DSO

Droo Space Observatory

Droo Space Observatory (DSO) is a fully custom base designed for Project ASTRAL, a telescope with fully automated controls. DSO features everything you'd expect from a fully equipped base, from an airport to launch pads and hangars. The base comes with detailed decoration and realistic lighting, with all LODs and graphics requirements set for an optimal balance between visuals and performance and for mobile friendly performance.

The Base:

Airport

DSO has a small, but fully capable airport, including a runway, taxiways and rapid exits, a tower and a large parking area with hangars and custom fuel tanks, all with realistic lighting.

Launch Pads

DSO has a large launch pad and a helipad, both fully lighted. Note that some lights might not be rendered on low graphics settings for performance reasons.

Telescopes

DSO has 5 spawns dedicated for telescopes, meaning you can track up to 5 celestial bodies simultaneously. To deactivate the lights in the telescope area for reduced light pollution (ignoring that light pollution doesn't exist in Juno), set graphics to medium or low. To activate them, set graphics to high. Note that performance may decrease if too many telescopes are running simultaneously due to the additional parts and programs having to be computed.

How to use

1. Download the system
2. Start a new sandbox using the system
3. The base is ready to use

More Features

Lighting

The entire base has lighting aimed to be realistic as possible. Almost all hangars have lights inside, the taxiways have centerline and edge lights, the runway has centerline, edge and approach lights, launch pad and helipad both have lights, the road towards both has streetlights and the telescope area has light spots that can be toggled using graphics settings. Note that the more empty areas are rather dark as the telescopes would have trouble because of light pollution in real life, so I tried to keep the areas that don't necessarily need too much lighting rather dark.

Decoration

Many areas of the base are fully decorated, including a door with a staircase and sewage channels for the biggest hangar, a custom building, satellites, water tanks and more. For more examples see the pictures. Almost everything is visible on low graphics, I hope it doesn't impact performance too much. All LODs are set, so the decoration is only rendered when needed.

Special Thanks

Thanks to @Lq11 for a ton of advice and support throughout the project and for keeping me motivated to get the curves of the taxiways done (those really are many lines)!

Also, thanks to @Alliant in Juno Community Server for great feedback on an early version of this!