[1.12.x] Custom Asteroids 1.9.0 - January 24

[Starstrider42]

A beta version of Custom Asteroids is now available on GitHub for KSP 1.0.5 and KSP 1.1.0.1183. This is a beta, so I take no responsibility if you use it in your main career save and stuff breaks. As this is a development build, expect more log spam than in official Custom Asteroids releases. Also, don't get confused by the "Survey Asteroid" button that shows up in asteroids' right-click menus: that's a debugging feature that won't be present in the final release. (If you encounter a bug related to resources, though, by all means click it and send me the log. )

Key changes:

• Asteroid config files, parts, and science definitions have been separated from the "main" Custom Asteroids install, as suggested by @CaptRobau and @wasml. Let me know how it works, both from a "normal user" standpoint and from the point of someone who wants to write configs but not make new asteroid types.
• Partial support for custom asteroid types. These do NOT have models yet (though I'm hoping the new AssetBundle feature in 1.1 will make those a lot easier), but do have science flavor text and their own resource distributions (only resources from Community Resource Pack are supported, but you'll see the resources even if you got them from a different mod).
• You can now create asteroids on intercept trajectories with any celestial body.
• Asteroids can now appear only under certain conditions.
• Asteroid orbits can now be given relative to an inclined plane. Useful for mods like RSS and Harder Solar System.

See http://starstrider42.github.io/Custom-Asteroids/newbelts.html for how to configure the new features.

Known issues:

• There's no way to identify the type of an asteroid until you claw it.
• Some asteroid mods will only work correctly with stony (a.k.a. stock) asteroids. I've raised the issue with the appropriate mod developers.

I don't expect to be around for the rest of this week, but please leave me your feedback and I'll get back to you.

[CaptRobau]

Great stuff!

[Starstrider42]

Slight change for KSP build 1209: now only asteroid configs are separated from the main Custom Asteroids install; the new part/science definitions are always included. It should make things easier with third-party packs. I think this is the arrangement I'll want to use for the 1.1 release, so please let me know if it works for you.

[iDInkeD06]

Some news about the final 1.1 release ? Did you keep the one for build 1209 ?

[Andem]

On 4/4/2016 at 0:21 AM, Starstrider42 said:

If you mean with the spawner, then yes. Neither Kopernicus nor Custom Asteroids use the stock spawner, so Cacteye's spawner may conflict with them. One of my planned features is an API to let Custom Asteroids talk to other mods' spawners or vice versa, but that's a long way off.

I don't think there is a conflict... I saw some Custom Asteroids spawns w Cacteye installed, so I think I'm now running four seperate asteroid systems... 

[Starstrider42]

9 hours ago, iDInkeD06 said:

Some news about the final 1.1 release ? Did you keep the one for build 1209 ?

Sorry, I didn't learn about the 1.1 release until yesterday (apparently the Steam pre-release program doesn't actually dump you out of pre-release mode when it ends ). I have to make some changes in CKAN related to the new zip format, plus since this is an official release I'll have to go through and test everything all over again... I'll try to have Custom Asteroids 1.3 out by the end of this weekend, but probably not sooner.

 

9 hours ago, Andem said:

I don't think there is a conflict... I saw some Custom Asteroids spawns w Cacteye installed, so I think I'm now running four seperate asteroid systems... 

Glad to hear it. However, I don't really know in detail what CactEye is doing, so I can't make any promises about current or near-future compatibility.

BTW, what are the four? I can only think of CactEye, Kopernicus, Custom Asteroids...

[iDInkeD06]

4 hours ago, Starstrider42 said:

Sorry, I didn't learn about the 1.1 release until yesterday (apparently the Steam pre-release program doesn't actually dump you out of pre-release mode when it ends ). I have to make some changes in CKAN related to the new zip format, plus since this is an official release I'll have to go through and test everything all over again... I'll try to have Custom Asteroids 1.3 out by the end of this weekend, but probably not sooner.

Glad to hear it, take your time and keep going  

[MoeKitsune]

Even though JoolBiomes and EveBiomesPlus are mods I would like and use Kopernicus, I can wait until there's proper compatability between CustomAsteroids and Kopernicus.

Edited April 24, 2016 by TheJewelOfJool

[Starstrider42]

I'm pleased to announce the release of Custom Asteroids 1.3 for KSP 1.1.x. At the risk of sounding like a parrot, this is the biggest change to Custom Asteroids since the 1.0 release. There are lots of new features for config-writers, though it may take a while for them to become visible to other users.

