General Question Trying to add a landing pad to Phobos.

[blixel]

I'm trying to make a fuel stop at Phobos. Eventually I want to have a slightly elevated platform to land on and pick up resources, but for now, I am just trying to figure out how to add a landing pad. There's at least one location on Phobos where the mesh and the sphere meet, so you can put things on the ground and they will (more or less) appear to be on the ground. (As opposed to floating in space or sunk inside the mesh.)

I'm trying to put a landing pad in that area, but it doesn't show up. If I bring up Map MFD, I can select the base as a target, but I can't see it. Here's the base:

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +160 +33
Size = 500

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
LPAD1
	POS 0 0 0
	ROT 0
	TEX Lpad01
      NAV 129.70
END
END_OBJECTLIST

I looked at Olympus.cfg to figure out what I needed in the base file, and near as I can tell, that's it. So I'm not sure why it isn't showing up?

 

[Notebook]

Try adding

SCALE 1 1 1

between the POS and ROT lines.

N.

 

[fort]

Or...

SCALE 10 10 10

or more, and once you begin to see it, you can adjust all your values, POS for example, and return to

SCALE 1 1 1

A pad or a block or what you want.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Best solution at this stage is the way Danstephs Prelude II pads were made. Create a mesh with long girders sinking down way below whats needed, then place it with the pad at the collision level that orbiter takes. That way you can mimic a solid landable pad sitting above the surface of any asteroid/planet you like.

 

[blixel]

Or...

SCALE 10 10 10

or more, and once you begin to see it, you can adjust all your values, POS for example, and return to

SCALE 1 1 1

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried SCALE 10 10 10, then 20 20 20, then 200 200 200, and finally, 500 500 500. But I still can't see the landing pad. Hmm...

Best solution at this stage is the way Danstephs Prelude II pads were made. Create a mesh with long girders sinking down way below whats needed, then place it with the pad at the collision level that orbiter takes. That way you can mimic a solid landable pad sitting above the surface of any asteroid/planet you like.

That sounds like what I want as my final solution, but I don't know how to make meshes, so that's going to be a quest in and of itself. But what I ultimately envision is a platform sitting on top of a pillar or two. The pillars should appear to go all the way down to the "ground" of Phobos so that the platform appears to be supported by the pillars.

The platform will be high enough above Phobos that there aren't any messy visuals when you are on the platform. The platform will have 1 or more landing pads, and will have enough additional area so that I can have payload sitting on the platform ready to be picked up.

 

[dgatsoulis]

The reason the Lpad isn't showing up is because of the "MaxPatchResolution = 0 ; use explicit mesh" line in the Orbiter\Config\Phobos.cfg file. This forces Phobos to have that irregular mesh around an invisible sphere. Changing that line to values > 0 will make the Lpad visible but it will remove the mesh and turn Phobos into a featureless grey sphere.

There are ways to work around this:

1.You can do what was suggested in the previous post.

2. You can add a tiny launchpad texture in the Phobos.dds and save the file. Then try to find its coordinates and add your base there. (Not very elegant but it should work).

3.You can try this:

a. Get the attachment from this post and unzip it in your Orbiter\textures\ directory. It will add a Roof03.dds texture in that directory.

b. Open the Orbiter\Config\Base.cfg file and add the line Roof03 between Roof02 and Wall01 (or wherever you want between the BEGIN_TEXTURES END_TEXTURES lines, it doesn't really matter.)

c. Change your base's cfg to this:

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +160 +33
Size = 500

BEGIN_NAVBEACON
VOR PHB +160 +33 129.70 500
END_NAVBEACON

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
LPAD1
   POS 0 0 0
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.70
END
BLOCK
   POS 0 0 0
   SCALE 40 0.01 40
   TEX3 Roof03 1 1
END
END_OBJECTLIST

(I also added you a navbeacon for the base, but since you have just one Lpad, you can skip it).

Back when we did the OFMM lite mission, we had used these coordinates for a landing on Phobos:

Location = -108 +25.6

See if these are any better at base placement than the ones you chose.

Hope this helps

 

[blixel]

The reason the Lpad isn't showing up is because of the "MaxPatchResolution = 0 ; use explicit mesh" line in the Orbiter\Config\Phobos.cfg file. This forces Phobos to have that irregular mesh around an invisible sphere. Changing that line to values > 0 will make the Lpad visible but it will remove the mesh and turn Phobos into a featureless grey sphere.

