Wingtip Vortex

A Kerbal Space Program mod that adds dynamic, physics-driven wingtip vortices, raymarched wing vapor and atmospheric contrails to aircraft.

Vortices use procedural meshes and trails. Wing vapor is drawn as a continuous, sunlit volume, with the older particle effect available as an optional fallback.

Current version: 2.0.0 · KSP 1.12.x · no dependencies · Preview Video: https://youtu.be/8_LPctP6Wms?si=5Ol_xffk_G9KwBJa

Overview

Wingtip Vortex generates visual effects that respond to the aircraft's aerodynamic state and the surrounding atmosphere.

Vortex strength is based on aerodynamic circulation:

Γ ≈ L / (ρ · V · b)

Lift, atmospheric density, airspeed and wingspan determine the strength of the resulting vortex. Lift is read from the aerodynamic surfaces using stock aerodynamics or Ferram Aerospace Research.

Wing vapor is evaluated separately, using aerodynamic loading, angle of attack and atmospheric conditions. In 2.0, a raymarched volume follows the measured airframe, including wings, strakes, canards and the fuselage.

Contrails respond to each celestial body's temperature and air density rather than a single fixed altitude band.

Features

• Wingtip vortices: paired trails strengthen as the wings work harder, including during low-speed, high-lift flight
• Circulation-based strength: responds to actual aerodynamic loading rather than a simple minimum G-force trigger
• Raymarched wing vapor: a soft volumetric cloud over the upper wing surfaces, with LEX ropes and fuselage coverage during demanding maneuvers
• High-angle-of-attack support: vapor responds to the angle at which the wing meets the airflow, including cobra maneuvers
• Nearby aircraft: vortices support up to ten craft total, including the active craft; raymarched vapor supports the active craft and up to three eligible nearby aircraft within 2 km of the camera
• Wake behavior: trails spread as they age, interact near the ground and can develop vortex breakdown
• Atmosphere-driven contrails: formation depends on the body's temperature and air density
• Automatic airframe detection: supports multi-part wings, canards and canted surfaces, while excluding missiles and stores from the measured vapor outline
• Sunlit vapor: warm sunrise and sunset colours, with reduced illumination at night
• In-game settings: app launcher button or Alt+V, with independent effect controls
• Legacy particle option: the older wing-vapor puffs remain available
• Standalone installation: Windows, macOS and Linux shader bundles are included; no Waterfall dependency

How It Works

Vortices

The mod detects lifting surfaces, identifies suitable vortex anchors and reads the aerodynamic forces acting on the wings.

Circulation changes with lift, air density, airspeed and wingspan. A slow aircraft carrying substantial aerodynamic load can therefore generate visible vortices without a high-G maneuver.

The primary wingtip pair uses procedural tube meshes. Secondary surfaces and rockets use trail-style rendering.

Wing vapor

The raymarched renderer measures the airframe and evaluates a pressure and condensation field around it. The GPU draws the resulting volume where conditions allow vapor to form.

Coverage responds to loading, angle of attack and Mach number. Aircraft geometry hides vapor behind the craft, helping the effect remain attached to the visible surfaces.

Contrails

The mod samples the celestial body's atmosphere to determine a suitable temperature region. Atmospheric density then affects visibility.

For more detail, see How it works and Wing vapor.

Behavior

Vortices can appear during:

• Hard turns and high-G maneuvers
• Landing approaches
• High-angle-of-attack flight
• Low-speed, high-lift conditions

They fade as aerodynamic circulation decreases.

Wing vapor is deliberately harder to produce. It needs suitable atmospheric conditions and a sufficiently loaded airframe; it is not expected during ordinary cruise or every banking turn.

Altitude limits

The limits depend on atmospheric conditions rather than one universal altitude:

• Vortices: atmospheric fading begins below 0.10 kg/m³, reaching zero at 0.01 kg/m³
• Wing vapor: disabled when air density falls below 10% of the current body's sea-level density
• Contrails: require an appropriate temperature and density range

Installation

1. Delete any previous GameData/WingtipVortex installation.
2. Download the ZIP from the latest release.
3. Copy the archive's GameData/WingtipVortex folder into your KSP GameData/ directory.

The installed plugin should be located at:

GameData/WingtipVortex/Plugins/WingtipVortex.dll

Back up PluginData/settings.cfg before replacing an existing installation if you want to retain your settings.

Do not leave multiple versions installed. Duplicate plugins can produce duplicate effects.

To uninstall, remove the WingtipVortex folder.

Usage

Effects work automatically: no per-craft configuration is required.

In flight, click the vortex button on the app launcher or press Alt+V to:

• Enable or disable vortices and wing vapor independently
• Set vortex strength from 0 to 200%
• Set wing-vapor density and height from 0 to 200%
• Select Legacy particle vapor instead of the raymarched renderer

100% is the default appearance. Choices are saved to PluginData/settings.cfg. Deleting that file with KSP closed restores the defaults.

Upgrading from 1.5

The older optional Volumetric Wing Vapor add-on is no longer needed.

Remove that add-on when upgrading. Wingtip Vortex 2.0 includes its own volumetric renderer and no longer uses the Waterfall integration.

Afterburners

Afterburner plumes are not included in Wingtip Vortex.

They are provided by the separate Aeronautic Afterburner mod. The two mods can be used together.

Debugging

Search KSP.log for:

[VORTEX]

The logs include aircraft measurements, surface selection, aerodynamic integration and shader-loading information.

For detailed wing-vapor diagnostics, create an empty verbose.txt file in GameData/WingtipVortex/, next to the Plugins folder. Restart KSP, reproduce the issue and search for:

[VORTEX] wing vapor:

Remove the file afterwards to disable detailed logging.

Include the relevant log output, affected craft and installed aerodynamic mods when reporting a problem.

See Troubleshooting.

Known Limitations

• Effects are visual and do not modify aircraft aerodynamics
• Airframe detection and vapor modeling are approximations, not a full CFD simulation
• Unconventional, highly canted or unusually large aircraft may expose placement or scaling edge cases
• Some modded surfaces may not expose the aerodynamic modules needed for detection
• Nearby-aircraft rendering is limited to control performance costs; not every aircraft in a large battle will display every effect
• Legacy particle vapor is limited to the active craft
• Missing or unsupported raymarch shaders cause a fallback to legacy particle vapor
• Atmospheric moisture is approximated rather than driven by a simulated weather system
• Performance depends on aircraft complexity, graphics hardware and how much of the screen the vapor occupies

Compatibility

• Kerbal Space Program 1.12.x
• No dependencies
• Stock aerodynamics or Ferram Aerospace Research (tested with FAR 0.16.2)
• BDArmory aircraft and AI wingmen, subject to detection and rendering limits
• Kopernicus planets and rescaled systems
• Scatterer, EVE, Parallax, Deferred and Singularity

Credits and License

Mod by PogKai.

The raymarched wing-vapor system is based on and ported from aeronautic by Romain Le Gall, used under the MIT License.

PogKai-authored material is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Upstream aeronautic portions retain their MIT License and its permissions; the CC non-commercial and share-alike terms do not replace those upstream permissions.

Full attribution and upstream license text are included in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

Links

• GitHub repository
• Latest release
• Changelog
• Report an issue