If you could redesign/improve the Kerbol System, what would you do?

[autumnalequinox]

On 5/14/2016 at 6:46 PM, Codraroll said:

I'm going to evoke the wrath and ire of the forum, and say "screw the realism, I want places to see". For all my intents and purposes, the planets are realistic enough, but they're quite monotonous, in a "seen-it-once-seen-it-all" kind of way. Let's strive for some places you'd seek out, true landmarks on the various bodies. Easter eggs kind of fulfill this purpose already, but they're hard to find unless you know they're there. I'd like some sites to be well-defined, well-known landmarks, biomes in their own right, with contracts specifically asking you to visit them. Here's my list of suggestions:

 - A giant, fresh crater on some body, for instance Duna. An impact on a killing-the-dinosaurs scale, fresh enough to have a pool of liquid water in the centre (as if it hit the planet mere years before Career mode starts). Give it steep edges, a smooth bottom, and make it large enough to be visible from space.

 - Put a volcano on Vall (Vallcano?). It'd be another crater-like feature, where the ice abruptly stops at a several-hundred-metres drop, giving way to a large lake of lava. Unrealistically steep edges would be welcome, for epicness' sake. Rocky beaches at the bottom of the glacial cliffs could be a high-science biome, the only place where Vall's rocky surface is actually exposed.

 - Make the Mohole an object, allowing for rockier edges to the hole. Give it its own biome. Put a giant diamond or something on the bottom.

 - Mountains of epicness, put them anywhere. Something colossal towering above the landscape around them, in a shape renminicent of organ pipes (or the tallest block of Dubai Marina). Like a cluster of kilometres-tall spears jutting out of the surface, tall enough to strike objects that would otherwise manage an orbit around the planet/moon. Landing on their tops, or flying between them at orbital speeds, would be nice challenges for experienced players.

 - Give Laythe jungles. Bury some ruins in them.

 - In lieu of jungles, I'd also like to see fjords on one of the liquid-surface planets. Very steep, very deep, bordered by very tall mountains.

 - Give Dres a crater with unusually bright spots in it. Bright enough to be visible from high orbit. The bright spots could be anything, really, but it'd be cool to see some "glass mountains" or glaciers or whatever.

 - Put in a small china tea pot orbiting Kerbol in an elliptical orbit somewhere between Kerbin and Duna. Hide it very well in the code. Hint at its existence without explicitly confirming or denying it. Make it invisible in the Tracking Station.

 - Other, miscellaneous things: Exaggerated canyons. Clusters of really big rocks. Sinkholes like Utapau in Star Wars. Sheer, vertical cliffs, possibly even with overhangs (which I believe would break the current terrain model, but oh well, this is a wish list). Really big spots of weirdly-coloured terrain (like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, only on a non-gas planet - could be algae or something). As long as it's interesting, visible from orbit, and spectacular enough to warrant a visit, I'd be all for it.

ALL OF THIS.  Or something similiar.  I would love "areas of interest" that may or may not have cool stuff.  Essentially sub-biomes.  Each world gets x amount and a world seed so some areas have nothing and some have something.  Each area is more detailed then surrounding terrain, with possible animations (volcanoes, etc).  Bonus for science multiplier (+20% or +50%) if there are goodies there.

This is something sorely missing from the game that would be awesome in the next few versions.  A bit more fun then the stock easter eggs and it gives a good reason to really, really explore. Tie it into the anomaly system or make them their own biomes, whatever works the best.

 

Also:  The option for randomization.  Allow the player to set number of planets, type of star, and other parameters.  The only thing that stays the same is Kerbin.  Do something along the lines of Space Engine and generate a solar system within those parameters.  It would never get boring.  Never!

Edited June 4, 2016 by autumnalequinox
more

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

19 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Photosynthesis would be so weak out at laythe... why would it have to be green anyway?

 

#1 - please don;t start that again... I'd say add a few more bodies there of lesser mass (gilly/ pol/minmus like) as Pallas and Vesta analogues

#2 - mostly agree... though I'd tweak some things in OPM. Slate is too similar to Tylo. I would make it more like a mars analogue (more so than duna).. I'm talking 0.4 G's and an atmospheric density = to 1% of kerbin's. Some of the other moons seem proportionately too big.. but whatever..

#3 -

a) Thicker, to be like 25-26 km on kerbin? 25km on kerbin has a pressure of 0.01... 0 meters on Duna has a pressure of 0.067. And thats with a MW of 42, compared to Kerbin's 28... Duna's atmosphere at its lowest point is roughly 10x denser than kerbin's atmosphere at 25-26 km...

b)You can mod that, I did

And a variation with deeper water... and less putrid green-ish water

 

 

 

#4 - No, why?

