Pinter Computing – Page 5 – Knowledge Base for IT Professionals, Teachers and Astronauts

Installing and using Thunderstore mod manager

Thunderstore is an application that manages mods for Cities: Skylines 2. It is very convenient to use, even allows you to run the game in “vanilla” mode without any mods, but not all mods are available through it. To install Thunderstore

Navigate to https://thunderstore.io/c/cities-skylines-ii/p/Cities2Modding/
Click the Get App button

Installing and using BepInEx

BepInEx, the mod launcher for Unity games, including Cities: Skylines 2 has multiple versions. At the time of writing, version 5 is in long term support, and version 6 is already available.

Only one version of BepInEx can be added to the game at a time, and unfortunately, mods target a specific version of BepInEx, so only those mods can run together which use the same version of BepinEx.

Installation

Install BepInEx version 6

To install BepInEx version 6

Navigate to from https://paradoxmods.net/files/12-bepinex/
Click the Download this file button
Download BepInEx-Unity.Mono-win-x64-6…
Extract the contents of the ZIP file
Copy all files of the top level directory to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cities Skylines II”
Start the game once, so BepInEx can create the “config” and “plugins” directories in the BepInEx folder
Exit the game to the Desktop
Place the mod directories into the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cities Skylines II\BepInEx\plugins” directory

Install BepInEx version 5

Navigate to https://paradoxmods.net/files/12-bepinex/
Click the Download this file button
Download BepInEx_x64_5…
Extract the ZIP archive
Copy all files of the top level directory to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cities Skylines II”
Start the game once, so BepInEx can create the “config” and “plugins” directories in the BepInEx folder
Exit the game to the Desktop
Place the mod directories into the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cities Skylines II\BepInEx\plugins” directory

Image overlay in Cities: Skylines 2

Image overlay enables us to display a transparent map over our layout in the game and in the Editor.

In the Editor this makes is easy to place outside connections to the correct locations, so when we build our city replica, the roads start at the right place.

In the game it makes it possible to follow the original city layout.

Installation

In the Main Menu of Cities: Skylines II select Paradox Mods

Subscribe to the Image Overlay mod

Configuration

Disable image movement

On laptops without dedicated PgUp and PgDown keys we usually have to use the Fn + cursor keys to have the same effect. For the Fn key to work, we first have to press the Fn key and only after the Ctrl, Shift and other keys. If we miss pressing the Fn key first, the cursor function will be executed instead of the PgUp or PgDwn. The Image Overlay mod uses the Ctrl-Up, Ctrl-Down, Ctrl-Left, Ctrl-Right keys to move the image horizontally. If for any reason our computer does not recognize the press of the Fn key, instead of moving the image up and down, we move the image horizontally out of the center position causing frustrating alignment errors. To disable the horizontal image movement

On the KEYS tab of the Image Overlay options page click the X next to all Move… keyboard shortcuts

Usage

Overlay file location

To make the overlay image file available to the mod

Create the Overlays directory at “%LocalAppData%Low\Colossal Order\Cities Skylines II”
Place the .png overlay files into the Overlays directory. The image size has to be a multiply of 2, up to 16,384×16,384 pixels.

Image selection and transparency setting

To select the image, and set the transparency in the game or in the Editor

In the Main Menu of Cities: Skylines II select Options
On the Image Overlay page select the image file and set the transparency

Creating an AWS Q AI application

To use an AWS Q application we need two components:

An AWS Q AI application
A SAML 2.0 compliant identity provider

AWS Q application

To set up the AWS Q AI application

Search for Q in the AWS console
Click the Get started button
Click the Create application button
Enter the name of the application
If your user account has rights to create service roles, select Create and use a new service role option
If your company administrators created a service role for the application, choose Use an existing service role, and select the role.
Click the Create button
Stay on the page until the new role propagates through the system
When it becomes available, click the Next button
On the Connect data sources page select the source where the custom data is located. To index a web site, select the “Web crawler” data source, and specify the URL of the home page, or the location of the site map. For WordPress sites, the site map is located at https://MY_WEBSITE/sitemap.xml

For more information see Configuring an Amazon Q application

Identity Provider

AWS Q is a paid service based on the number of users.

