v1.0.1 "Central Fire." Planet Jam 2: Armstrong's Limit Homeworld in The Ilio-Pyri Planetary System

[Tangle]

2 hours ago, bigyihsuan said:

I've been having trouble landing on Armstrong, what are your designs for sky cranes, bouncy balls, etc for landing manned capsules onto the surface?

(of note I've found the Landertrons mod that adds in some SRBs that can automatically activate when you're close to the ground, maybe it can be of use? Maybe combine with Smart Parts so that you can have a sky crane that decouples from the capsule when vertical velocity is 0 near the ground?)

I've been using ballutes, which frankly are a little OP for Armstrong. My "Duck Season" lander uses a ballute to slow down a heatshielded fairing-pod, which deploys to reveal an encased 3-kerbal pod with a buncha parachutes and separatrons to kill the final few dozen m/s of speed.

[Whirligig Girl]

Here's my latest--a launch vehicle which is as close to the Space Shuttle as I think you can get on Armstrong.

Here's the orbiter, with the Bellyflop crew return system featured in the OP of this thread to scale.

Armstrong Space Transportation System -- NCC-OV1 "Enterprise"

Spoiler

Twelve engines on boosters, seven engines on the Core, and four engines on the Orbiter--a total of 23 Vector engines. Incidentally I imagine only the Vectors on the Orbiter are intended to be reusable, the rest we can imagine are a simplified expendable variant. Because the orbiter needs substantial storable propellant in orbit so that it can land, the entire vehicle is kerolox rather than using hydrolox. And since KSP's stock boosters are kinda underpowered, it uses kerolox boosters too.

Only one set of boosters, the one nearest the orbiter, needs sepratrons  to separate safely.

ASTS can not quite put the indicated 23 ton payload into orbit--as a system it can get more like 17 tons into orbit. It should be able to return 14 tons payload from orbit.

The explosion here is from airbrakes which were experimentally added on one flight. They weren't necessary, which is good, since they explode at much lower temperatures than other spaceplane parts. The wrap-around wing serves an important purpose--it brings the center of lift well above the center of mass, allowing the vehicle to remain reasonably stable in a belly-flop configuration. Powerful RCS thrusters keep it aimed right, but I did manage to land an orbiter without RCS on one occasion, albeit with some damage.

There's about 1000-1700 m/s of delta-v in the Orbiter during landing sequence, depending upon payload. Once velocity has slowed to below 1 km/s or so (it may need to do this earlier if it's coming down in the highlands instead of the seas), the rocket throttles up, reduces its vertical velocity, then turns around backwards to begin to land. Very often the landing ends up with 0 m/s to spare. Margins are tight.

Luckily the orbiter can land on land or in the ocean, and can survive a tip over onto its belly in either situation.

Admittedly 17 tons isn't a whole lot as far as payload goes, in fact the Dove IV launch vehicle which is derived from the Bellyflop lifter can lift almost that much. But hey. It's a bona fide shuttle! On Armstrong!

As an aside, here's the Bellyflop and Dove launch vehicle family.

Spoiler

Bellyflop Launch

Bellyflop Upper Stage

Bellyflop Spacecraft in orbit

Bellyflop Reentry

Bellyflop Splashdown on LOTS of parachutes.

Dove IV, a Bellyflop Derived Launch Vehicle, launching a station core.

Dove VI, launching Garnet Star 1, a (failed attempt at a) Garner mission.

Rhinos make really good lifter engines on Armstrong!

Bellyflop, Dove IV, Dove VI, Dove VIx4, Dove VIII

Dove VIII+IVx4

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by GregroxMun

[KerbalOnKerbin]

On 12/30/2022 at 6:43 PM, KerbalOnKerbin said:

I'm still having the issue with the atmosphere starting too high, even after completely reinstalling everything i have. The atmo effects and slowing starts at 70KM, but if I timewarp, it's fine till the regular 33KM. If I stop timewarping while not in the 33KM atmo, it starts the areo stuff again.

I'm going to upload an image of my GameData and KSPlog once I get a chance.

[Tangle]

On 12/30/2022 at 7:42 PM, Leganeski said:

Is Ollo supposed to be less massive than Armstrong? It surface gravity of less than 0.2 g seems really low for a giant planet.

Most recent Github update has increased Ollo's mass 10x, taking it to 17 Earth masses. I think it was intended as a small gas giant, but someone missed a zero.

[KerbalOnKerbin]

I've noticed that the 70KM instant areo effects bug has also been happening in the stock solar system and in other ones, put peculiarly not in GPP.

