[0.23] Alternis Kerbol - Release thread - [v0.1, Jan. 3] (development halted)

[ddavis425]

I finally saw a comet tail!

The comet tails really are fantastic.

[astropapi1]

The comet tails really are fantastic.

Oh mai gawd.

[Pigbear]

tempting to get this but I don't know how buggy it is.

[laggerd]

can you make a mod that just changes the lighting?

[NovaSilisko]

Hey guys sorry, but id like to try and ask again.. is there anyway I can just have the alternate lighting in this mod? I do love what your doing this is truly awesome, but im not quite ready to make the change. But I could use an fps boost on my current mission and.. well this lighting just looks better. The dark side of a planet looks much darker now as it should.

can you make a mod that just changes the lighting?

Yes, I want to make this. I want to make it totally CFG-based, though, so it's 100% customizable. To do that I'll need help, and I have my eye on a potential helper so hang in there and we'll see where this goes.

[EwIck]

This mod looks really cool but... are the planets and moons where they should actually be? My initial math says (mind you it's 4am) Kerbin is not.

I want to like and use this mod, but I also like to plan my missions. I like my missions to fail because *I* screwed up the math

[Andrew Hansen]

This mod looks really cool but... are the planets and moons where they should actually be? My initial math says (mind you it's 4am) Kerbin is not.

I want to like and use this mod, but I also like to plan my missions. I like my missions to fail because *I* screwed up the math

Well, in short, no - the planets could not scientifically exist in the orbits they do in Alternis Kerbol. Kerbin orbiting a gas planet with less mass than itself? No way.

But it's the same for Krag's Planet Factory, the Rescaled Solar System mod, and even in the stock game - especially in the Jool system. Tylo, Laythe, and Jool all have 0.8 Gs of gravity, so it's inconceivable that Tylo and Laythe are orbiting Jool. And imagine all the real-world things that would happen to their orbits when they get a close encounter.

I understand what you mean though. It would be great to have a more mathematically accurate universe to play around with in KSP, but so far there aren't really any mods that do that yet, at least for the planets.

[NovaSilisko]

Well, in short, no - the planets could not scientifically exist in the orbits they do in Alternis Kerbol. Kerbin orbiting a gas planet with less mass than itself? No way.

But it's the same for Krag's Planet Factory, the Rescaled Solar System mod, and even in the stock game - especially in the Jool system. Tylo, Laythe, and Jool all have 0.8 Gs of gravity, so it's inconceivable that Tylo and Laythe are orbiting Jool. And imagine all the real-world things that would happen to their orbits when they get a close encounter.

I understand what you mean though. It would be great to have a more mathematically accurate universe to play around with in KSP, but so far there aren't really any mods that do that yet, at least for the planets.

Just want to point out - surface gravity doesn't control mass. Surface gravity is a combination of mass and density, Jupiter is 317 Earth masses while having "only" 2.5g at the surface (in this instance "surface" refers to the level at which the atmospheric pressure equals 1 bar, aka earth sea level atmosphere density). Uranus, in fact, only has 0.886g, and 14.5 earth masses. Now, the difference in mass between, say, Pluto and Charon is only a factor of 8 (that is, Pluto is 8 Charon masses), so Earth could quite easily orbit Uranus if Alternis decided to relocate our solar system, although it would be quite a lopsided orbit.

That said, neither the stock system or Alternis would really be gravitationally stable for very long. That many big planets orbiting that close together would quickly spell havoc, even if they're locked in orbital resonance with one another like the moons of Jupiter (and Jool). I won't deny there's been a little bit of bending of the rules for purposes of the game though, for both Alternis and stock ;p

Edited December 27, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[Andrew Hansen]

"surface" refers to the level at which the atmospheric pressure equals 1 bar, aka earth sea level atmosphere density

That makes sense to me. I'm not sure if that's the way it is in the game, though, but if it is, then wow! Some interesting facts about Uranus there. I didn't know that. I just knew it was the gas giant with the lowest escape velocity, but I didn't know Earth could theoretically orbit it.

[Yargnit]

Dude, Nova, this is crazy awesome! Just did a mission to Comet Ike at the request of the KSP-TV viewers, it looks stunning! The way the whole sky lights up when you're landed on it or in close orbit is beautiful. Here's some shots from the trip, we spent a good 10 minutes just floating around taking different screenshots of the visuals. Nice work. Can't wait to check out the other planets. is Tylo's atmosphere capable of supporting air-breathing engines?

