[1.2] Real Solar System v12.0 Dec 8

[Starwaster]

And I think I may have noticed a small bug... at least in my version.

Rockets or anything for that matter take off and they show heading 090 but true heading is more like 130 from the Kennedy Space Center.

You're off the equator when launching from Kennedy. What you're describing should be considered natural and expected when doing non-equatorial launches.

You can launch into an orbit that will give you a 90 heading if you really need one but only when your launch position intersects the planet's orbital plane, which it will do twice per planetary day.

Wait, strike that. You can't do what I said because we don't have real axial tilt. I'm a bit feverish and I forgot that.

You'd have to wait until your orbit intersects the equator after launch, then change planes. That's how you do it.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Starwaster
Fixing a newbish oops on my part

[Hodo]

You're off the equator when launching from Kennedy. What you're describing should be considered natural and expected when doing non-equatorial launches.

You can launch into an orbit that will give you a 90 heading if you really need one but only when your launch position intersects the planet's orbital plane, which it will do twice per planetary day.

Wait, strike that. You can't do what I said because we don't have real axial tilt. I'm a bit feverish and I forgot that.

You'd have to wait until your orbit intersects the equator after launch, then change planes. That's how you do it.

Thanks, I will have to correct this when I get around to fixing my satellite network.

In other news, still having issues adding a second communication base station on the ground. It will show me the one red dot but not the others that I have added to the cfg file. Is there some kind of special GUID I have to put in?

[NathanKell]

You can launch and make a dogleg.

Each station needs a unique GUID.

[Hodo]

You can launch and make a dogleg.

Each station needs a unique GUID.

The problem is my compass is off. It says I am headed 090, but I am actually headed more 120-130deg. How do I correct that issue?

Next problem, how do I set unique GUIDs?

[SpacedInvader]

So I finally made it to the Mun with a probe lander using the 10x Kerbol system config, only to find the surface to be completely flat and "vibrating". I could still land, but I'm a little disappointed at the lack of landscape and also the surface movement. A little searching indicated that the flat landscape has been seen before, but nothing about the jittering surface. Are these normal problems and/or is there any way to fix them? Also, can I expect the same problems to be carried on to the other orbital bodies?

[Ralathon]

So I finally made it to the Mun with a probe lander using the 10x Kerbol system config, only to find the surface to be completely flat and "vibrating". I could still land, but I'm a little disappointed at the lack of landscape and also the surface movement. A little searching indicated that the flat landscape has been seen before, but nothing about the jittering surface. Are these normal problems and/or is there any way to fix them? Also, can I expect the same problems to be carried on to the other orbital bodies?

Jittering surface has largely been fixed for me using the 6.0 prerelease. I assume you're using 5.5?

As for the flat terrain, yea this is known and sadly valid for all planets and moons. Kerbin and the Mun have a config that allows you to tweak it, but simply copy pasting it towards other planets doesn't always work.

If you open up RealSolarSystem.cfg in your folder with notepad (or an equivalent program) and scroll down to the mun you'll see something like this:

		PQS		{
			Mun
			{
				PQSMod_VertexHeightMap
				{
					heightMapDeformity = 9500 //7500
				}
				PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeight // doubles
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					persistence = 0.7 //0.5
					frequency = 1 // 12
					//octaves = 10 // 8 // A DOUBLE
				}
				PQSMod_VertexHeightNoiseVertHeight // floats
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					frequency = 12 // 12
					//octaves = 7 // 6 // INT
				}
				PQSMod_VoronoiCraters
				{
					KEYvoronoiSeed = 462
					deformation = 600 //200
					//voronoiFrequency = 100 //50
				}
			}
		}

By adjusting these values you can edit the roughness of the terrain. In most cases higher numbers = rougher terrain.

You can try copying this section of code to other moons and planets but no guarantees that it does anything.

[SpacedInvader]

Jittering surface has largely been fixed for me using the 6.0 prerelease. I assume you're using 5.5?

