kerbal ftl [Min KSP 1.12.2] Blueshift: Kerbal FTL

[Ooglak Kerman]

MM-cache wipe is not a thing I've done.  Now that I think about it though, that is likely where the "phantom" patches were.

I'd sure like to salvage this save.  I have so much work into it and my story line.  It's known that GU 1.4 has some bugs to it though.  Perhaps the GU team will find a little "whoopsie" that needs the fixin.

[Rakete]

Just now, Ooglak Kerman said:

MM-cache wipe is not a thing I've done.  Now that I think about it though, that is likely where the "phantom" patches were.

I'd sure like to salvage this save.  I have so much work into it and my story line.  It's known that GU 1.4 has some bugs to it though.  Perhaps the GU team will find a little "whoopsie" that needs the fixin.

I always clean out those four Module Manager files, when i change something about my mods. I let them be created freshly, after doing stuff in the gamedata directory. It only takes 3...5 seconds to recreate them. Currently i am roundabout at 5900 patches, that are executed by MM in my install.

[Ooglak Kerman]

The WildBlue mods make up the bulk of my patches, with GU coming in next.  For me, it's OPM, WildBlue, and GU and then a collection of dependency and QOL mods (Mechjeb, Scatterer, Kopernicus, etc)

I love how this game stands alone in it's directory.  Makes backups a snap.  And the testing of new stuff.  Sure hope KSP2 continues with that methodology.

[Rakete]

21 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

The WildBlue mods make up the bulk of my patches, with GU coming in next.  For me, it's OPM, WildBlue, and GU and then a collection of dependency and QOL mods (Mechjeb, Scatterer, Kopernicus, etc)

I love how this game stands alone in it's directory.  Makes backups a snap.  And the testing of new stuff.  Sure hope KSP2 continues with that methodology.

You surely don't want to see my modlist. Visual stuff (Scatterer, Spectra, Eve, Waterfall), OPM, KER, some of Angel's mods, most of Nertea's mods , trajectories, Kerbal Konstructs (and stuff for this mod), many partmods like Planetside, SSPXr, KARE, SpikeX, BDA+, and more stuff... My install is full of many new-gameplay-loops-creating stuff. In fact more than the half of the allocated ksp-disk-space is ... mods....

Edited January 11, 2023 by Rakete

[Ooglak Kerman]

9 minutes ago, Rakete said:

You surely don't want to see my modlist. Visual stuff (Scatterer, Spectra, Eve, Waterfall), OPM, KER, some of Angel's mods, most of Nertea's mods , trajectories, Kerbal Konstructs (and stuff for this mod), many partmods like Planetside, SSPXr, KARE, SpikeX, BDA+, and more stuff... My install is full of many new-gameplay-loops-creating stuff. In fact more than the half of the allocated ksp-disk-space is ... mods....

Another great thing about this game.  There is something (or maybe all the things) for everyone.  Lookin to make your brain hurt?  There are mods to accomplish it (lookin' at you Principia and KSPIE).  I'm continually amazed by the quality and depth of the mods out there.  Folks doing this work because they like KSP.

[Ooglak Kerman]

Well interesting.  I went back and dropped that save into my GU1.4 test game and disabled the Blueshift anomalies and then re-enabled them right away and that cleared up the massive Exceptions I was seeing for PQSLandControl.

Now, it's even worse errors for NullReferenceException on scatterer.SunFlare.Update.  I'd say that probably falls firmly in the lap of GU though.

[linuxgurugamer]

3 hours ago, Rakete said:

@linuxgurugamer: is there some clean-up the user should do, after installing/uninstalling mods, except the typical MM-cache-wipe and maybe clean-up of the logs folder? Is there more to clean-up from time to time in KSP? I guess, you are the expert on these kind of question.

CKAN does cleanup when you delete mods, doing things by hand can lead to leaving things behind.

My guess is that either you don't have the exact same mods installed, or something was left over in your old save which isn't in the new one

If you want to use GU 1.4, why not just copy the old game into a new directory, and then update GU there?

