Modding

Introduction

You can find levels and rockets in the Data folder. You can add new levels and new rockets or change existing levels / rockets if you want to. If you want to add your own rocket or want us to add an interesting rocket you can make a request for it here

How rockets are defined

You can find all rockets in the Data/Rockets folder. The properties as well as the sprite are defined as json.

Property	Type	Explanation
Model	String	Field for the model name of the rocket, used in InfoScreen
Variant	String	Some models have different variants, also used in InfoScreen
Manufacturer	String	The name of the main manufacturer, will be displayed in InfoScreen Information
Names	String[]	A name list of previously flown rockets of this model / variant, when a rocket is created one is picked randomly
Height	Float	The height of the rocket in metres
Width	Float	The maximum diameter of the rocket in metres
Thrust	Float	The thrust of the rocket in newton
Weight	Float	The weight of the fully fueled rocket without payload in kg
FuelWeight	Float	The fuel weight of the rocket in kg, it will slowly be subtracted from the weight during flight according to thrust level
BurnTime	Float	The average burn time of the rocket until MECO
DragProperties	DragProperties	Used to calculate the approximate drag of the rocket
ThrustAreas	ThrustArea[]	Tells the program where to draw the rockets flames
Sprite	RocketSpritePiece[]	A List of different colored Polygons that are drawn all at once and look like the rocket

DragProperties:

Property	Type	Explanation
CdUp	double	Drag coefficient when the rocket flies straight up (0° angle), usually Cd of the fairing
CdSide	double	Drag coefficient of the rocket flying upwards sideways
AreaUp	double	The reference area if flying upwards
AreaSide	double	The reference area if flying sideways

ThrustArea

Property	Type	Explanation
Start	PointF	Start of the thrust area relative to the center of the rocket
Stop	PointF	End of the thrust area, hast to have same y coordinate as start and x must be > start x

RocketSpritePiece

Property	Type	Explanation
Points	PointF[]	Points relative to the geometric center of the rocket, defining a polygon
Brush	SolidBrush	A Solid Brush with the color as RGB

Easily create a rocket sprite

Creating a new rocket sprite used to be a very tedious task. That's why I wrote a simple program for it. You can find it here.

How to use:

You can find a small video tutorial here

1. Find an image showing the desired rocket from the side
2. Crop it so that only the rocket is visible. Example
3. Input the maximum height and diameter
4. Load the previously cropped rocket
5. Every time you left click on the image a polygon point will be stored
6. When you are finished with a polygon (it will be closed automatically) you can right click to select its color
7. Press Output Shape data or Output mirrored shape data (then you only have to do one side, fairing f.e. are perfectly mirrored most of the time)
8. The Polygon was now copied to your clipboard
9. Open your custom rocket.json and paste the contents of your clipboard into the Sprite array
10. Repeat 5-9 until you have created the whole rocket

How Levels are defined

Levels are really just a collection of rockets and planets. The rockets are placed at a coordinate and a momentum and the planets are just Circles with a color a position, a Mass and a Radius:

Level

Property	Type	Explanation
Rockets	RocketDto[]	List of rockets
Planets	TerrainDto[]	List of planets

RocketDto

Property	Type	Explanation
Location	PointF	The starting position of the rockets center
Force	Force	The intial force
Acceleration	Acceleration	The intial acceleration
Speed	Speed	The intial speed
Angle	Angle	The intial angle in degree and radian
ThrustPercentage	float	The initial thrust in % (0-1)
Type	String	Name of the rocket file without .json

TerrainDto

Property	Type	Explanation
Position	PointF	The position of the Planet
Radius	Float	The radius of the planet in km
Color	Color	The color the planet is filled with
Mass	Float	The mass of the planet (used to calculate its gravity)