Planet Ideas And Names For The Future Of Kerbal Space Program

[Simon Ross]

Mesklin as described by Hal Clement in Mission of Gravity

Gravity ranging from 700g at the poles to 3g at the equator

Imagine trying to work out a landing there :-)

[Taribu]

I think we need a Duna-sized "Hot Desert". Maybe below Eve's orbit or even a moon of Eve (a little smaller in that case, btw, i think Eve needs way more moons - it's so heavy). It could look like Duna, but not red(instead sand-coloured), with brownish Mountains sticking out of the sand. Not sure if it should have an atmosphere or not, maybe a thin one.

And, if KSP includes Weather (like rain) someday, i'd recommend a small, dusty and dark (black) Moon, color comparable to Ike(but a little smaller than ike), with a thick Athmosphere but with Mountains almost sticking out of that Athmosphere. Maybe it should be located within the rings of GP2 (or in a low Eve orbit, maybe only one to three Million meters) , that could explain the thick atmosphere despite the low gravity. Between the many high mountains should be very deep valleys with canyons and stuff, with an atmosphere getting dustier and dustier, so dusty that the sunlight cannot reach the ground. Those valleys should be quite rainy, in a way that "ponds"(very large but only ~1 m deep, maybe flatter so that a kerbal can walk through it) are formed, filled with a mysterious muddy/black liquid.

And finally i'd suggest putting another dwarf-planet in the future asteroid belt, a Ceres-like planet near Dres' orbit. The orbits should be set in a way that ensures that from time to time both (dwarf-)Planets get so close to each other, that you can see Dres from the ground of Ceres, or the other way round. Maybe they even intercept each other, making the Planets "exchange" their orbits.

[Sylandro]

Gentlemen, i will make a system or planets for you guys, using PlanetFactoryCE.

[Woopert]

I think we need a Duna-sized "Hot Desert". Maybe below Eve's orbit or even a moon of Eve (a little smaller in that case, btw, i think Eve needs way more moons - it's so heavy). It could look like Duna, but not red(instead sand-coloured), with brownish Mountains sticking out of the sand. Not sure if it should have an atmosphere or not, maybe a thin one.

And, if KSP includes Weather (like rain) someday, i'd recommend a small, dusty and dark (black) Moon, color comparable to Ike(but a little smaller than ike), with a thick Athmosphere but with Mountains almost sticking out of that Athmosphere. Maybe it should be located within the rings of GP2 (or in a low Eve orbit, maybe only one to three Million meters) , that could explain the thick atmosphere despite the low gravity. Between the many high mountains should be very deep valleys with canyons and stuff, with an atmosphere getting dustier and dustier, so dusty that the sunlight cannot reach the ground. Those valleys should be quite rainy, in a way that "ponds"(very large but only ~1 m deep, maybe flatter so that a kerbal can walk through it) are formed, filled with a mysterious muddy/black liquid.

And finally i'd suggest putting another dwarf-planet in the future asteroid belt, a Ceres-like planet near Dres' orbit. The orbits should be set in a way that ensures that from time to time both (dwarf-)Planets get so close to each other, that you can see Dres from the ground of Ceres, or the other way round. Maybe they even intercept each other, making the Planets "exchange" their orbits.

The KSP wiki says that Dres is the Ceres analog for the game.

[RogueMason]

I've been thinking recently... I would quite like Duna to change from this:

to this:

Sure, I like Duna as it currently stands, but if it were to look a lot like Mars does in the second picture, then that would be awesome.

To get the effect, the terrain scatter needs to change. It wouldn't be too hard to create jagged scatter instead of the more rounded stuff we already see on most of the planets/moons in KSP. Just look at Pol; it has those rock spires, so why can't we have rough grey rocks mixed in with a rusty-coloured surface for Duna? I am very much aware that terrain scatter is still a WIP, as are the planets and moons, so this may all become part of the stock game at some point, anyway, but I'm just expressing a want.

I know that the whole idea of changing Duna to be more Mars-like has also been raised a few times in the past, but I just want to back the idea myself.

Maybe Duna as it exists now could be renamed and relocated to orbit one of the new gas giants when they finally appear, like it used to orbit Jool while the planets were still in development?

[Nemrav]

Aparently, they were testing an ellipsoid moon of gas planet 2.. at least when Nova Siliko was a dev (why isnt he right now anyways) and aparently it was working quite well....

