Should KSP have realistic planets and moons or whacky ones?

[RatchetinSpace]

I've been playing a lot of modded ksp, particularly messing around with kopernicus and people adding new planets. I'm still a noob at making planets and I'm still getting used to it. In the spirit of new planets though, does the ksp community want semi-realistic planets and moons that make sense in the real world or wacky planets with gas giant double systems and moons with rings. Comment below!

[AbacusWizard]

I like a mixture. Some realism is important because I like the notion of learning about real-world astrophysics and engineering as I play, but at the same time I really enjoy messing around on Minmus and the moons of Jool.

[Superfluous J]

I voted "semi-realistic." I basically want planets and moons like those already in the game. They look okay from space and from the ground but if you think about it they're not really possible.

I like good sized mountains on Kerbin. I'd like deeper canyons on Duna. I also like being able to fly around Kerbin in a plane in less than 15 hours

[Guest]

KSP should have realistic planets and moons, with realistic densities and radii, in realistic orbits.

[Starwhip]

I vote "Realistic". Who knows what's out there to be discovered?

[klgraham1013]

1/10th scale is wacky enough for me.

[Whirligig Girl]

KSP should have realistic planets and moons, with realistic densities and radii, in realistic orbits.

If anyone thought anything but this would come from regex, then you must be insane.

I disagree with him of course. If I could go back in time and tell HarvesteR to make the game full scale, I probably would, but I think it's too late now.

[tater]

KSP should have realistic planets and moons, with realistic densities and radii, in realistic orbits.

LOL. This.

Newsflash: the real universe is more whacky than made up stuff, and way more interesting.

[Thnd3r]

For all we know the Kerbal solar system is realistic in size. Maybe it's just smaller? Maybe it's in a galaxy filled with small planets and stars. Maybe it's in a different dimension..... It's not like theres another in-game solar system to compare it to. Just a thought.

[Guest]

Maybe it's in a different dimension...

Yeah, the easy-mode dimension. Edited March 10, 2015 by regex

[tater]

It's funny, after playing any RSS config at all, stock KSP just won't cut it. Even if you stick to the kerbol system in some scaled up version (which I'm fine with, I don't expect kerbals to fly out of Florida), the planets actually feel like planets, even at just 3.2X scale which I have recently been messing with (though 6.4 or 10 is better).

[Guest]

Stock is actually just fine, but it definitely makes me crave for more. And stock definitely needs more believable planets.

[AmpsterMan]

Heh, I like how Stock is to a certain extent; I actually enjoyed the Celestials as they were in Regex's mod .

[tater]

I'd love to see smaller scale-sized craters as a simple example.

The thing about 3.2X, even (I am going to try the 2X version as well) is that it plays almost exactly the same (with FAR) but the world just feels far, far bigger. The larger size gives more time for docking, etc, in daylight as well. On top of that, the terrain looks better (seems like the best balance between stock and 6.4X+ in terms of how the features end up looking, IMO (they actually look better).)

Edited March 10, 2015 by tater

[r4pt0r]

I voted "Some Realistic and some Unrealistic" with the caveat that I like the 1/10 scale.

[RainDreamer]

I vote for semi-realistic, based on what we can see and speculate right now with current science.

[mattinoz]

LOL. This.

Newsflash: the real universe is more whacky than made up stuff, and way more interesting.

Then the question is can KSP handle how bizarre the real world is?

Or is the rather endearing cartoon as close as an approximation as they can get?

[RatchetinSpace]

Newsflash: the real universe is more whacky than made up stuff, and way more interesting.

I LOVE this comment, so true. There are some really weird stuff out there in the universe that we don't understand.

[Renegrade]

The thing about 3.2X, even (I am going to try the 2X version as well) is that it plays almost exactly the same (with FAR) but the world just feels far, far bigger. The larger size gives more time for docking, etc, in daylight as well.

O.o?

3.2x is significantly larger in terms of delta-v - it's about 6k to orbit for 3.2 (with FAR) vs 4.5k for stock (without FAR).

I think you'd find 1.75x-2.0x a lot closer (at least to LKO - obviously they'll be bigger than stock for the rest of the system).

[peadar1987]

In terms of scale, I play on 1/10th scale Kerbin with Ferram's ISP difficulty scaler. It means I have to build realistically-scaled rockets to get to orbit, but they don't take 20 minutes to get there, which is pretty much the ideal compromise for me.

[Kegereneku]

I've voted for "Unrealistic Planets and Moons" despite having both the ability to fly with harder difficulty and the knowledge to appreciate realistic details.

Want to know why ?

- To offset Regex preemptively,

- Because Game design trump realism,

- Bigger planet would merely create more relief we are never going to appreciate or move to in rover,

- Increased size & distance merely increase the time it take to launch or land without bringing interesting change.

- What we need is content, reasons to do stuff on planet/moon, not more boringly similar planet/moon/relief.

- Realistic planet formation would make it statistically improbable to have all sort of planet&moon, whereas game-design.

- I've played Outer Wild alpha recently

In any case this poll is pointless. KSP isn't going to rewrite all its planets nor change its scale.

[Yukon0009]

I wanted to answer Unrealistic P&Ms just to troll regex, but I picked it anyways.......Anyways, although it would be nice to have semirealistic bodies for a change, but then again KSP needs something to distinguish it from a typical space sim game.

[Daze]

1/10th scale is wacky enough for me.

This and

KSP should have realistic planets and moons, with realistic densities and radii, in realistic orbits.

This

[Kibble]

KSP needs something to distinguish it from a typical space sim game.

KSP distinguishes itself from a typical space sim game by somewhat resembling real life spaceflight. (The only space sim I ever heard of that does this better is Orbiter)

This

Agreed 100%

[tater]

For the stock kerbol system, "realistic" given the scale is likely limited to having airless worlds that are not ice appropriately cratered. Clouds, and possibly weather where appropriate (wind storms on Duna, perhaps, to knock over unstable craft). Active geological features (volcanoes, etc), possibly smaller scale size craters where appropriate, or colliders on rocks to make landing more interesting. Ring systems.