Niven Ringworld Expedition v1.1.5

Dependencies and optional integrations

• Required: KSP 1.12.5 and separately installed Harmony 2 >= 2.2.1.0 (tested 2.2.1.0).
• Optional extension: Ringworld Clouds 1.0.0 for advanced cloud volumes; base lightweight layers and weather remain available without it.
• Optional extension: Ringworld Scattering 1.0.0 for enhanced water, underwater optics and distant full-ring atmosphere. Water physics remains in the base.
• Optional local atmosphere: Cyla 1.1.0 (CKAN version 1.1.0.0); Original is the fallback.
• Optional integrations: TUFX profiles, Scatterer panel-flare handling, Deferred rendering and BetterTimeWarpContinued rate-table safeguards. These do not turn the ring into a PQS planet. Waterfall remains a part effect, not ring terrain rendering.
• Part compatibility targets: ReStock 1.5.1 (Surveyor model) and SunkWorks 1.3.1 (ballast/aquatic-engine checks). The regression document records the precise tested cases; general autopilot/boat support is not implied.
• Parallax, planetary EVE/scatterer configurations and Trajectories do not automatically gain cylindrical terrain/flight support. See the integration matrix for limits.

Each extension is a separate download with a dependency on base 1.1.5; none is bundled in the base ZIP. CKAN metadata is provided for submission and does not itself guarantee an extension is indexed. Extract all ZIPs into the KSP root, merging GameData.

KSP 1.12.5, Windows x64 / Direct3D 11. This version separates enhanced rendering from the base mod. Users upgrading from the public v1.1.3 or v1.1.4 builds can install either optional extension separately. CKAN availability follows its maintainers' indexing process.

• ReStock compatibility for the legacy Surveyor, contributed by john-d-alexander (PR #2), with a stock model fallback when ModuleManager is absent.

• Ring water now supplies stock part immersion/contact state and displacement-based buoyancy, so additional ballast mass can overcome buoyancy. SunkWorks 1.3.1 ballast filling/venting and wet/dry aquatic-engine queries passed with the installed modules. These checks do not certify every boat, engine thrust configuration or autopilot.

• Resident unpacking no longer resets the active craft's global velocity frame when a neighbouring craft enters physics range. Saved contact poses are refreshed before packing; large-base approach tests remain pending.

• Detailed/Ultra water now uses scene-depth transmission and shared water scattering from both sides of the surface. Added a saved light-shafts toggle, enabled by Strong and higher presets; shallow submerged objects remain visible above deep seabeds.

• Enhanced water adds camera-depth underwater absorption/haze, quality-scaled approximate sunlight shafts, broader surface glitter and oblique-path absorption. Transparent local LOD water retains its seabed geometry; mean water levels are unchanged.

• Softer local cloud boundaries and irregular cluster coverage; rainy weather closes overhead gaps before precipitation starts, with more partly cloudy automatic weather.

• Ten weather-dependent cloud families, expanded upper-preset cloud distances, and uncapped finite cloud-distance input.

• Crustal resource definitions from stock ResourceCache now feed a shared ring abundance provider, stock scanner display and stock harvester queries; default primary-ring Ore configuration included. Orbital surveys/background mining remain unsupported.

• Surface API v5 adds position-based air/gravity/water queries and buoyancy helpers. Experimental KFS hover, Hooligan Labs and Heisenberg static-lift query adapters; full mod craft validation pending.

• Read-only loaded terrain mesh interface for prospective Parallax adapters; no Parallax scatter integration yet.

• Weather realism work: world-space rain/snow and post-cloud particle composition, longer cloud distances, cloud-linked rain shafts, local fog/dust and less regular water waves with filtered sunlight glints.

• Added a switchable full-ring distant atmosphere approximation for map, space and landed views, grouped with enhanced water as Ringworld Scattering. Nearby sky remains handled by Cyla or Original.

• Automatic TUFX profiles and a Scatterer panel-flare adapter when those mods are installed.

• Coarse land/oceans at every preset, visible cloud undersides, cloud-field evolution and configurable cloud handoff distance.

• Terrain lighting transition work and optional Deferred/Waterfall checks.

• Neighbour-aware colour feathering at fine/coarse terrain borders and a gradual forest colour filter transition.

• Replacement Ringworld Clouds volume extension with editable cloud types, new shape noise, self-shadowing, curl detail and quality controls.

• Ringworld Scattering water controls; Detailed/Ultra add screen refraction and coloured absorption.

• Read-only ring environment API and custom warp-rate table safeguards.

