Suggestion, No planet info before you have been there

[Pds314]

13 hours ago, Palaceviking said:

Before or after we did manned space flight and learned so much? 

I'm not being sarcastic,  just wondering if anyone really knows.

Manned and unmanned spaceflight were not critical to the development of spectroscopic telescopes. Nobody had ever been to the sun when Helium was first detected in its atmosphere in 1868 and theorized to be a new element, although helium had not actually been isolated yet. That happened in 1895 when it was found emanating from Uranium ore.

 

That being said, I find it hard to imagine land-based telescopes trying to determine the atmospheric composition of Pluto or exoplanets when they've got multiple tonnes per square meter of air in the way. Telescopes work very well in SPAAACE. They do not work very well on the ground. They work especially poorly underwater.

 

NASA testing a telescope underwater:

http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/astronauts-use-the-giant-pool-at-the-johnson-space-centers-weightless-picture-id615293974

It didn't work very well.

One possible alternative to putting the telescope in space is to put space in the telescope. We do not do this because preventing the atmosphere from entering the field of view of the telescope would be expensive.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Pds314

[Palaceviking]

I think there may be a good compromise in here somewhere.

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, Pds314 said:

One possible alternative to putting the telescope in space is to put space in the telescope. We do not do this because preventing the atmosphere from entering the field of view of the telescope would be expensive.

 

2 hours ago, Palaceviking said:

I think there may be a good compromise in here somewhere.

Like put SOME space in a telescope in a huge balloon?

I'm all down for fog-of-war type stuff for planets, though I know them all so well it won't really matter for me. I'd love though to start a new save in a planet pack and go to the tracking station and just see fuzzy blobs for the other planets.

Mostly, though, all we wouldn't know is on the km level. We'd know the distances to all planets, and the mass of any planet with a moon. Assuming patched conics is "reality" in KSP, we'd not know the masses of any moons though we could deduce that they're lighter than the parent, and based on how far apart they are (for Jool's moons) we could get an upper limit on their masses (knowing that SOIs don't intersect).

And of course the MOMENT anything entered the SOI of a planet, we'd know its exact mass.

But anyway, I think it'd be cool.

[Wjolcz]

Blurred planets and the lack of minor planets/moons in the beginning would be the ideal approach IMO.

But I think the career and parts should be the priority.

[Palaceviking]

Just now, Veeltch said:

Blurred planets and the lack of minor planets/moons in the beginning would be the ideal approach IMO.

But I think the career and parts should be the priority.

   how about tracking station upgrades being relevant? 

[Wjolcz]

6 minutes ago, Palaceviking said:

   how about tracking station upgrades being relevant? 

The tracking station doesn't have a telescope. More sense would make the R&D upgrade having some effect.

[PGTART]

gravity has been known on other planets even on earth, its calculated from orbits.. as for the science experiments, they do whath normal experiments do, they proof that the  standard model is still correct

first one calculates earth mass, earth sun orbit, sun mass, next any orbit , orbit speed is a known indicator for a mass / gravity pair.

Edited December 10, 2016 by PGTART

[Benji13]

I'm going to say that, yes, the info should be available from the start. There is already a good mod that incorporates this and we need to keep in mind that KSP is a game, not a sim. It's like the good old 'should life support be stock' argument. Ksp is great for flexibility and, well, modability, This means that the game is more enjoyable for more people. If you like realism, get realism mods. If you just like messing around with crazily designed rockets, then keep it stock. Rant over ,

Benji13. 

[Tyko]

If you needed to visit a planet to get basic info then we (real life) wouldn't know much about most bodies in our system. Scientists have gotten really good at working out the characteristics of other planets / moons, so unless you want to handicap KSP to be much lower tech than RL (which isn't consistent with the rest of the game) then blocking content doesn't make sense.

 

[Superfluous J]

We finalized our knowledge of Venus' mass with a probe flyby.

Edited December 12, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[Enceos]

Mass of other planets can be estimated theoretically from size and spectral composition, but one can never be sure about these numbers unless something else is orbiting around that planet. That orbiter, be it a moon, an asteroid or a spacecraft, gives astronomers the most precise mass number of the planet it's orbiting.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Enceos

[NSEP]

Well, maybe. But most players already know their info, while you can also check the wiki.