though!

[Jognt]

53 minutes ago, tonybalony said:

The odds of this system not becoming completlly unstable with realistic gravitation (Principia) are basically 0 right? It looks really cool though!

Well it might be fun to see what it would stabilize into..  

[The Minmus Derp]

4 hours ago, Snark said:

Well, sure, but if you're gonna go there, let's talk about how you could never get Dres in that stable position relative to Kerbin, or how it would be essentially impossible for the Mun to be in an orbit like that (and never mind the fact that it's probably past the Roche limit, and what its tides would likely do to Kerbin even if it's not).  Or the impossibility of getting a planet spinning as fast as I've got Keelon doing, without disrupting its structural integrity.  And so on, and so forth.

And never mind the utterly implausible densities of KSP planets in the first place.

This mod isn't even slightly about "realism", and never has been.    It's about deliberately arranging things in a novel way to present some interesting navigational challenges and add variety to the game.

Ignoring the densities, The Mun is fine. I tested it in US2. An asteroid in our solar system spins once every ten minutes, which is probably faster than keelon. That could happen with a large impact or something, which isn't impossible. Also, Earth has 5 'quasi-satellites', like Dres and Kerbin. It is probably possible to just have one that's bigger. 

[Quoniam Kerman]

Sorry, mishap

Edited February 14, 2020 by Quoniam Kerman

[The Minmus Derp]

1.9 isnt out yet

but it might

[DStaal]

3 minutes ago, The Minmus Derp said:

1.9 isnt out yet

but it might

(Though this mod is more concerned about *Kopernicus* than KSP itself.)

[The Minmus Derp]

Oh! Oh boy! 

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Looking forward to using this in 1.9... I miss huge Mun

[Snark]

On 6/24/2020 at 2:04 AM, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Looking forward to using this in 1.9... I miss huge Mun

There's no reason why this mod itself shouldn't work on any future KSP versions.  The issue is with the Kopernicus dependency, especially since the folks who've been maintaining Kopernicus all these years decided to hang it up after the version for KSP 1.8.1.  It's done.

That said, there's nothing legally stopping anyone else from maintaining Kopernicus forks going forward, given that it has a fairly permissive license, and indeed some folks have done so.  It's just that now you'll need to decide for yourself how much risk you're willing to take on, based on how much time & effort the maintainers of the newer forks may be able to put into it.

[Clamp-o-Tron]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

There's no reason why this mod itself shouldn't work on any future KSP versions.  The issue is with the Kopernicus dependency, especially since the folks who've been maintaining Kopernicus all these years decided to hang it up after the version for KSP 1.8.1.  It's done.

That said, there's nothing legally stopping anyone else from maintaining Kopernicus forks going forward, given that it has a fairly permissive license, and indeed some folks have done so.  It's just that now you'll need to decide for yourself how much risk you're willing to take on, based on how much time & effort the maintainers of the newer forks may be able to put into it.

Umm... Kopernicus has been forked for 1.9 and is fairly stable.

[Snark]

52 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Umm... Kopernicus has been forked for 1.9 and is fairly stable.

Sure.  To the degree that you trust it, by all means go and play with that.

[MacGregor]

Just wanted to say I have really been enjoying this mod. Great work! My only question is how do I get to Dres? MecJeb and Astrogator won't create a maneuver node. 

Edited May 24, 2021 by MacGregor

[Snark]

7 hours ago, MacGregor said:

Just wanted to say I have really been enjoying this mod. Great work! My only question is how do I get to Dres? MecJeb and Astrogator won't create a maneuver node. 

Thank you! 

I dunno about MechJeb and Astrogator, as I've never used either of those myself.  But here's how I do it with the ol' Mark 1 eyeball:

Just aim right at it

Relative to Kerbin (i.e. from Kerbin's point of view), Dres takes exactly one Kerbin year to "orbit" Kerbin-- basically, it acts like it's orbiting really, really slowly.  But it's so close to Kerbin that it only takes 10-20 Kerbin days to make the trip one-way (depending on how fast you make the trip).  In other words:  the travel time from Kerbin to Dres is so much shorter than a year that Dres basically acts like it's stationary.

So... unlike basically every other transfer operation in KSP, where you need to aim where the target will be... for Dres, you can just aim for where it is right now.  (Because that's basically where it will be, since it's barely moving.)

So it just goes something like this:

1. Get to equatorial LKO
2. Drop a maneuver node and give it enough dV to escape reasonably fast (depends on how quickly you want to make the transfer)
3. With the map still centered on Kerbin, rotate the view until you can see Dres
4. Slide the maneuver node around until your exit path from Kerbin's SOI is pointed directly at where Dres is now
5. That may or may not get you a Dres encounter right there.  Dres has a slight orbital inclination, so it may be a little above or below the plane of Kerbin's orbit around the sun.  So, after you've dropped your main node, you may need to drop a second node on the exit path (say, halfway to the edge of Kerbin's SoI) and give it a bit of or to get proper aim at Dres.

Coming back home from Dres is basically the same thing in reverse, except easier because Kerbin's SoI is a bigger target.

[MacGregor]

Got it! Very cool. 

[OHara]

On 11/28/2019 at 6:55 PM, tonybalony said:

The odds of this system not becoming completely unstable with realistic gravitation (Principia) are basically 0 right?

That raises several interesting questions, so I started a thread in Mission Reports to gradually investigate:

[Snark]

15 hours ago, OHara said:

That raises several interesting questions, so I started a thread in Mission Reports to gradually investigate:

Okay, that is seriously cool.  My guess is that it'll go kablooie, but I look forward to your findings with great anticipation. 

[RevanX_LSR]

I'll take anything that's fun, rearranges the solar system and adds some more.  As long as Ike is Smaller.  This is what I want.

[bigyihsuan]

Having lots of fun with this system! Dealing with the Mun's ridiculously inclined orbit and close proximity really makes it hard to get relay sats there at a desired inclination for a reasonable dV cost. So far I've just been shoving my relay sats on overbuilt rockets and launching from Woomerang to lessen the inclination changes.

I'm looking forward to going to Dres for my Sarnus/Apollo mission! Based on a different post (below) it seems that it takes ~2000m/s dV with stock scale. Since I'm playing 2.5x scale, that should be about 3200m/s dV. Seems fun.

Spoiler

 

ed: putting this for my own reference here as well 

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by bigyihsuan