[Ooglak Kerman]

3 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

CKAN does cleanup when you delete mods, doing things by hand can lead to leaving things behind.

My guess is that either you don't have the exact same mods installed, or something was left over in your old save which isn't in the new one

If you want to use GU 1.4, why not just copy the old game into a new directory, and then update GU there?

Copying the old game and then updating GU to 1.4 was the thing I first tried and those errors I mentioned started popping up.   10 -15 minutes would yield 300,000+ of those exceptions.  The game plays, but I'm concerned about the log and what is going on.

My next thing was a whole fresh game and all of the mods I've been using all fresh and up to date and then copy in the save.  I did it iteratively also.  Fresh install.  Copy over and install visual mods and OPM.  Copy over and then install GU1.3 and then again with GU1.4.  Lastly copy and install the WildBlue mods.  Happily my rig is very performant.  It's been so many restarts.

Edit//  I found where all those MM patches were.  999_KSP-Recall.  It adds a really large quantity of patches.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Ooglak Kerman

[Ooglak Kerman]

Ok.  Looks like I've sorted it out.  I've gone through the process a couple of times now for upgrading from OPM and GU1.3 to GU1.4 with Blueshift.  The process is precise and follows what StarCrusher96 says is the way.   I'm not sure some parts of this process are necessary but they work and I'm not testing every use case.

If you are using Blueshift with GU1.3 and wish to upgrade to GU1.4, let me know and I'll write up a document.  Results may vary.  It works for me, but may not for you.

Thankyou @Angel-125 for the recommendation to turn off anomalies and turn them back on.  That was the key piece.  Most of the anomalies are gone - but not all.  Changing their vessel category appears to keep them around - as well as some random factor.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Ooglak Kerman

[Rakete]

12 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

CKAN does cleanup when you delete mods, doing things by hand can lead to leaving things behind.

Hope it doesn't sound unpolite, but what clean-ups? When i update a mod, i remove the old folder and replace it with the new one. I don't know of any mod, that does stuff outside of the gamedata folder and the logs-folder in KSP (e.g. spacetux, kopernicus and MM create logs in the ksp main folder, but logs are harmless). Is there more to do, than to delete old modfolders , clean out the logs and flush the MM-cache-files?

I understood CKAN always as a convinience tool, for those, how like one-button-press-solutions without editing configs and without fiddeling with zip-archives.

 

Yes CKAN might be the way for many people. For myself, i like full control. With CKAN i can not give every mod package a run through Virustotal for security analysis. This is the main reason for me, not to use ckan. Downloads from private software coders (especially mods, that come with executable code) should be virusscanned. Yes, i could trust the CKAN-team. But... virustotal offers scans by 50 or more virus scanners that also analyse the behavior of the code. That's a pretty good indication if it is safe, or not.

A saying in my native language says litterally: Trust is good, checks are better.

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Rakete

[Teslamax]

9 hours ago, Rakete said:

Hope it doesn't sound unpolite, but what clean-ups? When i update a mod, i remove the old folder and replace it with the new one. I don't know of any mod, that does stuff outside of the gamedata folder and the logs-folder in KSP (e.g. spacetux, kopernicus and MM create logs in the ksp main folder, but logs are harmless). Is there more to do, than to delete old modfolders , clean out the logs and flush the MM-cache-files?

CKAN does prompt for removing data files belonging to a mod (so you can leave them if you simply wish to reinstall), but you do this the same way if you did it manually. 

I don't mean to speak for @linuxgurugamer but I believe he was talking about dependencies. If you install a mod with dependencies, CKAN auto-installs them. If you remove the mod, it remembers to remove the dependencies that are no longer needed. CKAN works in the same way as package management systems for Linux OS installs. Debian uses apt. Other Linux distributions use similar ones. They remove dependency packages when they no longer are needed.

For example, all the mods LGG maintains have common dependency packages ("ClickThrough Blocker", "Toolbar Controller", "SpaceTux Library" iirc). If you removed all of LGG's mods, CKAN would automatically default to remove those as well.