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[SRV Ron]

tempting to get this but I don't know how buggy it is.

Install this mod on a backup copy of KSP. Start fresh as it will break all existing missions. Once you get past the initial launch bug, things should work OK

[harold1363]

i dont care for the configuration you have set up in the mod but I love the concept and wish there were more mods like it.

[Andrew Hansen]

I have a silly question. NovaSilisko, what do you mean when you say "comet"? Like, that it has a tail behind it? Or perhaps that it's not on rails? Or simply that it has an elliptical orbit? Thanks very much!

By the way, I attempted to do your challenge of landing on Tylo with Deadly Reentry, but even after stacking piles of heat shields on top of each other, either the capsule would eventually blow up after all the heat shields exploded or the Kerbal would die from excessive G forces.

[Scootaloo]

Is FAR compatible?

[LaydeeDem]

Is FAR compatible?

Why would it not be? Even mechjeb can accurately calculate maneuvers in the new system. I think even planet factory would be compatible, though probably not very physically accurate.

[papics]

Kudos for the comets, they are cool! (The rest too, but I like those the most.)

[Andrew Hansen]

Is Tylo's atmosphere capable of supporting air-breathing engines?

Strangely enough, yes. I just tried it. The intake tells me that there is "no oxygen," but the jets work fine!

EDIT: There's something weird going on with my save I think. They work on Eve too! I didn't change any settings... it could be a bug caused by Alternis Kerbol, but I'll have to try and see if it's actually caused by that mod. I have a few others installed too. Apparently they only work sometimes. They worked at first on Eve, but now they don't anymore. Strange stuff.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Andrew Hansen

[Drognoid]

i have 0 clue on the intricacies of how KSP works but the solar orbit bug appears to place me in an almost identical orbit (of a high eccentricity http://puu.sh/60mgf.jpg http://puu.sh/60mNG.jpg ) with slightly different inclination dependent on where kerbin is relative to jool? it also says i'm on a sub orbital trajectory (don't know if this has something to do with the mesh of the sun Pe at 1,084,082,656 Ap 18,187,742,819) don't know how much use that is but happy to help in anyway i can.

[Pixel of Life]

Yes, I want to make this. I want to make it totally CFG-based, though, so it's 100% customizable. To do that I'll need help, and I have my eye on a potential helper so hang in there and we'll see where this goes.

Does this mean that the mod might eventually support user-made custom planets? If so - Awesome!

[Commissioner Tadpole]

My finger is itching on the mouse who's having the pointer hovering just above the 'Download Now!' button. The only thing that's holding me back is the fact that there is no way to choose whether some saves have Alternis Kerbol enabled and if others don't.

Can I have an alternate save even with the Steam version?

[Captain_Party]

Whats the new geo-sync altitude for Kerbin?

[EvilotionCR2]

http://img.pandawhale.com/39108-infinite-sunglasses-mother-of-X8PU.gif

This is so awesome.

Edited December 27, 2013 by stupid_chris
no reaction images please

[MrHappyFace]

You should release LightShifter seperatly because it seems to increase my fps

[Andrew Hansen]

Poor Tylo. It was so lonely in the stock game because it required so much Delta-V to land on. And now, it'll be even lonelier - with its formidable atmosphere, outrageous amount of surface gravity, and pricey ascent Delta-V.

I really wanted to try NovaSilisko's challenge though, so I used HyperEdit to try descending into its atmosphere (with Deadly Reentry). Apparently it was harder to land on it than I thought.

[NovaSilisko]

Does this mean that the mod might eventually support user-made custom planets? If so - Awesome!

No, you can already sort of do that with RealSolarSystem, and I just wanted to make Alternis self-contained in one file. LightShifter probably won't be compatible with Alternis since they change the same things.

My finger is itching on the mouse who's having the pointer hovering just above the 'Download Now!' button. The only thing that's holding me back is the fact that there is no way to choose whether some saves have Alternis Kerbol enabled and if others don't.

Can I have an alternate save even with the Steam version?

You can have alternate saves just fine on steam but if you want to go back to one with the stock system you have to uninstall the mod. However, I could possibly make a simple cfg with an "enabled" field, so you can just change that to false, then you don't have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling.

Whats the new geo-sync altitude for Kerbin?

It's tidally locked, so I'm pretty sure geosync is an impossibility.