0.90 Kerbal Weather Systems! Alpha 0.5.3 WIP! (Jan 2)

[silverfox8124]

Dev Update! Just fixed the NREs that pop up for you guys when going from Main Menu to Space Center, this should improve performance and loading times in the tiniest fraction.

Also, I re-added in pressure calculation updates to my cell updater, and winds are happening! That means that wind is now happening as it should (moreorless) and all that's left to do is do daynight cycles so that they can be calculated and dealt with as necessary~

~SilverFox8124

[Doctor Axel]

Not sure if it's been reported, but I wanted to raise the flag on a bug:

I launched a pretty standard three-stager out over the ocean, and came down for what would normally be pretty standard parachute landing. Upon contact with the water, a humongous torque was suddenly applied to the capsule, which accelerated until it killed my pilot and then blew up. O.O Repeated multiple times with the same effect, stopped happening after I uninstalled the mod.

[silverfox8124]

@Doctor Axel, I'm going to need a bit more detail, which mods are installed? I'll try this out on my dev install in the mean time. Are there any errors that pop up on the Debug log during this event?

- - - Updated - - -

@DoctorAxel, I have tried to replicate this, and my pod just sits in the water being pushed lightly by the winds. I parachuted a capsule into the ocean and it was fine, the "water" of ksp doesn't act like water so yeah...

~SilverFox8124

[tofox]

hey, just wondering if you can give me any spoilers on what you're working on right now.

im going to see what happens when you install this mod with realism overhaul and see if there's any compatibility issues (i am away this is not intended for RO).

[silverfox8124]

@tofox, I like to post notices on the thread sometimes giving dev updates, so take a read through the past page or so of the thread. Other than that I've had a bit of a break for the past two days, might start up on it again. Currently I'm working on getting the temps right where they should be and to try and factor in global warming, as it accounts for ~30C of our global average temp, bringing us from being -19C to around 14C. However the current challenge is with the equations I use and just how finnicky they can be...

Edit: I'm also trying my very best to make it so that even you guys can add planets into the game through whichever mod does it now, and have the weather act with as much accuracy as it would if that planet were real, rather, with as much accuracy as my mod can handle. Point being, I'm trying to be as forumulaic as possible, but there are some numbers you as the planet makers are going to have to give my mod in order for it to function properly.

~SilverFox8124

Edited February 1, 2015 by silverfox8124

[tofox]

well its stable with realism overhaul all you need to do is raise the cloud altitudes.

hmm so is it possible to make custom configs or will it be, i mean?

Edited February 1, 2015 by tofox

[silverfox8124]

@tofox, currently the only thing you can customize, is the clouds. If you need to raise the altitudes on the clouds, you can do so in the CloudLayer.cfg file.

If you are talking about custom configs for a new planet you created, yes. I will need key information, such as atmospheric composure for one. I can't think of much off the top of my head that I couldn't grab from code... but do know that there will be a good chunk that you as a user will need to know and input accurately in order for my mod to interpret it right, and lead to very unexpected results.

I apologize this update has been taking a few months, it's been a challenge the entire way and I want to make sure I'm not putting out half-working .... to the community. I want to get this done as right as I can make it. I am however getting close, I just need the equations and to get them working right.

~SilverFox8124

[mfkdso]

Is there a way to set wind speed? Really, I want to set 300-400 Km/h winds.

[silverfox8124]

@mfkdso, try taking a look at Kerbal Wind, it's on the release forums, and is based off of the earliest version of my mod, there you can set direction and speed. Other than that, download an earlier version of my mod.

[silverfox8124]

Dev Update! Thanks to the generous help of atmospheric scientist; Nertea, I have been able to get better equations for the weather modelling, more accurate ones too. It's been great learning from him/her and it will most definitely benefit you guys soon!

[ss8913]

I installed this and the first thing I noticed was a TON of clouds which had a severe framerate impact.. any way to turn them down?

[silverfox8124]

@ss8913, a "ton" of clouds? there are 3 layers of clouds iirc.. how well do you handle regular EVE installs? Also, if you're wanting to tone down the clouds, I suggest deleting cloud layers in the CloudLayer.cfg file. And also, what are your machine specs?

EDIT: How big was the framerate drop? From what amount of frames to what amount of frames?

