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Should all planet locations be known from the start?


mcwaffles2003

Should new systems be hidden at the start of a campaign?  

63 members have voted

  1. 1. Should new systems be hidden at the start of a campaign?

    • Yes
      17
    • No
      5
    • Only the planets of the new systems, the stars should not be hidden.
      41
  2. 2. Should some planets in the Kerbolar system be hidden at the game start?

    • Yes
      13
    • No
      29
    • Only new planets if they exist
      21


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I just wanted to see where everyone sits on this topic. In KSP 1, if you go to the tracking station at the start of the game, you are able to see the location of all the planets with their orbits and current position. Should this trend continue into KSP 2?

Feel free to explain your answer or give nuance. If this is something you would like added to the game maybe talk about how you would like these stars or planets to be revealed as the game progresses.

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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I want it the way it's going to be implemented. Base system visible from the start (I mean, come on, we knew all our planets long before the space age), maybe with not very detailed surfaces. But everything beyond needs to be discovered. You should see neighbouring stars, and maybe learn about the existence of planets if you look through the telescope long enough, but to get more info you have to actually go there.

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8 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

But everything beyond needs to be discovered. You should see neighbouring stars, and maybe learn about the existence of planets if you look through the telescope long enough, but to get more info you have to actually go there.

I'm confused, what "everything beyond" and "more info" are you talking about since you replied no to both?

 

Also, we're not sure we have discovered all the planets yet, haven't there been speculations about "planet 9" for several years now? I'm personally not convinced it exists but we can't say we've discovered every planet for certain. They probably thought they knew all of the planets in 1840 too, then they found Neptune.

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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What if the planets in other systems are known once you get somewhere in the tech tree, (analogous to other programs discovering them), but some can only be found in person, we can’t see everything through a telescope. :D The small easy to land on planets, compared to Ovin (Tylo 2.0), or the gas giants, will be harder to spot. 
The only problem with this is that you are always 1 google search away from discovering all the info you need (except if you play it on release that is), but I agree this would be cool. :D 

Edited by Hyperspace Industries
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2 minutes ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

What if the planets in other systems are known once you get somewhere in the tech tree

This is why I specify "at the start" as well as say:

32 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

If this is something you would like added to the game maybe talk about how you would like these stars or planets to be revealed as the game progresses.

 

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13 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Also, we're not sure we have discovered all the planets yet, haven't there been speculations about "planet 9" for several years now? I'm personally not convinced it exists but we can't say we've discovered every planet for certain. They probably thought they knew all of the planets in 1840 too, then they found Neptune.

good point. The original, scrapped plot of ksp1 had a small planet very far from the sun that wasn't visible at first. having some very remote planet be hidden would make sense. but all the other planets should start visible

5 minutes ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

What if the planets in other systems are known once you get somewhere in the tech tree, (analogous to other programs discovering them), but some can only be found in person, we can’t see everything through a telescope. :D

in real life we discovered those with telescopes, so it could be a science experiment. just like we have the infrared telescope detecting asteroid and comets, we could have the occultation telescope that would reveal exoplanets.

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39 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I'm confused, what "everything beyond" and "more info" are you talking about since you replied no to both?

 

Also, we're not sure we have discovered all the planets yet, haven't there been speculations about "planet 9" for several years now? I'm personally not convinced it exists but we can't say we've discovered every planet for certain. They probably thought they knew all of the planets in 1840 too, then they found Neptune.

Have I? I must've misread the question then, oops. 

Beyond means outside the base system, and more info means literally everything more than "it's round and brown". Atmospheric composition, rocky or gas planet, rings, surface features etc.

I want discoveries to be a part of this game and that's it.

Now about planet 9 which is Pluto haven't there be more news about scientists not being so sure that there should be one? But that goes offtopic so I'm stopping here.

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1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

in real life we discovered those with telescopes, so it could be a science experiment. just like we have the infrared telescope detecting asteroid and comets, we could have the occultation telescope that would reveal exoplanets.

This goes along with my hopes that telescopes be incorporated into the game and how I would hope system/planet/orbit discoveries would unfold

 

59 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Have I? I must've misread the question then, oops.

You did :P all good.

59 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Beyond means outside the base system, and more info means literally everything more than "it's round and brown". Atmospheric composition, rocky or gas planet, rings, surface features etc.

I want discoveries to be a part of this game and that's it.

So do you mean that we should know the location and orbits of these systems and planets but not their characteristics?

