Real Atmospheres

Atmospheres, hazes and clouds for Kitten Space Agency's Solar System, derived from each body's composition and particle optics. A StarMap mod.

No game files are modified. At launch the mod builds patched copies of the game's shaders and system XML and loads those instead. If a game update changes a patched part of the XML, that patch is skipped. A game update that changes the atmosphere shaders can stop them compiling, so use a release built for your KSA version.

Download

Borea

GitHub

Features

Mars

• Rayleigh scattering from a 95% CO₂ atmosphere at 6.1 mbar
• Dust scattering from Mie theory, with a 9 km scale height
• Exact Mie phase function for Martian dust, giving the blue sun halo and blue sunsets
• Double-exponential dust density profile
• Water-ice cirrus at 22–29 km, in 2D and volumetric

Venus

• Dense CO₂ Rayleigh scattering, at 53× Earth's surface density
• Blue-absorbing haze below the clouds

Jupiter

• H₂/He Rayleigh scattering, with a 25 km scale height
• Cloud decks at real altitudes: lower deck −1 to 12 km, main deck from 15 km, storms up to 96 km

Saturn

• Rayleigh scattering above a thin haze, with methane colouring and a 52 km scale height
• Volumetric clouds, with cloud height following the planet's map
• Colour map at 2048 px per cube face (stock: 1024)

Uranus & Neptune

• Methane absorption, with a thin Rayleigh limb and haze
• Volumetric clouds, with cloud height following the planet's map
• Colour maps at 2048 px per cube face (stock: 512)

Titan

• Stratified upper haze, animated with simulation time
• Detached haze layers at 230 and 290 km

Triton & Pluto

• N₂ Rayleigh scattering from measured surface pressure and temperature
• Forward-scattering haze, visible as a ring when looking toward the Sun
• Stratified haze bands, animated with simulation time
• Nitrogen-ice clouds on Triton at 4–6.5 km

Installation

Requires StarMap. Each release is named with the KSA build it was tested on.

With Borea: install Real Atmospheres from the mod list.

Manually:

1. Install StarMap and run the game once through StarMap.Loader.exe.
2. Extract the release into Documents\My Games\Kitten Space Agency\mods\, giving mods\RealAtmospheres\RealAtmospheres.dll.
3. Launch the game once and close it. KSA adds new mods to manifest.toml disabled: set this mod's entry to enabled = true.
4. Launch through StarMap.

To uninstall, delete mods\RealAtmospheres and mods\_RealSharedShadow.

Building

deploy.ps1 builds the mod and installs it into your mods folder. package.ps1 -Version x.y.z -GameBuild vYYYY.M.D.NNNN builds a release archive in dist\. Set StarMapDir to your StarMap folder.

Credits

• Saturn map mixed by JCP-JohnCarlo, from work by HellcatF6F, MrSpace43-Celestia, FarGetaNik and Snowfall-The-Cat.
• Uranus map by Askaniy, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. Our modified Uranus map, cloud mask and flowmap are released under the same licence.
• Neptune map by Askaniy, CC BY 3.0, modified.
• Mars cirrus, Titan haze and Triton cloud masks: Produced in part with SpaceEngine PRO © Cosmographic Software LLC.

The code is MIT. Because of the Uranus map, the release as a whole is for non-commercial use. CREDITS.md gives the source and terms of every shipped file.