What's your favourite celestial body?

[Max von Kerman]

All of us love ksp planets, but which one is your favourite?

Edited April 20, 2021 by Max von Kerman

[The Aziz]

I think I spent enough time on Moho to say it's my fav. Long days, gravity strong enough to keep rovers on the ground, plenty of ore, relatively cheap to land/return to orbit. The only bad thing is the amount of fuel needed to get there and back, but hey, moar boosters. Putting an ISRU required a fun sized rocket. Fun means nearly the size of the VAB. And still had to be refueled in orbit, as the lifter also was my transfer stage. Fun!

Eve is fun on the surface and in the air (electric helicopters ftw!) But getting out of there.. my crew is stuck. And last time i tried sending a return rocket there, it blew up on reentry.

Gilly is way too small for any surface activities and is on such weird orbit that hitting it is hard, and not very worth the effort.

Kerbin is a planet I want to leave, why would I like it? Sure it's pretty with its mountains and valleys but that's about it.

I hate the Mun. Only good thing about it are Kerbinrises.

Minmus is fine and minty. Some use it as refueling outpost for interplanetary missions but I find that's again not worth it. I mean sure it's cheaper, but too much work.

Duna is cool, some people say it's boring, but I say they haven't found interesting places yet. Polar caps are particularly interesting.

Ike gives a nice view at Duna and likes to interfere with ship orbits. Cool.

Dres just kinda is there. Grey and alone. The famous canyon wasn't as interesting as some say.

Jool is big and green, and you know who I'm talking about here. SOI is huge, if you set up your alarm clock for encounter, you still have at least 40 days before you get close to anything. But at least you just can't miss it.

Laythe became much more interesting once I landed on it. The islands are actually huge and the sight of Jool through the blue atmosphere is breathtaking.

Bop somehow feels like it's always uphill. No matter where you land.

Vall probably would be my second fav, nice gravity, nice views, nice location, if I ever landed on it. My last (and only) attempt ended up with smashing into the ground at 70m/s.

Tylo exists only for gravity assists. Jool capture without using a single drop of fuel? Count me in. And it's too big to do anything else.

Pol is creepy.

And Eeloo just kinda is there. There's nothing interesting on it, is there? Two funny mentions though, it needs nearly identical lander as one you'd use on Moho. Except with rtg, not solar panels. And once I accidentally flew by Jool on my way to Eeloo.

[Curveball Anders]

It's name is Dres.

[Guest]

How are you defining “favourite”?

Favourite to visit = Minmus

Favourite to look at = Duna

Favourite to drive rover on = Kerbin

Favourite to view from another body= A tie between Duna from Ike and Jool from Laythe

Favourite Easter egg location = Mun (Armstrong Monument)

Favourite coloured = Duna

Favourite name = Eve

Favourite science gathering location = Minmus

Favourite moon = Ike

Favourite star = the Sun

Favourite canyon location = Mun

Favourite hole = Moho 

Favourite captured asteroid = Gilly

Favourite icy planet = Eeloo

Favourite moon most like Kerbin but not Kerbin = Laythe

Favourite planet starting with d and ending with s = Dres

Favourite challenging landing = Tylo

Favourite 3 lettered moon which is also a captured asteroid = tie between pol and bop

Favourite moon that sounds like the name of one of the main Kerbals = Vall

Favourite (real favourite) = Sarnus

 

[Dientus]

I agree, it depends on what you mean by favorite. Duna is one of the most visited in my games because it's a central fueling and colony station. Laythe is a bit like a favorite tourist spot because of the views.

[Wizard Kerbal]

You can’t not like Ike!

Ooh, but I have Tereshkova station on an asteroid as well-

Edited April 20, 2021 by Wizard Kerbal

[Guest The Doodling Astronaut2]

I'm gonna go say Moho, its the one i'm most excited to visit when I do. Its a hard choice though, I like a lot of the destinations in the game.

