kspnerd122

tidal heating is miniscule as compared to a solar energy budget, orbits being close to circular is different from the orbit being perfectly circular

Large is anything that doesnt just look like a large lander

1. Laythe can't have tidal heating, its orbit is perfectly circular(same goes for vall) 2. Non habitable doesnt mean boring, for more examples in GU, look at Kaith, Borr, Safar, and Mare, these worlds all are relatively popular or at least well known (Kaith is notorious for being a hard to colonize hellworld) 3. Atmospheres get torn off really quickly 4. Visiting non habitable worlds is good, also, habitable planets shouldnt be the easier and generally better places, realistically they are hostile hells

Have you done the challenge yourself, Is the challenge possible, is it a good challenge or just "angle your craft the right way"

Well, the blalo effect results from a singular planet in a system larger than kerbol, so I think there shouldnt be any just to ensure that large chunks of systems arent ignored or never colonized because "Why colonize that when theres a habitable planet" also, laythe in its current state shouldnt exist, the atmosphere would be ripped off near instantly on astronomical timescales from all the ionizing radiation.

I was mainly calling out the fact that the OP wanting a habitable one is unlikely and to me unrealistic I would LOVE the idea of fluctuating brightness and stellar flares, tidally locked planets also provide a GREAT place to generate power, cover the dayside in solar arrays, or tap the temperature difference between the hemispheres for energy in terms of wind power(wind would blow CONSTANTLY there) Tidally locked planets, especially hellworlds, are some of my favorite places in KSP to colonize due to the easy power supply yet being difficult to truly exploit

No, you can colonize anything and this is skirting the point here, a habitable planet, even if harsh, is still habitable Im not saying that EVERY planet is habitable, im saying that habitable planets should NOT be in every system and we should not fixate the game on sun-like stars

Except red dwarfs are the WORST places for habitable planets, here are the issues with them 1. Planets must be very close to the star, this leads to tidal locking(which alone isnt harmful, however the side effects are) namely, nasty winds and a high probability that all your water gets stuck on the space-facing night side 2. Red dwarfs flare, a lot, and many of them are highly variable in their output, for example, proxima centauri can regularly get enough sunspots to dim its brightness by half, or have long flaring episodes that make it 5 times brighter. 3. Planets being close + tons of stellar flaring is the exact thing that tends to strip off atmospheres, and quickly too, imagine if the sun just randomly got 5 times brighter(and hotter) for a few weeks and you see the problem, this is enough to outright boil the oceans 4. planets need to get a lot closer to stay warm and that luminosity drops off a lot faster than mass, so orbital velocities will be very high (for a given level of insolation), leading to higher velocities of impactors (asteroids) In general, red dwarfs are a pretty nasty star type, so Id say avoid putting this type of plannet in

Ok, explain cassini then, just get the signal and retransmit it, you dont need 2 antennas for that

Just feels like demanding extra part count and making it look bad in order to get a relay, what about small probes, I mean, the cassini spacecraft had 1 antenna and was able to relay data for huygens, just allow relays to be 1 part, just adds unneeded complexity without gameplay value, just assume that the kerbals have 1 standard frequency.

Already said how a system without a habitable planet isnt at all uncolonizable, you just need to work harder, and with the giant pile of energy there around a big star, or a weird system with exotic planets and unique environments, heck, long orbits may be a good thing for colonization since it means less energy to get places(since your higher up the gravity well) Gurdanama is exactly the type of stuff I don't want, since its heavily implied life will develop there eventually, I and even if a world isnt actually habitable, "close enough" is plenty start to initiating the blalo effect sequence of events

I actually think we shouldnt live on planets at all, just dissasemble the planet and use that to build habitats

Habitable, as in, Has life, or has basically no hostile environment(looking at you laythe) So basically, if the environment is super forgiving and you could see life evolving there, or it has oxygen, or already has life, its habitable So I don't think we should limit ourselves to even "close to habitable" just dont make anything close, thats my thoughts

congrats RJ

The universe is a harsh place, and one of my biggest gripes with mods such as GU is the fact that they put a habitable planet in each system. This leads to a phenomenon called the "Blalo Effect" (Named for the largest culprit of this in GU) Players will always gravitate to the habitable planet as opposed to colonizing and visiting the much more interesting worlds within a system. I think we should have tidally locked planets, but none should be habitable (this is due to the fact that red dwarfs flare constantly, the planet is very close, this tends to strip off atmospheres) I think we should have interesting moons and planets, but a planet does not need to be habitable to be interesting or colonizable, what's cooler, a red dwarf with some crazy planets around it, or a red dwarf with a relatively boring system conducive to life, I would pick the more interesting system every time. This also goes for star types as a whole, do not limit the stars in the game to "this could host a habitable planet" the big, bright, but short-lived stars are just as interesting, massive systems with extremely long orbits, imagine if the Spheres of influence of a kerbin sized world was half that of jool, what kinds of wacky moons could we see. Larger stars also are far more likely to be in a binary system with another, smaller star, put them far enough apart and you could get 2 systems relatively close together, with the larger of the 2 stars perhaps serving as the main power source of the system, with energy beamed everywhere. compare this to limiting yourself to habitable stars. you look up from a planet and, oh, another yellow sun, and before anyone says "but if the star lives a short time it's not worth colonizing" keep in mind that humanity has not lasted long enough to see ANY of these "Short lived" stars be born and die, Just because the lifetime of a star is 500 million years as opposed to 5 Billion, doesn't mean that your civilization cannot flourish around that star for 250 times longer than the anatomically modern human has existed, the star will not go anywhere anytime soon, and its enormous energy output can supply untold quadrillions of people.

I am going to make a seperate version of this for KSP2, however, the KSP1 version will remain open and new challenges will be added to both in tandem, expect some challenges for science and career mode.

a base is any large and permanent planetary structure (or group of structures)

Ok, So rogue planets seem nice, but I feel like making them some weird color or similar detracts from the interesting science you could do, a planet unshielded from cosmic rays, with an atmosphere frozen onto the surface and a new one collected over billions of years.

Im colonizing an entire planet mod, then working on releasing my planet mod, will continue to play KSP1 after tho

If its in the "Electical" tab then its banned, fission, fusion, antimatter reactors are banned(for your challenge)

No Wormholes, Period, If you do the challenge in Kcal you may not use the wormhole and must travel between star systems normally(as in, travelling through space)

If you dont have life support mods just ignore any references to LS, any non beyond home interstellar mod is allowed

Redirect an asteroid into orbit of ike, no nuclear reactors(engines are OK)

New Challenge Types Added

Nice Challenge Man, I do kinda like the idea of encouraging colonization rather than flag and go, I want to do that in my mod, so im happy to see more people intrested in colonizing rather than planting a flag and going home Any plans to add modded planet support in the future(just say "if you do this in a modded planet you have still completed the challenge"