As for the flat terrain, yea this is known and sadly valid for all planets and moons. Kerbin and the Mun have a config that allows you to tweak it, but simply copy pasting it towards other planets doesn't always work.

If you open up RealSolarSystem.cfg in your folder with notepad (or an equivalent program) and scroll down to the mun you'll see something like this:

		PQS		{
			Mun
			{
				PQSMod_VertexHeightMap
				{
					heightMapDeformity = 9500 //7500
				}
				PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeight // doubles
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					persistence = 0.7 //0.5
					frequency = 1 // 12
					//octaves = 10 // 8 // A DOUBLE
				}
				PQSMod_VertexHeightNoiseVertHeight // floats
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					frequency = 12 // 12
					//octaves = 7 // 6 // INT
				}
				PQSMod_VoronoiCraters
				{
					KEYvoronoiSeed = 462
					deformation = 600 //200
					//voronoiFrequency = 100 //50
				}
			}
		}

By adjusting these values you can edit the roughness of the terrain. In most cases higher numbers = rougher terrain.

You can try copying this section of code to other moons and planets but no guarantees that it does anything.

I had a feeling that v6 might be an improvement and while waiting for a response I gave it a try. Unfortunately, I run into an out of memory error before I even hit the main menu, which is a problem as I've already cut out all of the add-on's I'm willing to give up, have already pruned out the items I don't use from the remaining, and already use the aggressive mode of the active texture compressor. Can you think of any way to reduce memory load further without giving up any more mods? I'm starting to think I need to try running Linux on a virtual machine so I can get full x64 support and make use of my 16GB of RAM.

As for the surface roughness, if I can get v6 up and running, I'll give your modifications a try. I'm thinking though that I might revert back to small Kerbol for the time being until issues like this are sorted out. From what I've read, there is a different PQS model being talked about that might work better, but that may not be implemented for a while. This is important for me though, as I'd say at least 30% of the fun of this game (for me at least) is the challenge of landing on another planet/moon without ending up rolling down a mountain or running out of fuel.

[brooklyn666]

The problem is my compass is off. It says I am headed 090, but I am actually headed more 120-130deg. How do I correct that issue?

Next problem, how do I set unique GUIDs?

Not sure about your compass problems, but just open up your RemoteTech_Settings.cfg and change the guid manually. For example if it's 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc488, all you need to do is change one digit, so you could make it 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc489. As long as no to guids are the same.

[Hodo]

This is what I have in my Remote Tech 2 cfg.

GroundStations

{

STATION

{

Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc488

Name = Mission Control

Latitude = 28.608389

Longitude = -80.604333

Height = 75

Body = 1

Antennas

{

ANTENNA

{

Omni = 7.5E+07

}

STATION

{

Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc489

Name = Mission Control

Latitude = 45.92

Longitude = 63.342

Height = 75

Body = 1

Antennas

{

ANTENNA

{

Omni = 7.5E+7

}

STATION

{

Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc490

Name = Mission Control

Latitude = -31.6034

Longitude = 115.9305

Height = 75

Body = 1

Antennas

{

ANTENNA

{

Omni = 7.5E+7

}

}

}

}

I am still only getting one base station for RT2.

[NathanKell]

Try giving them different names too?

But the real issue is your braces aren't matching. You never close the Antennas block or the STATION block before starting the next STATION block.

You might want to edit your cfg files in something like Notepad++ which will automatically highlight matching braces to help you keep track.

Fixed:

GroundStations
{
	STATION
	{
		Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc488
		Name = Mission Control 1
		Latitude = 28.608389
		Longitude = -80.604333
		Height = 75
		Body = 1
		Antennas
		{
			ANTENNA
			{
				Omni = 7.5E+07
			}
		}
	}
	STATION
	{
		Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc489
		Name = Mission Control 2
		Latitude = 45.92
		Longitude = 63.342
		Height = 75
		Body = 1
		Antennas
		{
			ANTENNA
			{
				Omni = 7.5E+7
			}
		}
	}
	STATION
	{
		Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc490
		Name = Mission Control 3
		Latitude = -31.6034
		Longitude = 115.9305
		Height = 75
		Body = 1
		Antennas
		{
			ANTENNA
			{
				Omni = 7.5E+7
			}
		}
	}
}

I, too, have had no problems with KSC's heading. What do you mean by "it's actually 130"? How does that manifest itself?