To control access to AWS Q, we need to configure it with a SAML 2.0 compliant identity provider, like Azure AD, Okta, or we can use the AWS Identity Center, which is accessible through your AWS Console.

Using the AWS IAM Identity Center

IMPORTANT: As AWS Q is not an AWS “managed application”, if we use IAM Identity Center, we need to create an IAM Identity Center “organizations” instance to be able to connect “custom applications”.

For the complete list of steps, see Setting up Amazon Q with IAM Identity Center as identity provider

Amazon Q API

The Amazon Q API documentation is at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/api-reference/Welcome.html

Using the Map Editor in Cities:Skylines 2

Import a height map

Generate the height map

To import a height map into the Cities: Skylines 2 Map Editor we need to create a 4096×4096 pixel 16 bit grayscale height map.

To generate the height map and overlay map image of an area of the Earth, we can use the following sites:

Create the directories

Heightmaps

The editor selects the heightmaps from the Heightmaps folder

Create the “Heightmaps” folder for the height map files at “C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\LocalLow\Colossal Order\Cities Skylines II”

Screenshots

The editor selects the Thumbnail and Preview images from the Screenshots folder

Create the “Screenshots” folder for the thumbnail and preview files at “C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\LocalLow\Colossal Order\Cities Skylines II”

Update the height map

Open the images in Gimp, a free open source image editor
Resize the image to 4096×4096
Check the image mode, make sure it is set to grayscale
Check the color precision, make sure it is set to 16 bit

Save the image in the new Heightmaps folder

Export the height map as .PNG
Accept the defaults

Enable the image overlay

To enable and use the Image Overlay, see Image overlay in Cities: Skylines 2.
Place the overlay image into the Overlay folder for the Image Overlay mod. It is a 2560×2560 pixel image.
To generate a high resolution overlay image, see Create a high resolution overlay image for Cities: Skylines II

Import the height map

Load the height map

Start Cities: Skylines 2 and open the editor
At the bottom, select the Modify Terrain icon
Click the Import Heightmap button
Select the height map at the top, and click the Load button at the bottom

Add the outside transportation connections

At the bottom select Add object
In the upper right corner click None
Set the filter to only display the outside connections
Click away the list to close it and display the list of outside connections
Select the connection type
Click on the map to place it

Add outside powerline and water connections

To add outside utility connections, we need to search for those.

Type outside into the search box
Select the connection type to place it.

Save the map

In the upper left corner click Map
Enter the map name, description, and select the starting tiles
Scroll down to expand the Checklist
Save the map by clicking the Save Map button
Enter a file name and click the Save button

Kerbal Space Program 2 minimum altitudes for each warp level

In KSP 1 the minimum altitudes for each warp level were compiled at Kerbal Space Program 2 minimal altitudes for each warp level by SaintWacko.

As of today I have not found any similar information for KSP 2, so based on experiments I will create a similar table here.

KERBOL

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           3 270 000 m
10×          3 270 000 m
50×          6 540 000 m
100×        13 080 000 m
1 000×      26 160 000 m
10 000×     52 320 000 m
100 000×    65 400 000 m

MOHO

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           10 000 m
10×          10 000 m
50×          30 000 m
100×         50 000 m
1 000×      100 000 m
10 000×     200 000 m
100 000×    300 000 m

EVE

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           90 000 m (above the atmosphere)
10×          90 000 m (above the atmosphere)
50×          90 000 m (above the atmosphere)
100×        120 000 m
1 000×      240 000 m
10 000×     480 000 m
100 000×    600 000 m

GILLY

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×            8 000 m
10×           8 000 m
50×           8 000 m
100×         20 000 m
1 000×       40 000 m
10 000×      80 000 m
100 000×    100 000 m

KERBIN

       Warp  KSP1  KSP2
         1×  Any
         5×  70km (above the atmosphere)
        10×  70km (above the atmosphere)
        50×  70km (above the atmosphere)
       100×  120km
     1,000×  240km  120km
    10,000×  480km  240km
   100,000×  600km  600km
 1,000,000x  n/a
10,000,000x  n/a

MÜN

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×            5 000 m
10×           5 000 m
50×          10 000 m
100×         25 000 m
1 000×       50 000 m
10 000×     100 000 m
100 000×    200 000 m

