Making current planets more interesting brainstorm

[Pthigrivi]

 

This is an interesting read. I didn't know quite where to put it but its food for thought on all this stuff. I still tend to think we're more on the lack-of-rewards end of the spectrum, but its worth considering what it is about a particular planetary enhancement that makes it worth striving for. Random failures aren't a great solution, neither really would be just making landings bumpier--I think we're fine there. The question for me has always been what reason do I have to get out and walk around or to bring a buggie to see over the next hill? Its extending that logistical challenge onto the surface and giving a reason for people to engage in it that would really bring these places alive.

http://www.pcgamer.com/what-no-mans-sky-could-learn-about-exploration-from-kerbal-space-program/

Edited August 11, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

I actually think that bumpier landings are helpful/interesting---meaning terrain that matters to players on a scale such that landing is harder.

Heck, most people don't even look for a level spot because of magic SAS.

@Pthigrivi, that's a great article. 

What I take from it (YMMV) is that the randomized Kerbol system with "fog of war" looks even more attractive. Why? Because the tension of not knowing how to get someplace makes each new world explored exactly like your first ever Mun landing. Remember that we knew very little about Venus before the first Soviet probe entered the atmosphere. So I think that some of the "easy" suggestions (better terrain all around, at least akin to the Mun's craters. ideally better) combined with some real exploration for reply would be the best of both worlds.

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

On 21/07/2016 at 4:06 PM, Drelam said:

Habitation:

One of the main endgame goals should be to colonize other planets with Kerbals. The more Kerbals we have living off Kerbin, the more founds we get. There should also be underground habitations, to protect Kerbals from hard stellar radiation and atmospheric storms.

On 21/07/2016 at 4:36 PM, monstah said:

That is an awesome idea! Never thought of it that way. You should need to actively keep them alive, tho, to stop it from being too exploitable.

I think it would be more in line with game's current goofy and playful atmosphere if Kerbals fell to sleep/hibernation when they run out of snacks. Satellites get bricked if they run out of battery power but they can be revived once someone manually opens the solar panels. They would be like space faring tardigrades!


Edit, and then I stumble upon a mod that does exactly this life support thing without additional death.

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by ImmaStegosaurus!
Cause learning stuff.

[Wjolcz]

I guess another way of making current celestial bodies interesting would be introducing graphical representation of science earned through the time and more experiments of various kinds. I would especially love to see a robotic sample collecting, cameras and magnetometers.

But I also think that a proper science system could be an actual force driving the exploration of other worlds. After all, it's the curiosity that makes us go and send probes all around the real solar system. Different results of the same experiment would be a fantastic thing to gather and analyze instead of just having a generic reward system that makes unlocking MOAR parts kinda tedious. I feel like science points are the real evil here and what makes us not want to go to other bodies other than the closest ones, since the tree can be unlocked by milking them only.

TL;DR actual science is more rewarding than points

[RatchetinSpace]

On 7/22/2016 at 5:39 AM, GregroxMun said:

Just because some things are unrealistic doesn't mean everything should be. Having an object small enough to be in orbit around a gas giant (not another brown dwarf or a star) would by definition mean it is incapable of fusing hydrogen and helium in its core.

The thing about brown dwarfs being the size of Jupiter is that they may have Jupiter's radius (or even smaller), they most certainly do not have Jupiter's mass. In fact, all brown dwarfs and more massive gas giants will be as big or slightly smaller than Jupiter, because it just further compresses and compacts the gasses. In the case of a brown dwarf, it compresses it so much that the atoms begin to fuse deuterium in the core. Having a smaller object made of hydrogen and helum than a brown dwarf would absolutely mean at least a fifteenfold reduction in mass

As for making the system more interesting:

The above for visuals. As for gameplay mechanics, having clouds and weather would really improve the gameplay for atmospheric planets. Each planet could have a unique or semi-unique gameplay element.

