[WIP] ThinAtmosphere plugin

[Alpheratz]

ThinAtmosphere

Before the first rocket left Kerbin ground, the knowledge of extrakerbin atmospheres was slim. Apart from Duna, Eve, Laythe and Jool, no other celestial body was suspected to have any atmosphere at all. Suspicion rose when Jeb started to crash hundreds of tons of fuel tanks everywhere in the Kerbol system. Would the liquid O2 form a thin layer of gas on the Mun and other bodies?

The question was answered when Billy-Bobrim Kerman tweaked the PresMat Barometer to read extremely weak atmosphere pressures. To his surpirse, not only was there an atmosphere on the Mun, but there was one on every celestial body. This is great news knowing that the PresMat Barometer can give us this sweet quantitative thing we call science!

But the journey to get this so precious science is far from being easy. The atmospheres are very thin and some of them stretch only a few meters above sea level. You will have to search every corner of the Kerbol system to find places where atmospheric data can be taken. Except on Minmus and on Vall, this task will be remarkably hard if you don't cheat and read the wiki.

Features

• Ultra-thin and low density atmospheres for all the celestial bodies that don't have any
  
• Ability to get science from the PresMat Barometer and the Sensor Array Nose Cone in thin atmospheres
  
• Such science can only be gotten within the atmosphere, while flying or being landed
  
• This means that you won't be able to get science on the top of a mountain
  
• It didn't feel right that Tylo had absolutely no atmosphere. Now it has one, about 4km high.
  

Future upgrades / discussions (most of which I still need to figure out how to do)

• Make the PresMat barometer indicate much lower values of atmospheric pressures before to switch to IN VACCUM!
  
• Or create a new science instrument, the Thin Atmosphere Spectrometer (TAS) which is specially designed to read ultra-low pressures and that works only on bodies that have almost no atmosphere
  
• Remove reentry effects on thin atmospheres
  
• Make a special realistic version for RSS
  

Download ModuleManager required

Changelog:

Version 0.1.1
- Reduced atmospheric pressures to get closer to reality

Version 0.1
- First release

Edited April 30, 2014 by Alpheratz

[kiwiak]

i thnk scansat altitude maps will be usefull for this.

[Zeroignite]

I'm interested, but put my vote in for a new instrument, and atmospheres so thin they don't affect the spacecraft at all.

[Alpheratz]

I'm interested, but put my vote in for a new instrument, and atmospheres so thin they don't affect the spacecraft at all.

That would be convenient. Working on it

And there's a small change in atmospheric pressures, it's now even lower to get closer to reality. Next update will bring more precise readings from a new instrument.