[Leganeski]

3 hours ago, KerbalOnKerbin said:

I've noticed that the 70KM instant areo effects bug has also been happening in the stock solar system

That's really weird. The fact that it happens in the stock system means that it's not a planet pack causing the issue. (In particular, it's not PJ2, so this might not be the best thread for it.) Kopernicus alone doesn't do that either, so either Kopernicus was installed incorrectly or it's some other mod causing the problem. The only relevant mod I can think of is Realistic Atmospheres (which is incompatible with any system replacer like PJ2).

[KerbalOnKerbin]

I found the problem. It turns out that Kerbal Weather Project was the issue, since that mod adds new thermodynamic effects and changes atmospheres. I installed it because it said "compatible with all other mods".

[Leganeski]

I made a delta-v table for the full system.

It's in the form of a table as opposed to a map for two reasons: primarily so that I can include transfers between bodies other than Armstrong, but also because I am no good at graphic design. If anyone wants to make a map from the numbers, go right ahead!

Currently, only the Pyri system is included because I haven't left Pyri yet and don't want to spoil Ilio's planets.

I'll probably expand the table to the rest of the Ilio system eventually, but not until after I reach all the planets, and that might take a while.

Update: the table is now complete!

Edited February 6, 2023 by Leganeski
Update: completed

[Whirligig Girl]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:13 PM, KerbalOnKerbin said:

I found the problem. It turns out that Kerbal Weather Project was the issue, since that mod adds new thermodynamic effects and changes atmospheres. I installed it because it said "compatible with all other mods".

it's kind of ridiculous for Kerbal Weather Project not to consider planet mods with its compatibility notice.

[Leganeski]

The unique planetary system layouts present some very interesting orbital possibilities!

For example, starting at

Spoiler

any orbit of Turtlestar,

you can spend less than 160 m/s to reach

Spoiler

literally anywhere, including even a direct transfer to Phosphol.

 

The GitHub repository seems to have quite a few unreleased fixes and new features that would be really nice, especially Kronometer configs and the option to de-barycentrize binary systems. Is there any schedule for when these features might be packaged for a release?

[Duncan3601]

Hi! I'm loving this mod, getting used to Armstrong and successfully landing took me back to when I first started playing KSP.

I am wanting to get good at planning flybys to use Zhandar to get to Bifrost and then onward outside the Pyri system. I'm considering using Krafpy's flyby planner and following their instructions to use the Kopernicus config files to build the bodies file needed to add system for the planner.  To get all the config files, I would go into Gamedata/PJ2/KopernicusFiles and within all the 00_System, 0_Suns,  etc. folders copy all the config files matching the bodies ex. 1-Bifrost, C_Pyri, etc, correct? Would any other config files like StockKiller be part of these?

Disclaimer that I understand y'all may not be familiar with the flyby tool but with it asking for Kopernicus' configuration files I want to understand which files those are in the mod.

[WarriorSabe]

12 hours ago, Duncan3601 said:

Hi! I'm loving this mod, getting used to Armstrong and successfully landing took me back to when I first started playing KSP.

I am wanting to get good at planning flybys to use Zhandar to get to Bifrost and then onward outside the Pyri system. I'm considering using Krafpy's flyby planner and following their instructions to use the Kopernicus config files to build the bodies file needed to add system for the planner.  To get all the config files, I would go into Gamedata/PJ2/KopernicusFiles and within all the 00_System, 0_Suns,  etc. folders copy all the config files matching the bodies ex. 1-Bifrost, C_Pyri, etc, correct? Would any other config files like StockKiller be part of these?

Disclaimer that I understand y'all may not be familiar with the flyby tool but with it asking for Kopernicus' configuration files I want to understand which files those are in the mod.

Generally yes, those are the files you want, but I do have some experience with using that tool, and it's very particular about how it expects the configs are internally formatted, and I fully expect it to not understand the PJ2 configs - specifically, the masses, reference bodies, and semimajor axes of the planets. That meaning, they will upload, but the distances and some masses will be wrong, and a lot won't be able to find the object they're supposed to orbit and not show up on the map (they'll go to into their own holding area at the bottom of the list until they have a valid reference body)

The reason why being, for the planet smas and for a number of their masses, instead of directly setting them these configs take a base value and multiplies them, mostly as a result of how the jam was structured. For the reference bodies, the reason is because they're keyed to identifier rather than name. So if you want to upload the configs, you'll need to manually set all those to the correct values after uploading, which would also mean reading the configs and very easily accidentally exposing yourself to spoilers (as well as also just being a lot of work).

