[1.2] Real Solar System v12.0 Dec 8

[Ralathon]

I'm sorry if this was asked, I tried searching this thread but had no such luck. Are there any config files to redo agency missions in .90 to match the RSS scaling? Launching a craft to hit 11Km is not much of a mile marker with Realism Overhaul, and (I haven't gotten this far yet, so I apologize if this isn't the case) I worry that the "create a base/satellite" missions may involve placing these objects in an orbit that isn't an orbit at all with a scaled solar system. If not, I can rewrite/scale some of these contracts myself, but I'd probably just place a multiplier on most distance related contracts. If I end up doing this, does anyone have any suggestions on how I should change said fields?

On that note, anyone knows how to give Minmus a much higher difficulty in the contract generation system?

It's a problem I ran into on my 0.25 career save a lot: "Oh, you've just managed to orbit the moon? HOW ABOUT A SPACE STATION AROUND URANUS EH?!?!". It's not a big deal obviously since I can just refuse the mission. But I've always felt as if the system was quietly mocking me.

[shoe7ess]

On that note, anyone knows how to give Minmus a much higher difficulty in the contract generation system?

It's a problem I ran into on my 0.25 career save a lot: "Oh, you've just managed to orbit the moon? HOW ABOUT A SPACE STATION AROUND URANUS EH?!?!". It's not a big deal obviously since I can just refuse the mission. But I've always felt as if the system was quietly mocking me.

Upin inspection, its not as simple as a config change. May have to start with a mod that custonizes contracts (not including mission controller), because the contracts config only includes the variables that get randomized, and doesnt include distances or the like. Wish it was set up like MC because that was really easy to modify.

Anyone know of something that could allow for these changes

[PTNLemay]

I feel like experimenting with the resized solar system. Namely I want to know how long it would take to travel from Earth to Mars while thrusting continuously at 0.5 G, or 1.0 G. Things like that. I tried to actually learn the orbital mechanics that dictate it all but it's really... hard. So I figure I could use this as a good mod to try it out manually.

Will the mod work without the fancy-pants textures? As in, just resize the solar system and leave everything else as is. I'm not much into moding and I want to start with something simple.

[Traches]

PTN, I think you're actually making it more complicated by trying to avoid installing the textures. Just use CKAN, find realism overhaul in the list, and it should take care of all the dependencies for you. You may also want to install hyperedit, which is a cheat menu that helps immensely with the type of testing you're talking about doing. (It lets you do things like teleport ships from the launchpad to an orbit, bypassing the launch).

[PTNLemay]

@ Traches

CKAN... can't I just use the link provided in the first post of the thread? That seemed to provide the mod in it's entirety.

EDIT:

By the way, how accurate is this rescaling. I understand that compromises will have had to be made, but the general scale and the physics engine are all pretty accurate, right? For example, when the accelerometer indicates 1.0 G, it's an actual 9.81 m/s/s increase? http://i.imgur.com/5OTNqra.png

I think I found a flaw in my plan, lol. The game can only physics accelerate when I'm thrusting. Even at a constant 1.0 G thrust, the trip might take several real-life days.

Edited January 7, 2015 by PTNLemay

[Ralathon]

I feel like experimenting with the resized solar system. Namely I want to know how long it would take to travel from Earth to Mars while thrusting continuously at 0.5 G, or 1.0 G. Things like that. I tried to actually learn the orbital mechanics that dictate it all but it's really... hard. So I figure I could use this as a good mod to try it out manually.

You can just approximate it with some basic maths:

Ignore the orbits of the planets, our transfer orbit is way too fast for that to significantly matter.

Closest approach between earth and mars is between 60 and 100 Gm, so we'll take 80Gm as average.

You'll presumably want to slow down near mars. So you have to spend half the trip accelerating and half the trip slowing down.

So we just need to solve 40Gm = 0.5*a*t^2

t = sqrt(80Gm/a)

That's the time to the midway point. So total travel time is about 2t

t(total) = 2*sqrt(80Gm/a)

So if you take acceleration as 1.0g (About 10m/s^2) you end up with a total travel time of about 50 hours. Same calculation for 0.5G gives you about 70 hours of travel time.