~SilverFox8124

[Doctor Axel]

@Doctor Axel, I'm going to need a bit more detail, which mods are installed? I'll try this out on my dev install in the mean time. Are there any errors that pop up on the Debug log during this event?

- - - Updated - - -

@DoctorAxel, I have tried to replicate this, and my pod just sits in the water being pushed lightly by the winds. I parachuted a capsule into the ocean and it was fine, the "water" of ksp doesn't act like water so yeah...

~SilverFox8124

Sorry for the no-reply! I got caught up in Elite Dangerous for a while and hadn't touched KSP again until recently.

My current mod list:

Active Texture Management

Asteroid Recycling Technologies

EVE

Chatterer

Blast Awesomeness Modifier

Collision FX

The Community Resource Pack

Deadly Reentry

Distant Object Enhancement

Engineer Redux (plus the All Pods mod mod)

Extraplanetary Launchpads (plus Karbonite conversion)

FAR

Firespitter (not the whole thing, just the dll for KAX parts)

Raster Prop Monitor

Kerbal Attachment System

KAX

Kerbal Construction Time

Kerbal Foundries

Kerbquake

KOS

Infernal Robotics

Talisar's cargo bays

Planetshine

Procedural Fairings

Realchute

Regolith

Remotetech 2

Scansat

Smart Parts

Snacks (plus Whyren's extra parts)

Texture Replacer

Trajectories

Kerbal Alarm Clock

Tweakscale

Karbonite

I realize that that is a pretty long list of possible culprits, so... you know.

I'll try poking around and mix/matching mods to see if I can pin down who doesn't agree with whom.

EDIT

Forgot to say, I also didn't check the error log on splashdown, because I'm a terrible debugger. But I'll do that while poking around.

[AngelLestat]

Someone already try to fly a kite/wing with 2 KAS winches?

[silverfox8124]

@AngelLeStat, Yes, it's on the OP iirc, under community creations. It's pretty neat and I want to see someone make a parasail.

On Note of current progress:

-More realistic heating model is in place, working on daytime heating and nighttime cooling, the sun does heat up the planets though, and each layer dissipates and absorbs just like the real thing. However, don't expect temperature like that of earth for kerbin, because kerbin's properties aren't like that of earth's.

-Winds are spectacularly high, reaching several hundred thousand km/h on surface! (Don't worry, it will be tuned down for release!)

-Simulation can be throttled, and even paused so you can admire the weather around you without it changing.

That's all I can think of currently, have fun with the winds!

~SilverFox8124

[AngelLestat]

Oh I dint saw it.

Nice

You have stronger winds because you are not including the ocean in your small climate model.

Oceans are the ones which transfer heat more efficiently. That is why the earth has slow winds on surface (on average) and faster winds at high altitude.

But I applaud you for even try something so hard as this.

Some days back I was thinking that the game needs an Atmosphere Mod, first to provide accurate data on temperature, pressure, air density, viscosity and composition.

That last one is very important, we need to know if some atmosphere has 75%nitrogen and 25% oxygen, or 60% co2, 30%oxygen and 10 % amoniac, or 80% hydrogen and 20 % hellium, etc.

All those atmosphere would share a single density value for the mix of course, but is important so mods can use those % and element names as resources.

For example if you have mod that suck air from the atmosphere, you need to know what are you collecting.

Lets said that you are in jupiter, you only need oxygen to burn things. How mods knows if they collect something of the atmosphere what resource it is and in what proportion.

A complete atmosphere mod with the help of a meteorologist, can give us simple math functions to obtain a simple weather system using your functions.

Why the kite in the picture has 100m/s winds? Lower winds are not enoght? Is by the mass of the wing?

[silverfox8124]

@AngelLeStat, I'm actually currently working with an Atmospheric Scientist, Nertea, on the advancements of KWS. And the winds I said earlier are not ones you'll see in the live version. The winds are driven by the Pressure-gradient forces. Essentially f = dP/dd. The change in pressure is becoming crazy because things aren't updating/receiving values as they should, or are not the correct value. It all comes with testing and tweaking.

Also, on the note of the kite, yes, KSP parts are really heavy actually.

On the note of atmospheric composition, I've been wanting to do that for awhile actually, and will be trying my best to add it in at a later date.

On your note of me not taking into account oceans, that's wrong, I'm working on getting the albedo and emissivity values for oceans, again, it all comes with tweaking and messing around with numbers.

