[1.2.1] Outer Planets Mod (2.1) - Active development has moved, see first post for new thread

[CaptRobau]

Very interesting. It's a little way off but would the comet be added to the outer planets mod or would it be a new mod made by you?

OPM. The orbit will take it from the inner solar system to just beyond Jool (like many comets do IRL in respect to Jupiter), so it's in the outer planets region, don't you think

[Sigma88]

OPM. The orbit will take it from the inner solar system to just beyond Jool (like many comets do IRL in respect to Jupiter), so it's in the outer planets region, don't you think

yeah, sure

[cantab]

One possible snag with the comet, if Kopernicus assigns it a FlightGlobalsIndex number lower than those of the Joolian system then updating or adding OPM will mess up the locations of people's existing ships. Though arguably that's something that should be resolved in Kopernicus.

[nalfz]

Yeah, I guess.

What if you added a Cruithne analog?

Cruithne's interesting characteristic is that it constantly gets juggled around to two different orbits by earth's gravity in a consistent cycle, so without n-body gravitation or at least taking the planets off rails, that wouldn't be possible

You could do it in principia, but you'd need some hardcore maths to get a stable cruithne-like orbit, and whenever you add any other body in, the gravity has a non-zero chance of breaking that stability

Edited August 27, 2015 by nalfz

[_Augustus_]

One possible snag with the comet, if Kopernicus assigns it a FlightGlobalsIndex number lower than those of the Joolian system then updating or adding OPM will mess up the locations of people's existing ships. Though arguably that's something that should be resolved in Kopernicus.

Agreed!

[tygoo7]

Did a test to see what KopernicusExpansions comet tail looked like in-game. I'm now a 100% sure what I want to work on after the Plock system is done:

http://i.imgur.com/VJA4nwM.png

Awesome! That was the thing that I loved the most about Alternis Kerbol but to have comets like this in the stock + OPM system will be even more cool.

[MrHappyFace]

OPM. The orbit will take it from the inner solar system to just beyond Jool (like many comets do IRL in respect to Jupiter), so it's in the outer planets region, don't you think

Just make sure to modify the opacityCurve and brightnessCurve values in the config, so that the tail will appear that high up. Invisible comets aren't any fun

Whoops, I thought you said that the periapsis would be around Jool, not the apoapsis.

There should also be a comet like Halley's, whose apoapsis goes slightly beyond Neptune.

One possible snag with the comet, if Kopernicus assigns it a FlightGlobalsIndex number lower than those of the Joolian system then updating or adding OPM will mess up the locations of people's existing ships. Though arguably that's something that should be resolved in Kopernicus.

Last I checked, Kopernicus sorted flight globals ids by semi-major-axis, so as long as it's higher than Jool's, it'll be fine. You can always set flightGlobalsIndex in the config to some big number if it matters that much.

Edited August 27, 2015 by MrHappyFace

[Olympic1]

Awesome! That was the thing that I loved the most about Alternis Kerbol but to have comets like this in the stock + OPM system will be even more cool.

Currently I'm working on to get KerbolPlus fixed, which is a hard task ftm. After that will be finished, I'm going to update Alternis Kerbol.

Last I checked, Kopernicus sorted flight globals ids by semi-major-axis, so as long as it's higher than Jool's, it'll be fine. You can always set flightGlobalsIndex in the config to some big number if it matters that much.

That's how it works if I understand the it correctly

[LaytheDragon]

Just tried an ovok landing, all went well

http://i.imgur.com/T0b6puc.png

How did you overlook or avoid these?

Edited November 6, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[Sigma88]

How did you overlook or avoid these? http://i.imgur.com/uQqvZlN.jpg

maybe it depends on where you land

[LaytheDragon]

maybe it depends on where you land

Where did you land on Ovok? I landed in Ovok's dark region, but a try at landing on Ovok's other elongated side resulted in seeing more death spikes . I reverted back to orbit to wait until the bug is fixed, so I could attempt another landing. Also, was Sarnus visible at your landing area?

Edited November 6, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[hazard-ish]

Since we got a glimpse of what Plock might look like in the future, would it be possible to share an image or two of some renders of Neidon's moons? Even just some old mock-ups if you still have some old versions lying around. News has somewhat dried up here recently so I would love some more juicy details on what is to come

[Sigma88]

Where did you land on Ovok? I landed in Ovok's dark region, but a try at landing on Ovok's other elongated side resulted in seeing more death spikes . I reverted back to orbit to wait until the bug is fixed, so I could attempt another landing. Also, was Sarnus visible at your landing area?