SpacedInvader: as Ralathon says, you can tweak terrain. I've only done a bit of work on Earth so far; the moon I've barely touched. Please be my guest and I'll gladly use anyone's edits.

You can try increasing the divisor in ATM...

[Hodo]

I, too, have had no problems with KSC's heading. What do you mean by "it's actually 130"? How does that manifest itself?

SpacedInvader: as Ralathon says, you can tweak terrain. I've only done a bit of work on Earth so far; the moon I've barely touched. Please be my guest and I'll gladly use anyone's edits.

You can try increasing the divisor in ATM...

When my rockets launch from Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and begin the gravity turn on heading 090, they end up more or less heading 120 instead of 090. I think this maybe because of the KSC being north of the equator so 090 is more or less putting them in a orbital path of 100-120deg depending on when I launch.

[NathanKell]

I still don't get what you mean, with "ending up"--do you mean your orbital velocity vector, when you circularize, is pointing at about 120? Yes, as mentioned by Starwaster, me, and others, a bunch of times, KSC is at 28 degrees north, which means if you burn east all the way to orbit, you'll still be in a 28 degree inclination orbit. This is normal, and unavoidable unless you make a "dogleg" partway through your ascent to cancel the antinormal component of your orbital velocity.

[brooklyn666]

When my rockets launch from Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and begin the gravity turn on heading 090, they end up more or less heading 120 instead of 090. I think this maybe because of the KSC being north of the equator so 090 is more or less putting them in a orbital path of 100-120deg depending on when I launch.

The KSC is at a latitude of 28.45 degrees north. This means that you can never launch into an inclination below 28.45 degrees. If your launch azimuth is 90 degrees, then as you head towards your descending node, your heading will drift towards 118.45 (90 + 28.45).

[Hodo]

I still don't get what you mean, with "ending up"--do you mean your orbital velocity vector, when you circularize, is pointing at about 120? Yes, as mentioned by Starwaster, me, and others, a bunch of times, KSC is at 28 degrees north, which means if you burn east all the way to orbit, you'll still be in a 28 degree inclination orbit. This is normal, and unavoidable unless you make a "dogleg" partway through your ascent to cancel the antinormal component of your orbital velocity.

That is pretty much what is happening. I figured it out, not going to correct it.

[SpacedInvader]

Jittering surface has largely been fixed for me using the 6.0 prerelease. I assume you're using 5.5?

As for the flat terrain, yea this is known and sadly valid for all planets and moons. Kerbin and the Mun have a config that allows you to tweak it, but simply copy pasting it towards other planets doesn't always work.

If you open up RealSolarSystem.cfg in your folder with notepad (or an equivalent program) and scroll down to the mun you'll see something like this:

		PQS		{
			Mun
			{
				PQSMod_VertexHeightMap
				{
					heightMapDeformity = 9500 //7500
				}
				PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeight // doubles
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					persistence = 0.7 //0.5
					frequency = 1 // 12
					//octaves = 10 // 8 // A DOUBLE
				}
				PQSMod_VertexHeightNoiseVertHeight // floats
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					frequency = 12 // 12
					//octaves = 7 // 6 // INT
				}
				PQSMod_VoronoiCraters
				{
					KEYvoronoiSeed = 462
					deformation = 600 //200
					//voronoiFrequency = 100 //50
				}
			}
		}

By adjusting these values you can edit the roughness of the terrain. In most cases higher numbers = rougher terrain.

You can try copying this section of code to other moons and planets but no guarantees that it does anything.