EDIT: On the note of your first paragraph, it's wrong, almost entirely. The winds are slower at the surface because of surface friction for one, another factor is the density of the air, the higher the density, the lesser the winds because the air is better at transferring heat. Which brings me to the second point: The oceans are .... at transferring heat, air is significantly better at transferring heat than water is.

~SilverFox8124

Edited February 11, 2015 by silverfox8124

[ddrab01]

Can I run this with astronomers visual pack? I only ask because EVE was a required mod when I installed AVP, and I see in this thread that EVE is not compatible/redundant with KWS.

Btw, thank you for all of your hard work, this mod looks awesome!

Edited February 12, 2015 by ddrab01

[silverfox8124]

@ddrab01, I am unsure, but do not have the time to test that currently. If Astronomers pack has code that references EVE's specific files and locations, then yes, it is not supported and is incompatible.

[AngelLestat]

@AngelLeStat, I'm actually currently working with an Atmospheric Scientist, Nertea, on the advancements of KWS. And the winds I said earlier are not ones you'll see in the live version. The winds are driven by the Pressure-gradient forces. Essentially f = dP/dd. The change in pressure is becoming crazy because things aren't updating/receiving values as they should, or are not the correct value. It all comes with testing and tweaking.

Wow so nice to hear. go go then

On the note of atmospheric composition, I've been wanting to do that for awhile actually, and will be trying my best to add it in at a later date.

Any help you need in that matter I offer to help.

On your note of me not taking into account oceans, that's wrong, I'm working on getting the albedo and emissivity values for oceans, again, it all comes with tweaking and messing around with numbers.

EDIT: On the note of your first paragraph, it's wrong, almost entirely. The winds are slower at the surface because of surface friction for one, another factor is the density of the air, the higher the density, the lesser the winds because the air is better at transferring heat. Which brings me to the second point: The oceans are .... at transferring heat, air is significantly better at transferring heat than water is.

I know that the density and the surface is a key factor.

But I saw many studies about the role of oceans in climate. The effect is huge. Because oceans has much more thermal capacity than the atmosphere and their produce its own weather.

It does not matter if a planet is tidal locked to its star in cases there is a big ocean there, which is enoght to carry heat to other side to keep a temperature almost warm, at high altitude you will have similar super rotation as we see in venus.

To resume, you said to me that your model produce always super winds, even at low height.

In my understanding, that might be related to the case that oceans in the model are not moving heat, so these try to compensate the job that needs to do the ocean.

How do you distribute the different absortions coeficients over kerbin? I imagine that you use the different biomes to set different values.

The climate is very complex, the clouds reflectivity has also a huge effect on local weather. Well I wish you and nertea the best of lucks in this project.. this is huge. very excited to hear.

Winds only work in layers? Or it may add vertical component in winds later on?

[silverfox8124]

@AngelLeStat, Wooh this is a long one:

1) You can offer help currently if you wish, if you have previous coding experience that's beautiful. go onto IRC and go into the #kspmodders channel from esper.net We can talk more there on the matter of atmospheric composition.

2)Yes, the heat capacity of oceans are quite large, and they play big role in weather because of evaporation, that's how the heat gets transferred.

3)Current model I'm working on has no means of heat transfer from cell to cell, it can go upwards and downwards in the layers, but not from cell to cell.

4) Clouds haven't been properly implemented yet, those will come after heat transfers are set up and humidity is added in properly.

5)Winds are really crazing because there are high pressure differences in the neighbouring cells.

~SilverFox8124

[silverfox8124]

Dev update!: So far I've been working on a re-work! That's right, I'm rewriting the simulation so that it runs in unity, mainly for faster testing and debugging. This will also make way for a true weather API of sorts, where coders can access and input values into the simulator. It's been tough and it just grows and grows and grows. Update will probably not be sometime soon, I apologize!

~SilverFox8124

[Errol]

I noticed on the front page that boat parts and sailing are planned. Has anyone here ever seen the old game series virtual skipper? I think it would be a good source for sailing physics. Check it out:

[silverfox8124]

@Errol, KSP water physics are non-existent, I cannot do much with it, and I don't really plan on doing much with it, right now I'm focusing on numbers, calculations, and simulations and it's taking awhile to get right, I want to give you guys something that does no less than it's supposed to do.

[silverfox8124]

Dev Update!: I've been taking a bit of a break from coding, I'm coding on and off, but do know that progress is slowly being made.