Individual Planets' Soundtracks

[RoninFrog]

When I launched my first rocket the first time I opened the game, I was startled to hear the "space music" suddenly start to play while I was burning for orbit.  At first I thought the whining noise meant something was wrong with the engine.  Then I recognized the noise as a violin!  It was music!  I was fascinated.  For the next few weeks, I derped around in space near Kerbin and landed and returned from the Mun, and then I thought, "I wanna go to Duna!"  As I approached the edge of Duna's atmosphere, I waited for that sudden cut in the music when the craft hits the air.  But the music kept right on playing into the reentry flames.  It was kind of disappointing, really.    I was expecting the music to stop or change or something. 

So that gave me the idea, what if each planet had its own set of music soundtracks?  For example, what if as soon as a lander touches down on Eeloo, "Let it Snow" or some other Christmas music started playing?  What if, as soon as you enter Eve's atmosphere, some soothing string instruments and violins started playing to calm down your nerves as you watch your ship tumble and explode? 

[Chequers]

I can totally relate to this. 

After the roar of engines, the sweat-dripping, clammy-hand procession towards space... when the engine cuts and you coast through 70k... and then the music starts. It's a really special moment that first time, that I think most KSP players can relate to. Not a fanfare, or proclamation - just a perfect soundtrack to match the mystery of the universe.

There's is something immensely soothing about watching your tiny vessel, in the vastness of space, at the whim of some celestial body's gravitational coaxing, while the KSP soundtrack plays. It's marvellous. I recently managed to complete my first interplanetary mission (a flyby of Eve). After arriving, I spent a good 20 minutes simply watching my probe drift with the beautiful backdrop of that purple jewel, and the soundtrack swelling as a perfect accompaniment.

It would be great to hear more of that - as you say - for each planet. The first time you hear it would be a little reminder that you've done something you've never done before. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Chequers

[peteletroll]

This is close...

 

[steuben]

I've ranted about this before. A proper and well done soundtrack can be a series of Take! My! Money!

But, given the amount of time we'd end up spending in and around a given planet any piece of music can wear regardless of how awesome it maybe. It might be a better idea to run in the direction of procedural music generation... and carve a CD from that for the merch opportunities.

[Michel Bartolone]

Or just build in the functionality of the Sound Track editor mod...simple directory structure, one for each situation so you'd have a tree that starts with (just an example) surface -> kerbin -> ksc   and surface -> eloo -> flying etc. and we can drop whatever we want in those places (or use symlinks to save space on the drive).

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

I like Soundtrack Editor and the ability to add more music to the game as the stock music can get a bit samey after a while (and even the music that comes with Soundtrack Editor got a bit samey for me so I added even more). The ability to add your own music as a stock feature of KSP2 would be great, but I don't think Soundtrack Editor is going to be updated to allow music for an individual planet.

The ability to choose music for each individual planet would be nice and I've already started working on matching each planet to one of Holst's Planets as there are seven Planets and seven planets in the Kerbol system plus most/all of those planets have obvious Solar system analogies. My current list looks a bit like this:

• Moho- Mercury, obviously;
• Eve- Uranus- NOT Venus; Uranus is big and brash and loud which suits Eve much better, plus-
• Kerbin- Venus, because it's calm and tranquil (and also because there's no Earth in the Planets so I had to improvise a bit);
• Duna- Mars;
• Dres- Saturn (the 'Bringer of Old Age' for the planet forever waiting for a visitor );
• Jool- Jupiter for obvious reasons;
• Eeloo- Neptune, because they're both the furthest planet (no Pluto in the Planets either as it hadn't been discovered at the time!)

I'm still working on what to add for the various moons, so far all I have are Clair de Lune, the Moonlight Sonata and 'Ticket to the Moon'...

[Goaty1208]

When I launch my giant Saturn V (from making history) with onboard some crazy machinery I always have problems to get in LKO.

When I hear that the music stops I always get nervous because I know how the mission will end.

Kerbals parachuting away.

[SchwinnTropius]

I second individual planetary soundtracks. For planets with moons, each soundtrack can vary a bit from a common melody depending on the moon being orbited. As an example, around Kerbin the music could be generally calm and tranquil, but around Mun the same melody could shift tones to something like calm anticipation or pondering with a little more bass than Kerbin's melody; Minmus can get a more fun, winter wonderland-like version of Kerbin's melody. Jool would basically get quite the soundtrack in itself with each moon getting its own variant of a melody suitable for the jolly green giant and its moons.

I'm not musically inclined, I just know how things sound to me; I hope this makes sense.

[jimmymcgoochie]

5 hours ago, Goaty1208 said:

When I launch my giant Saturn V (from making history) with onboard some crazy machinery I always have problems to get in LKO.

When I hear that the music stops I always get nervous because I know how the mission will end.

Kerbals parachuting away.

Either your launch profile isn't particularly good, in which case there are some mods that can help e.g. Gravity Turn, or else your payload is too heavy, in which case MOAR BOOSTERS!!!

[Lewie]

Yes! I hope this will be in ksp2