For that reason, I might recommend trying KSPTOT - while it's overall a less convenient tool to use and doesn't always get as efficient of trajectories, it works by using a small mod that links to it and reads the planets directly rom how they're loaded in the game, therefore bypassing any potential confusing configs. It does need to be downloaded and run separately from the game and requires external libraries (MATLAB) to be installed, however. You could also always try doing it manually, but if you're new to gravity assists PJ2 isn't exactly the easiest place to learn how to do them manually (though they are incredibly powerful).

Edited January 28, 2023 by WarriorSabe

[Raptorguy576]

I absolutely adore this modpack and everything that went into it. The only problem I am having is that MechJeb2 is not working in creating nodes or interplanetary manuevers, it always says "error creating node" when I select an object outside of Armstrong's influence. I understand this probably has to do with the fact that there are no delta-v maps yet, but can anything be done to fix this issue and let me maneuver easily? 

[Leganeski]

49 minutes ago, Raptorguy576 said:

I understand this probably has to do with the fact that there are no delta-v maps yet

MechJeb does not attempt to get its information from delta-v maps; it automatically calculates everything from the in-game orbits of the bodies. Or at least it would if it was working correctly. There's nothing too special about Armstrong that would logically cause MechJeb to break, and other maneuver-planning mods like Astrogator work just fine, so this seems more likely to be a problem caused by MechJeb.

 

[Raptorguy576]

3 hours ago, Leganeski said:

MechJeb does not attempt to get its information from delta-v maps; it automatically calculates everything from the in-game orbits of the bodies. Or at least it would if it was working correctly. There's nothing too special about Armstrong that would logically cause MechJeb to break, and other maneuver-planning mods like Astrogator work just fine, so this seems more likely to be a problem caused by MechJeb.

 

Ok sweet thank you for the quick response. I thought I was going crazy because MechJeb refused to work and apparently nobody else has had this problem ever on any custom planetary system, so weird. I will switch to Astrogator and hope that it’s as simple and easy to execute as MechJeb’s maneuver planner! If not, I will find something else.

[Leganeski]

The delta-v table is now complete! All 102^* objects are included, separated into three regions (Pyri system; inner Ilio system; everything else).

^* The table includes Moxxie, a unique named asteroid towards the inside of the [minor spoiler] system which is not counted as one of the 101 celestial bodies, but not any barycenters or intentionally hidden bodies such as [REDACTED] or [REDACTED].

You might notice that names of planetary systems on the table include "Alkin-Ulen" and "Sinacin-Glice", but also "Tobalk" and "Oynag". This is intentional. I have categorized pairs of bodies as binaries or not based on whether the barycenter is inside the more massive one.

• The Sinacin-Glice and Alkin-Ulen barycenters, while not meaningful in-game, describe locations in space that lie outside of Sinacin and Alkin respectively, so these are binary planet pairs.
   
• The Tobalk-Turtlestar and Oynag-Atrium barycenters lie inside of Tobalk and Oynag, so Turtlestar and Atrium are moons.
   
• Caua is an ambiguous case. The Sinacin-Caua and Glice-Caua barycenters are both in empty space, so if either Sinacin or Glice were ignored, Caua would be a binary planet along with the other one. But the "planet" that Caua really orbits is Sinacin-Glice, and what is the "inside" of that?
  For this purpose, I decided to treat Sinacin-Glice as a planet with the combined mass and volume of both, and therefore classify Caua as a moon of it. However, that is a relatively arbitrary line of reasoning, and I would be quite interested to hear other opinions on whether Caua is a planet or not.
   
• The Pyri-Bifröst and Pyri-(Sinacin-Glice) barycenters are both outside of Pyri. This could mean a lot of things, but none of them are relevant here because Pyri is a star while Bifröst and Sinacin are not.

 

On 12/30/2022 at 4:42 PM, Leganeski said:

Is Ollo supposed to be less massive than Armstrong? It surface gravity of less than 0.2 g seems really low for a giant planet.

 

 

On 1/1/2023 at 3:33 PM, Tangle said:

Most recent Github update has increased Ollo's mass 10x, taking it to 17 Earth masses. I think it was intended as a small gas giant, but someone missed a zero.

After doing some more research into the Ollo system to get the numbers for the table, it looks like there was a systematic error throughout the planetary system where the mass calculations mixed kerbal-scale sizes with real-scale densities. I am currently working on a patch that, among other things, will resolve this by increasing all the masses by a factor of 10.

