Sci-Fi Worldbuilding: Upsilon Andromedae Space Program

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Hello out there,

So I finally got around to starting a thread on one of my current project-type thingies. To explain this a bit better, I'll need to give you some back story on my use of Orbiter so far. I discovered Orbiter back in 2012, and started playing a sort of personal VSA with it soon after (dont think I ever named it). I built a base on the moon, a space station in LEO, landed on Mercury and left a station in a high orbit of it to boot. After a while of doing this though, my skills with flying more accurate, realistic missions grew, and I began to find my whole VSA with Arrow Freighters, DGIVs, space station modules in UCGO boxes, etc. kinda flat. At that point the VSA died a quiet death & I moved on to other things.

Lately though, I was finding that I missed doing a VSA sort of thing, as having a bit of structure to ones Orbiter operations is really half of the fun IMO. I often found that setting up a personal VSA in sol system didnt work, maybe just because the whole thing was just too familiar to me already. So, as you might have guessed, I went searching for some new real estate...

After a fair bit of searching, I finally decided on the Upsilon Andromedae star system by Donatelo200. It was a quality add-on, had nice textures, and plenty of planets and moons to explore. I decided to locate my extrasolar civililization on Ups And DI (the first moon of the fourth planet orbiting Upsilon Andromedae)

0TYGChUh.jpg


With the day night cycle being so long, I would imagine that life on the surface must be difficult due to wild temperature changes. It would likely make sense to move the civilization underground, like...

Hobbits in SPAAACE!!!

Maybe the doors dont have to be round though. :lol:

A shot of Ups And DI

OWW3EHH.jpg


Some screenshots of the other large moons orbiting Ups And D, made using the onboard telescope on Horizon station.

zDQrKEJh.jpg


(DII to DVII, in order)

qzv9kOEh.jpg


Ihfvl0Th.jpg


l7286Qxh.jpg


e4DU7Vkh.jpg


M6Kun6nh.jpg


(Complete IMS systems crash here, followed by a complete restart :facepalm: Blasted lunar shadow changes.)

ZKJlSnV.jpg


The Ups And D moon system as a whole looks like this

OlBW6UJh.jpg


So it seems obvious that the next step after the orbit-to-orbit flight should be a landing program on the surface of Ups And DII. DII looked an awful lot like Europa, so establishing surface operations will likely allow for water mining, fuel production, etc.

Not visible on here, but still very useful for ISRU, would be the Shepherd moons and the rings themselves of Ups And D. They should also contain decent quantities of water ice and other volatiles, obviously great targets for exploration and exploitation.

On a much bigger scale, looking ahead to exploration of the system as a whole, things seem pretty difficult.

zHje4Ibh.jpg


Ups And C might be doable, but still a massive challenge with regards to getting a crew there and back safely. The rest of the planets wont appear to be so forgiving, so missions there will need a lot of planning in advance.

Some things that I wanted to bring up:

-How is Ups And DI habitable? The orbit of its parent planet is rough 2.5 AU, and Upsilon Andromedae is listed as an F8V, slightly bigger and hotter than our sun. How big of a part would tidal heating play in keeping the planet warm, and what sort of impact would this sort of enviroment have on the planet? The day is roughly 20 earth days long, which I would think might create a rather odd ecosystem (specialized predators and herbivores for either the night or the day?)

-Any suggestions on what the Andromedans (civilization on Ups DI with the space program in question) might look/behave like? The surface pressure and surface gravity are a little high (154 kPa and 10.7 m/s2 respectively), but would that have any major impact on how the species evolving on it would look?

-I also wonder what the history of this species would look like, my personal idea being to make it a narrative heavily involved with sea trade and exploration. With so much coastline, and so little fertile land, I don't find it hard to imagine a world similar to ancient Greece, with dozens of city states competing for a slice of the global pie?

UQ4vhith.jpg




I do plan to do some development work on this in order to include things that I want for it. I plan on creating a small space center environment at the main base on Ups DI, so far I have a good chunk of the ATC tower done, awaiting textures:

YP5I5tx.jpg


My eventual goal would be to produce something good enough to offer to Donatelo200 as extra content expanding the add-on. Even if he doesn't like it, I can still release the content as a separate package on OHM.

Please feel free to comment on anything, I would appreciate any thoughts and/or suggestions on how to make the project better.