Sorry for double quoting this, I just wanted to make sure the relevant post was in with my findings. So I guessed, perhaps in error, that the commented out values were the original ones that were modified to create the current real solar system config. Based on that info, and the fact that Kerbin is supposedly about 1/10th the size of earth (at least from the information dropped around this thread), I went ahead and simply increased the heightMapDeformity to 75000. My thinking here was that the reason the object is so flattened is because its trying to implement the same vertical height map over a 10x larger horizontal space, resulting in very gradual, flattened terrain. Anyway, initial testing shows that this made the Munar surface look much like it does at stock system size. Right now I'm putting a lander in the same place in the stock game, RSS without my modification, and then RSS with my modification so I can share some pics of the end result. What I would really like to find is some good documentation of what each part of the PQS block does so I could further tweak it's application, does such a thing exist?

On a slightly different topic, now that I've upgraded to v6, my 10x Kerbol system doesn't seem to be quite compatible anymore, with the land around KSC now being below sea level and KSC floating in the air above it. I'm not sure what else might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the only departure from the config I want to be using. How might I go about making the old config work with the new RSS? Lastly, I would also like to use the Planet Factory planets in their default configuration with the larger system, how can I make this work?

Thanks.

EDIT: I would also like to know what I would need to do to let multiple copies of KSP exist on the same system without interfering with each other. I'm not planning on running more than one at a time, but I would like one to play and one to mess around with tweaking things like this without having to try and remember which mods were where and with what configuration settings. Thanks again.

Edited March 27, 2014 by SpacedInvader

[SpacedInvader]

Ok, so in case anyone cares, here are the pics of what I did last night.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

All pics were taken from about the same point on the Mun, so hopefully the comparison is easy to make. Also, I think I might have overcooked the PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeight persistence a little, leading to an overly bumpy appearance in my tweaked version, but the size is so large that the on ground effect is quite small.

I should also mention that v6 did nothing to cure the ground jitters for me, so I'm hoping there is more work being done on this.

I'm curious now if there is a way to simply put a capsule / probe onto a planet's surface without having to motor it all the way out there. My poor mechjeb2 pod was killed about 10 times trying to poke around like this, and I can only imagine how much of a pain it would be to try and test this out on a planet like Duna or Eeloo if my probes died every other loading of the game and I've got to motor all the way back out there again...

[Traches]

I'm curious now if there is a way to simply put a capsule / probe onto a planet's surface without having to motor it all the way out there.

Hyperedit is what you need. It's basically a cheat menu, brought up by alt+h.

[SpacedInvader]

Hyperedit is what you need. It's basically a cheat menu, brought up by alt+h.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[brooklyn666]

Hey SpaceInvader, can you post the cfg edits you made?

[Hodo]

Is there a custom biome setting for the RSS real earth system?

EDIT- Found one for Kerbin... pg 199 thanks Amo28!

Edited March 29, 2014 by Hodo

[NathanKell]

SpacedInvader: 75,000: wow. That means the tallest mountain on the moon will be ~75km high! (deformities are the max increase in elevation, in meters, that that mod will apply). You might be better off just doubling the VertexHeightMap deformity (it should be about 18km from lowest to highest point on the moon, dunno why I put 9500 there) and then vastly increasing the frequency of the SimplexHeight mod. (frequency means how "rough" the Simplex noise is; frequency=1 will have much greater variation in height in a given area). Try something like 50, maybe? You can also mess with its deformity some too.

I wouldn't mess with the Craters one much, although maybe the deformation should be increased even more. (The reason I say don't mess much: when I doubled the frequency, RAM usage shot up 500MB. That's why that line's commented.)

PQS operates by creating quads for terrain with base vertex displacements based on planetary radius. Then the heights (and many other things, but here we're concerned with heights) are modified by the PQSMods applied. Deformity is the parameter that controls how much the mod modifies the vertex's height, in meters. For the other terms--since Mods often use multi-level noise--see http://libnoise.sourceforge.net/glossary/

When you upgraded to v6, did you stick the old CFG back in? It may or may not be compatible.