• Axial tilt for all planets.
  • Moho: 0 degrees. (3/2 tidal lock)
  • Eve: 177 degrees.
  • Kerbin: 24 degrees.
  • Mun: 0 degrees
  • Minmus: 12.3 degrees
  • Duna: 18 degrees to ecliptic.
  • Ike: 0 degrees to orbit, 18 degrees to ecliptic. (1/1 tidal lock)
  • Dres: 4 degrees to orbit.
  • Jool: 3 degrees to orbit.
  • Jool's moons: Made to orbit around Jool's equator, zero axial tilt from equator.
  • Eeloo: 120 degrees to orbit.
• Moho could get its superheated atmosphere back.
• Eve's weather:
  • Clouds which never rain.
  • Clouds covering almost the entire planet, making solar panels much less effective.
  • Hotter and colder areas depending upon latitude.
  • Slow-ish winds that, due to the high atmospheric pressure, could knock over taller craft if they aren't strutted to the ground.
  • Hurricane-speed winds that appear only at certain regions of the planet that would spell out hell for any probe attempting to land or for any rocket attempting to launch.
  • Liquid gallium oceans, makes parts 50% as impact tolerant.
• Eve's rare active volcanoes that occasionally erupt and cause Evequakes and clouds of smoke and ash. These could rain down and coat solar panels.
• Kerbin could have weather cycles that we're familiar with, but with very calm weather near the KSC so that launches are never delayed.
  • Weather at the KSC as a difficulty mode.
  • Occasional 
  • High winds at most beaches.
  • Rain is common at sea.
  • Snow at the ice caps and tundras that would snow-over solar panels.
  • Fish and sea weed and coral and things as ground scatter in the oceans.
  • Seasonal variation of tree and ground textures. (Would require separate color maps for Kerbin that depend on Winter/Fall/SummerSpring that fade in and out with the season)
• Duna:
  • Local dust storms. Despite high wind speeds, the low pressure of the atmosphere means that you're not likely to be tipped over. However, your solar panels can get dusty, your wheels can become less efficient (requiring more power for the same torque), and landing gear might lock up.
  • Planet-wide dust storms. These happen only rarely, but last for several months when they do.
  • Very thin, wispy upper water-ice clouds.
  • Seasonal variation of ice cap coverage. (would require separate color maps for Duna that depend on summer/winter and fade in/out with the season depending upon the hemisphere.
• Dres could have common Dresquakes from some unknown geological effect.
• Jool's Weather:
  • Thick, large, towering clouds of ammonium hydrosulfide, water, and ammonia ices. The temperate bands contain algae and other various forms of life.
  • An oxygenated atmosphere from said life.
  • Lighting can strike and temporarily remove control capability from probe cores or command pods.
  • Powerful winds can sweep craft off course.
  • A model of the interior oceans of gas giants, including the liquid hydrogen and helium, and metallic hydrogen oceans, as well as solid icy/silicate core. It would be nearly impossible to reach these regions with conventional technology.
• Jool's Radiation belts:
  • Can cause damage to Kerbals and spacecraft.
  • Particularly strong around Laythe, much less so out to Vall and Tylo.
• Laythe:
  • Thick cloud layers which obscure much (but not all) of the surface.
  • Hazy, foggy atmosphere.
  • Volcanoes
    • Lots of them, very often erupting.
  • Occasional hurricanes.
  • Hot springs, areas of water pools and lakes which are hot, some boiling.
  • Yellowstone-like color scheme.
  • Lots of radiation at the surface, from Jool's radiation belts.
  • Cold air, warm ground and oceans.
  • Laythequakes.
  • Very little life at the surface, but deeper down is an advanced and primordial ecosystem of fish and things.
  • Smaller, around the size of Duna.
• Vall:
  • Cryovolcanism, with jets of water ice that can push spacecraft around, potentially damaging fragile bits like solar panels and antennas.
  • Cryovolcanism can be sampled to return organic compounds and, if you're lucky and in the right place, actual living samples.
  • Vallquakes.
• Tylo:
  • Already fairly interesting for gameplay in terms of getting to and from the surface.
  • Thin atmosphere, useless for parachutes or wings or jets.
  • Smaller, around the size of Duna, but twice as dense (twice the gravity)
• Eeloo:
  • Minor cryovolcanism.

 

 

Or you know, just add some more planets anyway.

 

Can we just get this guy on the dev team....like....right now? Come on, we need your vision!

[Codraroll]

I'm all for the idea of persistent planetary bases. Not like assembling a craft in the VAB and moving it to another body, perhaps to connect it with something else there. More like having an actual KSC on other bodies. Permanent bases where you can recruit Kerbals, design and launch spacecraft, review contracts, and generally everything else the KSC has to offer. Such bases would bridge the tremendous interplanetary gulfs in the game for newer players, and also encourage them to actually head outside Kerbin's SOI. A well-functioning web of bases would be the late-game's reward.

