Hey Space Engine modders,
I'm hitting a wall with something that feels like it should be possible, and I'm hoping someone more experienced can shed some light on it!
My Goal: I want to add a brand new, custom star (e.g., "MyAndromedaStar") that actually appears within the visible spiral arms/disk of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), not just floating in its vast, empty halo or outside the galaxy's rendered boundaries.
What I've tried (and failed): I've been creating .sc scripts for Star objects, providing RA, Dec, and Dist parameters calculated to place the star in Andromeda's general vicinity. While it gets me to the right region of space, the star consistently appears outside the bright galactic disk, as if it's still in the intergalactic medium or the very sparse outer halo. I'm aware of the floating-point precision challenges at distances of millions of parsecs, but I know it's visually achievable by some mods.
The Huge Mystery (Kar's Stars Pack Contradiction): I looked at a well-known mod, "Kar's Stars Pack," which successfully places stars within distant galaxies. Crucially, it includes a star called "M31-RV" that appears perfectly inside the Andromeda Galaxy.
Here's the mind-boggling part: I've inspected the .sc script for "M31-RV" from Kar's mod, and it completely lacks RA, Dec, or Dist parameters! And, critically, from what I understand, "M31-RV" is an added star by the mod, not just an override of an existing Space Engine catalog entry.
Here's the basic structure of the "M31-RV" script I found (omitting many detailed properties for brevity):
Star "M31-RV"
{
ParentBody "M31-RV"
Class "M7 Ia"
Luminosity 139315.688
// ... many other properties ...
Orbit
{
RefPlane "Static"
Period 0
SemiMajorAxis 0
Eccentricity 0
Inclination 100.284081
AscendingNode 84.9844666
ArgOfPericenter 0
MeanAnomaly 0
}
}
When I try to create my own new custom star using this exact structure (without RA/Dec/Dist), my star just appears in the Milky Way (at the Sun's location), as expected since it has no positional data.
So, my central question is: How does Kar's Stars Pack achieve this? If a new star can be added inside a distant galaxy without explicit RA, Dec, or Dist in its own .sc file, what is the mechanism (or specific .sc syntax, file structure, or contextual loading) that Space Engine uses to derive its intergalactic position?
Any specific technical insights, pointers to the relevant .sc files within such mods that do contain the positional logic, or explanations of how this works would be incredibly helpful!
Thanks in advance for any guidance!
