Looking for a planet pack(s?) recommendation.

[etmoonshade]

I've got KSPI-E, although it does have the problem that the Alcubierre Drive is at the VERY top of the tech tree... it's essentially the endgame, and I'm not seeing it for a loooooooooong time at 10% science. ;p

 

 

[hemeac]

The solution that I am currently running with using similar criteria is Stock + OPM + MPE (Minor Planet Expansion) + Grannus Expansion.  The only thing I had to do to get them to play nicely was change the light intensity as GEP makes it a bit dark for some of the dwarf planets in MPE which are between the OPM planets and Grannus.  Happy to provide that config if you're interested or I have posted a link in the MPE thread.  I had some slowdown issues when further adding GPP secondary on top of those earlier, but I have a heavily modded game and did zero checks to confirm what the issue was in 1.9.1.  Should add that my last couple of playthroughs was in GPP so wasn't a huge priority.

Edited August 7, 2020 by hemeac
Additional comment.

[etmoonshade]

I guess I should explicitly list what I went and got:

Outer Planets Mod

Grannus Expansion Pack (has a couple of extra bits it installs, which can be removed)

Galileo's Planet Pack (CKAN install does NOT fit the OP's restrictions, but it can be stripped down, also added GPP-Secondary)

Galaxies Unlimited: Nova Kirbani (installs some parts, which I can happily ignore if necessary)

Extrasolar Planet Pack

 

I'm keeping the Low Light Levels/Blinding Light Levels packs in the back pocket (so to speak) both because I've got plenty of places to explore already, and because it was mentioned earlier that they had problems with 1.10.1. I'll probably revisit them later.

ExtraSolar seems to be the only one out of the bunch (that I installed, at least) that truly fits the restrictions I set out in the OP - nothing extra in the base install, just a star and planets.

It's not that I can't remove extra components, it's just that currently, it isn't easily maintainable with CKAN - any time I update my installed mods, all the stuff is likely to get reinstalled when I do so. Manual installation is slightly better, but that's only because I'm having to touch everything anyway.

[OhioBob]

2 hours ago, etmoonshade said:

Grannus Expansion Pack (has a couple of extra bits it installs, which can be removed)

Just remember that if you remove those extra bits, then you're not experiencing the planet packs as intended.  For instance, the only stock body that TweakChutes affects is Duna, and you'll only notice the effects when landing at the higher elevations, about 50% of the planet's surface.  While that's certainly not insignificant, there are celestial bodies in GEP and GPP that are designed to provide a specific game playing experience that is destroyed by removing TweakChutes.  So your dogged determination to make certain that nothing in stock is changed allows you to, in my opinion, cheat when it comes to GEP and GPP.

Besides TweakChutes, what other bits are you talking about?

Edited August 7, 2020 by OhioBob

[etmoonshade]

59 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

Just remember that if you remove those extra bits, then you're not experiencing the planet packs as intended.  For instance, the only stock body that TweakChutes affects is Duna, and you'll only notice the effects when landing at the higher elevations, about 50% of the planet's surface.  While that's certainly not insignificant, there are celestial bodies in GEP and GPP that are designed to provide a specific game playing experience that is destroyed by removing TweakChutes.  So your dogged determination to make certain that nothing in stock is changed allows you to, in my opinion, cheat when it comes to GEP and GPP.

Besides TweakChutes, what other bits are you talking about?

By the simple act of modding, I'm changing how I experience the planet packs anyway. If I were bothered about experiencing things exactly as the author intended, I'd be playing stock and a single mod. And I'd be bored out of my skull.

And the other bit is HeatShifter. Which has zero documentation that I can find, other than a comment in readme.md that says it's now bundled. I'm not even sure what it does, but I play with reentry heat turned off so I suspect it does nothing useful for me in the first place.

If enjoying my game my way is cheating, well - call me a proud cheater, zero shame.

[OhioBob]

1 hour ago, etmoonshade said:

And the other bit is HeatShifter. Which has zero documentation that I can find, other than a comment in readme.md that says it's now bundled. I'm not even sure what it does, but I play with reentry heat turned off so I suspect it does nothing useful for me in the first place.

There's no reason for you to uninstall HeatShifter.  It serves one purpose, and that is to correctly model tidally locked atmospheric planets.  By default KSP builds in a 45-degree offset in a planet's day-night temperatures so that the hottest time of day occurs in mid-afternoon.  That's fine for a rapidly rotating body but not a tidally locked body.  HeatShifter allows that 45-degree offset to be removed so the hottest location on a planet is the sub-solar point.  There is only one planet in GEP (Toutatis) that is affected by HeatShifter.  Other than that, HeatShifter has no affect whatsoever on any aspect of game play.