[king of nowhere]

i vote duna because without it, all my kerbalism grand tours could not exhist.

it doesn't help that the kerbalism isru practically forces you to refuel at duna and nowhere else.

anyway, pros and cons

Moho

very expensive to reach, dull surface, not useful for anything. The gravity is good but the surface is too bumpy to drive a rover comfortably, a major sin in my book. Bad planet

Eve

Extremely hard to leave, but that's enough to make it a special challenge. it has some nice panoramas, and some great mountains. good for planes. great for gravity assists. Mostly good planet, though grand tours require a special lander just for it.

Gilly

it has some of the most beautiful scenery in the kerbol system. Most importantly, it is the only location in the inner system where it's remotely practical to refuel. Very cheap to visit. Great planet.

Kerbin

it's your home and starting point. for this reason, it's my least visited planet. One day I would like to make a special rover that goes uphill and explore the mountains. But i find rovers that can't take off and change planet on their own power to be boring. Neutral planet

Mun

You can get gravity assists on your way out of kerbin, and it's a great place to drive a rover. Minmus is a better refueling station, but it's easier to leave from mun. Like it!

Minmus

Great place for refueling, thanks to flat surfaces and low gravity. I stopped doing it because it was too easy. Anyway, good

Duna

It's the only planet where you can aerobrake a massive ship that's not specifically built for it. leaving it is also fairly cheap. This makes it a perfect stop in some transfers, where you can aerobrake at duna as an intermediate step to lose/gain some orbital energy. I found that for several destinations, especially with low twr, going to duna and then to the other place is cheaper than going to the other place immediately.

Nice place for a rover, the atmosphere is thin enough that it won't be a great obstacle but it allows to aerobrake and use parachutes, orbiting it is cheap enough that you can mine it, it has good features, it's still warm enough that solar panels are effective.

It gets even better with kerbalism, because

- it's the only planet with a CO2 atmosphere that you can use for fuel without spending crazy energy (and by crazy I mean, you need tens of millions of electric charge to get a single unit of fuel)

- it's one of the few planets to reliably have water on it

- it's one of the even fewer planets to reliably have nitrogen on it. It's basically the only planet where isru is remotely practical

- it's in an intermediate enough place that you can refuel at duna and still reach every other planet

- it has a magnetosphere to protect from radiations, but no radiation belts to provide additional hazards

Best! Planet! Ever!!!!!!!!!

Ike

It's good to provide gravity assists on your way out of Duna, or to park there to get an extra kick when leaving duna. aside from that convenience, it's not interesting. good

Dres

I was even forgetting it. Completely useless. bad for rovers. the canyon is not a big deal. Bad.

Jool

the best scenery of the game is there. i would not count as a planet, though, as you can't land on it. it's more like its own mini system

Laythe

Beautiful, great for plane exploration. Good for gravity assists. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is unsuitable for aerobraking. Anyway, good

Vall

One of the most beautiful places to drive around. Cryovolcanoes rock! And it has real mountains. Good planet

Tylo

Good for gravity assists on the way in and out. Not much else to recommend. Very expensive to visit. If I have a restricted policy about isru, it requires its own special staged lander. Mixed opinions.

Bop

Ugly, and totally unsuitable for rovers. Bad

Pol

Beautiful, and a good place to refuel. Good

Eeloo

Very hard to reach and nothing to do once there, but I like it nonetheless.

[Single stage to ocean]

Unpopular opinion but I pick eve since it is A. It is pretty. B. It's hard to get off it so I feel proud.

[Jack Mcslay]

On 4/20/2021 at 6:28 AM, The Aziz said:

Minmus is fine and minty. Some use it as refueling outpost for interplanetary missions but I find that's again not worth it. I mean sure it's cheaper, but too much work.

Minmus refueling is my bread and butter. So easy to get off you can save a considerable amount of fuel by driving to a considerable speed on the great flats before taking off and deliver several tons of fuel to a space station in it's orbit, plus it has a pretty decent amount of science to suplly labs with. And with it I can maintain a number of asteroid catchers around that I can also use for recovering parts and rescue missions, such that I don't even need to launch new spacecraft to rescue kerbals anymore, I can just grab their pods with one of my asteroid catchers, the smaller ones having about 4000dV each making them suitable even for some interplanetary rescue missions

[shimmy00]

In the stock program? I'd have to say Eve and Dres, Dres probably more than Eve.