#5 - Umm, seems a bit redundant ... and very implausible. What would be the heat source? are these methane/ethane lakes? why not a thicker atmosphere.... liquids and thin atmospheres don't go together. Atmospheres and small sizes also don't go together... especially if its warm enough for liquid water

#6 - umm no, as above, and also... "that lake"? what are you talking about... it would be fairly easy to add a greenish hue to the surface of laythe though... like I did for a mars analogue

(a slighly earlier version before I made the water "bluer"

1 - Tell me how to do that to Duna!

2 - Jool's Moon thing I was thinking like the oceans on Titan, so methane (kethane?)

3 - Minmus is designed to be easy for beginners, so orbital inclination = BAD. Believe me, the first time I went to Minmus (After Mun), it took me almost all of my fuel and an hour to deal with it.

[KerikBalm]

1 - Have you downloaded the kopernicus mod? You must have if you've downloaded the OPM mod.

2 - If you incorporate OPM, isn't that redundant with tekto?

3 - well, you can go to Mun... if you make things too easy in kerbin's SOI, then the gap between playing in kerbin's SOI and going interplanetary is even larger.

[X-SR71]

Plenty of good suggestions here, can I just add that I'd like faster timewarp? Or perhaps a decreased scale or that planets and stuff get added more near Kerbin? Waiting 5 years for a launch window from Jool to Eeloo  is no fun, even at max timewarp. Then burn, and wait more 4 years to get there.

 

I was silly enough to accept a contract which asked for a fly-by on Vall and Eeloo and finishing up in a orbit of Eve. I kindda messed up too and mission time was a total of 37 years. I spent more time waiting than actually doing the mission I think.

[Mrcarrot]

Duna needs another moon.

EDIT: MoonReorganizer (link in signature) moves Minmus to Duna.

More planets- Jool is currently the analog for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, AND Neptune.

Eeloo could be bluer.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Mrcarrot

[Abstract_Kerman]

I would make Duna look like a desert with towering rocks instead of dunes.

I would make Dres spin as fast as inaccessible.

I would give jool 40 new moons (mostly giant asteroids.

I would integrate OPM

I would make titan and put it in orbit around sarnus.

I would add the dwarf planet Haumea.

I would take all gas giants and add a lot of Gilly like objects in orbit.

I would add giant asteroids with gravity in the asteroid belt.

I would make the Kuipier belt. 

I would add an Oort cloud.

I would add comets.

Finally I would make to an asteroid with an asteroid orbiting it like Eros.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by Abstract_Kerman

[bigcalm]

I've played with a few of the additional planet packs, and whilst they're great, they almost give too much to do in some instances.  I think what's missing is

* More interesting places to visit on the surface of bodies.  You know, Kerbin is great, we can go and visit Baikobanur, the pyramid, the island runway (and a few beauty spots).  The mun is great, we can visit the Mun arches, the Apollo lander.  Beyond that though, the places to visit are few and far between.

* A retrograde moon.

* A proper MacGuffin.  Let the monoliths lead us somewhere!   Force us to build a submarine for Laythe!  Let us do some science experiments that lead somewhere!  (Actually, if there's already a mod that adds this can someone let me know what it is?)

* Another oxygenated world would be really nice.  Something like Tellumo in GPP is fun (imagine Eve with oxygen).  Building planes for other worlds is kind of awesome, and even more awesome when they actually work.

* A small, lifeless cinder of a planetoid very near the Sun.

* Tekto equivalent - small, lowish gravity (somewhere between Ike and Moho strength), but with a dense, oxygenless atmosphere - at least as dense as Kerbin.

Edited May 12, 2017 by bigcalm

[joacobanfield]

3 hours ago, bigcalm said:

* A retrograde moon.

This. This would make reaching that place it´s own challenge and reward. For bonus points, it could be a retrograde planet....

[tater]

Not changing anything else about the game (i.e.: parts), I'd scale up all the worlds 3.2X, and all the distances maybe 4-6X.

[KerikBalm]

On 10/18/2015 at 5:04 AM, regex said:

I'd make the solar system realistic in density and radius. Then adjust orbits a bit to make it more realistic.

How about we meet roughly half way? Scale it up 3x. Its "halfway" because another 3x rescale gets us to realistic sizes and densities (although an 11x rather than 9x rescale is needed to get kerbin to be the same size as Earth, Kerbin is not Earth, so I think 9x is fine)

14 hours ago, tater said:

Not changing anything else about the game (i.e.: parts), I'd scale up all the worlds 3.2X, and all the distances maybe 4-6X.

Well, for 3x vs 3.2x, it doesn't change so much, I'm sticking with 3x because its a nice even number... and its slightly easier to get to orbit. Going to real RSS scale would need a lot of part rebalancing. As for the distances... no, keep those to 3 (or 3.2x) as well. If we look at the ratio of Earth's radius to Kerbin's, and then do the same to SMA, we get 10.62 and 11.0 respectively. similar numbers are obtained for most other bodies and their analogues. Why would we change SMA by such a different ratio to the Radius?

