Should celestial bodies in KSP 2 have axial tilts?

[intelliCom]

In KSP 1, all planets were perfectly aligned, such that their rotation never changed angle; all were facing straight "up" in the game's sense. To get around this, RSS had to alter the entire solar system so Earth would have an appropriate axial tilt relative to everything else.

If KSP 2's planets should have axial tilt, should the axial tilt of already existing planets and moons be changed? (e.g., Gilly being given a tilt to match its tilted elliptical orbit around Eve?) I don't think it would add too much challenge to the game, and would add an additional factor to take into account when launching vehicles off a planet's or moon's surface.

[Linky]

39 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

In KSP 1, all planets were perfectly aligned, such that their rotation never changed angle; all were facing straight "up" in the game's sense. To get around this, RSS had to alter the entire solar system so Earth would have an appropriate axial tilt relative to everything else.

If KSP 2's planets should have axial tilt, should the axial tilt of already existing planets and moons be changed? (e.g., Gilly being given a tilt to match its tilted elliptical orbit around Eve?) I don't think it would add too much challenge to the game, and would add an additional factor to take into account when launching vehicles off a planet's or moon's surface.

Absolutely, but I don't think it will be done in the Kerbol system. That solar systems physics have already been established, and are relatively "simple". It's a good training ground for the rest of the universe.

[Pthigrivi]

I think it will be in the game, though again I can't remember if it's confirmed or not. Im personally fine with tilting a few of the Kerbol system bodies too. 

[Bej Kerman]

45 minutes ago, Linky said:

Absolutely, but I don't think it will be done in the Kerbol system. That solar systems physics have already been established, and are relatively "simple". It's a good training ground for the rest of the universe.

Kerbin is a training ground and it is just fitting that Kerbin and the orbit of the Mun would all align with the map view's "up". By the time you learn plane corrections with Minmus though, it really wouldn't be too much trouble to introduce a bit of tilt.

[SciMan]

The planets and moons everywhere (including the ones in the existing Kerbol solar system) should all have at least marginally different axial tilts, this would make many of the other planets make much more sense. Perhaps even have Bop spin retrograde relative to the rest of the planets in the solar system, and since Gilly's a captured asteroid have it rotate in a more-or-less random axis compared to Eve (since with it's highly eccentric orbit it seems like it would have been a relatively recent capture).
With Gilly there's even more reason to have it rotate on a mostly random axis, it has such low surface gravity (and therefore such a low orbital velocity) that what axis it rotates on doesn't seem like it would make that much difference to the player.

The inner 3 moons of Jool should remain more-or-less aligned to Jool however, since they're so close that Jool should be the dominant influence. Bop and Pol not so much, but the other 3 for sure.

Speaking of Pol, if Bop has a retrograde spin, perhaps Pol should have an axial tilt of near 90 degrees. Or that can fall to Eeloo.

[Pthigrivi]

Im still secretly hoping for a Neptune like planet 8 far beyond Eeloo's orbit, but it could also be Uranus-like with a radical axis tilt. 

[intelliCom]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Im still secretly hoping for a Neptune like planet 8 far beyond Eeloo's orbit, but it could also be Uranus-like with a radical axis tilt. 

I suspect they might be going with an Eris reference here, since that was discovered way beyond Pluto's orbit. Since Eeloo is the Pluto analog in KSP, Eris getting an analog seems likely.

[Pthigrivi]

41 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

I suspect they might be going with an Eris reference here, since that was discovered way beyond Pluto's orbit. Since Eeloo is the Pluto analog in KSP, Eris getting an analog seems likely.

Definitely possible. I was just thinking an ice giant planet x w/ ~10x Kerbin mass and a couple of TNR-like moons would be more fun

Edited June 24, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[intelliCom]

48 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Definitely possible. I was just thinking an ice giant planet x w/ ~10x Kerbin mass and a couple of TNR-like moons would be more fun

Oh I'm sure they'll be doing ice giants. They have the ringed Glumo, and the super-heavy Ovin. They'll do an ice giant at least once.

I've been looking forward to a truly volcanic celestial body like Io. Hot enough for temperature guages to show up all over your craft just by landing there, perhaps destroying parts if you land somewhere that's just a bit too hot. Maybe Rask and Rusk might have this, given the glowing rocky parts from their mutual gravitational pulls.

Edited June 24, 2022 by intelliCom

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, intelliCom said:

Maybe Rask and Rusk might have this, given the glowing rocky parts from their mutual gravitational pulls.

IIRC Rask and Rusk don't have atmospheres to heat parts up with.

[intelliCom]

6 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

IIRC Rask and Rusk don't have atmospheres to heat parts up with.

True, then again Io barely has an atmosphere to speak of. Come to think of it, trying to deal with a truly Venus-like planet would be really interesting. Hellish heat, and ridiculously high atmospheric pressures.

[Vl3d]

Yes to axial tilt with oscillations. Yes to changing the kerbollar system.

Also maybe the scale should be altered like in JNSQ, considering we're going to have more powerful engines anyway:

"Many KSP modders have considered that while the stock parts (namely, engines) are overpowered for stock scale, they are tuned just right for 2.5x scale. With this in mind, JNSQ is built in natively "1/4 real-life scale" (about 2.7x stock scale) which is modestly larger than 2.5x. Because of this change in scale, the length of the Kerbin day is now 12 hours."