[Rakete]

Ah okay... I am a bit crazy, cause I have almost all dependencies for my installed mods in my brain memory. I clustered my download archive in mod folders on certain topics with their depencies. Fortunately they only have dependencies for the same topic, meaning part mods (eg. by nertea) don't have dependencies from my e.g. planet pack folders.... i organize it my self. So i learn much more, how they work. So I have a folder for kopernicus, opm... a folder around Kerbal Konstructs and configs/assets that upon that, a folder for the nertea compendium, a folder for Wildblue-mods... that's how I keep my overview. Fortunately every mod has a forumpage, that also lists the dependencies. Yes, i generate overhead for organization, but I got much more into understanding the mod mechanism, than I would have with only ckan-ing.

Okay, i only have roundabout 50 mods installed.  they do not have soooo much dependencies.

[linuxgurugamer]

6 minutes ago, Rakete said:

Ah okay... I am a bit crazy, cause I have almost all dependencies for my installed mods in my brain memory

Problem with that is if a mod (usually mine  ) adds a new dependency, you may not realize it.  

Cleanup includes deleting files, etc.  The issue with the way you  are doing your updates is that a lot of mods store settings in their folders, and if you remove the folders, you lose those configs

 

[Rakete]

10 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Problem with that is if a mod (usually mine  ) adds a new dependency, you may not realize it.  

Cleanup includes deleting files, etc.  The issue with the way you  are doing your updates is that a lot of mods store settings in their folders, and if you remove the folders, you lose those configs

 

Fortunately I save those settings before removing the folder. As I said, i have fun by looking, how they work, where they store stuff. And yes, I know, you always add your 3 dependencies (ctb, tbc, spacetux). I update mods always by checking the OP of the respective forum thread. 

Even more fortunately: I only have three mods, that store settings, as most of my mods are part mods or plugins that don't store settings, because they have none.

 

There is nothing wrong about using ckan, it's just not my way of doing it.

[Angelo Kerman]

I've had a chance to think about how Blueshift could work in KSP 2. Much of this depends on how hard it is to mod KSP 2, and what you can do with it. Anyway, I'm leaning towards NOT making warp drives for Blueshift 2, and instead, reviving the Whipcrack idea from last year...

Like a jumpgate, the Whipcrack Jump Engine makes use of wormholes pulled from the quantum foam that are then expanded to facilitate travel. But unlike jumpgates, the destination end of the wormhole isn’t fixed. It flails around like the end of a whip- hence the name of the jump engine. Navigating with a Whipcrack is all about timing; if timed just right, the ship will jump forward up to its maximum jump distance, but if the timing is off, then the ship may end up widely off course.

Initiating a jump is known as Cracking the Whip (and there is an appropriate sound effect for it). Travelers describe the experience as if riding a rollercoaster or riding on the back of a kraken- the ship and occupants get thrown about as it traverses the wormhole. In fact, there is a possibility that travelers will pass out from the g-forces.

Objects near a jumping ship experience severe gravitic turbulence. A massive gravitic shockwave that originates from the center of the jump applies hundreds of gees of force to the nearby objects, flinging them away from the center. The magnitude of the event depends on how far you jump. This is of course configurable.

It only takes a few milliseconds to perform a jump. There’s no time to get coffee, take a nap, or talk about the weather.

You can have more than one Whipcrack on a vessel, but to jump in rapid succession, each engine must be fully charged. In theory, with enough engines, you could program a series of short-range jumps and “skip” across space somewhat like a warp engine, but in practice it’s better to make one big jump instead. Plus, with KSP 2 allowing engine burns during timewarp, other means of going real fast are possible. Just imagine using souped up gravity engines to rapidly zip around the solar system, to a max of just under light speed. The Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas has great examples of this method.

(Flying saucers in Turbo mode be like this.)

As with jumpgates, the mass of the vessel affects how much graviolium you need to Crack the Whip. There is no upper limit on a vessel’s mass, but the mass of the vessel affects the charging period required by the Whipcrack. It takes 1 hour per 5 metric tons for the Whipcrack to charge its gravitic capacitors before it can Crack the Whip. This duration is of course configurable because people are impatient.