I've dropped OPM for now, to focus on a "realistic" and "interesting" inner solar system (jool and inward). To that end I added Pallas and Vesta analogues to keep Dres company, and.. made Duna's system deviate from real life just for a more interesting system, anyway, here's my settings (and thus my suggestions for the KSP system):

Spoiler

    Resize = 3
    Rescale = 3
    Atmosphere = 1.5
    dayLengthMultiplier = 1.7320508076

    landscape = 0.5 // Net 1.5x increase in terrain height

    @Body:HAS[#name[Dres]]
    {
        @SigmaDimensions
        {
            @Resize = 1 // Dres is proportionately far bigger (by about a factor of 3.5) than Ceres in real life, it doesn't get scaled up
        }

        @Properties
        {
            geeASL = 0.03 // Decrease Surface G to 0.03 // approximate surface gravity of Ceres. Dres is now a runt, but still bigger than a 3x rescaled Gilly
        }
    }

    @Body[Sun] 
    {
        @Properties
        {
            geeASL = 8.9 // Increase Surface G to 8.9
            radius = 65500000 // Decrease Radius to 1/4 that of stock The sun was proportionately far too big
        }
    }
    @Body[Laythe] 
    {
        @Properties
        {
            geeASL = 0.60 // sqrt((5/6)^3)* 0.8 to keep density the same as Tylo
        }
    }
    @Body[Eve] 
    {
        @Properties
        {
            geeASL = 1.25 // Decreased surface G so that the density is the same as Kerbin's... also getting off Eve with stock parts was hard enough before the rescale 
        }
    }
    @Body[Jool] 
    {
        @Properties
        {
            geeASL = 2.5 // Jool was proportionately much less massive than Jupiter, this fixes that (and gives Laythe shorter days due to a faster orbit)
        }
    }

    @Body[Mun] 
    {
        @Orbit // Assign it the orbital parameters of stock Minmus... the rest of the config deleted here for brevity. proportionately, Mun belongs about where Minmus is if it is a Luna analogue
    }

    @Body[Minmus] 
    {
        @Orbit // Assign it the orbital parameters of stock Mun. Minmus is completel unrealistic... but what the heck... I didn't want to move it out to the asteroid belt
    }

 

On 5/11/2017 at 7:25 PM, Mrcarrot said:

Duna needs another moon.

So as I said above, I made the inner solar system of my game more "interesting" by adding Pallas and Vesta analogues. I also added a body at Kerbin's L4 that is roughly 60% the radius of Mun ... inspired by the hypothetical body "Theia" that may have formed at Earth's L4 or L5, and become unstable as it accumulated mass (growing to about the mass of mars), resulting in an impact with Earth that made the Moon. In my scenario, something like this happened, but there was a runtish body at the other stable la grange point, that still remains there.

For Duna.... as you can see earlier in the thread, I gave it oceans and such, but then, I decided to replace Duna with another planet as a Mars analogue... one derived from Mars data... but made larger (3/4ths of Kerbin's Radius instead of about 1/2). This replacement has two moons, Duna and Ike

Spoiler

(they are tidally locked, and I was playing around with what point Duna hangs above, as well as the atmosphere color of the Mars derived planet)

(before I fixed an SOI issue)

This is my Duna system now (well, this, scaled up 3x):

I like my KSP system now, but I'm still tempted to add OPM back to the game... but at 3x, Plock starts to look really really far away.

[Spartwo]

Lower Periapse for Gilly. 

Maybe not this low but you get the point. 

[Leopard]

I'd add an option to allow the system to be randomised to some level, stuff near Kerbin less so, the stuff further out more so - e.g. tweak the atmospheric density of the worlds with atmosphere, ditto gravity, not hugely but a bit - ditto some of the surface features - provide a reason to explore as opposed to look up on wiki where to go.

Plus say Cool and beyond a bit more randomised, e.g. how many moons and the orbits of them

[MythicalHeFF]

I'd make Moho the way it was way back in 0.17 with the super hot atmosphere and tidal lock, or a planet that orbits closer to Kerbol than Moho on which to recreate that effect. 

Also kinda wish Jool was more Jupiter-like in mass relative to Kerbin. It's only 80x the mass or Kerbin, but the real Jupiter is 318x the mass of Earth. 

Also maybe move Minmus way out to orbit Eeloo, and move the Mun outwards from Kerbin and give it a little orbital inclination.

 

[Laie]

11 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Going to real RSS scale would need a lot of part rebalancing.

