Asteroid Spawn API?

[Starstrider42]

Hi,

Does anybody know if it's possible to change the rules for asteroid spawning? I'm thinking of making a mod that puts the asteroids on more diverse orbits than just a narrow band near Kerbin's orbit (though free time might be a problem), and I was wondering if we even had the tools to do it.

Thanks!

Edited May 25, 2014 by Starstrider42

[xEvilReeperx]

Hi,

Does anybody know if it's possible to change the rules for asteroid spawning? I'm thinking of making a mod that puts the asteroids on more diverse orbits than just a narrow band near Kerbin's orbit (though free time might be a problem), and I was wondering if we even had the tools to do it.

Thanks!

Well, ScenarioDiscoverableObjects have some public fields related to spawn rate. You could probably mess with these to tweak spawn rate. You could also, assuming asteroids trigger it, use a GameEvents.OnVesselCreate callback to change the newly spawned asteroid's orbit as desired. That'd probably be simplest, although maybe a little hacky

[regex]

I tried this over the weekend but any asteroids I added to the game, whether discoverable or set as discovered, were immediately removed by the game. I'm not sure what's causing this but the likely culprit is the ScenarioDiscoverableObjects class. You can tweak that class' public variables and call for it to spawn an asteroid, but I'm pretty sure all the actually spawning mechanics are private.

[Starstrider42]

Ah, ok, so it's non-trivial. Maybe I'll try something less ambitious first, then. Just thought I'd ask before it became a bandwagon.

[xEvilReeperx]

I gave it a shot and ended up with some results.

There is more to be done but it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out exactly how to control when ScenarioDiscoverableObjects destroys asteroids. It has something to with the values in DiscoveryInfo and a signal strength. I just bypassed all that to see if I could create an asteroid with this:

        public void Start()
        {
            StartCoroutine(DelayedStart());

        }

        public System.Collections.IEnumerator DelayedStart()
        {
            while (!FlightGlobals.ready || HighLogic.CurrentGame.scenarios[0].moduleRef == null)
                yield return 0;

            ScenarioDiscoverableObjects discov = (ScenarioDiscoverableObjects)HighLogic.CurrentGame.scenarios.Find(scenario => scenario.moduleRef is ScenarioDiscoverableObjects).moduleRef;

            if (discov == null)
                Log.Error("Did not find ScenarioDiscoverableObjects!");

            GameEvents.onVesselCreate.Add(CatchAsteroidSpawn);

            for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i)
                discov.SpawnAsteroid();

            GameEvents.onVesselCreate.Remove(CatchAsteroidSpawn);
        }



        public void CatchAsteroidSpawn(Vessel vessel)
        {
            vessel.DiscoveryInfo.SetLastObservedTime(Planetarium.GetUniversalTime());

            // track it by default, else its orbit won't be visible in mapview
            vessel.DiscoveryInfo.SetLevel(DiscoveryLevels.StateVectors | DiscoveryLevels.Name | DiscoveryLevels.Presence);

            Orbit newOrbit = new Orbit((UnityEngine.Random.Range(0f, 360f)), 0f, 1060053.49854083, 217.714701468054, 126.848000556171, 0.52911447506945, Planetarium.GetUniversalTime(), FlightGlobals.Bodies.Find(body => body.name == "Eve"));
            newOrbit.UpdateFromUT(Planetarium.GetUniversalTime());

            vessel.orbitDriver.orbit = newOrbit;
        }

[regex]

That's cool, nice work! That's a great foundation to work from.

[Starstrider42]

Thanks, xEvilReeperx! Maybe I will try the asteroid idea after all.

EDIT:

I tried this over the weekend but any asteroids I added to the game, whether discoverable or set as discovered, were immediately removed by the game. I'm not sure what's causing this but the likely culprit is the ScenarioDiscoverableObjects class. You can tweak that class' public variables and call for it to spawn an asteroid, but I'm pretty sure all the actually spawning mechanics are private.

