MOARdV
commented
9 years ago For the sake of DOE 1.6.0, I'm going with
luminosity = 5.0f + Mathf.Pow(referenceShip.GetTotalMass(), 1.25f);
This equation provides an increasing value for increasing net mass, and the 5.0f provides a floor so even small satellites are visible.
Further tuning will come once I get feedback on this equation.
The original DOE process for sizing a vessel flare created a "luminosity" value that was a proxy for vessel size/brilliance. This luminosity value was the sum of the squares of the individual parts' mass, and it was used later as input to a Log10 equation that ultimately resized the vessel's flare.
One problem that arose with this method is that small craft could have a luminosity < 1, which would lead to the size being negative (and, furthermore, a large negative value). I initially added a clamp to keep the luminosity at 1, but that still leads to a resize to 0 (effectively invisible).
Clamping LUM at 10 instead leads to a base resize of 1, and it allowed me to see a small satellite at long distance. While not strictly realistic, it does make the night sky more interesting.
It's not clear yet that I can get the ship dimensions that are used for restricting VAB and launch pad usage, but maybe I should look at other methods to compute the luminosity proxy.