I dont remember honestly. It was just a quick hyperedit thing I tried. (The landing was not done with hyperedit)

I think I landed either on the "head" or on the "ass" of the egg

If that makes any sense in english

[The White Guardian]

Since we got a glimpse of what Plock might look like in the future, would it be possible to share an image or two of some renders of Neidon's moons? Even just some old mock-ups if you still have some old versions lying around. News has somewhat dried up here recently so I would love some more juicy details on what is to come

Well, I was already going to announce this soon, but now that I see that people are really looking forward to Neidon's moons, I think it's time to announce this.

Fellow Kopernicus modder Marten2Productions and I have been working on a secret project for quite a while now.

We've been working on a fanmade moonpack for Neidon. Yes, Capt knows about this, so don't worry. Anyways, there are still some minor bugs to fix and since neither M2Productions nor me have Photoshop, there is an error with the lighting, but the pack is almost done.

Just to give y'all a sneak preview: there are some rather... interesting moons on the way. And, of course, a Triton analog.

However, I must warn you all: Tranton, the Triton analog, is not something you want to mess with. It's basically Tylo squared: faraway and high-gravity.

You have to fly all the way out to Neidon, and that's a challenge on it's own. Next, you'll have to land on something with almost no flat terrain and 1.1G. I wish you all good luck.

Anyways, again: the mod is still in-dev, but it's almost finished. But what will happen to the mod once Neidon gets it's official moons? Relax: the mod was specifically designed to be compatible with OPM at all times. Now and in the future. Another thing you all should know: once it's finished, the mod will get it's own thread. Once this thread has been created, please go there for any questions you might have, and I or M2Productions will answer any question you might have ASAP.

[CaptRobau]

Since we got a glimpse of what Plock might look like in the future, would it be possible to share an image or two of some renders of Neidon's moons? Even just some old mock-ups if you still have some old versions lying around. News has somewhat dried up here recently so I would love some more juicy details on what is to come

How about I just release it :

Update 1.8 is out now!

After a long wait, the next big update is out: 1.8! It features the much awaited moons for Neidon. There are two of them and they are called Thatmo and Nissee. Both moons have support for many of the third party mod that OPM supports: FinalFrontier ribbons, Distant Object Enhancement, PlanetShine and Research Bodies. And more are to follow in future updates.

Screenshots

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Downloads

1. Choose one of the two available mirrors for Outer Planets Mod (the CKAN version should get the update within the day, probably within a few hours)

2. Download Kopernicus, which is a third-party mode required for OPM to work

This version of OPM was designed with Kopernicus 0.3.3 in mind. Keep this in mind if you choose haven't updated yet.

The moons

Great work by resident artist Eudea55, as always!

This icy moon was found to have a very thin atmosphere, just thick enough to support aerodynamic flight. It has been the number one destination on every daredevil aviator's bucket list ever since. Oh, and it rotates in the opposite direction around its planet as every other moon. Quite the strange moon indeed.

Thatmo is based off of Triton, one of the few moons in our solar system with something resembling an atmosphere. Thatmo's atmosphere has been made a bit thicker than its real-life counterpart, to make it a bit more fun to play with. At the lowest elevations and with enough wings, you'll be able to get some aerodynamic lift (no oxygen though). It's not much though: parachutes are useless and you'll need half the moon's circumference to slow down enough through banking your spaceplane. Hopefully this will present you with never before seen challenges.

This moon also has unique orbital characteristics. Not only is it in an 19° inclination, but it's also in a retrograde orbit. This means that the moon orbits Neidon counter-clockwise, unlike all other bodies in the stock/OPM universe.

A small moon in a highly inclined and eccentric orbit around Neidon. Its surface looks strangely similar to marble. As a result it has become the envy of every sculptor on Kerbin.

This rocky moon is based off of Nereid. It's defining physical characteristic is the large impact crater, which cover a large part of the body. Its orbit is also unlike anything you've seen: highly inclined and highly eccentric. At its apoapsis, Neidon is only a small purple dot in the blackness of space. You'll need a lot of preparation to get here!

Other features

Aside from the new moons, 1.8 also boasts some other features:

Added support for Kopernicus Expansion's procedural gas giant clouds

The Kopernicus Expansion mod adds a lot of great features for planet makers. One of these are procedural gas giant clouds. Pictures say more than a thousand words, so see the animated gifs in the album above. Enabling these clouds is as simple as installing Kopernicus Expansion. It might not be optimized enough for the lowest end computers, but if you have something average, these clouds are more than doable performance wise.

Converted the ring textures to PNG format for Kopernicus Expansion compatibility

This also fixes the problem with orbits disappearing in the rings of Sarnus by the way (even without Kopernicus Expansion), as it turned out I saved them in the wrong format which did not support the full range of alpha settings.