Don't know maybe for gas planet 2 we could have "Seerik" or something ?

[Raven.]

I've been thinking recently... I would quite like Duna to change from this:

http://i.imgur.com/8wVKwPC.png

to this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pan_segment1.gif

Sure, I like Duna as it currently stands, but if it were to look a lot like Mars does in the second picture, then that would be awesome.

To get the effect, the terrain scatter needs to change. It wouldn't be too hard to create jagged scatter instead of the more rounded stuff we already see on most of the planets/moons in KSP. Just look at Pol; it has those rock spires, so why can't we have rough grey rocks mixed in with a rusty-coloured surface for Duna? I am very much aware that terrain scatter is still a WIP, as are the planets and moons, so this may all become part of the stock game at some point, anyway, but I'm just expressing a want.

I know that the whole idea of changing Duna to be more Mars-like has also been raised a few times in the past, but I just want to back the idea myself.

Maybe Duna as it exists now could be renamed and relocated to orbit one of the new gas giants when they finally appear, like it used to orbit Jool while the planets were still in development?

I second the part on the terrain scatter. Now I like the ambience of Duna as it is, as it fits. But it would be nice to have more jagged terrain scatter for Duna to make it seem a little bit more inhospitable.

[Nemrav]

Ugh, how could you, I find landing on any body other than minmus or kerbin a real pain....

Of course thats the difference between 5 months of KSP vs who knows how long

[szputnyik]

"King Kai's Planet"! essentially a relatively small planet (like Dres) with a large gravity (like Eve) because its composition is very dense.

[Deta]

the cool thing is Squad can draw from EXOPLANET.

[Gustavo José]

Friky: an analog for the theorical planet Nemesis, after Eeloo and all other planets, with a thick atmosphere, very dark and with alien bases ruins on the poles.

Faragui: a mountainou planet with canyons that will cross the planet.

Triafyll: a planet with large plains, green atmosphere, pink lakes and purple land due to chemicals, with oxygen and gravity like the Mun.

[Guiltyspark]

Before adding any more detailed terrain, perhaps changing the existing rendering code so it can better handle default terrain on high? Also, I'd like to see waves in water but, fixing the horrible lag caused by water is more important. (Current workarounds for the water change the water-level to be lower than the collision mesh, which makes powered water landings "interesting").

[manuelasa1999]

Some general concepts for changes and addition that are drifting around my head (not to say this is the way they'll be though, we've all gotta generally agree what to implement and this is just my take! Plus discovery mechanics and hence the rest of the system won't happen for many updates)

Jool: Actually the second-smallest gas giant, with unusually large moons. All other gas giants would have objects smaller than or comparable to Moho.

- Laythe: Very volcanic because of its proximity and the tidal forces from the other moons. Still oceans of water, but now with actual active volcanos with lava lakes (that destroy things)

- Vall: Never liked the design of vall too much. I'd like to make it a bit more like eeloo, with large cracks in the ice and a more chaotic surface.

- Tylo: Never liked this either, also needs to be redone. Perhaps turned into a highly-contrasting body like Iapetus.

- More tiny moons: Just a bunch of small moonlets, at least 20. Probably would be nameable by the player or given designations (ex. J-17 for the 17th moon of Jool discovered)

Gas planet 2: ~50% larger than Jool, with rings. Early version shown on a stream a while ago.

- Eeloo: Relocated to orbit GP2, now with large geysers that can knock your ship around (prototyped several weeks ago, they function quite well)

- Daphy: Unusually smooth and round ball of fluff. An asteroid which has accumulated material from the rings, practically no gravity.

- Potatus: Small moon with relatively high inclination relative to GP2's equator. Composed of ices surrounding a highly dense core. Very rapid rotation (21 minutes) causes it to be stretched into an oblate spheroid (prototyped a while ago, the physics actually work and are really cool)

- Fonso: Largest moon, ~300 km radius. Very mountainous, with a thick atmosphere that only extends partway up the mountains (as in, the mountain peaks are in vacuum, while the proper surface is at two atmospheres)

- Tiny moons: Same case as Jool

Gas planet 3: Perhaps not an actual gas planet, could be a 2000km rocky planet with a thick atmosphere (have fun landing under 6g and 30 atmospheres of pressure)

- Moon with rings? Would have to be diffuse rings as well as recent, fully-formed rings wouldn't last long in that position.