To make multiple KSP copies, just copy the KSP folder somewhere else. Presto.

[amo28]

Is there a custom biome setting for the RSS real earth system?

EDIT- Found one for Kerbin... pg 199 thanks Amo28!

You're quite welcome. Since there've been more than a few requests for my map all of a sudden, here is an updated version of the map and biome file to work with Custom Biomes 1.5.

It's definitely more accurate using Exact Match than previous versions, but it's still only accurate up to about 200 meters or so. Still really good for flight, but probably not for roving.

Download

[NathanKell]

amo28: I'll put that in the OP if you don't mind? (When I release v6 officially I mean--yikes it's been a while).

[amo28]

amo28: I'll put that in the OP if you don't mind? (When I release v6 officially I mean--yikes it's been a while).

Feel free. Customzing the biomes via the LandClasses is my next project, but that may take a while.

[SpacedInvader]

Hey SpaceInvader, can you post the cfg edits you made?

Mun
			{
				PQSMod_VertexHeightMap
				{
					heightMapDeformity = 75000 //7500
				}
				PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeight // doubles
				{
					deformity = 1200 // 400
					persistence = 0.8 //0.5
					frequency = 12 // 12
					//octaves = 10 // 8 // A DOUBLE
				}
				PQSMod_VertexHeightNoiseVertHeight // floats
				{
					deformity = 4000 // 400
					frequency = 12 // 12
					//octaves = 7 // 6 // INT
				}
				PQSMod_VoronoiCraters
				{
					KEYvoronoiSeed = 462
					deformation = 2000 //200
					//voronoiFrequency = 100 //50
				}
			}

SpacedInvader: 75,000: wow. That means the tallest mountain on the moon will be ~75km high! (deformities are the max increase in elevation, in meters, that that mod will apply). You might be better off just doubling the VertexHeightMap deformity (it should be about 18km from lowest to highest point on the moon, dunno why I put 9500 there) and then vastly increasing the frequency of the SimplexHeight mod. (frequency means how "rough" the Simplex noise is; frequency=1 will have much greater variation in height in a given area). Try something like 50, maybe? You can also mess with its deformity some too.

I wouldn't mess with the Craters one much, although maybe the deformation should be increased even more. (The reason I say don't mess much: when I doubled the frequency, RAM usage shot up 500MB. That's why that line's commented.)

PQS operates by creating quads for terrain with base vertex displacements based on planetary radius. Then the heights (and many other things, but here we're concerned with heights) are modified by the PQSMods applied. Deformity is the parameter that controls how much the mod modifies the vertex's height, in meters. For the other terms--since Mods often use multi-level noise--see http://libnoise.sourceforge.net/glossary/

When you upgraded to v6, did you stick the old CFG back in? It may or may not be compatible.

To make multiple KSP copies, just copy the KSP folder somewhere else. Presto.

I agree that 75km is pretty high. Even that mountain in my testing pics was higher than 20km, but based on visual assessment, if you want to carry the look over from stock, that seems about right. In addition, I'd point out that abnormal proportions are not unheard of beyond earth (e.g. olympus mons). That being said, I'll have to go back and see if I can find a better balance between how tall everything is and how it feels when going there. After all, I'd personally prefer 75km mountains to landing in a planetary wide flat plain. The problem, of course, is that the height map we're using doesn't account for the larger scale, so you can't really get steep slopes spaced around flatter areas without lots of smoothing.

As for SimplexHeight, there was a setting I tried there (can't remember exactly what right now) that made the ground look like a cactus, with endless needle sharp spikes sticking out. I'll have to do some more testing in the next day or two, but it may have been setting persistence too high.

The old cfg is what I was trying, which I'm guessing probably isn't compatible with the new release. Unless jsimmons decides to update his config to the new release, I may have to make one for myself. I'm guessing it's as simple as converting the orbital body locations to those from the original game, just at a 10x scale? Can you tell me where the original planet files are located so I can work with those numbers?