See the full changelog for all the other small fixes:

-Added two moons to Neidon: Thatmo and Nissee
-Added support for Kopernicus Expansion's procedural gas giants feature, adding it to the OPM giants and Jool
-Updated the Karbonite configs for Tal
-Fixed a spelling error in Tekto's description and added a 'or her' after 'his' to include female Kerbals
-Removed a duplicate entry for Wal from the DAE config
-Converted the ring textures to PNG format for Kopernicus Expansion compatibility
-Updated ModuleManager to 2.6.7

The future

Here's what we have in store for the future:

• Finetune the Neidon moons, including adding biomes, science descriptions, better atmospheric effects, third party resources, etc.
  
• Finetune the procedural clouds for the gas giants, by adding storms and what not
  
• Reinvent the Plock system. No longer will it just be a carbon copy of Vall: Plock will receive a new look, based on the observations of the real Pluto by the New Horizons probe. It will also receive a Charon-analog called Karen, with which it will be in a binary configuration like the real Pluto and Charon.
  

Edited August 31, 2015 by CaptRobau

[Sigma88]

congrats on the release guys!

[cantab]

Nice! Some day I'm sure I'll visit Thatmo and Nisse. In the New Horizons configuration that will be a long and distant journey indeed.

[Starbuckminsterfullerton]

Congratulations on a great update! Always glad to see OPM update with new places I've never been before. How will the new gas giant clouds behave with an EVE pack running?

[Poodmund]

Converted the ring textures to PNG format for Kopernicus Expansion compatibility

This also fixes the problem with orbits disappearing in the rings of Sarnus by the way (even without Kopernicus Expansion), as it turned out I saved them in the wrong format which did not support the full range of alpha settings.

I fear that by changing the way Sarnus' rings work, this is now happening where the rings are overlaying EVE's cloud layers.

Congratulations on a great update! Always glad to see OPM update with new places I've never been before. How will the new gas giant clouds behave with an EVE pack running?

I've been editing my EVE configs to tone the cloud layer Alpha channels down a bit so that the procedural generation is slightly visible underneath them. It complements it really well as you get the large cloud textures working on top with the Kopernicus Expansion working underneath to make the planet look different all the way round at all times. Real nice!

Edited August 31, 2015 by Poodmund

[CaptRobau]

congrats on the release guys!

Thanks.

Congratulations on a great update! Always glad to see OPM update with new places I've never been before. How will the new gas giant clouds behave with an EVE pack running?

I can never get EVE to work, so little info there. The Kopernicus Expansion clouds are not volumetric though, so they only appear like that from a distance. EVE has them become puffy clouds when you get closer right? I imagine that in the future something will need to be done to remove EVE's cloud layers that you can see from a distance. In the mean time it's a good first implementation (Kopernicus Expansion is still a very young mod).

I fear that by changing the way Sarnus' rings work, this is now happening where the rings are overlaying EVE's cloud layers.

http://i.imgur.com/sM6hmLkm.jpg

I can never get EVE to work, so no idea that would happen. The rings were PNG up until 1.7 and I can't imagine most other planet makers don't use PNG too, so I'm quite surprised that this is an issue. Is this with Kopernicus Expansion installed?

[The White Guardian]

How about I just release it :

Update 1.8 is out now!

After a long wait, the next big update is out: 1.8! It features the much awaited moons for Neidon. There are two of them and they are called Thatmo and Nissee. Both moons have support for many of the third party mod that OPM supports: FinalFrontier ribbons, Distant Object Enhancement, PlanetShine and Research Bodies. And more are to follow in future updates.

Screenshots

http://imgur.com/a/ZajMi

Downloads

1. Choose one of the two available mirrors for Outer Planets Mod (the CKAN version should get the update within the day, probably within a few hours)

http://i.imgur.com/FRO6RIX.png http://i.imgur.com/WhwiS8Y.png

2. Download Kopernicus, which is a third-party mode required for OPM to work

http://i.imgur.com/ypskWRz.png

This version of OPM was designed with Kopernicus 0.3.3 in mind. Keep this in mind if you choose haven't updated yet.

The moons

Great work by resident artist Eudea55, as always!

Thatmo is based off of Triton, one of the few moons in our solar system with something resembling an atmosphere. Thatmo's atmosphere has been made a bit thicker than its real-life counterpart, to make it a bit more fun to play with. At the lowest elevations and with enough wings, you'll be able to get some aerodynamic lift (no oxygen though). It's not much though: parachutes are useless and you'll need half the moon's circumference to slow down enough through banking your spaceplane. Hopefully this will present you with never before seen challenges.