Increasing just Ollo's mass is not enough, as that would shrink Olu's SOI to well inside of its terrain.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Leganeski
Fix formatting

[Raptorguy576]

I was wondering if anyone had the science multipliers for all the planets and biomes that have them. For reference, I am using the iHAL probe cores from interstellar extended which essentially act as mobile labs and gather data via science multipliers, and am just trying to figure out a really really good place to place one and let it simmer. So far I’ve explored most of the inner pyri system, including [REDACTED] which was super fun to find!! I almost slammed straight into it during a time warp! I just wanted the science multipliers of the planets that have one so I can create a good plan before launching it and spending 100 science. 

[Leganeski]

4 hours ago, Raptorguy576 said:

I was wondering if anyone had the science multipliers for all the planets and biomes that have them.

Science multipliers can be found in the Kopernicus configuration files in the download. For example, the science multipliers for Heimdall are in GameData/PJ2/KopernicusFiles/2_PyriSystem/IlioC_e/2-Heimdall.cfg, in the section Body/Properties/ScienceValues. (The folder name IlioC_e represents the systematic designation of Bifröst, Heimdall's planet.) If the multipliers are not given there, I believe they are the same as those of the templated stock body (found at Body/Template/name).

The biome-specific multipliers are found along with the biomes in the Body/Properties/Biomes section, in the form "value = (multiplier)".

Note that these files are relatively safe to explore without the risk of spoilers: although they do include physical and atmospheric properties (which could be spoilers for cloud-covered planets like Sinacin and Beddul), they don't include bodies like [REDACTED] or any science definitions.

[WarriorSabe]

3 hours ago, Leganeski said:

Note that these files are relatively safe to explore without the risk of spoilers: although they do include physical and atmospheric properties (which could be spoilers for cloud-covered planets like Sinacin and Beddul), they don't include bodies like [REDACTED] or any science definitions.

They do, however, include biome names and occasionally notes in comments, which in some cases could be spoilery

[Tangle]

On 2/6/2023 at 1:22 AM, Leganeski said:

Increasing just Ollo's mass is not enough, as that would shrink Olu's SOI to well inside of its terrain.

Ahahahaha, oh no. Ohhhhh no oh dear

[Whirligig Girl]

On 1/22/2023 at 1:19 AM, Leganeski said:

The unique planetary system layouts present some very interesting orbital possibilities!

For example, starting at

  Hide contents

any orbit of Turtlestar,

you can spend less than 160 m/s to reach

  Hide contents

literally anywhere, including even a direct transfer to Phosphol.

 

The GitHub repository seems to have quite a few unreleased fixes and new features that would be really nice, especially Kronometer configs and the option to de-barycentrize binary systems. Is there any schedule for when these features might be packaged for a release?

i had been actively working on a PJ2 update between christmas and the new year, and then I got sidetracked by making a webcomic and then getting burnt out, but i would like to get back to the PJ2 update soon.

it is possible to just download the github main version and install it normally. But as it is constantly in flux (well, it's in flux when it's under active development) and unfinished, it may be more buggy.

[Raptorguy576]

Why are there biomes on bari-centers? It was definitely awesome to get an extra 1000 science from all the biomes, but it’s kinda weird. Shouldn’t it just be a gas giant or something with no biome.

[Whirligig Girl]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:03 PM, Raptorguy576 said:

Why are there biomes on barycenters? It was definitely awesome to get an extra 1000 science from all the biomes, but it’s kinda weird. Shouldn’t it just be a gas giant or something with no biome.

most planet templates have biomes, and they were not removed.

[Leganeski]

Update: the changes described below have now been implemented, although not yet released, in the PJ2 Github repository (latest update here). PJ2ARC now has several new options, including redone altitude curves for Viszra, Jejunum, Cricoid, and Zeppeli, a thin atmosphere for Tobalk, and a few other minor fixes.

 

Original post:

After a considerable number of exploration missions to all the planetary systems, I have discovered that each one is fantastic, and contains many interesting things to discover. In total, the Ilio-Pyri system has far more high-quality content than any other planet mod I have seen out there.

As a collaboration between 15 authors, there are some inevitable differences between the styles of different contributors, resulting in features that don't really detract from gameplay but leave me wishing for just a little more internal consistency. Rangon's mass is much lower than would be expected from its radius and composition as described in the Tracking Station. Beddul's pressure-altitude curve at moderate altitudes is substantially shallower than its temperature would indicate. Neither of these things are bad, but they feel somewhat out of place when part of a stellar system that is otherwise very realistic (or at least "kerbalistic").

