[1.2] Real Solar System v12.0 Dec 8

[NathanKell]

regex: some background. The real way to fix it would be for me to sit down and get the MeshWrapper to work so the scaledspace mesh is rejiggered to match the PQS for each body. Until then you get a problem where the PQS and scaledspace mesh don't match because the PQS has its radius scaled up but one generally wishes to keep max height above sea level the same (or, at most 1.5x or so for Earth), whereas the scaledspace mesh, as a uniform mesh, has a single scale factor.

Example, Kerbin. Starts with radius 600, max height ASL 8km. Scale radius to 6371, max height ASL to (roughly) 15km. While you might think that's a 10.6x increase, a *real* 10.6x increase would mean max height ASL would be 85km....and that's exactly what happens when you scale up the scaledspace mesh by 10.6x, which you have to do for obvious reasons.

To save on processing, KSP fades out the PQS and fades in the scaledspace mesh at a certain altitude (defined by those parameters, the ScaledSpaceFader object and the PQSMod that handles fading the PQS). When it does that in RSS, since the meshes no longer align, there are holes (this lead to the whole "double mun!!!" problem early on). I thus (with help from MedievalNerd and yargnit) hand-tweaked Kerbin's fader parameters to get the best-looking LKO I could, balancing not wanting double terrain, with not wanting the transition to be jarring, and wanting the least blurriness (sometimes PQS looks better, sometimes scaledspace looks better even limited to 8192x4096 textures).

RSS is designed such that if you *don't* specify any of the SSF or PQSfade/Secfade/deactivate parameters, things will probably work. They're there for if you want to hand-tweak if you notice a problem.

[regex]

RSS is designed such that if you *don't* specify any of the SSF or PQSfade/Secfade/deactivate parameters, things will probably work. They're there for if you want to hand-tweak if you notice a problem.

I was getting a double Mun without the values, so I asked. Thanks for the explanation, I'll check each body in turn and see how they look on transition.

[NathanKell]

Oh. Woops. Sorry....

Yeah, my near-term project once the immediate bugs are sorted out in RF/RO/etc is to give RSS an actual update: fix the scaledspace meshes, add support for moving the flatten pqsmod, add heightmap swapping, etc.

[regex]

Oh. Woops. Sorry....

Yeah, my near-term project once the immediate bugs are sorted out in RF/RO/etc is to give RSS an actual update: fix the scaledspace meshes, add support for moving the flatten pqsmod, add heightmap swapping, etc.

Nice, looking forward to it.

[bulletrhli]

I just noticed there was a 10x version, what is the difference with the RSS and the 10x version?

[regex]

I just noticed there was a 10x version, what is the difference with the RSS and the 10x version?

RSS is Earth Solar System, 10x is Kerbin. (I'm assuming, why would anyone do a 10x Earth Solar System when RSS is like 10.1 or something?)

[bulletrhli]

So it just sets everything back to normal?

[regex]

So it just sets everything back to normal?

What? No. The Kerbin system is actually about 1/10th the size of an actual solar system; it breaks physics in all sorts of crazy ways and is highly unrealistic. Hence why you have a 10x scale config for RSS.

[NathanKell]

No, it rescales the Kerbol system up 10x. So everything is in the proportional orbit it used to be, Jool is stll Jool, Eeloo is still a frozen rock out in the far system, Eve has a moon...just everything is 10x as big (planets, orbits) as stock KSP. It's like if you want RSS-like scales without playing in the human universe.

[HoneyFox]

I met a "bug" with RSS.

First, I use RT2, and i haven't established lunar commsat network yet.

And I landed an unmanned moon lander sometime earlier on the moon (so it must have a clear LOS to the earth, though the location is quite near the edge).

After several other missions, I want to go back to see it, only to find that it's now at the back side of the moon (the longitude shifted for about 20 degrees or so), which means i cannot establish communication link directly.

This is strange, shouldn't the moon be tidally locked to the earth? why would this happen?

[NathanKell]

It should be tidally locked, yes. First I've heard it wasnt'. Weird. I'll investigate.

[lunait]

This is the one I'm using and this is what it looks like (although I've made some small changes since that album, like adding Joker and Serious as Eris and Sedna). Needs RealSolarSystem, PlanetFactory, VisualEnhancements(Clouds and City Lights), UniverseReplacer mods, but if you don't have one of them just don't extract the relevant directory.