There are ways to work around this:

Thanks for the help. I already had a Roof03.dds from the Titan Base add-on, so I renamed yours to Roof04.dds and made the appropriate change to Phobos.cfg. This seems to work. Now that I can actually see the landing pad, I can tell it's not in a good place, so I'll work with the placement. I'll try the coordinates you suggested to see if that area is large enough to support the landing pad and the payload.

In any case, I think this will work until I can get a more sophisticated solution. Thanks again.

 

[dgatsoulis]

In any case, I think this will work until I can get a more sophisticated solution. Thanks again.

No problem. If you need a larger Lpad just change the "SCALE" line under the "BLOCK". In the example it has a size of 40m(x) by 40m(z) by 0.01m .
The order in Orbiter is xyz so if you need a 60m pad the line should be:

SCALE 60 0.01 60

You can also replace the Roof04.dds with any kind of texture you want, That one was just a quick snapshot. Make sure that when you save it it's a square and the side is a power of 2 in pixels.

 

[blixel]

I tried the -108 +25.6 coordinate. I like the flat area around that coordinate. It would be perfect if that flat area had the actual surface of Phobos level with the mesh, but unfortunately it's not. The mesh is at least a dozen or more pixels higher than the actual surface of Phobos, so anything you place on that flat area can't be seen. That being the case, I returned to my original coordinate and came up with this:

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +159.85 +30.30
Size = 500

BEGIN_NAVBEACON
VOR PHB +159.85 +30.30 129.70 500
END_NAVBEACON

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
LPAD1
   POS 0 0 0
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.70
END
BLOCK
   POS 0 0 0
   SCALE 40 0.01 40
   TEX3 Roof04 1 1
END
END_OBJECTLIST

I think that is as good as I'm going to get until I can learn how to make elevated platforms. If anyone has any tips on how to do that, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks to everyone who replied, and a big thanks dgatsoulis.

 

[fort]

I reminded me to this instant to have seen a device some years ago placing on Phobos a plateforme. And this memory brings me back enough far behind in a moment when I discovered March 2060 of Toni Yilsirnio, and that I attempted to understand certain procedures in the configuration files (when we tried to create a similar device on Macholz).

That base on Phobos was made by algol for Mars 2060 and named Phobos.

The addon is there:

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4138"]Phobos (Originally by Toni Ylisirnio)[/ame]

Mars 2060 there:

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=168"]Mars 2060 v1.2[/ame]

I no longer have in memory if it was possible to land on this plateforme (and, in the opposite case, would imply the use of Meshland...if it works in Orbiter 2010...) but is to be tried.

Nevertheless, March 2060 worked with the version 2005 of Orbiter and the addon that installed this plateforme with the version 2006...So, try to see how it works, visually, could be difficult enough if you don't install Orbiter 2005 ? 2006 ?.

I believe that I had adapted, for myself, March 2060 to Orbiter 2006 but it seem to me I no longer have these files. I will look for.

But while by studying the files ( it's maybe, after all, not necessary to install those addons )...by studying the files of algol's addon, you will find can be a beginning of response to your questions.

 

[dgatsoulis]

That sounds like what I want as my final solution, but I don't know how to make meshes, so that's going to be a quest in and of itself. But what I ultimately envision is a platform sitting on top of a pillar or two. The pillars should appear to go all the way down to the "ground" of Phobos so that the platform appears to be supported by the pillars.

The platform will be high enough above Phobos that there aren't any messy visuals when you are on the platform. The platform will have 1 or more landing pads, and will have enough additional area so that I can have payload sitting on the platform ready to be picked up.

I hadn't read this carefully. You can do something like this without the need for a new mesh. Here is an example with 4 "pillars"

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +160 +33
Size = 500

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
LPAD1
   POS 0 0 0
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.70
END
[COLOR="blue"]BLOCK
   POS 0 0.01 0
   SCALE 40 0.01 40
   TEX3 Roof04 1 1
END[/COLOR]
[COLOR="SeaGreen"]BLOCK
   POS 0 -3 0
   SCALE 40 3 40
   TEX1 Roof01 2 2 
   TEX2 Roof01 2 2 
END[/COLOR]
BLOCK
   POS 17.5 -50 17.5
   SCALE 5 50 5
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
[COLOR="red"]BLOCK[/COLOR]
   POS -17.5 [COLOR="red"]-60[/COLOR] 17.5
   SCALE 5 [COLOR="red"]60[/COLOR] 5
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
[COLOR="Red"]BLOCK[/COLOR]
   POS -17.5 [COLOR="Red"]-60[/COLOR] -17.5
   SCALE 5 [COLOR="red"]60[/COLOR] 5
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
BLOCK
   POS 17.5 -50 -17.5
   SCALE 5 50 5
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
END_OBJECTLIST

Notice that the two longer pillars (in red) are the ones facing downhill to match the plane inclination, giving the illusion of an above ground structure. You can play around with those, add or subtract as many as you want. The green block is the support under the "Lpad". The real Lpad (Lpad1) has the same coordinates but is invisible.

