RSS Atmospheric Clouds?

[Mechanic]

Being a relative newbie with KSP I wanted to try RSS. With the new release/upgrade of RSS (I use CKAN) I was able to install it and things have gotten so very much harder to do. I love it! Now I was wondering if there is any way to add atmospheric clouds for Earth? That would make it just wonderful. Anyone know if this is possible to do?

[OHara]

The mods Environmental Visual Enhancements, (or maybe the new version here) and RSSVE or RSSVE_Lite.

Environmental Visual Enhancements tells the GPU how to draw clouds and atmospheric effects; RSSVE has the configuration files that specify where to put the clouds on real solar system planets. 

That means you should remove E.V.E.'s default configuration files (delete GameData/BoulderCo/) when you install RSSVE.  CKAN might do this for you.

(In order to build craft that can get to orbit from Earth, you will also want either SMURFF or Realism Overhaul to get more realistically efficient engines.)

[jimmymcgoochie]

RSSVE and EVO are two RSS visual mods- EVO has much higher resolution textures (32-64k) so looks better but also taxes your GPU a whole lot more than RSSVE which has 2-8k textures. Both add clouds with volumetric 3D effects when you’re near/in them and both require both EVE and scatterer to work.

Unless your PC is a really high-end gaming rig with a beefy GPU and lots (32GB+) of RAM, I’d suggest sticking with RSSVE over EVO just due to the performance.

If you’re interested in a more “real” game, Realism Overhaul and Realistic Progression (RO and RP-1) are recommended- RO adds a lot of real engines, capsules and fuel types while RP-1 is a career mode rewrite which starts in 1951 and progresses through the Space Race with all the various rockets etc. appearing in approximately the same time periods as their real life counterparts. Want to build a proper replica of a Proton, Saturn V or Ariane 5 with the correct engines, fuels and performance? RO allows you to do so. Want to beat Sputnik to orbit and Apollo to the Moon? RP-1 lets you try.

Or alternatively, SMURFF rebalances the stock parts’ stats to make them usable in RSS as the stock parts are pretty terrible compared to the real thing- the fuel tank mass ratios are capped at 9 in most cases which really limits your overall delta-V, plus engine TWRs are really low making getting off the ground even harder. SMURFF also works on some stock-alike mods, but I’ve never tried it myself so I don’t know which.

[Mechanic]

Thanks @OHara @jimmymcgoochie for the info. This is what I am looking for both visual and realism for engines and fuel in RSS. I will follow the links you have posted and try to get it all working. I have a high end home built system that I recently upgraded to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 so I should be good to go. I'll post my results. Thanks again.

[Mechanic]

I went with a clean install (Steam) then added RSS, Tested, then installed RO but that just corrupted engines. So I pulled out of RO the EngineGroupController thinking that may have been the problem but no. RO will need to be upgraded for the latest version of KSP. RO is not on the CKAN compatible list as well as EVO as a side note. Next I added EVO-Beta-v0.3-RC2 the 64K version and that did not work at all. It had no effect what so ever unless I installed it incorrectly but I don't think I did. So I'm back to where I was. At least I tried, no pain no gain right?