Hello and welcome to the Actually Complete Solar System 2.0 deveploment thread!
and yes i'm out of retirement after a year or two
First up i'd like to detail the plans. I might introduce enough changes to make the older ACSS threads obsolete, which is why the ACSS 2.0 threads are separate. (Just like i planned years ago... haha)
OPTIMIZATION:
- The complete rewriting of ACSS itself from scratch. That means some objects might dissapear completely for a few updates as the pack is fully rebuilt from the ground up.
- Unique planetary textures are now only applied to objects whose surfaces we know. A theme of the new ACSS is accuracy and realism, which includes the texture avaliability. There will be some liberties (eg. dwarf planets and poorly mapped moons), but the vast majority of objects will only have generic textures based on their types.
UPGRADES:
- Heightmaps! After a bit of a distinct lack of terrain for the last few lost releases, terrain will finally return! And its custom terrain made specifically for ACSS 2.0 from real data, if avaliable.
- Cloudy orbits! Now eccentricity and orbital orientation finally exist in ACSS 2.0. Perish, Comet ISON!
- Accurate colors for all objects, when avaliable. Exactly what it says on the tin.
DISTRIBUTION:
- Separately developed PC/Steam and Mobile versions are in prep, as well as SFS, IRSS, and RSS scale versions.
- Abolishment of the package system. Because we would be screwed either way, eh?
- ACSS Extrasolar is now split into its own pack (Nearby Worlds). Its not the solar system, why did i include it in ACSS...
UPDATES:
- All orbits in ACSS 2.0 will be using Find_Orb for orbital determination. This is to ensure maximum accuracy for all objects, and enable dynamic updates when new observations arrive for then.
- Epoch1950 will be used for all Solar System objects. If an orbit is not precise enough at Epoch1950, I'm personally willing to narrow the orbit down further if possible.
- The sole exceptions are minor planet moons (with the exception of Pluto's lunar system), planets (and the Moon), and irregular moons.
- For minor planet moons, the "mean anomaly" (in whatever way i pull off in SFS) will be extrapolated to Epoch1950.
- For planets and our Moon, JPL HORIZONS will be used for orbit determination.
- For the irregular moons of gas giants, mean orbital elements will be used, due to their chaotic nature.
- Former ACSS Extrasolar systems (now in Nearby Worlds) will use orbits derived from Gaia Data Release 3. Again, for maximum accuracy in your infinitely interstellar journeys that take Megameters/s of ∆V.
For now, that's it. But more will come as i rebuild and then develop the pack!
...did i say "i rebuild and then develop"? Nah my friends... i've saved the best for last: ACSS 2.0 is now a community project, due to its sheer scope! And now anyone can contribute to the pack in our journey to add the entire solar system in SFS...
Cheers,
Gurren Lagann!
the original ACSS was amazing and this will be better from the screenshots!
