Planet Ideas And Names For The Future Of Kerbal Space Program

[AHO]

Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2014 to y'all. Now that version 0.25 has been released, we're able to travel to another star system. After a lot of trouble I managed to reach Proxa, a red dwarf star at 0.2 lightyears from the Sun (Kerbol) and decided to visit Sehera, a hot planet orbiting close to its parent star (0,9 to 1,3 million km). Gravity is 8,22 m/s and atmosphere thickness varies between 1,1 bar at the highest mountains and 3,8 on the low and intensely hot flatlands. Not as difficult to ascend from as from Eve, but due to the heat (I measured 319°C at 440 meter) engines overheat quickly.

Also love the 'hot air animation' that has been implemented:

People; looks like we've got a time traveler on our hands...

[Captain Sierra]

I personally am looking forward to a ringed gas giant (with a titan-esqe moon, maybe even a Europa, a binary system, or a volcanic moon with lava oceans) and an asteroid belt which would serve for my extraplanetary space launches and my kethane mining operations nicely.

[Dead Pixel]

Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2014 to y'all. Now that version 0.25 has been released, we're able to travel to another star system. After a lot of trouble I managed to reach Proxa, a red dwarf star at 0.2 lightyears from the Sun (Kerbol) and decided to visit Sehera, a hot planet orbiting close to its parent star (0,9 to 1,3 million km). Gravity is 8,22 m/s and atmosphere thickness varies between 1,1 bar at the highest mountains and 3,8 on the low and intensely hot flatlands. Not as difficult to ascend from as from Eve, but due to the heat (I measured 319°C at 440 meter) engines overheat quickly.

Also love the 'hot air animation' that has been implemented:

That looks really freaking amazing, That would be cool if it was true

[Tw1]

One planet idea I'd love to see, which I've posted about a time before, is a planet that shares Kerbin's orbit, but is 180 degrees ahead.

What does it look like? Doesn't matter, that's Nova's job. I'm imagining blue and green flats though, maybe a lost brother of Minmus. The important aspect is its position.

I like to think of it as "Antikerb".

A conventional transfer wouldn't work, but you'd never need to wait for launch windows. It'd be a great place for a base, hopefully it's not too hard to launch from. It'd not be overly hospitable, but a little like Mun or Mimus. Liquid on the surface may add interest.

Just an idea Nova may want to consider.

Though L3 points aren't particularly stable, something like this would still be awesome, for gameplay reasons.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Tw1

[SunJumper]

One planet idea I'd love to see, which I've posted about a time before, is a planet that shares Kerbin's orbit, but is 180 degrees ahead.

What does it look like? Doesn't matter, that's Nova's job. I'm imagining blue and green flats though. The important aspect is its position.

I like to think of it as "Antikerb".

A conventional transfer wouldn't work, but you'd never need to wait for launch windows. It'd be a great place for a base, hopefully it's not too hard to launch from. It'd not be overly hospitable, but a little like Mun or Mimus. Liquid on the surface may add interest.

Just an idea Nova may want to consider.

Though L3 points aren't particularly stable, something like this would still be awesome, for gameplay reasons.

A little asteroid there would be the most realistic L3 body. Maybe call it Nibrek.

[Moon Goddess]

I think a "dead" planet would be pretty cool. A barren world that has a crater like, 1/8th to 1/4th its total size, due to being struck by an enormous asteroid milennia ago, surrounded by dozens, (hundreds?) of peices of debris.

Kind of this thing going on:

Please no please please no.

I'm sick of seeing this, every new sci fi movie has to have the broken moon, Do you realize that if you did that it would last a few hours? All of that stuff would fall back in due to gravity, or if it has enough speed it would settle into a ring, and the body itself would collapse back into a sphere, there's no way for it to simply hang there like we see in Star Trek and Oblivion

[Tw1]

A little asteroid there would be the most realistic L3 body. Maybe call it Nibrek.