New Features

• Limited support for different asteroid types -- affects science and resources, but no new appearance or 3rd-party integration yet.
• Can now customize asteroids on intercept trajectories with any celestial body.
• Asteroids can now appear only under certain conditions (body visited, orbited, currently on the surface...).
• Asteroid population blocks now support the log-normal, (rescaled) beta, and gamma distributions.
• Asteroid .value syntax now supports several characteristic periods and speeds.
• Asteroid orbits can now be given relative to an inclined plane. Useful for mods like RSS and Harder Solar System.

Changes

• DEFAULT config blocks are now deprecated. They will be removed in version 2.0.0.
• Stockalike asteroids have been split off into their own config file.
• Only stockalike asteroids are included by default; you can copy the other configs from the "Standard Setup" folder in the zip.
• Some tweaks to asteroid spawn rates.
• ModuleManager is now required.

Bug Fixes

• Invalid populations will no longer stop other populations from loading.
• Near-Kerbin asteroids will no longer appear on unbound orbits, and are much less likely to appear in the main belt.
• A large number of asteroids will no longer appear when the tracking station is upgraded while using the fixed-rate spawner.
• Mean anomaly and mean longitude of celestial bodies are now calculated correctly.

 

14 minutes ago, TheJewelOfJool said:

Does the Kopernicus issue with conflicting asteroid systems still happen?

Yes, Thomas P. and I discussed things a bit but never came to an agreement on how to handle dual installs. I think the burden will be on config-writers to use ModuleManager to detect when both mods are installed and select whose system to use.

On the subject of mod conflicts, Asteroid Recycling Technologies and DMagic Orbital Science only work with Stony asteroids at present. I've alerted the developers of both mods about the problem, so it should be fixed soon.

[theonegalen]

I just installed the new version of customasteroids with the Basic Asteroids and Trans-Jool configs, but I'm getting no asteroids except for the stock Kerbin intercepts. 

How do I tell Kopernicus to stop interfering?

Edited April 28, 2016 by theonegalen

[Starstrider42]

That doesn't sound like something that would be caused by Kopernicus. If you send (or upload) the log I can take a look at it.

[DMagic]

So to get the asteroid composition type all I need to do is grab the composition field from the CustomAsteroidData module?

I can easily adjust Orbital Science to use this information, and to include matching composition types by default, when getting asteroid science.

Do you have a list of all the included (they are config based, right?) composition types and their basis?

[Andem]

On 4/23/2016 at 0:41 AM, Starstrider42 said:

Sorry, I didn't learn about the 1.1 release until yesterday (apparently the Steam pre-release program doesn't actually dump you out of pre-release mode when it ends ). I have to make some changes in CKAN related to the new zip format, plus since this is an official release I'll have to go through and test everything all over again... I'll try to have Custom Asteroids 1.3 out by the end of this weekend, but probably not sooner.

 

Glad to hear it. However, I don't really know in detail what CactEye is doing, so I can't make any promises about current or near-future compatibility.

BTW, what are the four? I can only think of CactEye, Kopernicus, Custom Asteroids...

Ok, it is three, for a while It seemed as if the Stock asteroids were appearing as well, but they aren't.

[Starstrider42]

Hi all,

There's a bug on the inclined orbit code that causes it to only give the right answer in new save games. I'll release a hotfix once I figure out the cause (so far, all I know is that the position and/or velocity reported by an orbit can be completely wrong), but for now don't use it.

[theonegalen]

I went to the tracking station with Custom Asteroids and Kopernicus / OPM and many other mods installed, and timewarped forward for five years. Nary an asteroid did I see.

KSP Log - output_log

With only CA and K / OPM, they show up as expected.

Time to troubleshoot again.

EDIT: It's CustomBarnKit.

Edited May 3, 2016 by theonegalen

[Starstrider42]

Well, that didn't give me any great insight. You load the stockalike and inner-system configs successfully, shut down the stock spawner, and then... nothing. No errors, no warnings. There's errors from other mods (especially Contract Configurator, don't know if you were aware of that), but nothing that looks like it should affect Custom Asteroids.

I'll look into the Custom Barn Kit angle... the only thing I can think of is that the asteroid spawner might get confused about whether the tracking station has been upgraded or not.

[theonegalen]

Yeah, I knew about the CC error messages.

I retried with a fresh no-other-mods install with only CustomBarnKit and Custom Asteroids just to be sure, and again received no asteroids. So it's definitely something to do with CBK, even in sandbox mode.