Jump engines are rated for a maximum jump mass, known as Jump Max. Beyond that, they cannot initiate a jump-unless you take advantage of the natural space-time bend of a gravity well. The deeper into a gravity well the ship goes, and the higher the local gravity, the easier it is to initiate a jump. In this way, jump ships can conserve graviolium and even exceed their Jump Max mass by getting as close to the center of a gravity well as possible and/or jumping from a high-gravity world. Note that this does mean that a vessel could jump from the surface of a world- even one with an atmosphere. But with Hard Mode (see below) engaged, jumping from the surface becomes a lot harder.

In general, smaller jump engines have shorter ranges and can’t jump as much mass as larger jump engines. With KSP 2 having enormous interstellar craft, it’s quite possible that to jump between star systems, you’ll need a very big jump engine unless you have something that’s highly advanced and miniaturized.

Similarly, jump engines are rated for their maximum jump range, with smaller engines unable to jump as far as larger engines. But with Hard Mode engaged, you can take advantage of a natural gravity well to boost your jump range.

Before you get ready to jump, point your ship in your desired direction of travel, or point your ship at the desired destination celestial body. While you can technically target a vessel, the best you can do is jump to the target vessel’s celestial body. This isn't Battlestar Galactica-levels of precision jumps (unless it's enabled...). Once you’ve got your course figured out, just make sure that there’s nothing in your way!

Whipcrack navigation, also known as whip throwing, is represented by a graphically displayed, animated sine wave with a dot traveling along the wave and a center-line running through the wave. The closer the dot is to the center-line when the player initiates the jump, the straighter the course.

Jump distance affects the frequency of the sine wave, and thus, the difficulty of jumping on the center line. A slider control lets the player control the jump distance- up to the Whipcrack’s maximum jump distance- and thus, the sine wave’s frequency. The amplitude of the wave is affected by how close the ship is to the celestial body- if any- that the ship currently orbits. The closer to the star/planet, the higher the amplitude.

Kerbal skills can improve Whipcrack navigation. The highest-skilled engineer aboard will slightly reduce the wave’s angular frequency. The highest skilled scientist will slightly affect the amplitude of the wave, and the highest-skilled pilot will slightly affect the wave’s frequency. This might change depending on what skills kerbals have in KSP 2.

Wormholes are attracted to gravity wells, briefly grabbing onto, or “snagging” a gravity well before losing its grip. This only happens if there is a gravity well along or near the wormhole’s projected path. If there are multiple gravity wells, then the wormhole will randomly snag on them, with larger gravity wells having a higher probability of attracting the wormhole endpoint. For interplanetary jumps, snagging a nearby planet is harder because the “snag corridor” is narrow but for a distant target like a solar system, snagging any of the gravity wells in the target star is much higher.

Players can take advantage of the snagging phenomenon by building a Whipping Post in orbit around a desirable celestial body. Whipping Posts are station-sized jump beacons that use a lot of graviolium to attract wormholes. Since the probability of a wormhole snagging a celestial body is proportional to its gravitational force, a Whipping Post improves the odds.

Hard Mode: To jump between moons in the same planetary system, you need to achieve the moon’s escape velocity. So, you’d need to reach Minmus’ escape velocity in order to jump to the Mun. To jump between planets in the same solar system, you need to achieve the planet’s escape velocity. Thus, to jump from Kerbin or either of its moons to Duna, you’ll need to achieve Kerbin’s escape velocity. To jump between star systems, you’ll need to achieve the star’s escape velocity. Thus, to jump from Kerbol to Debdeb, you need to achieve Kerbol’s escape velocity.

[SkyFall2489]

18 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I've had a chance to think about how Blueshift could work in KSP 2. Much of this depends on how hard it is to mod KSP 2, and what you can do with it. Anyway, I'm leaning towards NOT making warp drives for Blueshift 2, and instead, reviving the Whipcrack idea from last year...