Validation scope

ReStock 1.5.1 Surveyor prefab/model/material checks and SunkWorks 1.3.1 installed ballast/engine water queries passed. The base-only, Clouds-only, Scattering-only and combined installations passed their runtime rendering tests. Water probes cover transparency at all five quality levels, above-surface transmission, underwater absorption, shafts and dry-camera bypass. The Slow flight test passed photo output/restoration and 1,500 physics ticks of calibrated flotation.

The flotation fixture retained damage immunity; it does not certify every boat, engine-thrust setup or autopilot. Non-ring query/dispatch checks passed. Issue #3 was excluded from this verification pass and its unresolved cases remain documented. Tests ran on the development laptop with Direct3D 11; native Linux and other GPU/API results are not certified.

See the integration matrix for tested versions, limitations and remaining visual/utility work. Optional mods are installed separately and are never bundled.

Niven Ringworld Expedition v1.1.4

KSP 1.12.5; tested on Windows x64 / Direct3D 11. Install HarmonyKSP 2.2.1.0 or a compatible newer version separately. Optional Cyla: upstream release 1.1.0.0 (archive named Cyla-1.1.0.zip). No dependencies are bundled. Extract into the KSP root, preserving GameData/NivenRingworld.

Cyla atmosphere fixes and diagnostics

Optical distances are now passed to Cyla in kilometre units, with matching scattering coefficients and a Ringworld-owned scene-depth conversion. This corrects the black sky reproduced from an affected save on the development machine while preserving foreground spacecraft. It does not change physical ring dimensions or atmospheric flight forces. Confirmation from the affected NVIDIA and Proton/Wine machines is still pending; this release is available for that retest.

Quality presets now leave Cyla dithering off, avoiding the structured pattern observed with unfiltered dithering. Existing custom settings are preserved; reselect a preset to take its revised defaults. Broad bands can still appear at low view-sample counts when zoomed far out. The complete high-altitude/motion-quality investigation is ongoing.

The first daytime Cyla session logs its graphics environment and small render-target sample statistics to KSP.log. This helps compare API, colour space, MSAA, camera settings and finite/dark shader output. It does not upload data. Unsupported or absent Cyla continues to use Original atmosphere. Presets select the backend automatically; the manual override is retained under Advanced Cyla optics and diagnostics for troubleshooting.

The stock Sun flare now follows the shadow-panel daylight mask in ring flight views. A live test confirmed zero flare brightness under a night panel and restoration in daylight. Custom flares from other mods and the separate Sun disc need further validation.

Physics and EVA

Stock loose physical objects, such as jettisoned covers, now receive the rotating ring frame's acceleration instead of the reference body's gravity. Stock drag and object lifetime remain intact. A stock-converted loose-object test measured about 9.7154 m/s² toward the floor.

Stock EVA helmet safety checks use ring air, oxygen availability and temperature. Pressure and temperature safety limits remain in force, and disabling the atmosphere prevents helmet removal. The Sun's atmosphere properties are not changed. The live EVA safety and existing science/career regression checks passed.

Optional mods and remaining work

Harmony remains required. The version-specific CKAN metadata lists Cyla as optional (suggests); the central NetKAN update is submitted and awaits maintainer acceptance. EVE, Scatterer, Parallax, TUFX and Waterfall research is documented, but this release does not claim new cylindrical EVE/Scatterer/Parallax rendering or a Kopernicus rebuild. Native-Linux rendering, NVIDIA confirmation and additional installed-mod tests remain outstanding.

Niven Ringworld Expedition v1.1.3

Niven Ringworld Expedition v1.1.3

KSP 1.12.5, Windows x64 / Direct3D 11.

Installation change: dependencies are separate

This ZIP contains only NivenRingworld, plus its documentation. Extract into your KSP root beside KSP_x64.exe, preserving the existing GameData/NivenRingworld layout.

• Required: HarmonyKSP / Harmony 2, tested with 2.2.1.0. CKAN identifier: Harmony2.
• Optional: Cyla by Ghassen Lahmar (LGhassen / blackrack), supported version 1.1.0. Without it, Ringworld uses Original atmosphere.
• Upgrading from a bundled release: retain existing Harmony and Cyla folders; do not create duplicates. Other mods may also depend on Harmony.

The release includes separate .netkan and version-specific .ckan files for CKAN maintainer review. Harmony is declared required. Cyla is not declared under an invented identifier: optional indexing awaits its author's and CKAN's approval. These files do not mean that CKAN has accepted the listing.

Sandbox: multiple ring worlds

Ringworld panel → Settings → Sandbox: manage ring worlds. Spawn, name, move or delete habitats with their own dimensions, seeds and saved identities. Select an existing star, including a loaded planet-pack star, or no designated star. Enter center offsets in kilometers. Use Visit selected ring for a spin-matched sandbox transfer.