59 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Now about planet 9 which is Pluto haven't there be more news about scientists not being so sure that there should be one? But that goes offtopic so I'm stopping here.

The evidence that brought it into question was found to contain "observational bias" and original purpose to believe in it's existence is waining

Spoiler

 

 

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No point hiding the existing (and unchanged) Kerbol system, stars are easy to see but planets etc. around them are not- spotting a planet transiting across even a fairly nearby star is like spotting a grain of sand moving in front of a car headlight from miles away, and that assumes they line up perfectly so we can see them. Detecting exoplanets should take quite a bit of effort, probably some dedicated space telescope type thing and a sufficiently long time that you can build up the infrastructure and technology to actually go there once they’re detected.

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1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

So do you mean that we should know the location and orbits of these systems and planets but not their characteristics?

One step at a time: You are on Kerbin. Or you sent a telescope into space for better results. You find a star (or just point the telescope at it if you know where it is) and you learn that there are some planets, found with transit methods or whatever. (I don't think we would actually do anything aside from clicking "search" on a telescope) Only then you know their orbits, masses, possibly composition based on the data from discovery (the same way as we can determine whether an exoplanet is rocky or it's a gas giant, its orbital period etc). But that's probably all you can know without leaving the solar system.

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10 hours ago, The Aziz said:

One step at a time: You are on Kerbin. Or you sent a telescope into space for better results. You find a star (or just point the telescope at it if you know where it is) and you learn that there are some planets, found with transit methods or whatever. (I don't think we would actually do anything aside from clicking "search" on a telescope) Only then you know their orbits, masses, possibly composition based on the data from discovery (the same way as we can determine whether an exoplanet is rocky or it's a gas giant, its orbital period etc). But that's probably all you can know without leaving the solar system.

I'm very down for the telescope angle and hope they get added in. Especially seeing as telescopes conduct the most famous science experiments based in space.

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On 9/7/2021 at 7:36 AM, Hyperspace Industries said:

The only problem with this is that you are always 1 google search away from discovering all the info you need (except if you play it on release that is), but I agree this would be cool. :D 

If the orbits and location are hidden in the tracking station it's still very difficult to get to them

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The idea of spoilers in a game like KSP seems misplaced. Besides, I agree with the point made that in the modern world of videogames, people can almost always find any "secret" info just by looking for it in a wiki somewhere.

The only way this would work is if they implemented randomized systems. Then there would be no way to look them up outside of the game.

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4 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

The idea of spoilers in a game like KSP seems misplaced. Besides, I agree with the point made that in the modern world of videogames, people can almost always find any "secret" info just by looking for it in a wiki somewhere.

The only way this would work is if they implemented randomized systems. Then there would be no way to look them up outside of the game.

Have you ever played research bodies? Without  having the orbit info, rendezvous with an untracked planet is wayyy harder.

Sure, you can discover planets by going online but they won't be in your games UI for you to interact with yet.

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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Initially hiding the extrasolar planets could be fun, if there is a good mechanism in the game to discover them. 

I don't find Research Bodies' mechanism to be fun, myself, with the manual pointing and repeated clicking.  KSP1's Sentinel Telescope has a nicer mechanism, and it could fit KSP very well if the telescope found those asteroids and planets that were sufficiently lit by the sun or local star (youtube link).   Then we might send telescopes to orbit the other stars to find their planets, and it might be challenging to pick an efficient orbit and guess the right inclination.

For scanning surfaces, the mod ScanSat fits very well into KSP, as it maps the surface depending on the orbit we choose for the scanner.  The information it provides is potentially found on the internet, but ScanSat makes those maps useful in-game so there is plenty of motivation to plan the satellite scanning missions.

There is not much randomization in KSP1, and that fact allows more shared experience, challenges, mission reports, taking inspiration from others' youtube videos, etc.   I suspect we don't need the parts that are random. Distribution of ore varies from game to game, for example.  ScanSat mapping Eve to pick a good location for a base, was more fun than trying to line up maps found online with my view in the game would have been.    But then, sharing a solution that works for my game led to the obvious question "what if there's no ore there?" so the solution is less shareable in KSP1.

Edited by OHara
link to Scott Manley's animation of found bodies
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7 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Have you ever played research bodies?

Yes. I was among the first who tried it when the mod was brand new. It was an interesting idea that didn't quite work because I already knew everything about the planets and their moons that I had to "discover". So it ended feeling more like self-inflicted grinding that one had to go through rather than discovery of something new.

