Stock Planets terrain physical revamp

[Sirius K]

This Idea came up to me when I was searching a location on Duna for Upsilon. Every Celestial body in game lacks smaller details, and so I want to suggest some terrain features that should be added in. I might also attempt on history of the Kerbol System.

1. Ejectas and Ejecta Blankets

When an object massive enough hits another object with enough force, it creates a shockwave that spreads out from the impact. The object breaks and excavates into the ground and rock, at the same time spraying material known as impact ejecta. This ejecta is distributed outward from the crater's rim onto the surface as debris; it can be loose material or a blanket of debris, which thins at the outermost regions.

If enough ejecta are deposited around an impact crater, it can form an ejecta blanket; this blanket is full of dust and debris that originated from the initial impact.(obviously copy and pasted from wiki)

In KSP, ejectas only exist on Dres as Impact Ejecta biome, but you can't even see the Ejecta. And the celestial body that has the most unnamed craters, the Mun, has no ejecta at all. 

 

2. More Craters
KSP celestial bodies have very few craters. Especially Ike which is a body near the size on The Mun orbiting around Duna, that somehow has less craters than it's parent body Duna. Maybe add more unnamed and shallower craters like the ones on The Mun (which also doesn't have a special crater biome) on to vacuum bodies and atmosphere thin bodies (Moho, Minmus, Duna, Ike, Dres, Vall, Tylo, and maybe Eeloo as well) Asteroids with SOI should have some craters too. And sometimes geological activities can't erase every crater. Unless the Celestial body can continuously pump out materials to cover every surface like Io, craters will most likely exist on the surface of the celestial body.

 

3. Volcanism and Cryovolcanism
Giant mountains that spew out Ice or Magma, and even if the celestial body is dead, past volcanic features can still be found (stuff like chasms, ancient lava flows, volcanic pancakes on Venus, flat basins, canali etc).  On Kerbin and Laythe, there could be more Archipelago and chain islands where tectonics moves geological hot spots forming multiple islands on each eruptions. On Eve and Duna, lines of once flowing lava, with Mons upward several kilometers. Same thing on the Mun, Pol and Moho. Ike looks like it has an overflow of lava creating the giant dark spot the kerbals recognize on Ike. On Vall, Minmus and Eeloo, mountain ranges forming from the materials spew out by cryovolcanoes, along with flatter terrains.

 

4. Liquid erosion
Duna has a biome named Midland seas, with several canyons connected to it. The surfaces of these canyons and midland sea are quite flat, suggesting that water might have flowed on Duna, which might have retreated to the poles. If this is true, then Duna needs more canyons, small canyons that are the remnants of liquid water flowing from the highlands to the seas. Fans of sediments where once liquid water carrying soil reaches the seas. Traces of hydration when the Dunan summer temperatures reaches above freezing point, where water from crater and chasms edge drop down to lower elevations. Sharp edges on Canyon walls like the ones on Valles Marineris on Mars. Join with Volcanism will make Duna extremely detailed. The same thing can be said for Eve, but with eroded lands where acid rains down from the clouds in the dense atmosphere of Eve.

 

5. Expansion and Shrinking 
It is said that Mun has Munquakes when using seismic experiment, as such we should be able to see some features of the celestial body shrinking (just like how moonquakes happen). Fault lines can be added as a separate biome where it will yield extra science point by seismic experiment. Expansion on a celestial body's surface can cause canyons (probably why Dres and Eeloo has canyon).

 

6. Mantle Convection
Convection of underground oceans like on Vall (possible proof being interior shifting, detected using Gravioli) could form cellular terrain like the ones on Pluto's Sputnik Planitia. Terrain like Chaos where fractured Ice on the boundary between Midlands and Lowlands. Such terrain could also be added to Eeloo, which the age of the it's surface is unknown (probably very young due to the lack of craters). 

 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Sirius K