Maybe.. As long as it was one like Dress or Gilly, enough to have bases on. As long as it's also interesting to visit.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Tw1

[simplemunrockets]

I know that this is never going to happen, but I want a moon (or planet) that looks exactly like 2001's rendition of Iapetus, complete with monolith in the center of an unblinking eye.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I would like to see a big orange gas giant slightly smaller then Jool with 2 lime rings intersecting each other at 90 degrees

And it has 2 large moons: desni, a frozen water world covered in ice with a few patches of water and a thin atmosphere, it will be about the size of Vall

The next one out will be on an eccentric orbit, larger then tylo but with a Duna thickness atmosphere and rotates similar to mercury, it will be hopefully pink with dark brown flecks

There will also be several small moons, one that orbits so close that the gas giant takes up about 55% of the sky

The system would be between Jool and eeloo's apoapsis

[Kerbface]

I know that this is never going to happen, but I want a moon (or planet) that looks exactly like 2001's rendition of Iapetus, complete with monolith in the center of an unblinking eye.

Um.... 2001 was set around Jupiter... I'd say you were talking about the book which I think uses Saturn instead of Jupiter, but then that's not a visual depiction...

[simplemunrockets]

I know that was terrible wording, I just couldn't think of the right word.

[Whirligig Girl]

[if I may suggest, Nova] 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: Largest 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, with some of Harv's new procedural craters.

- 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) bad idea, because no-one would agree on what each one is called.

Bloorsg: ~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

Fuirm: 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.

Querfel: It's on it's side.

Beyond: since there is the element blutonium, there has to be, in replacment of Eeloo, a planet called Bluto. With several moons.

[/if I may suggest, Nova]

[EleSigma]

On Nova's suggestions I don't like the overly gimmicky planets/moons like Fonso and the 3rd gas giant being replaced by a rocky planet that would be nearly impossible to land on and certainly impossible to get off of. The oblate moon is a nice idea though and is reasonable.

If we go the way of Fonso and the super rocky planet then you might as well implement a diamond shaped planet or moon at that point. It just doesn't make any sense.

But this is all speculation so I won't hold it against Nova.

[skykooler]

On Nova's suggestions I don't like the overly gimmicky planets/moons like Fonso and the 3rd gas giant being replaced by a rocky planet that would be nearly impossible to land on and certainly impossible to get off of. The oblate moon is a nice idea though and is reasonable.

If we go the way of Fonso and the super rocky planet then you might as well implement a diamond shaped planet or moon at that point. It just doesn't make any sense.

But this is all speculation so I won't hold it against Nova.

I for one am really looking forward to Fonso. And how is that unrealistic? Compare Iapetus for example, which has a ring of 30-km tall mountains at the equator. Also, all extra-solar rocky planets we've found are several times as big as Earth; I don't see why this would be considered "gimmicky".

[tmccreight651]

honestly... i wanna see another small moon around duna to make it EVEN more like mars!

[tmccreight651]

Brilliant ideas mate these should defo be in the game... but maybe less munlets and dump querfel

[EleSigma]

I for one am really looking forward to Fonso. And how is that unrealistic? Compare Iapetus for example, which has a ring of 30-km tall mountains at the equator. Also, all extra-solar rocky planets we've found are several times as big as Earth; I don't see why this would be considered "gimmicky".

It isn't the mountain's size I'm concerned about, it's the atmosphere, a 2 atmosphere thick moon that has mountains reaching out of the atmosphere would have to be either extremely tall mountains like 70+km to reach out, or the atmosphere would have to be ridiculously squished to the point that it would probably wouldn't work well. Also again it's nothing about realism but imagine trying to land on a planet with 30 atmospheres and 6 g's. Then imagine trying to take off from said planet if you managed to land. It would be utterly impossible to do anything on the planet and if there was any resources to be mined on the planet then they would be completely useless as there would be no way to get them off into orbit. Rovers would break under the gravity and nothing could fly near the surface making exploration impossible except from orbit. The surface would be pointless and most likely would be obscured by the extremely thick atmosphere.

Anyways just to recap on what we know so far that's been for the most part confirmed about the solar system gathered from various forum posts, mostly from Nova (which I'm not bothering to quote since I just woke up so correct me if I'm wrong. Also some of the info was wiped when the forums went down back in April):

-3 more gas giants to come and 2 ice worlds.

-There's supposed to be a lava dwarf planet with a super-heated atmosphere somewhere in between the sun and Moho.