Getting such bases up and running, however, would require some proficiency in the game's basics. I envision a "mission structure" similar to this:

1. Plant flag on planet (usually the last thing you do with a planet, this would be where the fun starts).
2. Contract: Orbital survey for possible base sites.
3. Contract: Low orbit survey of a dozen or so sites found during the last mission.
4. Pick your site for the new KSC.
5. Plant flag on site. Return with surface samples.
6. Perform experiments: Materials study, temperature, seismics, barometer, all that faff.
7. Bring some awfully heavy modules to the site.
8. When all modules are ready on site, the off-planet KSC is built. The other pieces of the craft you built to send the modules there are sold, as if retrieving them on Kerbin. Astronauts are moved to your new Astronaut Complex.

The off-planet KSC would function just like the ordinary one, with a small caveat: Launching ships from there is a lot more expensive, and it gets worse the further you get from Kerbin. Upgrading facilities would set you back seven or eight figures. Even filling a fuel tank in your Vall shipyard is more expensive than a full-fledged Mun mission rocket built on Kerbin. Perhaps you could do contracts or build additional buildings to lower the costs, but operating out of even the Mun would require a lot more Funds than from Kerbin. Then again, some planets could have an abundance of one resource or another, making it an attractive destination for a base, especially in modded games with lots of exotic resources.

In return, your extraplanetary Space Centers would make the Kerbol system a lot more accessible, and missions more convenient. With a permanent base on Laythe, a visit to the Joolian moons is a trivial matter, at least compared to sending ships from Kerbin all the time. Launching from the tight orbit of Moho, you get transfer windows to all the planets all the time. A newbie player dreading to take the step to Duna would have an easier time designing his ship and launching it from Minmus. After becoming familiar with Duna, the planet could be used as a stepping stone on the way to Dres. Or he could skip base building on Duna entirely, and establish one on Dres and use that as a starting point for future Duna and Jool missions.

Late-game, you would get missions to move stuff and tourists from base to base, which would allow for very varied mission profiles. Good luck moving a five-ton cargo container from Bop to Moho, or Gilly to Eeloo. Or even Eve to Tylo, should you for some reason decide to build bases on both of those worlds.

[KerikBalm]

1 hour ago, RatchetinSpace said:

Can we just get this guy on the dev team....like....right now? Come on, we need your vision!

No offense to Gregox, he was very nice and helpful with me when I wanted to learn to mod planets, but I don't like many of those ideas, or they aren't practical (axial tilt: most of us would like it, but you'd almost have to entirely rebuild the game engine to support axial tilt... its not going to happen in KSP - maybe KSP 2 if there is ever such a thing)

On 8/11/2016 at 9:12 AM, Pthigrivi said:

 

This is an interesting read. I didn't know quite where to put it but its food for thought on all this stuff. I still tend to think we're more on the lack-of-rewards end of the spectrum, but its worth considering what it is about a particular planetary enhancement that makes it worth striving for. Random failures aren't a great solution, neither really would be just making landings bumpier--I think we're fine there. The question for me has always been what reason do I have to get out and walk around or to bring a buggie to see over the next hill? Its extending that logistical challenge onto the surface and giving a reason for people to engage in it that would really bring these places alive.

http://www.pcgamer.com/what-no-mans-sky-could-learn-about-exploration-from-kerbal-space-program/

I think that article is pretty good. KSP has always been more about the journey than the destination. I spend most of my time designing craft for a specific journey - to reach a specific destination. That is where the fun lies, at least for me. Elite and NMS seem to indicate that you can have as much minign and refining as you want, if the journey is trivial, you have no real reason to make any of the journeys.

I have a few new suggestions to encourage travel around planetary surfaces, to incentive some journeys:

*   Shallow water and deep water situations for biomes: landing a submarine on another worl is a big challenge, a fun one

Spoiler

*   Science experiments that lead to an interesting engineering challenge, not just click when at a certain place.

-Seismic scan/crewreport while landed - you need to have travelled a certain distance over the surface to get the full amount of science. Touching down in one place without moving is penalized. Engineer a way to deploy a rover or make your lander surface mobile

-"Flyinglow" experiments: must remain in the "flying low"condition over a biome for X seconds and travel Y meters, or science rewards are penalized... just clicking while on a ballistic ascent, or a parachute descent won't get you full rewards, engineer a way to loiter over a biome with a plane.

-Similar stuff with boats for water, and subs (plus the addition of underwater science conditions to encourage sub deployment).

