Highrs

Game physics is also why I thought this would be a good idea to be in base game rather than in a mod or some hacky stock wall-hack. The former would be sure to have a high rate of random explosion and falling into the planet when unfocusing and/or time-warping. Mechanics that provide some stability to floating would be a must for anything that can be classified as a 'floating city'.

I see people saying it wouldn't work... and I'm not sure why. As others pointed out, buoyancy is still a thing. The idea is two-part - module and base. I'd love to see modules that let you float in the atmosphere (hot air balloons) but I also doubt any craft like that, especially a big one, would be a sable as a landing platform. The 'base' part would have to be some extension of the colony building system - more stable, larger, less parts. That's the one you could land on without summoning the Kraken. Lifting off wouldn't be fun (or, alternatively, really freaking fun) but there are some really interesting possibilities with bases and modules like that. It's also a tech level that I imagine is lower than some of the engines they showed off.

Looked through? Yes. Found it before you pointed it out? Nope! Surprised that someone already thought of it? Absolutely not.

With several colonies throughout the systems, some degree of traffic is... expected? Desired? Required? Sure, KSP doesn't simulate all of Kerbin's cities, populations and industry, but those aren't space assets. KSP 2 is going for space colonies and industry, and if you have those, you've gotta have space traffic. I don't see how it could be fun for the player to run every material and passenger demand in two or more systems, between potentially a dozen colonies. To have no traffic at all seems... sad. The reasonable solution, then, is somewhat obvious, and appears surprisingly simple. The player could design and launch ships with either cargo, material or passenger capacity and enough DV to make the journey between the two or more desired location. If A and B have refueling facilities, then the ship only has to have the DV to get from A to B at worst system disposition, and vice versa. The ship would be deposited into storage at either A or B, and launched to make the journey by the colony AI. It would automatically cross the distance, refuel, deposit/pick up goods and passengers, and travel back. What this gives the game is 3 things. First, it gives a sense of life in the system, like you are not the only thing moving out there. Second, it lets you design various ships for the mission, and demonstrates how real life interplanetary traffic would look and function. Third, it gives some sense and reason to colony growth. In any reasonable scenario, early colonies would need shipments from more developed locations (unless the colonization effort is truly huge). The player could do that themselves, but we have Elite Dangerous and Eve Online for when we want to play space truck driver. The big issues I can see: - Not easy to make: You'd have to make pilot AI that can set up paths between A and B without being insane. - Atmospheric entry would have to be handled with two ships and an orbital station. The space freighter would deliver to the station, then the station would use shuttles and lifters to move the cargo to and from the surface colony. Lots of mechanics there. - Resource demanding. If done wrong, a dozen ships moving across the system could be hard on the simulation.

Is there any consideration of permanent floating outposts on Jool and other gas giants in KSP 2? Something that doesn't explode when you look away or accelerate time, something doable in vanilla. Possibly with refueling and refining facilities and a landing pad that can take more than a sneeze.