JMBuilder

When a massive star collapses in on itself, the resulting neutron star is spinning extremely fast. Scientists liken this fact to how ice skaters tuck their arms in while spinning to make themselves spin faster. It got me thinking... Is it possible that supermassive stars begin spinning faster than light once they collapse far enough in that brief, cataclysmic formation of a black hole? Could this be one of the reasons that the laws of physics seem to just give up where black holes are concerned?

This has actually been an ongoing debate within the fanbase of the StarFox games. The system in the game, Lylat, provides some very interesting planets with their orbits largely a mystery. The biggest mystery, however, is this: What the heck is Solar? The generally accepted explanation is that Solar is a red dwarf acting as Lylat's binary companion, but many fans argue that it is, in fact, a superheated planet due to the rocks and other solid materials on it. I have my own theory that Solar is a cool white dwarf, and sectors X, Y, and Z are its planetary nebula. The sectors' names come from the same nebula appearing as different letters from different angles. Maybe it's called "Solar" because its our own sun that died, leaving humans extinct and the various animals to rule the system... somehow... Yeah, it never really explains that, does it? I've actually been working on my own new theories of the Lylat System now that StarFox Zero has been released, introducing some new canon. Since Solar doesn't appear in SF Zero, I've taken a bit of creative freedom with it. I've renamed it "Solran" in my Universe Sandbox recreation of the Lylat System that I'm working on to make it sound more like an actual name as opposed to an adjective, and it's a good-sized red dwarf. I'm going as far as making Lylat a triple star system with planets like Sauria and Cerinia orbiting the third star, a yellow main-sequence star called "Mysteria." To keep my white dwarf theory, I even came up with a separate system altogether: the "Solaris" System. It consists of Solaris, the white dwarf, Venomia, the original planet Venom before it was reimagined as a large space station, Ryolen, a lot like Eladard from the unreleased StarFox 2 (I've reimagined Eladard as a habitable planet orbiting Solran), and the Hypermass, a planetary-mass black hole. ---------- I sort of went wild with this. StarFox is my childhood nostalgia. I'm even going as far as reimagining the entire StarFox universe to make it more "feasible" in an odd fan-fiction type thing. It involves changing the characters into more believable species instead of corny anthropomorphic animals. I'm just that nerdy...

Yes, I'm aware that this has been suggested before, but I'm going to expand on it a bit. It's pretty clear that electric propellers would be very useful for small drones and the like, but why just aircraft? I'm thinking that an electric propeller in KSP would be able to work as an aircraft propeller or as a boat propeller, having special properties that allow it to function better in water than any other form of propulsion. This, or just have two separate types of propellers for aircraft and boats. Propellers could also be set to "push" or "pull" depending on where it was placed on the craft or the situation.

I know. I'm just thinking of things like rocket-ramjet hybrids, like sticking an aerospike into a shell to make it even more efficient. ---------- Ground Effect might be fairly easy to implement if a system where the lift value of wing parts increases in proximity to the ground was added. I can understand the difficulty with implementing Exhaust Compression, though.

KSP II? Is that the nickname of a future update, or am I going to have to buy another game?

Ground Effect Now here's a feature that would open up some awesome possibilities. Imagine being able to build realistic hovercrafts, ekranoplans, etc.. This would also make landings a bit easier, since you get an extra blob of air pressure under your aircraft as you near the ground. Exhaust Compression Basically, take a regular engine part, build an aerodynamic shell around it, and ta-da! Makeshift extra-large ramjet. The engine itself gets you going, and then as the shell takes in larger and larger volumes of air for the engine to heat up and compress, the more thrust you get. This would be a great way for players to create their own rocket-ramjet hybrid engines or more unique supersonic aircraft. This would also allow more realistic hovercrafts since the player could build a functioning skirt that compresses engine thrust while also having the Ground Effect to work with.

What if Kerbol had a companion star? Maybe a red, brown, or white dwarf?

Well... Oops. Is there no middle ground between gas giant and star when forming? EDIT: The idea wasn't really a protostar. More of a brown dwarf with enough matter to feed on to sustain its small amounts of fusion for longer than most brown dwarfs.

What do you think would be a good stock system? One of my odd hobbies is coming up with fictional star systems, so this is quite fun.