*   Life support: adds engineering challenges for long voyages, and opens up a purpose for establishing more elaborate surface bases (aside from land a surface lab to farm science)

*   Biome overlays visible from orbit so people can plan their journeys without going and looking on a wiki.

 

The problem is that after a while, the journey in KSP can become a bit trivial. Once you know what you are doing, Mun vs Dres vs Eeloo aren't so different.

*some* amount of reason to make a "surface" journey is nice. While landing on the Mun or Dres may become trivial, deploying a rover becomes more complicated. Other *surface* travel that is an interesting challenge: atmospheric flight (Laythe chiefly, eve and duna to a lesser extent). Travel on a liquid, travel under a liquid.

Broad characteristics like sufrace gravity and atmosphere change the design challenges and the way you make the journey. Eve is more interesting than Dres because the journey to Eve and back is more of a challenge - not because eve has lakes and dres doesn't. - same thing for Tylo vs Dres

So the game just needs a reason to make us undertake this "surface travel" to make the journey more interesting?

Why do you need a rover anyway? you can directly land at the bottom of the canyon of dres with either your lander or the kerbal's jetpack, Why does one need an aircraft for laythe/duna/eve? Is there any incentive at all to make a boat? a sub?

Right now for rovers, the best argument is driving around with a surface scanner to find ore (meh)  or to reposition modules for surface bases(why bother with a surface base?) or to cross 1 biome boundary, Maybe contracts that tell you to add on to surface bases (i think those exist). Also some contracts have you visit multiple locations close to each other that a rover would be well suited for. I guess some contracts may/could spawn for atmospheric flight on laythe/eve/duna s they do on Kerbin, but we shouldn't rely on contracts to provide incentives.

Lastly, in many ways, I feel ISRU has "ruined" the experience a bit for me. Before ISRU, every maneuver had a bit of tension. Fuel was limited and had to be carefuly budgeted on maneuvers. Now... I don't care as long as I can reach a stable orbit once I have ISRU setup nearby. Travelling starts to feet trivia, so l intentionalyl do missions without ISRU to make the journey difficult.

Some worlds should be devoid of useable ore. Knowing that you can find ore on any body with a solid surface makes the travel trivial.

[StanK]

I like the idea that the planets and moons should be different from each other. I would also like it if there's a reason to actually use rovers, or even planes on worlds with atmosphere.

Start with a lone materials bay sitting on the surface. It can be 'operated' remotely by a Kerbal (scientist).

Now imagine this thing was retextured/remodelled to look like a rock/special feature. And imagine it is not put there by you but generated. Now instead of scenic rocks, you have ones to interact with. Change the options to have something like 'observe rock' or 'take sample'

Generate them far enough apart and a rover/plane will be useful and it will be fun to drive around, searching for one of these features. Also put them mostly in some, but not other, biomes/worlds and you have the diversity. E.g. a moon crater may have enough 'rocks' to land next to, but for Duna a rover starts making sense, and for Eve a plane.

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

One way to make things a lot more interesting would be to give geologically active worlds some real mountains like these in North of KSC. They're fun to fly around, they could hide some sweet easter eggs and they would be dangerous to land to, forcing player to plot re-entry and landing to make sure craft doesn't slam in a mountain.

 

Edited August 19, 2016 by ImmaStegosaurus!

[tater]

Generally speaking landing should be harder everywhere.

[pandaman]

KSP, as a game, is about building and flying spacecraft.  What the planets and anomalies etc do is give us places to go, and therefore reasons to design and build craft to overcome the challenges of visiting these places.

It makes sense therefore that each planet and moon has a selection of 'places of interest' in different locations and situations.  For example the Monoliths on Kerbin and the Mun, some are in flat open spaces, while others are on mountain tops or deep valleys, so they offer different challenges to both locate and to visit them up close.

They could also have other functions in game, like contract objectives or science rewards, but in essence they are just things to find and see.  Exactly what form they take is largely irrelevant,  but a variety of different looking things is just more interesting.  Either natural 'geological' features (large and small) or artificial like the monuments or  monoliths.

So what I would like to see are more of this kind of thing in various different types of location on all bodies, to give not just more places to go, but more varied challenges too.

One thing I suggested a while back was for additional 'random' monoliths,  which could work, but I think a different look to them to distinguish them from the fixed ones would be sensible.

[panzer1b]

Personally id love to see a overhaul of the landscape.  I know this would kill save games (or at least those with bunkers and tanks on the ground). 