I tried doing some basic tweaks to the code, completely removing the manual asteroid spawn and commenting out the code for forcing tracking. It appears that xEvilReeperx's approach doesn't run into the same problem regex found -- I can hijack auto-spawned asteroids, and they stay put long enough to be manually tracked from the station screen. I'll try heliocentric orbits this evening.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Starstrider42
Deleted out-of-date image

[Starstrider42]

Well, the dimensions may need some work, but that's definitely an asteroid belt. Thanks again to both of you for all your help, I think I can take it from here.

[regex]

Well, the dimensions may need some work, but that's definitely an asteroid belt. Thanks again to both of you for all your help, I think I can take it from here.

You beat me to it! I'm working on my own but trying to create separate tracks for inner (Eve and Moho, fairly rare), Kerbin (normal), belt (between Duna and Jool), outer (outside Jool orbit), and Jool trojan asteroids. I'm planning on intercepting every Space Object that gets created and, if it's not mine, removing it (turning the tables on YOU, SQUAD!). Anyway, good work!

[NathanKell]

Hey, if you're willing to share, mind if I use that in RSS? I didn't have a chance to change spawning logic in v6 and I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

[Starstrider42]

You beat me to it! I'm working on my own but trying to create separate tracks for inner (Eve and Moho, fairly rare), Kerbin (normal), belt (between Duna and Jool), outer (outside Jool orbit), and Jool trojan asteroids. I'm planning on intercepting every Space Object that gets created and, if it's not mine, removing it (turning the tables on YOU, SQUAD!). Anyway, good work!

I'm planning to create separate asteroid groups as well (though not in as much detail as you), it just requires some logic I haven't written yet.

Hey, if you're willing to share, mind if I use that in RSS? I didn't have a chance to change spawning logic in v6 and I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

Once I get things working, yes (at the moment it's at very much a proof of concept stage, everything's hard-coded). The goal is to make it like Custom Biomes, in that everything's configurable, and then let players write files for RSS, PlanetFactory, etc. Once I have a presentable alpha I'll post it in the add-on development thread.

I'll try to have something official by the end of the weekend -- I think "how to edit asteroids" was the main hurdle -- but no promises, I've got RL stuff to juggle.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Starstrider42

[NathanKell]

Oooh, that's even better--rather than doing half my work for me, you're doing all my work for me.

[regex]

Inner populations:

Outer populations:

Basically just intercepting any asteroids the game makes and putting them into different orbits. I need to add code to generate the orbit for the Jool trojans.

[Starstrider42]

Inner populations:

Outer populations:

Basically just intercepting any asteroids the game makes and putting them into different orbits. I need to add code to generate the orbit for the Jool trojans.

Nice. But why's there an asteroid-free gap between Duna and Kerbin?

[darkside]

I have been working on a similar thing, but my idea was to define special areas in the solar system where asteroids could be detected, like main asteroid belt and Kuiper belt. One would have to send a spacecraft close to this area and to employ special modules like telescopes to detect asteroids. And of course some asteroids would just be detected near Kerbin similar to how it happens in stock now, assuming there are telescopes on Kerbin. Maybe there could be extra powerful telescopes higher up on the tech tree that would allow to detect asteroids very far away, but the main idea is to allow asteroid detection not only near Kerbin which does not make sense but anywhere where there could potentially be asteroids.

Seems like people in this thread making something similar, so I should probably stop.

[Starstrider42]

I have been working on a similar thing, but my idea was to define special areas in the solar system where asteroids could be detected, like main asteroid belt and Kuiper belt. One would have to send a spacecraft close to this area and to employ special modules like telescopes to detect asteroids. And of course some asteroids would just be detected near Kerbin similar to how it happens in stock now, assuming there are telescopes on Kerbin. Maybe there could be extra powerful telescopes higher up on the tech tree that would allow to detect asteroids very far away, but the main idea is to allow asteroid detection not only near Kerbin which does not make sense but anywhere where there could potentially be asteroids.

Seems like people in this thread making something similar, so I should probably stop.

Not at all. I, at least, am not touching the code for "discovering" asteroids, so if you could figure out how to control that it would be a big help to everyone.

Also, I move that the hypothetical belt of comets out beyond Jool be called the Kuper belt, in analogy to the Mun.

[regex]

Nice. But why's there an asteroid-free gap between Duna and Kerbin?

