[Very WIP] [1.11-1.12] Edge of Eternity Planet Pack (0.23.0)

[WarriorSabe]

Edge of Eternity
The stars have come and gone, but eternity has only just begun

 

Trillions of years ago, the ICS Mercury departed to set up the first extrasolar colony. As it was en route, it encountered a temporal wormhole, into which it was pulled, hurling it both into the far future and untold distances away. In order to avoid the unstable wormhole's imminent collapse, the crew had no choice but to press forward on a journey far longer than the Mercury was ever meant to travel. Over the decades, more and more of the ship had to be cannibalized until they finally reached their destination: a binary system consisting of a red dwarf and a blue dwarf, hosting several planets including one that could possibly sustain them. Unfortunately, due to the ship's state of disrepair, the landing was hard and much was lost, sending them back to the pre-industrial age. While Haven was habitable, it was only barely so: UV radiation was abundant, it had no native life, the oxygen content was only 60% of Kerbin normal despite the denser atmosphere, and the temperature was low enough that major settlements were restricted to near the equator. Despite this, over time, they managed to regain their technology, and are now ready to look upwards to the unending abyss once again.

 

Edge of Eternity is a WIP planet pack set near the end of the stelliferous era of the universe. Most stars are dead, and those that remain are low-mass red dwarfs (and the blue dwarfs they evolve into); Terminus is one of these blue dwarfs. The system favors flyby missions and probes due to the positioning of Haven in the system, and science is balanced against very roughly 30% of stock for most worlds beyond Haven (with a boost around Eterna and particularly Apep to respect the minimum tech requirements of getting science from there) due to the larger number of similar difficulty targets available at once. Gravity assists also are quite effective in the Terminus system.

IMPORTANT: At its current state of development it is highly WIP, with many worlds having only placeholder noise-based textures and no custom biomes, and there are doubtless a good few more bugs than you'd see in a completed planet pack. Everything, particularly balance-related things, is subject to change

 

Beta download for those still interested: On Github
Required mods:

• Kopernicus
• Kopernicus Expansion
• VertexMitchellNetravaliHeightMap PQS Mod
• VertexHeightOblateAdvanced PQS Mod

Recommended Mods:

• Either Sigma Replacements - Skybox or Texture Replacer for the starless void of the end-times (really rather immersion-breaking without it)
• Kronometer, for synching the clocks to Haven's day and year
• Custom Barn Kit to rebalance the DSN (including adding a fourth level) for a better antenna range progression (note: due to a few strange bugs, disabling the rebalance through the settings.cfg won't disable the CBK configs)
• Transfer Window Planner, as some transfer windows can be fairly unusual
• Custom Asteroids for improved handling of asteroid spawning

Supported Mods:

• Community Resource Pack (all resources)
• SpaceDust
• Kerbalism
• Scatterer
• EVE (note: volumetrics configs are in development but not ready for release)
• Principia (stability tested to 500 years in current version, started having memory problems and couldn't continue test. Tested to 7000 years in an older version.)
• PlanetShine (sorta, configs have not been updated in a long time and so don't work on many bodies)

Note: Sigma Dimensions is not required for the rescale, 2.56x and 10x are handled fully internally, just activate them in the settings.cfg and you're set.

Credit for the artwork in the loading screen image featuring Zephyr goes to @Exo's Lab

Diagrams and dV maps:

Spoiler

A diagram of the system:

 

A Delta-V map:

Reads just like any other dV map (TWP is still recommended, however)

And a second dV map designed to be more helpful for operations fully within the Eterna system:

Despite appearances, this can still be read basically like a normal dV map - just pick any point within the network as your desired starting point, and follow the path you plan on taking to your destination(s). It doesn't have every set of transfers, but it has a lot of the important ones.

Future plans:
near term (likely next update or two) - finish Portent's terrain revamp, port comets to Custom Asteroid support, update PlanetShine configs
long term (at some point before release) - science definitions, proper maps and biomes for all remaining planets, higher quality maps for all planets, kspedia, terrain scatters, more thorough balance testing, whatever other miscellany I discover I'll need to add

Edited May 8 by WarriorSabe
0.23 update

[Misguided Kerbal]

Awesome! Better than anything I could do.