Id really like to see some unique and not as flat features especially on duna.  I dont know how accurate the images of marsian landscape are, but in at least a few you see ridges, mountains, steep valleys, ect, and not the overall fairly flat duna we have in game.  I dont know why stock duna annoys me that much but it is seriously lacking geological features imo.  Maybee i watched too much sci-fi movies/games, but on almost everywhere including suposedly real life photos of mars, the landscape is nothing from the featureless one we have in game that has at most some valleys and mountains but little actual detail on the smaller scale.

Aside from that i think im fairly happy with the stock system, kerbin is a very good mix of everything, mun is both plausible comparison to the mun and has alot of variety from the somewhat flat equator areas to the very bumpy and almost impossible to land on safely hilly terrain, and minmus while a bit flatter and more rounded then id personally like, is actually unique and does feature plenty of elevation changes.  Everything in the jool system is ok stock too, with pol being very uneven, bop being that lumpy thing it is, vall is decent with bumps and mountains everywhere, and tylo has enough unique featires too (although that is a pain to explore so i havent really seen much except from low orbit) and laythe has its islands with fairly flat landscape.

really the only thing id love to see is more small-scale details on all planets.  Things like sharp ridges, random dips, rocky formations, ect.  The base landscape is solid on every planet, but they seriously need more details on the small-scale after you land and start moving around.  That said, im not sure if this can be done without adding tons of polygons to the planets.  At the minimum though fix the easter eggs that have gone underground (or even worse are flying in mid air), and if you could add a few more so we have a few more unique locations to explore (and fortify against pirate attacks).

[Codraroll]

Something interesting could be done with the monoliths, at least.

You can see the first one from the Space Center. It's right in your field of vision. Players will notice it and seek it out. That is already a very good set-up for something more.

What if you could read inscriptions on monoliths, the same way you can read flag plaques? There could be text on the KSC Monolith, pointing to the location of another one. Reading the text would reward Science, Reputation and possibly Funds, and add a contract to seek out the next monolith. First ones on Kerbin, then on the Mun, Minmus, Duna and further out. The last one would point to the Kraken's location on Bop. Visit the Kraken to unlock the Kraken Drive, a mysterious and powerful engine capable of taking you practically wherever you want. The monolith questline requires you to master travel to and landing on every planet in the system, after all, so the Drive wouldn't be much of a game breaker.

This would add incentive to visit almost every body in the system, learn precision landing, and perhaps even use rovers to analyze monolith data. It would be a neat little questline to give players the extra push to go beyond Kerbin's SOI.

[tater]

The last thing we need are more, ugly monoliths. I'd dump any/all obviously constructed Easter eggs, frankly.

 

 

[Hodari]

1 hour ago, tater said:

The last thing we need are more, ugly monoliths. I'd dump any/all obviously constructed Easter eggs, frankly.

 

 

I'd say there's nothing wrong with having them, but fi they're going to have something that obviously constructed, it should come with some sort of backstory.  Who constructed them and why?  Was it some ancient pre-Kerbal civilization or even aliens?  What happened to them?  They don't even necessarily have to ANSWER all of these questions, but at least address them in some way.  This could even be the reason why the KSC was constructed where it was, in order to study the first monolith more closely, and then once they realized that there were more monoliths like it on other worlds, that could be one of the main motives for developing their own space program.

[tater]

I actually agree with you. Have them actually mean something, or dump them.

put a stargate or something like Pohl's Gateway in a retrograde, nearly polar orbit around Kerbol past Eeloo to discover.

[magnemoe]

Two things who is pretty opposite, first is to use the procedural terrain from Mun on other bodies. Might be filtered on biomes, Minmus flats should have few craters. Bodies with atmosphere also few but perhaps sand dunes, cracks in ice and similar. Second is noticable surface structures, Cliffs, holes and other who is not artifacts but natural and still weird. 
Plenty of this on earth, think tourist attraction.  
 This is an small island in Norway with an hole trough. 

[HoloYolo]

14 hours ago, Hodari said:

I'd say there's nothing wrong with having them, but fi they're going to have something that obviously constructed, it should come with some sort of backstory.  Who constructed them and why?  Was it some ancient pre-Kerbal civilization or even aliens?  What happened to them?  They don't even necessarily have to ANSWER all of these questions, but at least address them in some way.  This could even be the reason why the KSC was constructed where it was, in order to study the first monolith more closely, and then once they realized that there were more monoliths like it on other worlds, that could be one of the main motives for developing their own space program.