That would normally be handled by not altering an asteroid's orbit but I'm finding that onVesselCreated is called multiple times and the orbit is always changed. Might have something to do with altering the orbit firing that event. I'll be tracking that down in the next few days along with figuring out the lagrange orbits.

I'll post my code in a day or two; I have no interest in maintaining a mod right now, this is just for fun, but hopefully it'll have something useful for others.

[rbray89]

This is VERY interesting to me. I plan on adding Asteroid belts and rings to gas giants, and they need to be populated with things people can visit .

[Starstrider42]

Well, ScenarioDiscoverableObjects have some public fields related to spawn rate. You could probably mess with these to tweak spawn rate. You could also, assuming asteroids trigger it, use a GameEvents.OnVesselCreate callback to change the newly spawned asteroid's orbit as desired. That'd probably be simplest, although maybe a little hacky

Did some experimentation with ScenarioDiscoverableObjects. Part of the problem is that apparently, whenever there is a scene change, ScenarioDiscoverableObjects gets reloaded -- but only AFTER the call to <My MonoBehaviour>.Start(). Thought that wasn't supposed to happen.

Checking for and forcing settings changes on asteroid spawn is enough of a workaround to let me experiment with the features. Unfortunately, spawnInterval appears to be based on real time, not game time, so you can't use the existing framework to generate a fixed discovery rate. Maybe if I set spawnInterval and spawnOddsAgainst to highly unfavorable values, then called SpawnAsteroid() myself...

[nothke]

Hi, guys, I need your help!

I am making a telescope mod and I need a (probably) very simple plugin with which more asteroids would appear when you activate the telescope. Is anyone willing to help me on this?

[Deadpangod3]

How are you guys editing where, how, and when the asteroids spawn?

[Starstrider42]

How are you guys editing where, how, and when the asteroids spawn?

Where: see xEvilReeperx's post (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75376?p=1078971#post1078971)

How and When: still experimenting with that

Edited May 7, 2014 by Starstrider42

[Starstrider42]

A request for those of you with some background in parts and modeling.

A ModuleAsteroid has three persistent fields: name, random seed, and a "prefab URL". Save file editing has confirmed that the seed and the prefab URL are the only pieces of information needed to specify an asteroid body -- change the URL, for example, and you can change the size of the asteroid model.

The problem is I don't actually know what prefabBaseURL means. I know it has one of the following five forms:

• Procedural/PA_A
  
• Procedural/PA_B
  
• Procedural/PA_C
  
• Procedural/PA_D
  
• Procedural/PA_E
  

but I have no idea what kind of entity the URL points to, or even where the "Procedural" directory is supposed to live (apparently, not in the file system). In short, I need help.

Challenge:

• Locate the resources linked by prefabBaseURL. They must exist somewhere in the KSP install.
  
• Emulate the existing resource format to create a new size class and/or texture for an asteroid.
  
• Show that prefabBaseURL can be told to point to the homemade resources.
  

Reward:

• 5 rep
  
• Credit in the first Custom Asteroids release to incorporate custom prefabs
  
• My eternal gratitude
  

[NathanKell]

If it's not in GameData, it's in one of the assets files in KSP_Data. You can use a Unity assets browser to open them.

Edited May 25, 2014 by NathanKell

[xEvilReeperx]

Challenge:

• Locate the resources linked by prefabBaseURL. They must exist somewhere in the KSP install.
  
• Emulate the existing resource format to create a new size class and/or texture for an asteroid.
  
• Show that prefabBaseURL can be told to point to the homemade resources.
  

Those urls lead to ProceduralAsteroid objects loaded with Resource.Load. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any way to edit asset bundles at runtime and couldn't get Resource.Load to load anything that didn't exist when the bundles were created so that's a bit of a dead end.