I remember that I originally wanted to explore the Kerbol system going in and then out again, and Eve was my first interplanetary target yet I could not get a ship to come off there. So I gave up at it for a while. during which I'd try other things, and discover mods - which led to me saying goodbye to stock KSP for good But as I was doing that, I saw one of those funny loading hints say "Never Visiting Dres..." and I thought, "why?!"

Ship sent.

Dres is very Mun-like but it has a different feel to it that I find I like better. The lighting is more subdued, the terrain is hillier. I just tend to like it overall better than the Mun. That said, it requires a fair bit of delta-vee to intercept and stop there, and haven't tried to see what a mission using solely chemical rockets would take, esp. given I overbuild my landers most times.

Eve is beautiful though; with some very breathtaking views and a lovely purple color. However, you need a hell of a big ship to get off - when I finally got back to trying to crack it, I managed it with a 140 tonne lander. Again, I admittedly overbuilt it, and have studied others' designs and realize if you just want to "get off Eve" you can go much lighter esp. if you give up on wanting the launch capsule to be able to navigate back to the mothership (i.e. have the mothership come to you instead), and launch from a high spot. But I wanted to make a craft that I could confidently say I could set down at any place, take off, and maneuver back to the return vessel, esp. given how tricky it is to plot an accurate landing when descending through atmosphere due to the aerobraking, and I built it with 8000 meters in the ascent stages and used a monoprop tank to do the rendezvous and docking maneuvers.

Edited April 24, 2021 by shimmy00

[Francois424]

Took me a lot longer to answer.  Went for Duna.

As a rover lover, Duna is one of the best planet/moon to operate on.  It's relatively forgiving, and relatively mild for terrain height changes.
Close contender was Mun, Laythe, Pol and Vall.  Minmus is cool too, but it's up to a point where I'm kinda sick of it, you know?

If you design a good solar boatplane (with sturdy/stable landing wheels for ground landing), Eve is one hell of a place too.  Nothing like flying 100-300 meters above the surface at 50-70m/s and being able to land everywhere... Throw in some RTGs for night refueling when landed, and you're golden.
Eve is just too large tho.  Even at 70m/s it'll take MANY hours to get all the biomes... But I intend to do it eventually.

Eeloo is just annoying to get to, and even more annoying to send supplies to.
Dres does not have many interesting features (much like Tylo, Bop, Moho, and Ike), making them boring in that regards.  Kerbin is large but has very different terrains if you go for say, a circonference flight/rover expedition. And you have to plan for water.  But the named 5 destinations? merp.

Honesly, KSP is really missing a Titan analogue, tho you might argue that is Laythe.  But imagine a 120km atmo, which is 3x as Thick as Kerban, but the gravity is half-way between Mun and Minmus, and would have ocean of hydrocarbons to float on.  AND throw in Gas Giant #2 with large rings (like Sarnus in OPM)... That would perhaps be my new favorite destination.

Anyways, nice Thread !

[Max von Kerman]

Duna & laythe in the lead now!

[ILikeMods]

Going to say Laythe, especially with graphics mods such as Scatterer or Eve

Try having boats and seaplanes on the surface, nothing but the open sea and sky.|
Try a Laythe sunset, with Jool hanging low in the skies, it's bottom half hidden in the endless sea as the setting sun casts a golden color on the water.
Try soaring in the atmosphere with a plane, darting in and out of the clouds, keeping your eye out for the next island.
Try waiting for night, then look up into the sky. Try to find all the other moons!

Or even just hang in orbit, watching the Aurora Borealis as you pass by.

It's clear I love Laythe, and I hope I made it obvious why! it's near-unbeatable in the sheer beauty of the world. Kerbin may come close, but you can't witness a Jool-rise or Jool-set on Kerbin, and something about the distance of Laythe from Kerbin just makes it feel much more rewarding.

Also, it gets to around 80 degrees fahrenheit at the equator. Try and tell me that Laythe doesn't sound like a good vacation spot.