[Starstrider42]

There will be a patch release of Custom Asteroids out within a few days. This patch will fix the Custom Barn Kit bug (though AFAIK sarbian's already done a workaround on their end), the inclined orbit bug, and a compatibility bug with Extraplanetary Launchpads (and any other bugs I spot along the way).

Edited May 4, 2016 by Starstrider42

[Starstrider42]

Custom Asteroids 1.3.1 is out. I'm creating two downloads for this one because you need different ModuleManagers if you're playing KSP 1.1.2 or an earlier version. Both are available from GitHub; KerbalStuff and Curseforge only let me provide one download, so they get the KSP 1.1.2 bundle.

Fixes:

• CustomAsteroidPlanes blocks now work the same in all save games.
• Asteroids will now spawn if Custom Barn Kit is installed.
• The MetalOre resource from Extraplanetary Launchpads is now handled consistently.
• General rebalancing of asteroid resource amounts to make the types more distinct from each other. Substrate and Karborundum have been completely reworked.

[DasBananenbrot]

Thanks for the update and your hard work^^ Really amazing mod. Essential since the moment it was released

Edited May 7, 2016 by DasBananenbrot

[Elkram]

On 24/12/2015 at 6:05 AM, Sandworm said:

After some playing around, I thought I'd share what I came up with.  This cfg adds three belts.  One of minimus-like captured objects around kerbin, one of gilly-like objects around eve, and a proper 'asteroid belt' between duna and jool (dres-like objects).  I know these are not the most statistically realistic orbits for asteroids, but given KSPs limitations I think they are fun.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gnlls9nf4wkabdf/64k_Captures.cfg

 

Thanks for your .cfg gonna use it right now!

[Geschosskopf]

@Starstrider42:

First off, thanks muchos for this mod!

I use OPM so have been making config files to take that into account.  This has gone fine except for 1 thing.  I also use @Sigma88's OPMTilt mod that stands the whole Urlum system up on edge.  OPM comes with the file OPM_CustomAsteroids.cfg that adds assteroid moonlets to Jool and all the OPM planets.  This includes some moonlets in Urlum's ring system, but of course the config that comes with OPM doesn't take OPMTilt into account.  Thus, if I do nothing, these moonlets are in the ecliptic plane, 90^ to the Tilted plane of the rings.

Here is the applicable part of the unmodified OPM_CustomAsteroids.cfg file:

ASTEROIDGROUP
	{
		name = urlumRingMoonlets
		title = Urlum

		centralBody = Urlum

		spawnRate = 0.0125

		orbitSize
		{
			type = SemimajorAxis
			min = Ratio(Urlum.rad, 2.3)
			max = Ratio(Urlum.rad, 2.9)
		}

		eccentricity
		{
			avg = 0.0001
		}

		inclination
		{
			avg = 0.5
		}
	}

So, the 1st thing I did was try to make another MM patch to change the inclination to min/max 89/90.  This had no effect.  So then I just edited the OPM file directly to say the same thing.  Again, no effect.  I even started a new game with these changes already made and still the ring moonlets were in the ecliptic plane instead of inclined like the rings.

I asked Sigma88 about this and he didn't know what to do about it, so he suggested I talk to you.  Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Starstrider42]

Well, I probably need to revamp the documentation for Custom Asteroids... the min/max patch didn't work because by default inclinations are drawn from a Rayleigh distribution, which only uses avg.

So, two options to get things to work:

1. Include dist = Uniform in your existing patch, then constrain the ascending node so that the planes line up. This is how RSS did things, and the only option before Custom Asteroids 1.3.
2. Define a CustomAsteroidPlane representing the Urlum system (you can define it using angles or vectors, whichever meshes better with how OPMTilt declares things), then add refPlane = UrlumEquator to the node for the Urlum ring (and non-ring moonlets).

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Is support for OPMTilt something @CaptRobau plans to add to the included config, or will this just be for personal use?

[CaptRobau]

If it works, it's better if the changes are rolled into @Sigma88s mod since then they can maintain it. We can all work together on getting it done, but it's better if it's maintained by the mod that actually has the changes.

[Starstrider42]

Hi all,

A quick update: real life is once again rearing it's ugly head, and I expect to be too busy to do much KSP modding for the next few months. I'll continue to provide support via this thread, and I'll recompile Custom Asteroids for new KSP versions as necessary, but I probably won't be able to work on any improvements until this fall.