MINMUS

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           3 000 m
10×          3 000 m
50×          6 000 m
100×        12 000 m
1 000×      24 000 m
10 000×     48 000 m
100 000×    60 000 m

DUNA

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           50 000 m (above the atmosphere)
10×          50 000 m (above the atmosphere)
50×          60 000 m
100×        100 000 m
1 000×      300 000 m
10 000×     600 000 m
100 000×    800 000 m

IKE

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×            5 000 m
10×           5 000 m
50×          10 000 m
100×         25 000 m
1 000×       50 000 m
10 000×     100 000 m
100 000×    200 000 m

DRES

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           10 000 m
10×          10 000 m
50×          30 000 m
100×         50 000 m
1 000×      100 000 m
10 000×     200 000 m
100 000×    300 000 m

JOOL

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×            200 000 m (above the atmosphere)
10×           200 000 m (above the atmosphere)
50×           200 000 m (above the atmosphere)
100×          200 000 m (above the atmosphere)
1 000×        300 000 m
10 000×       600 000 m
100 000×    1 200 000 m

LAYTHE

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           50 000 m (above the atmosphere)
10×          50 000 m (above the atmosphere)
50×          60 000 m
100×        120 000 m
1 000×      240 000 m
10 000×     480 000 m
100 000×    600 000 m

VALL

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           24 500 m
10×          24 500 m
50×          24 500 m
100×         40 000 m
1 000×       60 000 m
10 000×      80 000 m
100 000×    100 000 m

TYLO

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           30 000 m
10×          30 000 m
50×          60 000 m
100×        120 000 m
1 000×      240 000 m
10 000×     480 000 m
100 000×    600 000 m

BOP

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           24 500 m
10×          24 500 m
50×          24 500 m
100×         40 000 m
1 000×       60 000 m
10 000×      80 000 m
100 000×    100 000 m

POL

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×           5 000 m
10×          5 000 m
50×          5 000 m
100×         8 000 m
1 000×      12 000 m
10 000×     30 000 m
100 000×    90 000 m

EELOO

Warp        KSP1 Minimum Altitude
1×          Any
5×            4 000 m
10×           4 000 m
50×          20 000 m
100×         30 000 m
1 000×       40 000 m
10 000×      70 000 m
100 000×    150 000 m

Approaching Kerbin, lowering time warp to 100x for safety!

Interplanetary transfers can only occur at specific times, when the planets are aligned in the optimal position. It can take months until the celestial bodies are in the right position for the interplanetary transfer burn.

If the space craft orbits Kerbin below 120 km altitude, Kerbal Space Program 2 slows down the warp speed to hundred times, so it can properly perform all orbital calculations, and displays the message:

Approaching Kerbin, lowering time warp to 100x for safety!

To enable higher continuous warp speed, raise the periapsis above 120 km.

SyntaxError: The requested module ‘dotenv’ does not provide an export named ‘default’

When we try to use modules in out TypeScript applications we encounter the error message

SyntaxError: The requested module 'dotenv' does not provide an export named 'default'

This is caused by the missing “default” export in the module’s code. To eliminate the error message modify the import statement as

import * as dotenv from "dotenv";
dotenv.config()

Error [ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED]: Package subpath ‘./format/index.js’ is not defined by “exports” in …

The date-fns and date-fns-tz Node.js packages are being updated, and version 3 has some bugs. When you try to use them in TypeScript you get the error message

Error [ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED]: Package subpath './format/index.js' is not defined by "exports" in ...

Currently, the only solution is the restrict the version to 2.

In package.json add the lines

{
 "name": "MY_PROJECT_NAME",
  ...
  "overrides": {
    "date-fns": "^2.0.0"
  }
}

In the terminal run

npm install

Check the effect of the new settings in the terminal with

npm ls date-fns

The output should be something like

js-application@1.0.0 /Users/…
└─┬ date-fns-tz@2.0.0
└── date-fns@2.30.0 overridden

Kerbal Space Program Delta V Map

The Kerbal Space Program Delta V Map helps to calculate the required propulsion to reach the Kerbol System’s planetary bodies.