 

Edited by mikegarrison
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5 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Yes. I was among the first who tried it when the mod was brand new. It was an interesting idea that didn't quite work because I already knew everything about the planets and their moons that I had to "discover". So it ended feeling more like self-inflicted grinding that one had to go through rather than discovery of something new.

 

I'm not for implementing research bodies only as it is since I agree it JUST added grind. But with complimentary mechanics added along the discovery side (which research bodies lacked in) I believe it could be a fun progression mechanism.

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Guest The Doodling Astronaut

I made a post like this a while back (on ye old account). I can't find it, but @Nate Simpson(and correct me if I am wrong,) confirmed that planets would require telescopes but you would know the star systems.

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On 9/9/2021 at 11:15 PM, The Doodling Astronaut said:

I made a post like this a while back (on ye old account). I can't find it, but @Nate Simpson(and correct me if I am wrong,) confirmed that planets would require telescopes but you would know the star systems.

I'd be ecstatic to hear about that but so far I've seen nothing solid about telescopes being in the game, or even mentioned by any of the staff for that matter.

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On 9/7/2021 at 7:28 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

They probably thought they knew all of the planets in 1840 too, then they found Neptune.

To be fair, 1840 was over a century before the space age :)

I think the entire home system should be known, though I'd love to have to discover the surfaces of the planets. I mean, there were still people who thought there were canals on Mars before probes reached it, and it's our closest neighbor whose surface we can see. Similarly, Mercury was thought to have 1:1 resonance between its orbit and rotation until about the same time, though that was proven without needing to send probes.

I think it's totally reasonable that we get ridiculously bad maps of local system bodies to start (with an option to turn that off because I don't know if my 84th career will really require that mystery) and star-only data for other systems, perhaps even with some stars "hidden" in that we either can't see them or don't know they're significant compared to all the other stars that are assumed to be around but we can't visit.

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4 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I'd be ecstatic to hear about that but so far I've seen nothing solid about telescopes being in the game, or even mentioned by any of the staff for that matter.

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/198386-would-this-make-sense-hiding-systems-in-progression/&do=findComment&comment=3888476

 

 

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I would say launching and positioning space based telescopes in specific orbits sounds fun (this is why I was asking about simulated lagrange points) but I dont think I need a minigame where I need to look through it. It might be okay to set it to lock on to a star I was interested in and unlock associated planets over time. Even this information should be very sparse—mass, orbit, maybe scant information on whether it had an atmosphere or not. 
 

As far as spoilers and wikis go I think the truly new stuff is only going to be an experience at launch. Once people have have discovered these places and documented them the information is going to be out there. If you want to have that spoiler-free experience a year later you’re just going to have to be disciplined enough not to look it up. Id rather see the extrasolar systems curated for composition and orbits and relative position to kerbol than randomized. But making it so you can only see the star and know its main sequence or a red dwarf and no planets right away sounds good great. Works too for first sending fly-by probes that could tell you a lot more about surface compositions and geography before you sent a whole colony ship if you wanted. Gaining tighter knowledge might help players bring more tailored landing an prospecting equipment. 

Edited by Pthigrivi
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4 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

To be fair, 1840 was over a century before the space age :)

I think the entire home system should be known, though I'd love to have to discover the surfaces of the planets. I mean, there were still people who thought there were canals on Mars before probes reached it, and it's our closest neighbor whose surface we can see. Similarly, Mercury was thought to have 1:1 resonance between its orbit and rotation until about the same time, though that was proven without needing to send probes.

I think it's totally reasonable that we get ridiculously bad maps of local system bodies to start (with an option to turn that off because I don't know if my 84th career will really require that mystery) and star-only data for other systems, perhaps even with some stars "hidden" in that we either can't see them or don't know they're significant compared to all the other stars that are assumed to be around but we can't visit.

I was looking to say the same thing effectively.

I'll add that I'd like us to have blurry/low-res textures for planets and moons in the home system for starters, to simulate the limitations of what you can see from ground-based telescopes with the Kerbal equivalent of circa 1960's Earth technology. Maybe slightly better textures if the player launches a space telescope to Kerbin orbit, but you don't get good textures until you send a probe into its SOI.

For exoplanets, we should only have as much information as using the transit method ala the Keppler space telescope would give. Meaning, rough estimates of size and density, and only if they orbit their star in the viewing plane. No textures at all, and if they are small enough we shouldn't know they're there until a probe is in that star system.

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