[KasraHashemi]

Hello everyone, I was experimenting in KSP recently when I noticed a bug with the terrain at the Hammaguir launch site. It seems like the ground beneath the launch site is lifted a few hundred metres up. So when I launched my rocket, it crashed into the lifted ground a few seconds after lift off! Could you guys also check your Hammaguir launch site and see if it has the same bug? If so then NathanKell must be notified so he can fix it.

Cheers

[Borisbee]

I was wondering if it is possible to use PQSMod_MapDecal in the RSS config. I wanted to apply a heightmap decal to place a mountain feature on a planet but when adding it, it doesn't seem to take effect. Does this code look right, or is this just not possible.

Add
{
PQSMod_MapDecal
{
	order=50000
	radius=120000
	position=-19468.5, -25737.1, 61828.1
	angle=0
	heightMap=GameData/RSSTextures/decal.png
	heightMapDeformity=22000
	cullBlack=True
	useAlphaHeightSmoothing=False
	absolute=False
	absoluteOffset=200
	colorMap=GameData/RSSTextures/decal_color.png
	smoothHeight=0.125
	smoothColor=0.125
	removeScatter=False
	DEBUG_HighlightInclusion=False
}
}

[Starwaster]

I was wondering if it is possible to use PQSMod_MapDecal in the RSS config. I wanted to apply a heightmap decal to place a mountain feature on a planet but when adding it, it doesn't seem to take effect. Does this code look right, or is this just not possible.

Add
{
PQSMod_MapDecal
{
    order=50000
    radius=120000
    position=-19468.5, -25737.1, 61828.1
    angle=0
    heightMap=GameData/RSSTextures/decal.png
    heightMapDeformity=22000
    cullBlack=True
    useAlphaHeightSmoothing=False
    absolute=False
    absoluteOffset=200
    colorMap=GameData/RSSTextures/decal_color.png
    smoothHeight=0.125
    smoothColor=0.125
    removeScatter=False
    DEBUG_HighlightInclusion=False
}
}

RSS doesn't look for PQSMod_MapDecal that wasn't in the original planet configuration. It does look for PQSMod_MapDecalTangent..... not sure what the difference is.

[PTNLemay]

You can just approximate it with some basic maths:

...

we just need to solve 40Gm = 0.5*a*t^2

t = sqrt(80Gm/a)

That's the time to the midway point. So total travel time is about 2t

t(total) = 2*sqrt(80Gm/a)

So if you take acceleration as 1.0g (About 10m/s^2) you end up with a total travel time of about 50 hours. Same calculation for 0.5G gives you about 70 hours of travel time.

Huh, thanks. And this is for a straight line I take it, which we can use as an approximation because by burning this hard the curvature becomes negligible. It's strange, I remember seeing random mention on Wikipedia that said it would take 3 to 5 days.

[Ralathon]

Huh, thanks. And this is for a straight line I take it, which we can use as an approximation because by burning this hard the curvature becomes negligible. It's strange, I remember seeing random mention on Wikipedia that said it would take 3 to 5 days.

Yea, it's a straight line. It all goes so fast that planets barely have time to move. Also note that this was during the closest approach. Of course the travel time will be longer if Mars happens to be on the other side of the solar system. So 3 to 5 days is a pretty good estimate. 70 hours for the 0.5g acceleration is about 3 days after all.

Do note that the amount of dV for these kinds of maneuvers is absolutely insane. Accelerating at 1G for 50 hours means your ship needs 1800km/s of dV. So don't expect these kind of trajectories to be useful until we figure out fusion torchships or some other magical technology with insane power density.

[PTNLemay]

Do note that the amount of dV for these kinds of maneuvers is absolutely insane. Accelerating at 1G for 50 hours means your ship needs 1800km/s of dV. So don't expect these kind of trajectories to be useful until we figure out fusion torchships or some other magical technology with insane power density.

Yes, for this I would allow impossible science fictional drives. I was thinking of something like a portal-based engine. One of your portals stays stationary at a large fuel processing station (at Earth, Luna, in orbit, so long as the location has access to huge amounts of reaction-mass) and the other portal sits at the top of your engine. The result would be something very much like having infini-fuel turned on in the game. It wouldn't actually be infinite... but it would enable ridiculous delta-V.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Hi all, I have a question about RealSolarSystem.cfg, if I don't include some data, for example, rotationPeriod will it use the default KSP values or simply not work?

Actually I have a second question as well, is there a config for the stock system or an easy way to see all the data for the stock game?