Spoiler

Just saying, if you know who NovaSilsko is, he planned to make a series of easter eggs that would lead up to the kerbal's home planet, which is a frozen desolate wasteland with frozen cities. Some easter eggs are still in the game, like SSTV pyramid (which doesn't play the SSTV anymore, and I don't know why), and others which I'm not aware of. The monoliths are just references to 2001 as far as I know.

 

[Rath]

On 7/22/2016 at 3:39 AM, GregroxMun said:

Just because some things are unrealistic doesn't mean everything should be. Having an object small enough to be in orbit around a gas giant (not another brown dwarf or a star) would by definition mean it is incapable of fusing hydrogen and helium in its core.

The thing about brown dwarfs being the size of Jupiter is that they may have Jupiter's radius (or even smaller), they most certainly do not have Jupiter's mass. In fact, all brown dwarfs and more massive gas giants will be as big or slightly smaller than Jupiter, because it just further compresses and compacts the gasses. In the case of a brown dwarf, it compresses it so much that the atoms begin to fuse deuterium in the core. Having a smaller object made of hydrogen and helum than a brown dwarf would absolutely mean at least a fifteenfold reduction in mass

As for making the system more interesting:

The above for visuals. As for gameplay mechanics, having clouds and weather would really improve the gameplay for atmospheric planets. Each planet could have a unique or semi-unique gameplay element.

• Axial tilt for all planets.
  • Moho: 0 degrees. (3/2 tidal lock)
  • Eve: 177 degrees.
  • Kerbin: 24 degrees.
  • Mun: 0 degrees
  • Minmus: 12.3 degrees
  • Duna: 18 degrees to ecliptic.
  • Ike: 0 degrees to orbit, 18 degrees to ecliptic. (1/1 tidal lock)
  • Dres: 4 degrees to orbit.
  • Jool: 3 degrees to orbit.
  • Jool's moons: Made to orbit around Jool's equator, zero axial tilt from equator.
  • Eeloo: 120 degrees to orbit.
• Moho could get its superheated atmosphere back.
• Eve's weather:
  • Clouds which never rain.
  • Clouds covering almost the entire planet, making solar panels much less effective.
  • Hotter and colder areas depending upon latitude.
  • Slow-ish winds that, due to the high atmospheric pressure, could knock over taller craft if they aren't strutted to the ground.
  • Hurricane-speed winds that appear only at certain regions of the planet that would spell out hell for any probe attempting to land or for any rocket attempting to launch.
  • Liquid gallium oceans, makes parts 50% as impact tolerant.
• Eve's rare active volcanoes that occasionally erupt and cause Evequakes and clouds of smoke and ash. These could rain down and coat solar panels.
• Kerbin could have weather cycles that we're familiar with, but with very calm weather near the KSC so that launches are never delayed.
  • Weather at the KSC as a difficulty mode.
  • Occasional 
  • High winds at most beaches.
  • Rain is common at sea.
  • Snow at the ice caps and tundras that would snow-over solar panels.
  • Fish and sea weed and coral and things as ground scatter in the oceans.
  • Seasonal variation of tree and ground textures. (Would require separate color maps for Kerbin that depend on Winter/Fall/SummerSpring that fade in and out with the season)
• Duna:
  • Local dust storms. Despite high wind speeds, the low pressure of the atmosphere means that you're not likely to be tipped over. However, your solar panels can get dusty, your wheels can become less efficient (requiring more power for the same torque), and landing gear might lock up.
  • Planet-wide dust storms. These happen only rarely, but last for several months when they do.
  • Very thin, wispy upper water-ice clouds.
  • Seasonal variation of ice cap coverage. (would require separate color maps for Duna that depend on summer/winter and fade in/out with the season depending upon the hemisphere.
• Dres could have common Dresquakes from some unknown geological effect.
• Jool's Weather:
  • Thick, large, towering clouds of ammonium hydrosulfide, water, and ammonia ices. The temperate bands contain algae and other various forms of life.
  • An oxygenated atmosphere from said life.
  • Lighting can strike and temporarily remove control capability from probe cores or command pods.
  • Powerful winds can sweep craft off course.
  • A model of the interior oceans of gas giants, including the liquid hydrogen and helium, and metallic hydrogen oceans, as well as solid icy/silicate core. It would be nearly impossible to reach these regions with conventional technology.
• Jool's Radiation belts:
  • Can cause damage to Kerbals and spacecraft.
  • Particularly strong around Laythe, much less so out to Vall and Tylo.
• Laythe:
  • Thick cloud layers which obscure much (but not all) of the surface.
  • Hazy, foggy atmosphere.
  • Volcanoes
    • Lots of them, very often erupting.
  • Occasional hurricanes.
  • Hot springs, areas of water pools and lakes which are hot, some boiling.
  • Yellowstone-like color scheme.
  • Lots of radiation at the surface, from Jool's radiation belts.
  • Cold air, warm ground and oceans.
  • Laythequakes.
  • Very little life at the surface, but deeper down is an advanced and primordial ecosystem of fish and things.
  • Smaller, around the size of Duna.
• Vall:
  • Cryovolcanism, with jets of water ice that can push spacecraft around, potentially damaging fragile bits like solar panels and antennas.
  • Cryovolcanism can be sampled to return organic compounds and, if you're lucky and in the right place, actual living samples.
  • Vallquakes.
• Tylo:
  • Already fairly interesting for gameplay in terms of getting to and from the surface.
  • Thin atmosphere, useless for parachutes or wings or jets.
  • Smaller, around the size of Duna, but twice as dense (twice the gravity)
• Eeloo:
  • Minor cryovolcanism.