On the other hand, modifying the actual mesh and/or texture is fairly easy. Here's a dump of an asteroid vessel:

[LOG 02:15:26.881]  Transform: PotatoRoid (Ast. QFG-283)
[LOG 02:15:26.882] ---> Transform: model
[LOG 02:15:26.882] ------> Transform: Asteroid
[LOG 02:15:26.883] ---------> Transform: Visual
[LOG 02:15:26.883] ---------> Transform: Collider
[LOG 02:15:26.884] ---------> Transform: ColliderConvex

[LOG 02:15:26.885] PotatoRoid (Ast. QFG-283) has components:
[LOG 02:15:26.886] ...c: UnityEngine.Transform
[LOG 02:15:26.886] ...c: Vessel
[LOG 02:15:26.887] ...c: OrbitDriver
[LOG 02:15:26.887] ...c: OrbitRenderer
[LOG 02:15:26.888] ...c: FlightIntegrator
[LOG 02:15:26.888] ...c: Part
[LOG 02:15:26.889] ...c: ModuleAsteroid
[LOG 02:15:26.890] ...c: UnityEngine.AudioSource
[LOG 02:15:26.891] ...c: UnityEngine.Rigidbody
[LOG 02:15:26.891] ...c: CollisionEnhancer
[LOG 02:15:26.892] ...c: PartBuoyancy
[LOG 02:15:26.892] --->model has components:
[LOG 02:15:26.893] ......c: UnityEngine.Transform
[LOG 02:15:26.893] ------>Asteroid has components:
[LOG 02:15:26.894] .........c: UnityEngine.Transform
[LOG 02:15:26.895] .........c: PAsteroid
[LOG 02:15:26.895] --------->Visual has components:
[LOG 02:15:26.896] ............c: UnityEngine.Transform
[LOG 02:15:26.896] ............c: UnityEngine.MeshFilter
[LOG 02:15:26.897] ............c: UnityEngine.MeshRenderer
[LOG 02:15:26.898] --------->Collider has components:
[LOG 02:15:26.898] ............c: UnityEngine.Transform
[LOG 02:15:26.899] ............c: UnityEngine.MeshCollider
[LOG 02:15:26.900] --------->ColliderConvex has components:
[LOG 02:15:26.901] ............c: UnityEngine.Transform

{
for (int i = 0; i < FlightGlobals.Vessels.Count; ++i)
{
Vessel target = FlightGlobals.Vessels[i];

if (target.packed || target.rootPart.FindModulesImplementing<ModuleAsteroid>().Count == 0)
continue;

Log.Write("Working with {0}", target.name);

Part root = target.rootPart;

//root.transform.PrintHierarchy();
//root.gameObject.PrintComponents();

var newTex = new Texture2D(32, 32);
var pixels = newTex.GetPixels32();

for (int p = 0; p < pixels.Length; ++p)
pixels[p] = new Color32((byte)UnityEngine.Random.Range(0, 255), (byte)UnityEngine.Random.Range(0, 255), (byte)UnityEngine.Random.Range(0, 255), 255);

newTex.SetPixels32(pixels, 0);
newTex.Apply();

Transform visual = root.gameObject.transform.Find("model/Asteroid/Visual");
Transform collider = root.gameObject.transform.Find("model/Asteroid/Collider");

// change mesh
var cubeGo = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
MeshFilter asteroidMf = visual.gameObject.GetComponent<MeshFilter>();
if (asteroidMf == null) Log.Error("null asteroid meshfilter");

asteroidMf.sharedMesh = cubeGo.GetComponent<MeshFilter>().sharedMesh;
asteroidMf.gameObject.transform.localScale = Vector3.one * 10f; // default is a little low

GameObject.DestroyImmediate(cubeGo);

// change texture
var mat = new Material(Shader.Find("KSP/Emissive/Diffuse"));
mat.SetColor("_EmissiveColor", Color.blue);
mat.mainTexture = newTex;


visual.renderer.material = mat;
visual.renderer.castShadows = true;
visual.renderer.receiveShadows = true;

// modify collider
MeshCollider coll = collider.gameObject.collider as MeshCollider;
coll.sharedMesh = asteroidMf.sharedMesh; // be mindful of 255 tri limit
collider.localScale = visual.localScale;
}
}
}

            if (GUI.Button(new Rect(100, 400, 128, 32f), "Test asteroid"))

As for size class ... That looks hardcoded I'm afraid You'd probably have to replace the scenario and ModuleAsteroid entirely