Planetary Asteroid Rings

Overview

This is a mod to add procedural asteroids to the rings of planets.

Initially it was only for Bylen in the Paradiso system, but other planets should now be able to be configured to have asteroid rings.

Asteroids are generated within visual range of players and sync distance of grids, by default being cleaned up if untouched once out of range of any player or grid. Asteroids within sync range of any player or grid on save will be persisted, and an option is available to disable this cleanup such that all asteroids generated by this mod will persist after the mod is removed.

TLDR Configuration using chat commands

With the mod loaded into the world:

[olist] [*] Look at the planet you are wanting to add a ring to, and in chat type: /ringast select @lookat. Perpendicular rings should appear around the planet. [*] Find the brown ring, and if necessary, adjust to the desired size using the /ringast ir {size} and /ringast or {size} commands [*] If the ring is tilted from where it should be, use the /ringast lan {degrees} command to rotate the ring until the crossing of the red and blue planes coincide with the graphical ring, then use the /ringast inc {degrees} to tilt the ring until it coincides with the graphical ring [*] Enable the ring using the /ringast enable true command. The brown ring should turn aqua. [*] Commit the changes using the /ringast commit command. Asteroids should now appear in the aqua ring as you approach with your player character or in a ship [*] Dismiss the coloured rings using /ringast close [/olist]

Note that in multiplayer the /ringast commit command will require at least Space Master in your world.

Configuration

Rings are configured using xml files in the mod storage directory in the world save directory. The settings from these files are also stored in the world Sandbox.sbc file, with the future idea of being able to configure these settings from within the game.

Default settings are stored in ringDefaults.xml, and individual planet ring settings are stored in xml files named by the planet's StorageName - e.g. for Bylen-12345d120000.vx2 will be stored in Bylen-12345d120000.xml.

Default settings exist for the following planets:

• Bylen (from e.g. Paradise)
• Bylen as it is in Ares at War
• Demus

These are disabled by default, and need to be enabled by editing and renaming the planetname.xml.example configuration file(s) that are written in the mod storage directory, changing Enabled from false to true

Configuration settings

A separate guide has been created for configuration settings: Planetary Asteroid Rings configuration options

Future ideas

• Add the ability to boost the chance of ice asteroids from the default 1% (Note that adding or removing a mod after generating asteroids with this could convert those asteroids to normal asteroids)