 

[blixel]

I hadn't read this carefully. You can do something like this without the need for a new mesh. Here is an example with 4 "pillars"

That's a great start to what I'm trying to achieve. The last component would just be to make the platform large enough so that I can have payload up there as well. The landing pad isn't quite large enough for an XR5 + an additional 40 or so payload modules laying on the ground.

Is there a way to make that Roof04.dds image several times longer and wider?

 

[dgatsoulis]

Do you have the dimensions you want it?

 

[blixel]

Do you have the dimensions you want it?

Based on this image:

... I would say if the platform were 3x as wide as the landing pad, and 3x as long, then it would be large enough.

 

[dgatsoulis]

The texture itself doesn't need scaling. Just change the block scale.

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +160 +33
Size = 500

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
LPAD1
   POS 0 0 0
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.70
END
BLOCK
   POS 0 0.01 0
   [COLOR="Red"]SCALE 120 0.01 120[/COLOR]
   TEX3 Roof04 1 1
END
BLOCK
   POS 0 -3 0
   [COLOR="red"]SCALE 120 3 120[/COLOR]
   TEX1 Roof01 2 2 
   TEX2 Roof01 2 2 
END

You'll also need to move the pillars more to the outside and perhaps make them a bit "fatter"

POS 55 -50 55 
SCALE 10 50 10

If you could give me an accurate description (and perhaps even a quick sketch) of how you want it to look like, it wouldn't take me more than 10-15 minutes to make it.
How many Lpads, how many pillars, if you want the pillars to be square or round, where the Lpads should be on top of the platform, etc.

 

[blixel]

If you could give me an accurate description (and perhaps even a quick sketch) of how you want it to look like, it wouldn't take me more than 10-15 minutes to make it.
How many Lpads, how many pillars, if you want the pillars to be square or round, where the Lpads should be on top of the platform, etc.

The reason I thought the texture would need to be redone was so that the landing pad would still appear to be the normal size, and the area around the landing pad would just be regular gray.

As far as a more accurate description, I'll do what I can to describe what I have in mind, but the short of it is that I just wanted to be able to land on Phobos and pick up payload without having the vessel appear to be sinking into the moon, and without having the payload appear to be floating in the sky. Beyond that, I am not at all picky about what it actually looks like.

If you wanted to make a general purpose landing pad that could be used for all the normal Orbiter vessels, I'm sure that would be fine. And I think it would be useful enough that you should zip it up and put it on OrbitHangar.

I can't draw to save my life, but I gave it a shot.

Again, all I am envisioning is a "generic" landing platform where I can land a vessel like the XR2/XR5 and pick up payload. So the payload area needs to be big enough to support like 60 or more XR5 modules.

 

[dgatsoulis]

Here it is. First download the attachment, place it in the textures directory and add the line Roof05 in the Orbiter\Config\Base.cfg

Then use this for your base's cfg :

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +160 +33
Size = 500

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
LPAD1
   POS -68 0 36
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.60
END
LPAD1
   POS 0.7 0 36
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.70
END
LPAD1
   POS 69 0 36
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.80
END
BLOCK
   POS 0 0.02 0
   SCALE 200 0.02 150
   TEX3 Roof05 1 1
END
BLOCK
   POS 0 -3 0
   SCALE 200 3 150
   TEX1 Roof01 2 2 
   TEX2 Roof01 2 2 
END
BLOCK
   POS 90 -35 65
   SCALE 20 35 20
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
BLOCK
   POS -90 -50 65
   SCALE 20 50 20
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
BLOCK
   POS -90 -50 -65
   SCALE 20 50 20
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
BLOCK
   POS 90 -35 -65
   SCALE 20 35 20
   TEX1 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX2 Roof01 1 1 
   TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END
END_OBJECTLIST

It should look like this:

Feel free to do whatever you want with the texture and the "code" for the base.

 

[blixel]

Here it is.

That is absolutely perfect! That is exactly what I had in mind. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this. This is going to get a lot of use by me.

I made a quick adjustment to the exact position (+160 +31.20), and a quick adjustment to the length of the pillars so that the platform appears to be firmly anchored into the hillside ... as opposed to floating in the air.

