Lighting Up the Mun!

[Castille7]

I would consider myself a beginner in this rocketry business, anyway here's one of my latest creations and accomplishments. I am planning to illuminate a large area with these Light Systems for a future Mun Base. I had no idea how hard it would be to land this one. The lower lab is to close to the surface and it requires a very soft landing. Future plans are to tweak the design a little to lose the tanks and engines after the installs.

Edited March 19, 2014 by castille7

[Hachouma]

I hope it recharges electricity faster than it consumes

[Castille7]

I'll buy Bill Kerman some night vision goggles just in case!.....lol

[DisarmingBaton5]

There is a limit in KSP of the number of light sources. There is also a render distance limit of 2.5km.

The latter problem can easily be fixed with mods, but you may have problems with large numbers of light sources.

[Castille7]

I will keep that in mind, thanks!

[Sargent890]

There is a limit in KSP of the number of light sources. There is also a render distance limit of 2.5km.

The latter problem can easily be fixed with mods, but you may have problems with large numbers of light sources.

I think this is why the lights on m Minmus base flicker if all of them are on.

[guz667]

Lighting up the Mun is fun!

You will find that sometimes they flicker or switch on and off based on the number KSP will do. Still awesome, and I like the rig you have set up for it.

[Oznerol256]

You guys realize that you can adjust how many simultaneous light sources unity renders? It is the "pixel light count" slider under graphics. Try setting it very low and you will see how excess lights are handled.

Say you have 4 lamps on your spacecraft, and the pixel light count is set to 3. Then unity will render the first 3 lights as you expect, with a nice cone of light spreading out of your lamp. However, the fourth one doesnt. Unity cant render the light of that lamp because you set the maximum amount of lights to 3. So, unity does a little trick: It just makes the whole area of the excess light brighter. Try it on the launchpad. You can change the pixel light count on the fly (settings in the escape menu). Then turn the lights on one by one and you will see the dramatic difference when you turn on the first excess light.

Obviously, a high pixel light count makes a lot of lights look amazing. On the other hand, one might try to exploit unity's trick to light up a large area using very few lamps.

[Castille7]

This is so cool, thanks for sharing that information, this game just amazed me again! ...Luv KSP!