Can I ask, for the bodies representing Uranus and Neptune (since they're gas giants), in addition to replacing their textures, do you also change their surface behaviour and topography so that e.g. the terrain on Uranus (Laythe, IIRC) disappears and it behaves similar to Jool when you try to "land" on it?

Awesome config, by the way.

Edited January 13, 2014 by lunait

[metaphor]

It should be tidally locked, yes. First I've heard it wasnt'. Weird. I'll investigate.

I've noticed some bugs with other moons that should be tidally locked as well. I just set the rotation period equal to orbital period and that fixed it (instead of setting tidallyLocked to true).

Can I ask, for the bodies representing Uranus and Neptune (since they're gas giants), in addition to replacing their textures, do you also change their surface behaviour and topography so that e.g. the terrain on Uranus (Laythe, IIRC) disappears and it behaves similar to Jool when you try to "land" on it?

Awesome config, by the way.

Thanks. I didn't change any surface behavior or topography. Everything you see is just an illusion. They look like gas giants from the outside and they have the right atmosphere for aerocapture/aerobraking, but underneath it you can still actually land on them.

Edited January 13, 2014 by metaphor

[lunait]

Thanks. I didn't change any surface behavior or topography. Everything you see is just an illusion. They look like gas giants from the outside and they have the right atmosphere for aerocapture/aerobraking, but underneath it you can still actually land on them.

OK, thanks for the info. Maybe it's possible to change the planets to become gas giants in some way?

Oh hey, by the way, I figured out why the clouds in your config aren't working with the latest version of Visual Enhancements (or at least in the one I'm using - it should be the latest one): the way the parameters are encoded in the userCloudLayers.cfg file has been changed. The news are as follows, from I've been able to find out:

1. In the color part, besides r, g and b, there is also an a value for opacity.
   
2. The scale parameter is now combined to a single value instead of an x and y value.
   

Here is an example of how the updated config should look for Eve/Venus:

CLOUD_LAYER
{
	body = Eve
	radius = 1.08
	color
	{
		r = 1
		g = 1
		b = 1
		a = 1
	}
	main_texture
	{
		file = BoulderCo/Clouds/Textures/Venus1
		scale = 1
		offset
		{
			x = 0.002109109
			y = 0
		}
		speed
		{
			x = 1E-05
			y = 0
		}
	}
	detail_texture
	{
		file = BoulderCo/Clouds/Textures/detail1
		scale = 100
		offset
		{
			x = 0.002109109
			y = 0
		}
		speed
		{
			x = 1E-05
			y = 0
		}
	}
	shader_floats
	{
		falloffPower = 0.2
		falloffScale = 3
		detailDistance = 0.00875
		minimumLight = 0
	}
}

EDIT: I tried it with every planet and moon in your config file, it works (except for the second Kerbin layer, where the kerbin2 texture seems to have been deleted from Visual Enhancements, unless I've missed it somewhere - so I deleted that layer from my config file). Here's my updated userCloudLayers.cfg file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ld3xru - just use the RSSConfig3 pack and replace userCloudLayers.cfg with this one.

Edited January 14, 2014 by lunait

[Shukinen]

i recently installed all the realism pack and all the engines wont fit perfectly to the size of the tanks, is there a way to repair that? or is it from my end?

[AbeS]

Use stretchies, no need for any other tanks

[lunait]

i recently installed all the realism pack and all the engines wont fit perfectly to the size of the tanks, is there a way to repair that? or is it from my end?

Which engines and which tanks, and in what way does it not fit? Could you provide an image to show what you mean?

[Starwaster]

regex: some background. The real way to fix it would be for me to sit down and get the MeshWrapper to work so the scaledspace mesh is rejiggered to match the PQS for each body. Until then you get a problem where the PQS and scaledspace mesh don't match because the PQS has its radius scaled up but one generally wishes to keep max height above sea level the same (or, at most 1.5x or so for Earth), whereas the scaledspace mesh, as a uniform mesh, has a single scale factor.

Example, Kerbin. Starts with radius 600, max height ASL 8km. Scale radius to 6371, max height ASL to (roughly) 15km. While you might think that's a 10.6x increase, a *real* 10.6x increase would mean max height ASL would be 85km....and that's exactly what happens when you scale up the scaledspace mesh by 10.6x, which you have to do for obvious reasons.