Like a jumpgate, the Whipcrack Jump Engine makes use of wormholes pulled from the quantum foam that are then expanded to facilitate travel. But unlike jumpgates, the destination end of the wormhole isn’t fixed. It flails around like the end of a whip- hence the name of the jump engine. Navigating with a Whipcrack is all about timing; if timed just right, the ship will jump forward up to its maximum jump distance, but if the timing is off, then the ship may end up widely off course.

Initiating a jump is known as Cracking the Whip (and there is an appropriate sound effect for it). Travelers describe the experience as if riding a rollercoaster or riding on the back of a kraken- the ship and occupants get thrown about as it traverses the wormhole. In fact, there is a possibility that travelers will pass out from the g-forces.

Objects near a jumping ship experience severe gravitic turbulence. A massive gravitic shockwave that originates from the center of the jump applies hundreds of gees of force to the nearby objects, flinging them away from the center. The magnitude of the event depends on how far you jump. This is of course configurable.

It only takes a few milliseconds to perform a jump. There’s no time to get coffee, take a nap, or talk about the weather.

You can have more than one Whipcrack on a vessel, but to jump in rapid succession, each engine must be fully charged. In theory, with enough engines, you could program a series of short-range jumps and “skip” across space somewhat like a warp engine, but in practice it’s better to make one big jump instead. Plus, with KSP 2 allowing engine burns during timewarp, other means of going real fast are possible. Just imagine using souped up gravity engines to rapidly zip around the solar system, to a max of just under light speed. The Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas has great examples of this method.

(Flying saucers in Turbo mode be like this.)

As with jumpgates, the mass of the vessel affects how much graviolium you need to Crack the Whip. There is no upper limit on a vessel’s mass, but the mass of the vessel affects the charging period required by the Whipcrack. It takes 1 hour per 5 metric tons for the Whipcrack to charge its gravitic capacitors before it can Crack the Whip. This duration is of course configurable because people are impatient.

Jump engines are rated for a maximum jump mass, known as Jump Max. Beyond that, they cannot initiate a jump-unless you take advantage of the natural space-time bend of a gravity well. The deeper into a gravity well the ship goes, and the higher the local gravity, the easier it is to initiate a jump. In this way, jump ships can conserve graviolium and even exceed their Jump Max mass by getting as close to the center of a gravity well as possible and/or jumping from a high-gravity world. Note that this does mean that a vessel could jump from the surface of a world- even one with an atmosphere. But with Hard Mode (see below) engaged, jumping from the surface becomes a lot harder.

In general, smaller jump engines have shorter ranges and can’t jump as much mass as larger jump engines. With KSP 2 having enormous interstellar craft, it’s quite possible that to jump between star systems, you’ll need a very big jump engine unless you have something that’s highly advanced and miniaturized.

Similarly, jump engines are rated for their maximum jump range, with smaller engines unable to jump as far as larger engines. But with Hard Mode engaged, you can take advantage of a natural gravity well to boost your jump range.

Before you get ready to jump, point your ship in your desired direction of travel, or point your ship at the desired destination celestial body. While you can technically target a vessel, the best you can do is jump to the target vessel’s celestial body. This isn't Battlestar Galactica-levels of precision jumps (unless it's enabled...). Once you’ve got your course figured out, just make sure that there’s nothing in your way!

Whipcrack navigation, also known as whip throwing, is represented by a graphically displayed, animated sine wave with a dot traveling along the wave and a center-line running through the wave. The closer the dot is to the center-line when the player initiates the jump, the straighter the course.

Jump distance affects the frequency of the sine wave, and thus, the difficulty of jumping on the center line. A slider control lets the player control the jump distance- up to the Whipcrack’s maximum jump distance- and thus, the sine wave’s frequency. The amplitude of the wave is affected by how close the ship is to the celestial body- if any- that the ship currently orbits. The closer to the star/planet, the higher the amplitude.