Now I just have to edit the scenario file to move the payload to the proper place and I'll be all set.

Can't thank you enough.

EDIT: And here's the platform with a bunch of payload sitting on deck, ready to be picked up and loaded.

---------- Post added at 02:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 AM ----------

Not a big deal, but is there a way to make the bottom opaque?

 

[dgatsoulis]

Not a big deal, but is there a way to make the bottom opaque?

Yes, but not without creating a mesh. The TEX3 (roof textures) are always meant to be viewed from up → down direction in these objects (Blocks, Hangars, Tanks, etc) and the ROT line simply rotates them only on the vertical axis, so it wouldn't work.

I think I have a rectangular mesh with all sides facing "out" somewhere. I'll try to find it when I get back from work. If not I'll make a new one.

 

[dgatsoulis]

@Blixel

I had forgotten how easy it is to get carried away, when you are making a base.

I started just with adding a mesh, so that there wouldn't be that transparency issue.

Then changed the pillars to round, then I added more of them to support the structure better. After that I didn't like the way the platform looked, so I extended it to go inside the hill and made it thicker, so that it wouldn't look like a piece of plywood compared to the ships it would have to support.
Remade the textures and added night textures as well. Then I wanted hangars and a wall around the payload area. And what if someone wants to land the Arrow? The payload area looked like it could fit one, so I added another landing pad over there.

I stopped when I caught myself measuring the distances to add a train and taxiways to the hangars. :blink:

The result isn't too bad and you can also land an Arrow on the base if you want (Lpad4).

daytime:

night:

Unzip the attachment in your Orbiter directory (main) and let it overwrite the Roof05 texture I had sent you earlier and add another texture (Roof06) in the Base.cfg

The file is this:

BASE-V2.0
Name = Phobos Base
Location = +160 +31.20
Size = 500
MapObjectsToSphere = TRUE

BEGIN_NAVBEACON
VOR PHB +160 +31.20 129.50 500
END_NAVBEACON

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
;Landing pads (invisible)
LPAD1
   POS -68 0 36
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.60
END
LPAD1
   POS 0.7 0 36
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.70
END
LPAD1
   POS 69 0 36
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.80
END
LPAD1
   POS 0.7 0 -37
   ROT 0
   TEX Lpad01
   NAV 129.90
END
;Platform with texture
BLOCK
   POS 0 -10.1 0
   SCALE 200.1 10 150.1
   TEX3 Roof05 1 1
END
;Platform with mon. texture going in the mountain
BLOCK
   POS 170 -9 0
   SCALE 140 10.2 150.1
   TEX3 Roof06 1 1
END
;Pillars front
TANK
   POS 90 -35 65
   SCALE 10 34 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
TANK
   POS 90 -35 -65
   SCALE 10 34 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
TANK
   POS 90 -35 0
   SCALE 10 34 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
;Pillars middle
TANK
   POS 0 -80 65
   SCALE 10 79 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
TANK
   POS 0 -80 -65
   SCALE 10 79 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
TANK
   POS 0 -80 0
   SCALE 10 79 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
;Pillars back
TANK
   POS -90 -90 65
   SCALE 10 89 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
TANK
   POS -90 -90 -65
   SCALE 10 89 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
TANK
   POS -90 -90 0
   SCALE 10 89 10
   TEX1 Roof01 6 1 
END
;walls around payload area
BLOCK
   POS 0.7 0 -72
   SCALE 195.3 3 0.25
   ROT 0
END
BLOCK
   POS -97 0 -38
   SCALE 0.25 3.25 68.3
END
BLOCK
   POS 98.5 0 -38
   SCALE 0.25 3.25 68.3
END
;Hangars
HANGAR
   POS 190 0 -55
   SCALE 30 15 50
   ROT 270
   TEX1 Roof01 3 1
   TEX3 Roof01 3 1    
END
HANGAR
   POS 210 0 25
   SCALE 80 40 90
   ROT 270
   TEX1 Roof01 3 1
   TEX3 Roof01 3 1    
END
;Bottom mesh opaque
MESH
   FILE Rectangular
   OWNMATERIAL
   POS 0 -5 0
   PRELOAD
END
MESH
   FILE Rectangular
   OWNMATERIAL
   SCALE 0.70 1 1
   POS 170 -5 0
   PRELOAD
END
END_OBJECTLIST

The base is in the coordinates you posted earlier and I fixed the length of the pillars. I've labeled each part of the cfg file, so it won't be difficult to make changes if you want to.


Have fun, happy orbiting