A lot, if not all, of the trouble with reentry being (not) dangerous, and why, comes down to the small size of Kerbin and the resulting small orbital velocity. We're coming back at speeds that aren't unheard of for planes. With lots of tweaking they could make it so that it's halfways convincing... at least on Kerbin, but Eve or Laythe are noticeably odd. And even Kerbin doesn't stand up to scrutiny, once you know a thing or two (or just pay attention and start to wonder).

If I could redesign the system, or go back in time and influence development, real-scale bodies would be top of the list. Of course that would affect the balance of everything: that's the whole point.

[tater]

24 minutes ago, Laie said:

A lot, if not all, of the trouble with reentry being (not) dangerous, and why, comes down to the small size of Kerbin and the resulting small orbital velocity. We're coming back at speeds that aren't unheard of for planes. With lots of tweaking they could make it so that it's halfways convincing... at least on Kerbin, but Eve or Laythe are noticeably odd. And even Kerbin doesn't stand up to scrutiny, once you know a thing or two (or just pay attention and start to wonder).

If I could redesign the system, or go back in time and influence development, real-scale bodies would be top of the list. Of course that would affect the balance of everything: that's the whole point.

Yeah, I was assuming nothing really changing when I suggested a small upscale. The reality is that most of the problems with KSP can be attributed to the scale, which have resulted in arbitrary tweaks to make certain things work, which then breaks things in different regimes.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

I just want reasonable timewarp altitudes for Gilly.

[eddiew]

Ouch, the gravedirt.

Anyway, I'd make Eve a jungle world. Or at least an algae world. Same gravity and thick atmo, rings, and a larger moon or two. It tends to be a one-stop thing that you never go back to, but I'd like it to be more inviting to exploration with varied terrain.

Dres needs either an atmosphere, or to be Eve's larger moon.

[Laythe Squid]

Oh yes. Where do I begin? First off, everything is scaled up by ten, making it realistic(and so I don't have to think about making Kerbol a red dwarf). 

• Kerbol-Slightly cooler than the sun. It would experience intense flare activity, causing communicative blackouts and damage. The flares would be visible with the naked eye from Kerbin. 
• Apasol-A small, sun-baked, tidally locked cinder of a world, with a very thin, super-heated atmosphere and high gravity. Mountains and cliffs on the day side because the surface is being stripped away by the solar(Kerbolar?) wind.
• Moho-Almost the same as stock Moho, but with craters at the poles containing water ice. There would be lava tubes. The Mohole would have a monolith at the bottom.
• Kato-A Duna-sized planet with two very small moons and an atmosphere half as thick as Duna's. The surface would be a global desert. Also, it would have rocky rings containing lots of ore. 
• Eve-Oh boy. The surface would be completely obscured by lavender clouds, with polar vortexes similar to Venus's. There would be an enormous equatorial ridge on the mainland, with lakes of liquis water high up. Oh, and rings. 
• Implement Rald
• Implement OPM
• I would add a couple of bodies from New Horizons and GPP.
• All bodies would have at least 40 biomes, with Laythe having the most.
• Laythe, Eve, Duna, Eeloo, Vall, Tekto, Titanus, Leouch, Kerbin, Thatmo, and Hadrian would all have complex geological activity. 
• Finally, alien life in many places. 

Edited May 18, 2017 by Laythe Squid

[Just Jim]

Only one small change...

I would give Dres a true ring to go with it's ring of Dres-deroids.

[NSEP]

I'm sorry if this might be a necro. But here are my ideas.

I would give Laythe actual sand colored beaches and Volcanoes. I would also give Duna a small lake and canyons to make it more interesting. Hmmm, what else? Oh ye, i would also like to add a new planet, sort of as a small Dres counterpart that is slightly easier to get to but smaller and without Asteroids.

[Superfluous J]

I'd make sure the sun was clearly and unequivocally named "Sun."

Or at least not "Kerbol."

[nightingale]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I'd make sure the sun was clearly and unequivocally named "Sun."

Or at least not "Kerbol."

I remember an unintended Kerbol almost* snuck its way into KSPedia.

* almost = It was caught long before release, might've only been in the KSPedia mockups.

[Ty Tan Tu]

If I had my druthers I would get rid of the whole SOI (sphere of influence) and make it closer to a full physics simulation. One of the things I miss from Orbiter is the high Callisto orbits. The orbits could get weird enough that I would really start thinking deeper about the three body problem. You could also set up Lagrangian orbits. Setting up a halo orbit around Lagrangian points is really cool, and something you can not do in KSP..

[kraden]

@Ty Tan Tu Principia is the mod for you.

[Ty Tan Tu]

1 hour ago, kraden said:

@Ty Tan Tu Principia is the mod for you.

Wow! After watching Scott Manley's video I have to try this, but it looks like I am going to have to compile it from the source code downloaded from GitHub. Which is something I can do, but it will have to wait for this weekend. Is there a Windows 64 complied version?