[Obsolete] Natural Gravity - make asteroids have ship-pulling gravity

Since the addition of planets in the game this is now obsolete

It should still work but there's no reason to work on it anymore XD

This mod enables the option to add natural spherical gravity to certain asteroids which basically turns them into planets/planetoids/moons but without atmosphere (you can use other mods to add skies and stuff).

Works on both DX9 and DX11.

The gravity itself is a custom spherical gravity generator (to enable proper walking) along with a script that pulls ships too without the need of mass blocks.

Asteroids not included :P but you can grab the Ebon Hawk.

If you have any issues or even suggestions, please post in the Discussions tab.

Configuring

Adding gravity to an asteroid is as simple as going near it and typing '/ng create' in chat, you must be the host or an admin to do this.

You can also edit things like strength, radius, toggle them on/off and remove them, type '/ng' to see all available commands.

Most commands are only for admins only, but some are available for players too, like '/ng settings'.

Additionally, the mod can automatically add gravity to asteroids with certain prefixes, by default 'gravity_' prefixed asteroids have gravity added to them.

You can rename asteroids but it involves renaming the .vx2 files and renaming them in the SANDBOX_0_0_0_.sbs file, if you don't know what you're doing then just use the commands.

Server-side config file

This mod has a server-side configuration file which is created when running the mod, this file only gets created and only works on the server machine.

Config is in: %AppData%/SpaceEngineers/Storage/378084827.sbm_NaturalGravity/config.txt If you're running dedicated just go to /SpaceEngineersDedicated/Storage instead. You can paste that path in a folder's address bar or in an open dialog for notepad or any text editor.

You can also change/save/reload/reset these settings in-game using the /ng commands.

Special rules for heavy objects

NOTE: All of these are configurable now in the server config!

Since a really heavy ship can't support itself by any block (literally melts under its own weight), this mod can apply less force to heavier objects.

By default, if an object exceeds 200,000kg (the gravitational mass of 4 large mass blocks) then the diference between its mass and the 200,000kg limit will be divided by 10 and added to the mass, exact formula: if mass > 200000 => mass = 200000 + ((mass - 200000) / 10)

So for an 500,000kg object, the mass used in the gravity calculation is 230,000kg so it will fall like an 230,000kg object. Or an 10,000,000kg object will fall like an 1,180,000kg object.

And like I said, you can edit these or even disable the behaviour in the server config (see above).

Effects on characters and jetpack

Players can be affected by gravity even with their jetpack on, in the server config file you can chose in what conditions they are attracted by gravity.

This affects gameplay, be prepared!

Even on 0.333G, if your ship does not have enough thrust to push against the gravity, it will be stranded.

For example, a 11,000kg small ship requires 4 small thrusters downwards to lift off in 0.333Gs.

Mass blocks

Mass blocks are affected in addition to the natural gravity because I'm using a game gravity generator for this.

If you want more weight to your cars in natural gravity you can add some mass blocks on them, but with the nice bonus of not floating away if they're turned off or run out of power.

Source code on github

https://github.com/THDigi/NaturalGravity

TO-DO

- DONE Make the gravity structure indestructible - DONE Server-side config

Thanks

midspace - for their help on finding the center of asteroids.

Related mods

Enhanced Gravity Generators - pulling ships together, literally Gravity Collector - pulls and collects floating objects