Kerbal skills can improve Whipcrack navigation. The highest-skilled engineer aboard will slightly reduce the wave’s angular frequency. The highest skilled scientist will slightly affect the amplitude of the wave, and the highest-skilled pilot will slightly affect the wave’s frequency. This might change depending on what skills kerbals have in KSP 2.

Wormholes are attracted to gravity wells, briefly grabbing onto, or “snagging” a gravity well before losing its grip. This only happens if there is a gravity well along or near the wormhole’s projected path. If there are multiple gravity wells, then the wormhole will randomly snag on them, with larger gravity wells having a higher probability of attracting the wormhole endpoint. For interplanetary jumps, snagging a nearby planet is harder because the “snag corridor” is narrow but for a distant target like a solar system, snagging any of the gravity wells in the target star is much higher.

Players can take advantage of the snagging phenomenon by building a Whipping Post in orbit around a desirable celestial body. Whipping Posts are station-sized jump beacons that use a lot of graviolium to attract wormholes. Since the probability of a wormhole snagging a celestial body is proportional to its gravitational force, a Whipping Post improves the odds.

Hard Mode: To jump between moons in the same planetary system, you need to achieve the moon’s escape velocity. So, you’d need to reach Minmus’ escape velocity in order to jump to the Mun. To jump between planets in the same solar system, you need to achieve the planet’s escape velocity. Thus, to jump from Kerbin or either of its moons to Duna, you’ll need to achieve Kerbin’s escape velocity. To jump between star systems, you’ll need to achieve the star’s escape velocity. Thus, to jump from Kerbol to Debdeb, you need to achieve Kerbol’s escape velocity.

Hmm.

As for the effects, I'm still hoping for something like in Star Rail... Although, is that even possible with KSP1 Waterfall? (creating a massive blue transparent field around the shape of the whole ship, and then heavily distorting the screen)

Spoiler

 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

15 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

As for the effects, I'm still hoping for something like in Star Rail... Although, is that even possible with KSP1 Waterfall? (creating a massive blue transparent field around the shape of the whole ship, and then heavily distorting the screen)

Such an animation requires its own plugin which not only applies the shader(s) (the thing that provides the materials and visual effects to an object, including the camera) but also the transitions and form-fitting boundaries for the effects. This is far beyond what Waterfall is meant for. In the case of a jump drive these effects have very little business responding to throttle (which is what Waterfall is also all about) since a jump is usually instant, or if the jump is a long one (like in Elite: Dangerous) there's only going to be one speed -- the speed by which the game loads the target planet.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Just an opinion from a player/user, and an opinion that doesn't matter much since I'm not the one making the mod, but here's how I think players similar to myself might experience the mod you're describing - most all of it sounds like a great idea, basically a jump drive, but there are a few bits that might introduce some frustration --

Quote

Navigating with a Whipcrack is all about timing; if timed just right, the ship will jump forward up to its maximum jump distance, but if the timing is off, then the ship may end up widely off course.

[. . .]

Whipcrack navigation, also known as whip throwing, is represented by a graphically displayed, animated sine wave with a dot traveling along the wave and a center-line running through the wave. The closer the dot is to the center-line when the player initiates the jump, the straighter the course.

Jump distance affects the frequency of the sine wave, and thus, the difficulty of jumping on the center line. A slider control lets the player control the jump distance- up to the Whipcrack’s maximum jump distance- and thus, the sine wave’s frequency. The amplitude of the wave is affected by how close the ship is to the celestial body- if any- that the ship currently orbits. The closer to the star/planet, the higher the amplitude.

Kerbal skills can improve Whipcrack navigation. The highest-skilled engineer aboard will slightly reduce the wave’s angular frequency. The highest skilled scientist will slightly affect the amplitude of the wave, and the highest-skilled pilot will slightly affect the wave’s frequency. This might change depending on what skills kerbals have in KSP 2.