-Whenever weather is implemented Eve will have an extremely hazing atmosphere blocking most sun-light to the surface and dimming visibility greatly. The surface will have very little weather beyond some occasional light winds while the upper atmosphere will be extremely windy and turbulent. Clouds in the upper-atmosphere will occasionally spark lightning storms. The oceans are hot from radioactivity and have an updraft of air over them.

-There will be an asteroid belt in the area between Duna and Jool.

-Laythe is a cloud covered rainy/stormy planet being bombarded by Jool's magnetic field radiation. There will be active volcanoes and lava flows on the islands.

-Eeloo will have cryovolcanic geysers.

-Gas Giant #2 will have rings like Saturn. The planet will also be much larger than Jool.

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As for my planet/moon suggestions:

-A Titan analogue around the second gas giant, a cold moon with a thick, hazy atmosphere that obscures the surface and is around 2 atmospheres in pressure. The surface would have low visibility due to the haze with a frost covered ground and areas with rolling sand dunes. The weather would be light to moderate winds. The moon would be dotted with lakes and oasis's of liquid rocket fuel on the surface like how Titan has seas of liquid methane and ethane. The gravity and moon size would be a little bit higher than the Mun.

-two "Hoth" moons around the third gas giant, with orbits close to each other. Both moons orbit the gas giant in a polar orbit. One moon is nearly always covered in windy blizzard snow storms, obscuring the surface that is covered in a combination of massive ice and rock mountain ranges. The other moon has the occasional light to moderate snowfall and its surface is mostly rolling ice dunes with large, jagged ice sheets jutting out of the surface like solitary mountains and cliffs dotting the surface. The pressure on the first moon would be about 0.5 atmospheres while the second moon would be around the same as Duna's The first moon would be slightly larger than Moho while the second moon would be slightly larger than bop, being just large enough to have formed into a spherical shape.

-The forth gas giant could have a cryovolcanic moon in a close orbit with the gas giant. Another moon around the size of Pol that has a massive impact crater that takes up almost one side of the planet's surface. A moon made of dark, blackened minerals.

Edited July 27, 2013 by EleSigma

[Tw1]

I hope Eve does get some breaks in its could cover though. It'd be cool to just get patches of stars shining through.

I kinda like how kerbin has two moons, but Duna only has one. It keeps the Kerbal solar system distinct from our own a little.

[DJEN]

-teh pic-

Would this By Anychance Be Close to what your thinkin of? i made this in 5 minutes, im in a hurry to go somewhere

That seems to be Colinder! It's quite similar to what I thought, although the color of the sand is somewhat even in my interpretation.

Also, the crater is elliptical.

Edited July 31, 2013 by DJEN

[DJEN]

Please no please please no.

I'm sick of seeing this, every new sci fi movie has to have the broken moon, Do you realize that if you did that it would last a few hours? All of that stuff would fall back in due to gravity, or if it has enough speed it would settle into a ring, and the body itself would collapse back into a sphere, there's no way for it to simply hang there like we see in Star Trek and Oblivion

Some people just don't care about realism, don't they?

[DJEN]

No more planets will be added until they at the very least get a campaign mode working.

...This thread is a discussion thread......

[DJEN]

Just for fun: more planets.

Umbae: A gray(dark red because of its parent star) gas giant that orbits a red giant, has a small trojan body called Umbria at its L2 point.

It also has a single, massive moon called Nivorim, and it's mostly covered with liquid nitrogen.

About its mass, let's say that it is a couple times heavier than Kerbin.

Conclusion: siiiiiiiiigh.

Foogy: A gas giant that orbits a sun-like star, it's a very fuzzy hot jupiter.

Lunova: A carbon planet that has diamonds composing its crust, orbits a neutron star.

It also has luminous rings made of diamond.

Conclusion: Call Rebecca.........

[Mr. Scruffy]

Hodor: A massive rock-planet with no atmosphere.

[SpacecraftX]

So basically Duna with 17 Ikes? (I swear every time I try to go to Duna "Ike encounter")

I'd actually like to find a Titan-esque planet as well though, actually.

No because Duna has no oxygen in its atmosphere. Jet engines do 't work there for that reason.

[Samio]

I have dedicated a whole thread to possible planet ideas, including pictures and statistics.

Take a gander here for more information:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/42625-Possible-Planet-Additions-%28Revised%29