Gas planet 4: Who knows.

Beyond: Who knows x2

Half year later from this post i can see a observatory facility near with the ARM mission, it would be great to start knowing only abaut the bigger planets and then send probes to explore different kerbol orbits, i think orbiting kerbol now is very useless but with this adition we will need to perform orbits in different inclinations for discovering planets and moons, I would be very happy if we can do this in the near future (0.25 or 0.26)

[Dead Pixel]

I've been thinking recently... I would quite like Duna to change from this:

http://i.imgur.com/8wVKwPC.png

to this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pan_segment1.gif

Sure, I like Duna as it currently stands, but if it were to look a lot like Mars does in the second picture, then that would be awesome.

To get the effect, the terrain scatter needs to change. It wouldn't be too hard to create jagged scatter instead of the more rounded stuff we already see on most of the planets/moons in KSP. Just look at Pol; it has those rock spires, so why can't we have rough grey rocks mixed in with a rusty-coloured surface for Duna? I am very much aware that terrain scatter is still a WIP, as are the planets and moons, so this may all become part of the stock game at some point, anyway, but I'm just expressing a want.

I know that the whole idea of changing Duna to be more Mars-like has also been raised a few times in the past, but I just want to back the idea myself.

Maybe Duna as it exists now could be renamed and relocated to orbit one of the new gas giants when they finally appear, like it used to orbit Jool while the planets were still in development?

That'd be pretty cool, but just make it a reskin on a mod or something, like with krags planet factory or something, because i like all the planets the way they were, it'd be cool if someone could reskin moho back to what it was back in .17

[Jcewazhere]

How about a rogue planet just passing through Kerbol's SOI for a few (dozen?) years. It'd be a race to tech up enough to reach it. Maybe call it Apophis. Have it cross perpendicular to the other orbits, and in between Kerbin and Duna's orbits. Give it an oxygen atmosphere as thick as Kerbin's and similar gravity to Duna.

[Zuni]

Is gas planet 2 still happening?

Anyway:

Lagash - A planet where one day lasts a year! Would make it necessary to bring RTGs. Based on Isaac Aasimov's planet of the same name.

Mesklin - Just do it. This would be the coolest planet ever, period. Because HOLY SHUGGUM that would be awesome.

Jobis - A planet which starts out near the orbit of Eeloo, but is doomed to eventually fall into the sun... You'd have to arrange a mission pretty soon.

[Zuni]

Mesklin as described by Hal Clement in Mission of Gravity

Gravity ranging from 700g at the poles to 3g at the equator

Imagine trying to work out a landing there :-)

Yes, this! This!

[Rakaydos]

When multiple planetay systems are added, they need to all be orbiting a supermassive black hole called Kraken.

[Zuni]

When multiple planetay systems are added, they need to all be orbiting a supermassive black hole called Kraken.

Mein gott, YES. With proper black hole effects, and you get to watch your ship get torn into little pieces.

[Halsfury]

I'd just like to see 2 more gas planets with moons and plenty of procedurally generated asteroids, one could even fake a thin Uranus-like belt with enough small rocks, while at a distance they would be replaced with a texture, representing the high quantity of dust in the ring

[Bioman222]

Mo - a mun-sized yellow-surfaced planet with an atmosphere orbiting the sun at about Dres's orbit. Except inclined 180° in its orbit around Kerbol.

[Guest]

A planet with a 90 degree axis tilt, just to destroy Delta V for landing.

[Skyler4856]

Is gas planet 2 still happening?

Anyway:

Lagash - A planet where one day lasts a year! Would make it necessary to bring RTGs. Based on Isaac Aasimov's planet of the same name.

Mesklin - Just do it. This would be the coolest planet ever, period. Because HOLY SHUGGUM that would be awesome.

Jobis - A planet which starts out near the orbit of Eeloo, but is doomed to eventually fall into the sun... You'd have to arrange a mission pretty soon.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if one day lasts an entire year couldn't you just land on the sunny side?

[JTG]

I would enjoy an Oort cloud and an asteroid belt, which would contain asteroids. You would click in a sector of one of the belts and one asteroid would be picked out of the bunch, to save loading all of them. You could bring it back to Kerbin an science, like in 23.5.

Also, comets!

[Victus]

This thread makes me kind of sad. Kerbals deserve rings too.