I would suggest architecting the system to allow the timing feature to be optional, and abstracting it out (when turned off) through a simpler system. Just an example, not necessarily the 'right' idea: whatever your target destination, the underlying game idea is that you may or may not arrive exactly where you want: in 'simplicity mode', simply calculate a larger or smaller sphere of possible arrival points around the target destination (based on a kerbal engineer's skill level, maybe even stupidity, where higher skill = smaller sphere, maybe also based on any gravity wells on the line between you and destination) and you'll end up somewhere (random? not sure) in the sphere without having to try to time the movement of a dot. The semi-skill-based approach to jumping could be interesting, but it also could be seen as something one of the *kerbals* would be doing, and something where kerbal stats in KSP2 (whatever they will be) will actually matter - the player instead interacting with the game world in a more commander-type role... just a thought. The sphere size or deviation of the initial line to target (or whatever other confounding factors) could be shaped similarly by any combination of crew skills; maybe pilots would be better at reducing the confounding influence of other gravity wells, or at jumping from nearer/farther from a body, or better at jumping out of an atmosphere...etc.

Quote

While you can technically target a vessel, the best you can do is jump to the target vessel’s celestial body.

[. . .]

I think being unable to jump to an arbitrary distance/point in space might prove frustrating - I would argue that it might be nice to plan this as an optional feature too (for increased difficulty); another way of making celestial bodies influential in jumps might be simply to modify the area of arrival probability depending on how close the intended point is to a celestial body, and/or giving a (bigger or smaller) velocity to the craft upon arrival, or other things like that.

Quote

Wormholes are attracted to gravity wells, briefly grabbing onto, or “snagging” a gravity well before losing its grip. This only happens if there is a gravity well along or near the wormhole’s projected path. If there are multiple gravity wells, then the wormhole will randomly snag on them, with larger gravity wells having a higher probability of attracting the wormhole endpoint. For interplanetary jumps, snagging a nearby planet is harder because the “snag corridor” is narrow but for a distant target like a solar system, snagging any of the gravity wells in the target star is much higher.

Players can take advantage of the snagging phenomenon by building a Whipping Post in orbit around a desirable celestial body. Whipping Posts are station-sized jump beacons that use a lot of graviolium to attract wormholes. Since the probability of a wormhole snagging a celestial body is proportional to its gravitational force, a Whipping Post improves the odds.

What does this snagging mechanic do, though? I'm not sure I understand this part - if a planet is almost directly in between you and where you're jumping, does that mean you'd end up at the Whipping Post (if there is one) and not your destination? Or would a whipping post just make the sphere (or whatever shape) of possible arrival locations smaller, so to speak, if you're trying to jump to a point near it, all else being equal?

Edit: In any case, I think the underlying jump-drive-type idea is a good one, lots of interesting possibilities with how it could work (or send you hurtling straight toward a gas giant on accident - whoops...!)

Edited January 16, 2023 by AccidentalDisassembly

[SkyFall2489]

47 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Such an animation requires its own plugin which not only applies the shader(s) (the thing that provides the materials and visual effects to an object, including the camera) but also the transitions and form-fitting boundaries for the effects. This is far beyond what Waterfall is meant for. In the case of a jump drive these effects have very little business responding to throttle (which is what Waterfall is also all about) since a jump is usually instant, or if the jump is a long one (like in Elite: Dangerous) there's only going to be one speed -- the speed by which the game loads the target planet.

Hmm.

Waterfall does seem to be able to produce minor distortion effects, such as when you look through the exhuast of a jet engine..

But if it is not feasible with Waterfall, we'll just have to hope that the KSP2 effects system will let it work.

And if not that, I'm learning C#.

[JadeOfMaar]

@SkyFall2489 Waterfall can be expanded to make the desired effects happen, but it's far out of scope and it's FTL stuff so you know Nertea isn't making this happen. The animation's concept boils down to emitting particles along the spline (path object in 3D modelling) or rim of a dynamic shape that depends on where the vessel intersects/clips a 2D plane, and shading all parts in the vessel ahead of this plane with the hyperspace object material.

1 hour ago, SkyFall2489 said:

I'm learning C#.

Yes. Yes you are.