 

 

Or you know, just add some more planets anyway.

 

I think that eeloo should have portions that are very icy and slippery.

[Wjolcz]

On 21/08/2016 at 2:53 PM, Hodari said:

I'd say there's nothing wrong with having them, but fi they're going to have something that obviously constructed, it should come with some sort of backstory.  Who constructed them and why?  Was it some ancient pre-Kerbal civilization or even aliens?  What happened to them?  They don't even necessarily have to ANSWER all of these questions, but at least address them in some way.  This could even be the reason why the KSC was constructed where it was, in order to study the first monolith more closely, and then once they realized that there were more monoliths like it on other worlds, that could be one of the main motives for developing their own space program.

 

On 21/08/2016 at 4:09 PM, tater said:

I actually agree with you. Have them actually mean something, or dump them.

put a stargate or something like Pohl's Gateway in a retrograde, nearly polar orbit around Kerbol past Eeloo to discover.

I agree. It's such a shame NovaSilisko stopped working with SQUAD. He had so many great ideas and planet concepts.

I also think we should think more in the micro scale instead of talking about higher mountains and deeper canyons:

IMO there should be a microscope part (much like the ones Curiosity rover has) that would be able to snap pictures of microscopic objects (sand grains, rocks and microbes). Each biome would have their own type of soil and its contents. I think such a discovery mechanic could give more meaning to rovers (and experiments themselves) and encourage the surface exploration.

Another idea would be to give simple minigames. If you've played Starbound you know there are fossils to be discovered everywhere around the universe. I think that a simple minigame similar to the one that accompanies the fossils' discovery would be pretty fun. For example heating the sample for certain amounts of time, or hitting it with different types of radiation. I'm not an expert, but I think this game could be a great teaching tool instead of being wacky in most aspects.

Don't know about others, but I find myself exploring caves just to find these and I have a lot of fun doing so.

[Tyko]

On 8/20/2016 at 7:54 AM, pandaman said:

KSP, as a game, is about building and flying spacecraft.  What the planets and anomalies etc do is give us places to go, and therefore reasons to design and build craft to overcome the challenges of visiting these places.

It makes sense therefore that each planet and moon has a selection of 'places of interest' in different locations and situations.  For example the Monoliths on Kerbin and the Mun, some are in flat open spaces, while others are on mountain tops or deep valleys, so they offer different challenges to both locate and to visit them up close.

They could also have other functions in game, like contract objectives or science rewards, but in essence they are just things to find and see.  Exactly what form they take is largely irrelevant,  but a variety of different looking things is just more interesting.  Either natural 'geological' features (large and small) or artificial like the monuments or  monoliths.

So what I would like to see are more of this kind of thing in various different types of location on all bodies, to give not just more places to go, but more varied challenges too.

One thing I suggested a while back was for additional 'random' monoliths,  which could work, but I think a different look to them to distinguish them from the fixed ones would be sensible.

I like this idea. I'd even suggest that monoliths be replaced with Points of Interest - Earth analogs would be: Old Faithful geyser, Grand Canyon, Great Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, Victoria Falls, Paracutin Volcano, Salt Flats...etc etc...

