Tidally Locked Kerbin is a mod for Kerbal Space Program that reimagines Kerbin as a tidally locked world orbiting a smaller and dimmer Sun. Kerbin is completely redone with new terrain and textures. One side is a hot desert forever bathed in sunlight, while the other side experiences the cold of an unending night. In between these extremes lies a wet and lush habitable zone.
While Kerbin is brand new, most other things about the stock system remain the same. The changes made are brought about only by the need to account for the smaller Sun. While some of the changes are subtle, they impact the game enough to alter the game playing experience. This mod is for players who want to start over and shake things up just enough to have to rethink some strategies.
- Aside from Kerbin, all celestial bodies retain their stock appearance.
- The Sun is now a K-type main-sequence star, having about 60% the mass and 14% the luminosity of the stock sun. While the Sun is now smaller, its apparent size in Kerbin's sky is unchanged.
- All planetary orbits have been reduce to about 37.5% of their stock values so that each planet continues to receive the same amount of sunlight. Kerbin now lies at a distance of about 5.1 million kilometers from the Sun.
- Along with Kerbin, Moho and Eve are also now tidally locked. Planets beyond Kerbin are far enough from the Sun to have escaped the fate of tidal locking.
- Because planets lie closer to the Sun, they have smaller spheres-of-influence. Kerbin's SOI is now about 37,000 kilometers.
- Orbits of Gilly and Minmus have been reduced in size to keep them inside their planets' SOI. This is the only change to any of the moons.
- Kerbin retains its 6-hour day, though a "day" no longer has the same meaning as it does for us. Perhaps it is defined by biological rhythms rather than astronomy.
- Planets now orbit faster with shorter orbital periods. Kerbin's year is now 120 days in length.
- Travel times between planets are much shorter, about 28% as long, saving on consumables if life support mods are used.
- Delta-v requirements for interplanetary flights are greater, varying from about 10% to 35% more depending on the planets involved and the technique used.
- Eastward launches from Kerbin no longer benefit from the planet's rapid rotation, thereby requiring more Δv to attain orbit. On the flipside, westward launches are just as easy.
- Synchronous orbits are no longer possible around Kerbin and Eve.
- While the atmospheric pressures on Kerbin and Eve are unchanged, temperatures have been reworked consistent with being tidally locked.
- Kerbin retains all of its launch sites and anomalies, located at the usual coordinates.
- Tidally locked planets are oriented so that their prime meridians (0° longitude) face the Sun.
- This orientation places KSC conveniently in daylight near the western terminator, making eastward launches over sunlit terrain.
- Unfortunately the Woomerang and Desert sites are located on the dark side of the planet. To compenstate, a new daylight space center is added using Kerbal Konstructs.
- Only 13% of Kerbin's surface is water, compared to 52% in stock.
- Kerbin contains 20 biomes, 9 more than stock Kerbin.
- Kopernicus
- ModularFlightIntegrator
- Module Manager
- Kerbal Konstructs – Adds a new space center, designed by JadeOfMaar.
- Kronometer – Changes the calendar year to 120 days.
Tidally Locked Kerbin (TLK) is fully compatible with Scatterer, Environmental Visual Enhancements (EVE), and Stock Visual Enhancements (SVE). TLK provides its own configs and textures that overrides all others, while scatterer, EVE and SVE will apply their visuals to the remaining bodies.
TLK is also compatible with Realistic Atmospheres. When installed together, TLK provides new atmospheres for Kerbin and Eve, while Realistic Atmospheres provides atmospheres for the remaining bodies.
TLK works seamlessly alongside Outer Planets Mod and Minor Planets Expansion. Planetary orbits are rescaled to maintain their proportional relationship with the stock planets.
This mod is licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)