I have a decent idea for a simple but interesting new star system that players could explore (if they can reach it, of course). The system would be a gorgeous region of space where a star is being born from a small nebula. The star, an L-type brown dwarf, would be surrounded by ion clouds and asteroids as well as some very unique planets and other significant objects. Closest to the brown dwarf would be a nebula belt surrounding it, the young star's primary source of "food." The nebula would actually contain oxygen, allowing jet engines to function at a very low efficiency. The first significant object would be a small planet with vast deposits of lithium, a very thin oxygen atmosphere, and its own small, icy moon in an elliptical orbit. Thought to be created by a large comet grazing the young star, ripping away a good portion of lithium and other materials. The planet's small moon could be a remnant of the comet. The next two significant objects would be two relatively small gas giants in a binary orbit around each other. Two moons would have very high orbits around the gas giants' center of gravity. The first moon would have an inert atmosphere and cryovolcanic activity. The second moon would be an icy world with an atmosphere consisting almost entirely of ozone. The furthest object would be an ice giant. I'll leave its moons open to suggestions. What do you guys think? Good as a stock feature? Could be better? Any more ideas?

I love this idea. Laythe could be like a primordial moon with enough tidal forces, volcanic activity, and greenhouse effects to sustain a relatively warm temperature. A planet-sized Yellowstone. The clouds and ocean could be green from chlorine akin to Jool's atmosphere.

What if Kerbol was in a binary orbit with a brown dwarf? The two stars would orbit far enough apart to not affect each other's planetary orbits. This could open up a whole load of potential variety for unique planets.

Nah, keep Laythe, although a new moon would be cool. What if we had a moon for a moon? Maybe even a moon with its own asteroid ring? What about binary moons?

BINGO! It worked.

I'm trying to connect an orbiter in the VAB to a large spaceplane from the SPH, but something's wrong. The node on the ship that I load in is invisible and refuses to connect to the node on the already present ship. Am I doing something wrong?

Ah! Perfect! Just what I was looking for.

I know about all of the RSS and texture mods, but is there a mod that makes the sizes of the stock planets and other objects realistic?

There's a game in the app store that I feel is very underappreciated. It's called WingForce. It's an on-rails shooter heavily inspired by StarFox 64 where the player pilots a high-tech starfighter called the Dual-Wing (which strongly resembles the Arwing), fighting through various enemies in space and across the surfaces of unique planets. While it needs improvements here and there, it's a pretty nostalgic game. The developers of the game said that they don't quite have the budget for any major updates any time soon because of poor sales of the game. The game is about $4, which might seem like a bit much for a game like this. However, if the developers get a boost in sales, they could potentially provide larger updates and build on the game over time, making it well worth the price. I'd strongly recommend giving this game a chance. It would be awesome to see the game improve over time.

Yet another question... Once again involving the high-mass star and low-mass star binary system, what effect would binary stars like that have on the system's habitable zone if the two stars were orbiting relatively close to each other? Would the zone be even narrower? Would it be wider?

By "dead white dwarf," I mean the remnant of a white dwarf after it has completely cooled down. Would it basically be just a big rock? Would it be anything at all? So far, the answers are pretty informative. ---------- More questions: Is it really possible for a black hole to have a habitable zone like in the movie Interstellar? Can a neutron star have a habitable zone?

1. What does a completely dead white dwarf look like? Is it like a solid planet? 2. Are neutron star "fragments" a real thing? Can the "fragments" continue to sustain their reactions? 3. How big would a neutron star with the mass of an average-size planet be? 4. Do bigger stars have bigger habitable zones? 5. Say you had a binary-ish star system consisting of a massive star and a relatively low-mass star. Is it possible to have planets stably orbiting the massive star further out than the lower-mass star?

Planet mods are nice, but a lot of KSP players like me prefer to keep things stock. We're just OCD like that. That being said, I had heard at one point that Eeloo was originally planned to be a moon of a new gas giant, but ended up as a Pluto analog instead. It would be nice to have a Saturn-like planet. New content is always nice. As for the Neptune-like planet, Neptune is what's called an Ice Giant, a freezing cold planet similar to a gas giant but made of more dense elements. If a Neptune analog were to be added, it would probably be more realistic to have it further out than Eeloo.

I appreciate all the responses. Very informative. Coming up with wierd star systems is one of my odd hobbies.

Another question: Is it possible to have a black hole with a small enough mass and size to orbit a star instead of everything else orbiting it or being pulled into it?

Say you have two planets orbiting each other, one of them slightly smaller than the other. Is it possible for a moon to orbit in a figure-eight pattern around and between the two planets? Would this system even be stable?