Distant outlines, walls, clouds and panels render for each habitat; detailed terrain is streamed around the current habitat. Saved residents and science use per-ring identities. Occupied rings cannot be moved/deleted, overlapping habitat envelopes are rejected, and at least one habitat must remain.

This initial editor supports parallel rings fixed relative to a reference body. Without a designated star the reference is the stock Sun, and no star is created. Off-center illumination retains the existing central-star approximation. Arbitrary tilt, orbiting centers, combined multi-ring gravity prediction and physically accurate off-axis lighting are future work. Planet-pack stars are selectable but cross-mod behavior has not been validated against every pack.

Exploration and science

Stock instruments, crew/EVA reports and surface samples now produce separate science for flight regions, biomes, named landmarks, individual megastructures, rim walls and shadow panels. Science values range from 6× to 20× stock subject multipliers. The Research tab tracks twelve expedition milestones; Career awards one-time funds and reputation on qualifying data delivery. Progress persists and duplicate delivery does not repay milestones. No new science part is required; legacy RW-1 craft remain supported.

Also includes the development fix for nearby/faraway rim-wall material consistency.

Validation and limits

Core geometry/terrain/research checks and in-game regressions are recorded in docs/VALIDATION.md. Offset-ring landing, native warp, per-ring science and Space Center save/reload were tested at Slow. Missing Cyla was tested separately and fell back to Original. See docs/MULTIPLE-RINGS.md for the editor's placement/physics limits and docs/CKAN-PUBLISHING.md for metadata submission. CKAN catalog acceptance and a real CKAN client installation are separate from local package/schema verification.

Niven Ringworld Expedition v1.1.2

Niven Ringworld Expedition v1.1.2

Maintenance release of the integrated Cyla build, with the original ZIP layout retained.

Included

• Cyla atmosphere integration and advanced optical settings, with eleven quality presets.
• Translucent water, procedural ripples and optional waves; camera clearance follows the underwater ground.
• Photo quality selection and aspect-preserving output sizes through 8K/16K, subject to GPU limits.
• Ring-relative camera transitions, re-entry wall rendering fixes, landed save/warp checks and Tracking Station encounter handling.
• The complete scenery bundles, 92 registered scenery prefabs, 25 landmark assets and eight rare colossal structure templates.

These features were integrated on main for v1.1.1. This release rebuilds the current source, increments the version and clarifies installation; it does not introduce a new asset layout or a new atmospheric solver.

Installation — unchanged ZIP structure

Extract the ZIP into the KSP instance root, beside KSP_x64.exe. The result must include:

GameData/NivenRingworld/
GameData/Cyla/
GameData/000_Harmony/

Alternatively, copy the contents of the ZIP's GameData folder into your existing GameData folder. Do not place the entire extracted archive inside another folder under GameData; the standard asset paths expect the layout above. Keep only one installation of each dependency.

The reported missing assets were traced to nested extraction. A file audit found all 26 runtime files present and byte-identical to the tested archive, but the asset loaders could not find them at the expected paths. The proposed alternate-layout changes were cancelled. This release preserves the established paths.

Credits and limitations

Cyla is by Ghassen Lahmar (LGhassen / blackrack): https://github.com/LGhassen/Cyla. Its unmodified binaries, original license and matching published plugin source are included. See CREDITS.md and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md; the complete bundle is not uniformly MIT.

Slow and below use Original atmosphere. Cyla remains a local optical approximation; whole-ring Cyla scattering is not implemented. Scatterer does not automatically recognize ring water. Higher revised optical budgets and 8K/16K captures were not rendered on this laptop. No 30 FPS guarantee is made.

Validation

The release build runs 108,655 core checks. Package verification checks archive CRCs, required asset registries, pinned Cyla hashes, source/license inclusion, installed-plugin parity and exclusion of test harnesses and KSP assemblies. Previous dated Slow-only runtime tests cover water transparency, photo size/restoration, gear landing/save/warp, guidance, tracking and re-entry; see VALIDATION.md. This maintenance release does not claim those gameplay tests were newly rerun.

v1.1.1

Release-v1.1.1

Merge pull request #1 from theplatecrafter/Cyla-Atmosphere-Implementa…

v1.1.0

Implemented Cyla (https://github.com/LGhassen/Cyla)

v1.0.3

Release-v1.0.3

Release (?)

v1.0.2

Release-v1.0.2

Release (?)

v1.0.1

Release-v1.0.1

Release (?)

v1.0.0

Release-v1.0.0

Release (?)