Scatters

The Scatters node in the LandControl PQSMod defines the scatters to be used within the LandClasses provided by LandControl. Scatters are 3D meshed objects that are generated on the surface and can have various configurable features added via the Components subnode.

Subnodes

Example

LandControl
{
  Scatters
  {
    Value
    {
      materialType = DiffuseWrapped
      mesh = BUILTIN/boulder
      castShadows = True
      densityFactor = 1
      maxCache = 512
      maxCacheDelta = 32
      maxLevelOffset = 0
      maxScale = 1.5
      minScale = 0.25
      maxScatter = 30
      maxSpeed = 1000
      recieveShadows = True
      name = BrownRock
      allowedBiomes = Arid,Desert
      seed = 345234534
      verticalOffset = 0
      delete = False
      Material
      {
        ...
      }
      Components
      {
        ...
      }
    }
  }
}
Property Format Description
name String The name of the scatter.
allowedBiomes String A comma delimitted string of permitted scatter biome names. No spaces between entries. If this list is not present, all biomes are spawned in.
seed Integer The random seed for scatter distribution.
materialType ScatterMaterialType The type of the material of the scatter. Valid options can be found on the ScatterMaterialType page.
material BUILTIN Stock material to use instead of specifying a materialType and Material { }. Avoid using this! Will not work in conjunction with the materialType and Material { }.
mesh File Path The path to an .obj file that contains the scatter’s mesh.
Meshes List of File Paths A list of meshes that will be picked randomly. Inside this node, there can be keys named anything, and the value should be the file path to the .obj file.
castShadows Boolean Whether the scatter should cast shadows.
receiveShadows Boolean Whether the scatter should receive shadows - i.e., have shadows casted upon it.
densityFactor Float A [0,1] base factor applied to maxScatter. Usually you want this set to 1 and just change maxScatter.
maxCache Integer Maximum amount of active scatter quads. Leaving this to the default value (512) should be always fine.
maxCacheDelta Integer How many quads are added to the cache when it isn’t large enough to hold all active scatter quads. maxCache must be a multiple of this value. Default value (64) should be fine.
maxLevelOffset Integer The max offset from the PQS level? (the ones controlled by minLevel and maxLevel)
maxScale Float The scatter model(s) will be scaled by a random multipler choosen between minScale and maxScale.
minScale Float The scatter model(s) will be scaled by a random multipler choosen between minScale and maxScale.
maxScatter Integer The base amount of scatter objects per quad. Actual amount depends on densityFactor, the density defined in the LandClasses node and spawnChance if useBetterDensity is true.
maxSpeed Float Scatter quads won’t be created/rendered if the active vessel speed (in m/s) is higher than this value. Due to a stock bug, this is unreliable and quads might still appear anyway.
verticalOffset Float Vertical offset from the ground in meters for scatter objects placement.
instancing Boolean Whether to instance the material, presumably to create better performance?
useBetterDensity Boolean Set this to true to enable randomization of the amount of scatter objects per quad.
spawnChance Float Requires useBetterDensity to be true. [0, 1] probability of each scatter object spawning.
ignoreDensityGameSetting Boolean If set to true, the KSP main menu settings scatter density % will be ignored.

Scatter density

The amount of individual scatters per quad is determined as follows :
baseAmount = maxScatter * densityFactor * (density defined in the LandClass)

Then if useBetterDensity is enabled, the average amount will be :
averageAmount = baseAmount * spawnChance