One last thing: Izack, you and your space colonists will have to shove off :lol:. This system's taken!!!

:hailprobe:
 
Last edited:

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
A space program in an alien solar system? Sounds familiar.

No! NOOO!!!

What have I DONE?!? :lol:

I suppose you could see some similarities in concept, but I personally have found it quite different. KSP isnt all that interesting compared to this because the Kerbol system is basically just a knockoff of our own in miniature. Upsilon Andromedae is so wildly different that it guarantees to provide new challenges in the way I have to fly missions and to plan for them.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
A bit more work on the ATC tower for the main base.

p6htRfhh.jpg


(Ignore the smilie faces, its just an old habit I have when I need a solid texture to place where a window will go later - no transparency in Anim8or)

Model is still decent performance-wise, 2568 poly, although textures are a bit of a stronger hit.

I now have a complete height map made for UPSDI, easily created with a greyscale of the original texture, although a bit of touching up will be needed. The polar ice-sheets should now rise hundreds of meters above sea level at their edges.

I was wondering if anyone could help suggest names for some of the planets & moons? I would like to have a name for these places besides UPSD... whatever.
 

Kendo

New member
Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
589
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Bruce, you said "no transparency in Anim8or"
There is a setting for transparency in the material settings.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Bruce, you said "no transparency in Anim8or"
There is a setting for transparency in the material settings.

Yes, but I use a transparent dds in Orbiter for any windows. Using a texture allows me to give it some dirt, grime, etc, so that it looks like a solid object, & not a hole in the side of the building. :thumbup:

The smilie face just seemed like a funny thing to put in for the bitmap until I can give it the dds in Orbiter.
 

donatelo200

Aerospace Engineer
Addon Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
482
Reaction score
28
Points
43
Location
Cincinnati
I am very excited for this! Good luck! :cheers:

P.S. I can make the planet more green as when I made it I didn't think of much land life yet.
P.S.S If you have orbiter Galaxy I have the rest of the planet's parameters there.
 
Last edited:

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
I am very excited for this! Good luck! :cheers:

P.S. I can make the planet more green as when I made it I didn't think of much land life yet.
P.S.S If you have orbiter Galaxy I have the rest of the planet's parameters there.

Oh goodie! :woohoo:

If you would like to see it, I can send the terrain map and a few other things for your inspection. The "Reasearch base" is now at the end of a river canyon in the terrain, and it should have an ATC tower soon.

Minor note about the Orbiter Galaxy thing: you made a mistake when setting up the file structure,

you have the OrbiterGalaxy hotspot file under OrbiterGalaxy/MilkyWay/Custom Systems

it needs to be under OrbiterGalaxy/Galaxy/MilkyWay/Custom Systems

discovered that after a bit of puzzlement.


Could you describe what Ups DIV is intended to be like? Is it a Titan analogue, or a bit more like Mars?
 

donatelo200

Aerospace Engineer
Addon Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
482
Reaction score
28
Points
43
Location
Cincinnati
DIV is a mars analog. Ups and F is a Titan analogue with multicellular life. Also thanks for spotting that i never noticed it.:p Lastly you may certainly send me anything you see necessary. (I wasn't the best with surface bases.)
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
DIV is a mars analog. Ups and F is a Titan analogue with multicellular life. Also thanks for spotting that i never noticed it.:p Lastly you may certainly send me anything you see necessary. (I wasn't the best with surface bases.)


Hum-dee-dum-dum

Here ya go

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m536n4nc46lc6fp/050913%20Branch.zip

Has most of the stuff Ive done so far, most notably complete Orulex configs (I think). The only thing you'll need is XR Facility by Pennyblack. The scenario included has the facility vessels in all the right spots.

The surface bases are nice actually, but I plan on improving them a great deal to make them fit the "storyline". I think it will be really cool to have a real space center in Orbiter with all of the trimmings. More on that later.