In order to solve this, I made Planet Jam 2 Alternate Realism Configuration, a collection of Module Manager patches which do my best to straighten out some of the inconsistencies while preserving the original intentions of the affected celestial bodies as much as possible. (For example, I don't see any way the surface conditions on a planet as large as Tobalk could have ever ended up the way they did there, but I'm not going to give Tobalk more air because that would make it far less challenging to land on.)

PJ2ARC consists entirely of these changes, and not any of the source material used to make the bodies in the first place. (This is partly for flexibility and partly for legal reasons: the PJ2 download does not have any kind of license in it, so I don't technically have the legal right to distribute a derivative work.) As such, PJ2ARC needs to be added on top of a full PJ2 installation.

The following is a list of all the individual patches, with (somewhat spoilery) explanations in the spoiler boxes. Each patch is optional and can be disabled in the settings file if you don't like it.

 

Ollo-Hadfield density fix: increases the masses of Hadfield and the full Ollo system by a factor of 10. (Does not apply to bodies whose masses have already been increased.)

Spoiler

The calculations for the masses of Ollo, its moons, and Hadfield were performed using real-scale densities but kerbal-scale volumes, resulting in masses that are ten times too light.

• Hadfield's SOI radius increases to 87.7 Mm.
• Ollo's SOI radius increases to 137.7 Mm.
• The orbital periods of Ollo's moons decrease by a factor of sqrt(10) ≈ 3.162. Their SOIs do not change.
• Fish's rotational period is unchanged, so its synchronous orbit altitude ends up increasing to 27.9 km. That's still well below the highest mountains, but an equatorial landing is now very much possible.

Currently, there are updates on GitHub that fix the Ollo system, but they have not been released yet as of version 1.0.1. This is automatically detected for each body separately, and the change is disabled for bodies with masses that are already correct.

 

Minor moon density fix: increases the masses of Phe, Ber, Phomos, and Rangon, and decreases the mass of Blitzø.

Spoiler

These moons have very unusual densities for no apparent reason. Thankfully, they are so small that changing their mass doesn't affect the gameplay much at all.

• Phe mass increased by 100 (new density 3.16 g/cm³: rocky)
• Ber mass increased by 100 (new density 3.73 g/cm³: mostly rocky)
• Phomos uses its geeASL parameter of 0.00357 g if available, or increases its mass by 160 if not (new density 4.18 g/cm³: rock-iron)
• Rangon mass increased by 100 (new density 11.65 g/cm³: heavy metals with some rock)
• Blitzø mass decreased by 10 (new density 2.17 g/cm³: ice with some rock)

All of these moons already had manually overridden SOI radii, which do not change.

 

Ocean density fix: increases the density of Jejunum's ocean to 3.1 g/cm³.

Spoiler

The code for Jejunum's ocean is copied from Viszra's ocean, with only the color and temperature changed. Given that the color is orange and the temperature is 1325 K, I think it's safe to assume that the ocean is supposed to be composed of lava. The density should therefore be changed to that of lava as well.

 

Oynag system atmosphere fix: increases the average atmosphere molar mass of Viszra, Jejunum, Cricoid, and Zeppeli to about 28 g/mol.

Spoiler

All the atmospheres in the Oynag system have the default atmosphereMolarMass parameter of 0.0022, or 2.2 g/mol, representing a composition of mostly hydrogen. This makes sense for the giants, but the solid moons are not large enough to retain hydrogen or even helium. A more reasonable atmosphere constituent is nitrogen, which has a molar mass of 28.01 g/mol.

• Viszra's atmosphere is assumed to be nitrogen with 5% methane (27.41 g/mol).
• Zeppeli's atmosphere is assumed to be nitrogen with 5% ethane (28.05 g/mol).
• The atmospheres of Jejunum and Cricoid are assumed to be almost entirely nitrogen (28.01 g/mol).

This does make wings and parachutes about 12-13 times more effective, but I would think that flying planes was supposed to be easy on atmospheric bodies with such low surface gravities.

 

Questions, comments, and concerns should be directed to the PJ2ARC thread or the GitHub issue tracker.

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Leganeski
Update: new version

[Raptorguy576]

I just did another fair bit of exploring around the system, and my biggest jar was that no oceans showed up for me. Not even Armstrong's oceans existed. I tried to land on Dopale and I slammed into the invisible water because the ground itself 5 kilometers down was the only thing I could see. Is this a bug with a specific mod, or is it just the planet pack? 

(Ignore this, I just reinstalled everything and got rid of a pesky parallax folder left over from a vanilla playthrough, that seemed to fix everything. I made a funny flag but for some reason I cant post drive photos so uhhh i fixed it) I just love the surface texture of Dopale. 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Raptorguy576