[Cyne]

Sounds awesome, definitely following this mod

[Relonsk]

EPic.

[WarriorSabe]

The beta is now on version 0.14.2

Highlights of the update:

• Added a setting for 2.56x rescale (using Sigma Dimensions) that does the necessary adjustments for the rescale
• Added a setting to optionally change the homeworld to Prometheus (not canon, and is definitely going to be considered a secondary option)
• Added a moon to Achlys
• Started work on all new terrain for Prometheus; currently has general continent and ice layout, and some major islands and mountains near the alternate KSC if the homeswitch option is enabled
• Added custom loading text
• Added support for MPE, rearranging the orbits of MPE's minor planets to fit in the system (no, I do not plan on doing the same for OPM; whole gas giants can't be made to fit in the way dwarf planets and asteroids can)
• Various other tweaks and fixes

[Nebulagoodies]

this mod is both promising and amazing. but will there be a larger moon to haven, or no? (don't take this to mean you have to add it)

[WarriorSabe]

On 10/1/2020 at 3:43 PM, Nebulagoodies said:

this mod is both promising and amazing. but will there be a larger moon to haven, or no? (don't take this to mean you have to add it)

No, it's planned to remain two small moons. Cerberus being easier to get to than Duna and having several moons should compensate though.

[WarriorSabe]

0.15 is well on its way. It will bring an update to 1.10, and implement OnDemand Loading (which should help performance). Also, custom sunflares. Not much else flashy, but 1.10 will bring at least bring comets, and probably its own performance improvements. There's also a few other small things, like loading screens, and an even faster spinning and more oblate Typhos.

It should be ready in a few days, barring any significant issues cropping up.

Edited October 21, 2020 by WarriorSabe

[WarriorSabe]

Alright, 0.15 is out now.  In addition to the previously mentioned stuff, I also reworked the asteroid spawning to hopefully generate them in each group more reliably. I had intended to also add multiple possible asteroid compositions, but for some reason doing that breaks comets, so until that gets fixed (I'm have a feeling it's on the Kopernicus end) they'll just be normal asteroids still.

Also, EVE no longer works, but hopefully it won't be too long before I can fix that

Edited October 23, 2020 by WarriorSabe

[Maple Kerman]

Woah. This seems really cool. Nice work.
I might get to this after playing around with Beyond Home and JNSQ.
This wouldn't be compatible with any of those, would it?

By the way, where's the license? I can't see it anywhere.

[WarriorSabe]

5 hours ago, Maple Kerman said:

This wouldn't be compatible with any of those, would it?

No, it's a system replacer just like they are

 

5 hours ago, Maple Kerman said:

By the way, where's the license? I can't see it anywhere.

I haven't really figured out how licenses work yet; at its current state it doesn't have a huge number of original assets I'm really worried about people stealing. I will have to work that out fairly soon though, as I move back towards asset work with much of the main config stuff done now.

[Stone Blue]

@WarriorSabe Thanx for the update
Question tho... are there *supposed* to be *two* identically named Gamedata folders in the repo?

[Maple Kerman]

19 hours ago, WarriorSabe said:

I haven't really figured out how licenses work yet; at its current state it doesn't have a huge number of original assets I'm really worried about people stealing.

To give your mod a license, all you have to do is put the name of the license in the mod description and forum post and put a LICENSE.txt file with the license text in your mod folder.

Having a license is important, so I suggest you read through this forum post and get a better understanding of what license you think you'll want.

At this stage, the GPLv3 or MIT licenses should fill your needs, although you might want to change it to something like CC-BY-NC-ND later on once you've done a lot of work on original assets.

[WarriorSabe]

10 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

Question tho... are there *supposed* to be *two* identically named Gamedata folders in the repo?

No, that's some github bug I haven't figured out the cause of. It's only present in the repo though; the download itself should be fine

 

5 hours ago, Maple Kerman said:

      ... I suggest you read through this forum post and get a better understanding of what license you think you'll want.