 

[The Aziz]

KSP modders have the right to say so, but I have the right to disagree. And probably many players with me. I'm in this for a decade and still sometimes crash because I brought an underpowered engine.

Back to topic, yes for axial tilt, but no for Kerbin and Mun. Learning how to deal with axial tilt should be included in the same "lesson" as inclination, which is pretty much Minmus. The rest of the system, go bonkers.

[pandaman]

I think axial tilt would be a great addition, but I don't think it would ruin my enjoynent if it is omitted.

Lets face it, how often do we enter an orbit flat to the equator anyway? 

[Vl3d]

17 minutes ago, pandaman said:

Lets face it, how often do we enter an orbit flat to the equator anyway? 

It's not just a navigation issue. It's the whole nature of the planet, the day/night cycle, the climate, the surface launch dV.. a lot of other stuff.

[The Aziz]

As people, here: often when going for GEO. But more often we don't because we don't have a launch facility on the equator, and if we want something on low equatorial orbit we have to do what's basically a space powerslide, as described in the link.

As Kerbals, quite often, most planets have insignificant inclination so we can easily change escape inclination while doing transfer burn. Same goes for Minmus (although there it's easier to launch from desert launchpad, it's about 6° off, same as Minmus), and for the Mun, unless you're targeting a specific biome, it's useless to leave equatorial trajectory.

Or if you're crazy like me and end up setting up orbital stations around planets at like 70° because it covers most of the surface and also why not.

Edited June 25, 2022 by The Aziz

[Maria Sirona]

On 6/24/2022 at 9:57 AM, Bej Kerman said:

IIRC Rask and Rusk don't have atmospheres to heat parts up with.

Intellicom was not talking about atmospheres

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

On 6/24/2022 at 7:57 AM, Bej Kerman said:

IIRC Rask and Rusk don't have atmospheres to heat parts up with.

Intellicom was not talking about atmospheres

Intellicom was talking about planets that heat your ship just by being there. You need an atmosphere for that.

[t_v]

52 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Intellicom was talking about planets that heat your ship just by being there. You need an atmosphere for that.

If you have touched a hot piece of metal, you'll know that conduction is also a valid way for heat to transfer

[intelliCom]

12 hours ago, t_v said:

If you have touched a hot piece of metal, you'll know that conduction is also a valid way for heat to transfer

This is what I was mainly referring to, heat through conduction, like what would most likely happen on Io. But heat through atmosphere is also pretty interesting to deal with. Both would be interesting.

[Rutabaga22]

I DO NOT want any changes to kerbol.. They can do all the new stuff in other star systems, but keep kerbol the same. I don't care if it's easy, it's meant to be easier than the others. If you can go interstellar you can deal with axial tilt, but in kerbol I don't want any challenge compared to the first game because not everyone has mastered the game.

[intelliCom]

38 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

I DO NOT want any changes to kerbol.. They can do all the new stuff in other star systems, but keep kerbol the same. I don't care if it's easy, it's meant to be easier than the others. If you can go interstellar you can deal with axial tilt, but in kerbol I don't want any challenge compared to the first game because not everyone has mastered the game.

I'm not thinking about completely flipping planets or moons on their sides or anything. Very slight tilts to be more realistic. Beyond Kerbol, we can get Uranus-like tilts of literal 90 degree angles.

Edited June 27, 2022 by intelliCom

[Pthigrivi]

We've also seen that many of the planets and moons have very different topography than the originals. Minmus for instance isn't nearly as cartoonish looking as it was, which by itself changes the way players will interact with it (much for the better as far as Im concerned.) I'd love to see Eeloo look more like Pluto than it does now. And it wouldn't bother me at all if other subtle changes were made to orbits like adding a little eccentricity or tilt here and there so long as the spirit of the thing remains. What matters most is the progression, adding on little challenges to introduce players to new ideas. If some of those sneak into the Kerbol system thats fine with me. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Bej Kerman]

13 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

I DO NOT want any changes to kerbol.. They can do all the new stuff in other star systems, but keep kerbol the same. I don't care if it's easy, it's meant to be easier than the others. If you can go interstellar you can deal with axial tilt, but in kerbol I don't want any challenge compared to the first game because not everyone has mastered the game.

It's just tilt, a planet flipped 90 degrees would only waste a few hundred meters a second on a ship trying to enter a coplanar orbit, at most. There's almost no added challenge compared to the stock system. If you can go beyond Minmus, you will definitely be able to handle a few degrees of tilt.

[intelliCom]

8 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

There's almost no added challenge compared to the stock system

Actually, in some cases, if the axial tilt matches the orbital inclination, things can actually be easier, as if you set up your spacecraft to match the orbital inclination of a highly inclined celestial body, capturing into orbit around that celestial body would already line it up with the body's surface rotation.

I still think Kerbin and Mun should be facing directly up, then Minmus has an axial tilt to match its orbital inclination. Smaller bodies like Gilly, Bop and Pol should have pretty wacky axial tilts.