[SkyFall2489]

4 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@SkyFall2489 Waterfall can be expanded to make the desired effects happen, but it's far out of scope and it's FTL stuff so you know Nertea isn't making this happen. The animation's concept boils down to emitting particles along the spline (path object in 3D modelling) or rim of a dynamic shape that depends on where the vessel intersects/clips a 2D plane, and shading all parts in the vessel ahead of this plane with the hyperspace object material.

Yes. Yes you are.

Wait..

Alternatively, for the whole "turn the whole vessel blue" thing, could I have a module in every part similar to what SimpleRepaint does, and have the warp drive module trigger that in every part when the jump sequence begins?

Or what if the animation was placed "over" the 3D scene in front of the camera, instead of being in the 3D scene? That might also allow for the distortion effects. Although, only the active vessel should be distorted, while the skybox and other vessels remain the same... 

 

As for C#, how hard can it be?

I have some experience with Python and Java already. I heard there's this thing called a "memory leak" and to deal with it you need to actually delete objects when you are done with them.

Edited January 16, 2023 by SkyFall2489

[JadeOfMaar]

2 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Alternatively, for the whole "turn the whole vessel blue" thing, could I have a module in every part similar to what SimpleRepaint does, and have the warp drive module trigger that in every part when the jump sequence begins?

If you can avoid adding a partmodule to every part in the game, do avoid. This seems like a very inefficient way of approaching things.

3 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Although, only the active vessel should be distorted, while the skybox and other vessels remain the same... 

Exactly...........

3 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

how hard can it be?

This, Jebediah Kerman asked calmly while walking towards his spacecraft to board it, a spacecraft whose build could only be described as "from the mind of Tim Burton."

[SkyFall2489]

2 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

If you can avoid adding a partmodule to every part in the game, do avoid. This seems like a very inefficient way of approaching things.

Well, it'd probably be better than listing the name of every part in a single config line...

Also, KSP PartVolume, Restock, Tweakscale, KOS, FAR, and plenty of other mods do this. I have sometimes had several of these installed at once, and loading time didn't seem to be way worse than without them, compared to the sheer number of parts in some WBI mods...

[Angelo Kerman]

@SkyFall2489 Please keep in mind that the Whipcrack concept is actually for KSP 2. I'm retired from KSP 1, save for the occasional bug fix. We really don't know what KSP 2's capabilities are in terms of modding, and C# hasn't been confirmed as supported in KSP 2 as far as I know. We might find out by end of February though.

Right now I'm exploring different ways to do FTL for KSP 2, and the Whipcrack is just one possibility. But I don't know how doable it will be- can we displace the ship in a straight line? Who knows?  Can we even program a specific orbit? It's unclear. We really have to wait for KSP 2 to be released- and to see how interstellar is actually handled by the game- before making anything definitive. Maybe "FTL" is as simple as using an advanced gravitic engine that accelerates up to 99.999% of the speed of light. Right now, I'm just thinking of what direction I'd like to go in if certain things are possible when modding KSP 2.

[SkyFall2489]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

@SkyFall2489 Please keep in mind that the Whipcrack concept is actually for KSP 2. I'm retired from KSP 1, save for the occasional bug fix. We really don't know what KSP 2's capabilities are in terms of modding, and C# hasn't been confirmed as supported in KSP 2 as far as I know. We might find out by end of February though.

Right now I'm exploring different ways to do FTL for KSP 2, and the Whipcrack is just one possibility. But I don't know how doable it will be- can we displace the ship in a straight line? Who knows?  Can we even program a specific orbit? It's unclear. We really have to wait for KSP 2 to be released- and to see how interstellar is actually handled by the game- before making anything definitive. Maybe "FTL" is as simple as using an advanced gravitic engine that accelerates up to 99.999% of the speed of light. Right now, I'm just thinking of what direction I'd like to go in if certain things are possible when modding KSP 2.

Yeah, I was just wondering if it was possible, in either KSP1 or KSP2, to get something like the Honkai Star Rail jump scene using various existing mods like TFUX or Waterfall.