At this stage, the GPLv3 or MIT licenses should fill your needs, although you might want to change it to something like CC-BY-NC-ND later on once you've done a lot of work on original assets.

Alright, that's mainly what I wasn't sure about - the actual legal stuff of what license is what

[Maple Kerman]

@WarriorSabeYeah, I hope that cleared things up.

[WarriorSabe]

1 minute ago, Maple Kerman said:

@WarriorSabeYeah, I hope that cleared things up.

Yeah, I just need to figure out what actually goes inside one since the post you linked still doesn't explain that part (I know literally nothing about licensing)

[Maple Kerman]

13 hours ago, WarriorSabe said:

Yeah, I just need to figure out what actually goes inside one since the post you linked still doesn't explain that part (I know literally nothing about licensing)

So, inside the base folder of your mod, make a "LICENSE.txt" or "LICENSE.md" file. Find the license text of a license of your choice. As an example, here are the license texts for the MIT license and the GPLv3 license. Paste the entire text into the LICENSE file, and save it. (make sure to insert the year and your username at the beginning of the MIT license).

Your mod now has a license.

(Make sure to put the name of the license in your forum post somewhere, and where applicable on websites like Spacedock if you ever use them.)

Edited October 25, 2020 by Maple Kerman

[WarriorSabe]

0.16 should come soon with completely redone visuals (that actually work) - it's mostly waiting on Scatterer to update (it uses a couple features from the upcoming version). Visuals also now properly get rescaled when using the builtin 2.56x rescale, so Scatterer atmos don't suddenly reach significantly closer to low orbit. 

This time I've got some actually decent screenshots as well

Spoiler

Warden's acid lakes:

 

Sunset on Cerberus:

 

Cerberus from low orbit (rescale visuals, though it doesn't look much different in rescale):

 

Haven (also with rescale visuals, a bit more noticeable here):

 

[WarriorSabe]

0.16 is out. It includes: 

• Esker and Apep now  slightly oblate (not super noticeable but present)
• EVE and Scatterer redone almost from scratch, also includes:
  • Glowing lava (only from space at the moment)
  • Automatically adjusted visuals when rescale is used

And some fixes:

• Warden oceans, Cerberus atmo fixed
• Terminus and Haven now have their names show up properly in a few more places
• Cerberus's rings should now show through Warden's atmosphere properly
• Terrain material fixes
• Lava heating fix
• Ember/Shard kraken fix

 

Note: 1.11 functionality not yet confirmed

[WarriorSabe]

Noticed a couple stock atmosphere effects weren't rendering like they should, 0.16.1 is out to fix that for anyone not using Scatterer.  I also added an option to disable Scatterer flares in favor of the Unity ones, which don't interact with atmospheres but do scale correctly with distance.

Side-by-side comparison using Achlys (both pictures taken at the same ingame time and date):

Spoiler

Using Scatterer sunflares:



Using Unity sunflares:

 

[WarriorSabe]

Looks like some biome names got messed up earlier, 0.16.2 fixes those

[WarriorSabe]

Added a second rescale option: you can now play at stock scale, 2.56x scale, or real scale

[Souptime]

On 8/11/2020 at 6:57 AM, WarriorSabe said:

Edge of Eternity
The stars have come and gone, but eternity has only just begun

w o a h

[TheWanderer05]

Hello, I've been playing with this mod for a few weeks and while it has been very enjoyable, there is one issue that I've found. Being near the moon "Kere" causes some frame rate drops and it doesn't seem to render in below a certain altitude (around 15-10 km). It only renders its scaledspace version until that altitude is reached and just disappears, as seen below. Looking at the navball, the terrain should be right under me, but it isn't. Hopefully this helps, and I can't wait to see how this mod progresses from here.

[wpetula]

Whoa, this mod looks amazing! These planets and moons are very unique and detailed, and clearly a lot of time and effort was put into them. Warden's surface is the coolest in my opinion. Keep up the great work!