Edit: Little bit farther with the ATC tower

kvJopi1.jpg


Need to do the omni coms array on top, then most of the interiors. The upper floor will be a sort of observation lounge (maybe for whoever is paying for the mission? :lol:)

Then all I have to do is model & code the doors, Elevator, & display screens. No Biggie :lol:

:hailprobe:
 
Last edited:

donatelo200

Aerospace Engineer
Addon Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
482
Reaction score
28
Points
43
Location
Cincinnati
I'm impressed. You have just solved a problem I have been having for years. I could never figure out the height maps. The base looks nice too and I like the areas you marked.:thumbup:
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
I'm impressed. You have just solved a problem I have been having for years. I could never figure out the height maps. The base looks nice too and I like the areas you marked.:thumbup:

Aw shucks, it was nuthin :lol:

But just for the record, heres what I know so far:

vAiKqYF.jpg


The key is the first number, that appears to control the max height, roughly. All of those "Spikey planets" were caused by configs with this set waaay too large. On occasion World Studio refuses to let some values be edited for some reason. Just close the program & edit the cfg file under Config/Terrain to get around that.

Mpd6ZJR.jpg


Greyscale heightmaps use black as 0 alt, white as max alt. UPS And DI was easy to do because each region on the map corresponded to the right altitude based on albedo.

:hailprobe:
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
View of the canyon and the base from above

OBJp8B6.jpg


---------- Post added at 23:14 ---------- Previous post was at 00:45 ----------

Yet another status update on the control tower

TshEaNw.jpg


Not too much work left on that at this point.

Donatello, I do have a question about Ups And DI

KYKOSbc.jpg


Could you describe what the circular thing in the center left is supposed to be?

Im curious in general as to how you created such a beautifully detailed map for this planet. Its really quite impressive to make something like this from scratch :thumbup:
 

donatelo200

Aerospace Engineer
Addon Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
482
Reaction score
28
Points
43
Location
Cincinnati
Confession. :blush: I did not make it from scratch I only wish I could. I found the texture and recolored it to suit my needs. I can't remember where I got it that was years ago but i think it may be related to star trek. On-topic that feature actually resembles a crater (I think) that is on Earth. I'll try to find reference.

EDIT: Found [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_crater"]the crater[/ame].
 
Last edited:

fsci123

Future Dubstar and Rocketkid
Addon Developer
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
1,536
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
?
Confession. :blush: I did not make it from scratch I only wish I could. I found the texture and recolored it to suit my needs. I can't remember where I got it that was years ago but i think it may be related to star trek. On-topic that feature actually resembles a crater (I think) that is on Earth. I'll try to find reference.

Ha... Made me feel slightly better about myself for a second. But anyway nice add-on.:thumbup:
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Confession. :blush: I did not make it from scratch I only wish I could. I found the texture and recolored it to suit my needs. I can't remember where I got it that was years ago but i think it may be related to star trek. On-topic that feature actually resembles a crater (I think) that is on Earth. I'll try to find reference.

EDIT: Found the crater.

Thats perfect, adds a very nice layer of depth to my background plans for the Andromedans.

Interiors getting closer on the ATC Tower:

o1crUdFh.jpg
 

donatelo200

Aerospace Engineer
Addon Developer
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
482
Reaction score
28
Points
43
Location
Cincinnati
That looks amazing so far.:blink: Maybe you could help me with bases on my next add-ons in about a year.
 

LTrotsky

Donator
Donator
Joined
Sep 22, 2013
Messages
72
Reaction score
0
Points
0
KYKOSbc.jpg


Could you describe what the circular thing in the center left is supposed to be?

Im curious in general as to how you created such a beautifully detailed map for this planet. Its really quite impressive to make something like this from scratch :thumbup:

That is an image of the Manicouagan crater in Canada.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_crater"]Manicouagan crater - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Plenty of satellite shots of Earth, and many other high-quality shots of other planets and moons, would make excellent pieces for the surfaces of "alien" worlds. :thumbup:
 

fsci123

Future Dubstar and Rocketkid
Addon Developer
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
1,536
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
?
Hello out there,

With the day night cycle being so long, I would imagine that life on the surface must be difficult due to wild temperature changes. It would likely make sense to move the civilization underground, like...

-Any suggestions on what the Andromedans (civilization on Ups DI with the space program in question) might look/behave like? The surface pressure and surface gravity are a little high (154 kPa and 10.7 m/s2 respectively), but would that have any major impact on how the species evolving on it would look?

-I also wonder what the history of this species would look like, my personal idea being to make it a narrative heavily involved with sea trade and exploration. With so much coastline, and so little fertile land, I don't find it hard to imagine a world similar to ancient Greece, with dozens of city states competing for a slice of the global pie?

Is this a human species? Did they evolve in caves or in water or on land?
 
Top