To save on processing, KSP fades out the PQS and fades in the scaledspace mesh at a certain altitude (defined by those parameters, the ScaledSpaceFader object and the PQSMod that handles fading the PQS). When it does that in RSS, since the meshes no longer align, there are holes (this lead to the whole "double mun!!!" problem early on). I thus (with help from MedievalNerd and yargnit) hand-tweaked Kerbin's fader parameters to get the best-looking LKO I could, balancing not wanting double terrain, with not wanting the transition to be jarring, and wanting the least blurriness (sometimes PQS looks better, sometimes scaledspace looks better even limited to 8192x4096 textures).

RSS is designed such that if you *don't* specify any of the SSF or PQSfade/Secfade/deactivate parameters, things will probably work. They're there for if you want to hand-tweak if you notice a problem.

So what would I have to tweak exactly to get my favorite Duna canyon back? (or any of them really)

[Shukinen]

Which engines and which tanks, and in what way does it not fit? Could you provide an image to show what you mean?

using all the most used mods like Kw AIES and all the thing is that its slightly off the size of the tanks and if i change tanks size, well it wont fit with fairinggs either it does this:

[metaphor]

Here's my updated userCloudLayers.cfg file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ld3xru - just use the RSSConfig3 pack and replace userCloudLayers.cfg with this one.

Thanks! I'll update it.

[MAKC]

I wonder what else they will do to counter the quite extreme offset center of thrust for the Skylon IRL... Granted the exhaust curves downwards a bit and it can gimbal but it seems like a really wasteful workaround, especially for a SSTO that prides itself on efficiency.

[HoneyFox]

http://i.imgur.com/kDa9YOXl.jpg

I wonder what else they will do to counter the quite extreme offset center of thrust for the Skylon IRL... Granted the exhaust curves downwards a bit and it can gimbal but it seems like a really wasteful workaround, especially for a SSTO that prides itself on efficiency.

Aren't Skylon's wings tilted a bit so that the wingtip is higher than the wingroot? this will help a bit also...

Besides that, perhaps it does needs some pitch-up moment, especially due to its length, relative small canards & relative small wing areas.

[MAKC]

Aren't Skylon's wings tilted a bit so that the wingtip is higher than the wingroot? this will help a bit also...

Besides that, perhaps it does needs some pitch-up moment, especially due to its length, relative small canards & relative small wing areas.

True. I haven't had much luck finding official schematics of the different configurations they've designed so far. Most image results on Google don't even bother mentioning which configuration the render is supposed to represent.

[NathanKell]

Starwaster: well, you'd have to mod the PQSMods that Duna has, and change their frequency, deformity, etc. That's how you change terrain for PQS bodies. Try adding PQSMod_VertexHeightMap, PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeightAbsolute, and PQSMod_VertexHeightNoiseVertHeightCurve2 (that one's harder because Duna has 3; I don't think I have a way of distinguishing between them yet in RSS so any value changes will apply to all three I think) nodes to the Duna node in RSS.cfg. Look at how I deal with those in Kerbin's node for examples.

Shukinen: While this is more fitting for the RO thread, I'll answer here. If you're using Realism Overhaul with SFJackBauer's RealEngines, then engine-proxies (KSP engines that look close enough to real counterparts) are scaled to their size in real life. So a J-2X with a 3m bell is scaled so it has a 3m bell ingame. What makes this a problem is that, following Squad's annoying practice, most modders (and most all Squad engines, whence the practice arose) don't just include the engine (which ends at that industrial-tube-looking thing) but *also* the whole bottom part of the tank (the giant dome). IRL tanks, as pressure vessels, end in domes; in KSP tanks are cut off and the dome is considered part of the engine. That means that rather having an engine with a nice small top you could mount to any stage, you get the giant awful domes that are often larger than the engine itself and limit what it fits well with.

Anyway, rant over. The point is, if you're using Realism Overhaul, two things are true.

1. Most parts are rescaled to a 0.5m/1m/2m/3m/etc system, except tanks (because presumably you'll be using StretchyTanks)

2. You're thus probably using either SFJackBauer's RealEngines (the default in Realism Overhaul), which leads to the problem I mention at the top, or you're using my RftSEngines, which obeys the 0.5m/1m/2m/etc rule (mostly).

That's why I include rescaled fairings in RO, to fit most stage sizes.

TL;DR yes this is working as designed; use stretchies. Or scale the tanks you like to the sizes you want (new volume should = old volume * (new diamater / old diameter)^3

[Col_Jessep]

Just came by to say thanks for this mod!

Not only does it provide me with a new challenge (stock parts, stock career mode), it made me appreciate the beauty of KSP (and the universe in general) more.

Burning for the moon. I almost overshot because I was happily watching the sunrise instead of my instruments...