[Hattivat]

Hello everyone, I was experimenting in KSP recently when I noticed a bug with the terrain at the Hammaguir launch site. It seems like the ground beneath the launch site is lifted a few hundred metres up. So when I launched my rocket, it crashed into the lifted ground a few seconds after lift off! Could you guys also check your Hammaguir launch site and see if it has the same bug? If so then NathanKell must be notified so he can fix it.

Cheers

Just checked, I can confirm it also happens to me even with 8k textures.

[Borisbee]

RSS doesn't look for PQSMod_MapDecal that wasn't in the original planet configuration. It does look for PQSMod_MapDecalTangent..... not sure what the difference is.

Well that's unfortunate. I guess PlanetFactory is the only mod capable of doing mapdecals then.

[KasraHashemi]

Thanks for taking the time to check it. So I guess we just wait until NathanKell fixes it... or is there a way of notifying him? Apologies, I'm not very familiar with how these forum threads work.

[Felger]

Thanks for taking the time to check it. So I guess we just wait until NathanKell fixes it... or is there a way of notifying him? Apologies, I'm not very familiar with how these forum threads work.

With any luck, he's subscribed to this thread, and when he gets a chance he'll get a notification email.

[Starwaster]

Just checked, I can confirm it also happens to me even with 8k textures.

If you can repro it, what you can try next is edit Hammaguir's PQSCity entry in LaunchSites.cfg

      PQSCity
      {
        KEYname = KSC
        latitude = 30.77824
        longitude = -3.05377
        repositionRadiusOffset = 797
        repositionToSphereSurface = false
        lodvisibleRangeMult = 6
      }

Increase the value of repositionRadiusOffset until the problem goes away.

You could also then do a pull request for the edited file on RSS's github repository. That way the fix could make it into the next update.

[PTNLemay]

I found a small bug, whenever I revert to the VAB during a fligh, the camera is zoomed out all the way. This has happened before in non-modded KSP when I head to the launchpad, the camera will be super zoomed out. When it happens there I just double tap the map button and it automatically brings the camera back to normal. But you can't go into map mode in the VAB, so every time I have to zoom back in manually... it's a bit teddious.

http://i.imgur.com/qDVDe6v.png The view actually defaults at the back of the VAB, so you just see a wall, I rotated to better show the zoomed out distance that the camera takes. It also sometimes just when I load the VAB for the first time.

[Ralathon]

I found a small bug, whenever I revert to the VAB during a fligh, the camera is zoomed out all the way. This has happened before in non-modded KSP when I head to the launchpad, the camera will be super zoomed out. When it happens there I just double tap the map button and it automatically brings the camera back to normal. But you can't go into map mode in the VAB, so every time I have to zoom back in manually... it's a bit teddious.

http://i.imgur.com/qDVDe6v.png The view actually defaults at the back of the VAB, so you just see a wall, I rotated to better show the zoomed out distance that the camera takes. It also sometimes just when I load the VAB for the first time.

known issue.

[Arrowstar]

Roughly how long should I expect to need to wait for the body editing on the loading screen to finish? It's been about 10 minutes now and it looks like I'm stuck on Duna (been on Duna for a few minutes now). Neither my CPU or HDD are showing enormous amounts of activity. Could there be something going on?

Bit of an update: After killing KSP and restarting, it seems to be stuck on Pol now. However, multiple restarts of KSP haven't let me get past Pol. Anyone have any ideas?

Edited January 10, 2015 by Arrowstar

[Ralathon]

Roughly how long should I expect to need to wait for the body editing on the loading screen to finish? It's been about 10 minutes now and it looks like I'm stuck on Duna (been on Duna for a few minutes now). Neither my CPU or HDD are showing enormous amounts of activity. Could there be something going on?

Bit of an update: After killing KSP and restarting, it seems to be stuck on Pol now. However, multiple restarts of KSP haven't let me get past Pol. Anyone have any ideas?

Sounds like you're out of memory.

[_Augustus_]

I am working on my own Kopernicus config.

Edited January 12, 2015 by _Augustus_

[wasmic]

A quick question: how would I go about moving the entire KSC about two meters upwards with this plugin? Is that even possible?

[Starwaster]

A quick question: how would I go about moving the entire KSC about two meters upwards with this plugin? Is that even possible?

Yes it is. It's either the PQSCity or PQSDecal for that site. On my iPhone so I can't be precise.