[Codraroll]

Shooting out more of my bad ideas in this thread, I'd like to see more extreme terrain features here or there. Not that there would necessarily have to be anything special about them, just more visual candy, like for instance:

Vertical cliffs, several hundred metres tall. Either surrounding mountains, or like giant ridges. Like one continent suddenly decided to be half a kilometer lower than its neighbour, transitioning abruptly.

Ginormous mountains towering over surrounding plains. Big enough to be major features even when seen from orbit. Either traditional, pyramid-like mountains like we know and love them from Earth, or something wilder, like huge pillars with flat tops, massive rocks like those found in the Nevada Desert, or arches several kilometres tall.

More abrupt terrain colour transitions. You could play a lot with terrain colours, especially in valleys or mountain sides. One layer of soil being a completely different colour from the others might not be realistic, but very pretty. Imagine moutains on worlds with black, white, brown and even orange layers stacked over another like some sort of fancy cake. I believe there are sand dunes or canyons on Earth where this is very well represented already.

Geological features and megastructures, like regions where all ridges run in the same direction, or something like the Richat Structure. Giant, dry rivers could be an option, especially on Duna where water clearly is present.

Fresh asteroid craters. "Fresh" as in "could have happened just weeks before the start of the game". Country-sized craters with ejecta lying over half the planet. Mountains stripped to the bedrock on one side from the blast wave. Deeper rock layers exposed in the centre of the crater. Perhaps even lakes of liquid.

Proper fjords, either on Kerbin, Eve or Laythe. Hundreds of meters deep, a couple hundred meters wide, and with mountains hundreds of meters tall on either side.

Volcanoes or craters on ice planets. Imagine walking over the frozen surface of Vall when a giant vista appears before you. The ice ends abruptly, with steep slopes going hundreds of meters down towards a giant lava lake, stretching from horizon to horizon. Along the rim of the lava lake, Vall's true, rocky surface is exposed, forming a narrow strip of beach between the glacial cliff and the fiery pit. Mission control asks you if you could get to that beach, for the Science return would be immense. Even if anything goes wrong, Kerblings all over the solar system would envy your death.

[W. Kerman]

Volcanoes.

[DaMachinator]

3 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Shooting out more of my bad ideas in this thread, I'd like to see more extreme terrain features here or there. Not that there would necessarily have to be anything special about them, just more visual candy, like for instance:

Vertical cliffs, several hundred metres tall. Either surrounding mountains, or like giant ridges. Like one continent suddenly decided to be half a kilometer lower than its neighbour, transitioning abruptly.

Ginormous mountains towering over surrounding plains. Big enough to be major features even when seen from orbit. Either traditional, pyramid-like mountains like we know and love them from Earth, or something wilder, like huge pillars with flat tops, massive rocks like those found in the Nevada Desert, or arches several kilometres tall.

More abrupt terrain colour transitions. You could play a lot with terrain colours, especially in valleys or mountain sides. One layer of soil being a completely different colour from the others might not be realistic, but very pretty. Imagine moutains on worlds with black, white, brown and even orange layers stacked over another like some sort of fancy cake. I believe there are sand dunes or canyons on Earth where this is very well represented already.

Geological features and megastructures, like regions where all ridges run in the same direction, or something like the Richat Structure. Giant, dry rivers could be an option, especially on Duna where water clearly is present.

Fresh asteroid craters. "Fresh" as in "could have happened just weeks before the start of the game". Country-sized craters with ejecta lying over half the planet. Mountains stripped to the bedrock on one side from the blast wave. Deeper rock layers exposed in the centre of the crater. Perhaps even lakes of liquid.

Proper fjords, either on Kerbin, Eve or Laythe. Hundreds of meters deep, a couple hundred meters wide, and with mountains hundreds of meters tall on either side.

Volcanoes or craters on ice planets. Imagine walking over the frozen surface of Vall when a giant vista appears before you. The ice ends abruptly, with steep slopes going hundreds of meters down towards a giant lava lake, stretching from horizon to horizon. Along the rim of the lava lake, Vall's true, rocky surface is exposed, forming a narrow strip of beach between the glacial cliff and the fiery pit. Mission control asks you if you could get to that beach, for the Science return would be immense. Even if anything goes wrong, Kerblings all over the solar system would envy your death.

Vertical features could be cool, but the textures get stretched and look like crap unless you do something like actually map and texture every mountain.