This moon also has unique orbital characteristics. Not only is it in an 19° inclination, but it's also in a retrograde orbit. This means that the moon orbits Neidon counter-clockwise, unlike all other bodies in the stock/OPM universe.

This rocky moon is based off of Nereid. It's defining physical characteristic is the large impact crater, which cover a large part of the body. Its orbit is also unlike anything you've seen: highly inclined and highly eccentric. At its apoapsis, Neidon is only a small purple dot in the blackness of space. You'll need a lot of preparation to get here!

Other features

Aside from the new moons, 1.8 also boasts some other features:

Added support for Kopernicus Expansion's procedural gas giant clouds

The Kopernicus Expansion mod adds a lot of great features for planet makers. One of these are procedural gas giant clouds. Pictures say more than a thousand words, so see the animated gifs in the album above. Enabling these clouds is as simple as installing Kopernicus Expansion. It might not be optimized enough for the lowest end computers, but if you have something average, these clouds are more than doable performance wise.

Converted the ring textures to PNG format for Kopernicus Expansion compatibility

This also fixes the problem with orbits disappearing in the rings of Sarnus by the way (even without Kopernicus Expansion), as it turned out I saved them in the wrong format which did not support the full range of alpha settings.

See the full changelog for all the other small fixes:

-Added two moons to Neidon: Thatmo and Nissee
-Added support for Kopernicus Expansion's procedural gas giants feature, adding it to the OPM giants and Jool
-Updated the Karbonite configs for Tal
-Fixed a spelling error in Tekto's description and added a 'or her' after 'his' to include female Kerbals
-Removed a duplicate entry for Wal from the DAE config
-Converted the ring textures to PNG format for Kopernicus Expansion compatibility
-Updated ModuleManager to 2.6.7

The future

Here's what we have in store for the future:

• Finetune the Neidon moons, including adding biomes, science descriptions, better atmospheric effects, third party resources, etc.
  
• Finetune the procedural clouds for the gas giants, by adding storms and what not
  
• Reinvent the Plock system. No longer will it just be a carbon copy of Vall: Plock will receive a new look, based on the observations of the real Pluto by the New Horizons probe. It will also receive a Charon-analog called Karen, with which it will be in a binary configuration like the real Pluto and Charon.
  

Seriously? two hours and six minutes after I reveal that I and a fellow modder have been working on a fanmade moonpack, the official moons are released?

...

Ahahaha! My timing is just sooooo bad!

Anyways, I'll convert the 'fanmade moons' into a separate modpack. Gongratulations on the update by the way.

[MrHappyFace]

Congratulations on a great update! Always glad to see OPM update with new places I've never been before. How will the new gas giant clouds behave with an EVE pack running?

As far as I know, the gas giant clouds don't affect EVE in any way, nor vice versa.

I really like Thatmo, I've never seen planets with atmospheres that thin, and it's already a challenge to fly aerodynamically on Duna...

Edited August 31, 2015 by MrHappyFace

[hazard-ish]

Wow! That's certainly more than I asked for!

Both moons look fantastic, I'll be checking them out once my craft gets there. Does Thatmo have any flat-ish areas to support take-off and landings, by the way?

[Poodmund]

I can never get EVE to work, so little info there. The Kopernicus Expansion clouds are not volumetric though, so they only appear like that from a distance. EVE has them become puffy clouds when you get closer right? I imagine that in the future something will need to be done to remove EVE's cloud layers that you can see from a distance. In the mean time it's a good first implementation (Kopernicus Expansion is still a very young mod).

I can never get EVE to work, so no idea that would happen. The rings were PNG up until 1.7 and I can't imagine most other planet makers don't use PNG too, so I'm quite surprised that this is an issue. Is this with Kopernicus Expansion installed?

I would not remove EVE's cloud layers if the expansion is installed as I posted above, they can be made to complement each other's workings very well. With regards to Sarnus' rings, I do have the expansion installed, yes. Sarnus also gets a bit laggy when zoomed right in with the camera in and around the rings. I have not done this before with the camera so cannot comment as to whether its a new occurrence but something to be mindful of. I don't expect I would ever do that with the camera in game though unless landing on Ovok or Hale.

[hazard-ish]

By the way, I realise that it might not be possible due to Thatmo's size, but could you add a sky visual to Thatmo? I get that in real-life you wouldn't be able to detect a visible difference but I still think that it would really help Thatmo feel alien and I would love to see Neidon amongst the thin white skies of Thatmo - something similar to the second post here would be, literally, the best thing ever: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/24533-Show-off-your-awesome-KSP-pictures!/page999