Are all liquids in the Kerbolar System equal?

[Project Pluto]

Whenever I start a new save, which is often, the first thing I do (to calm my OCD) is send a one way lander to each body that can be landed upon. For bodies such as Laythe, I would often miss land and splash down in water with disastrous consequences. Taking a hint from a forum member here (can't recall who, but thanks!), I made a lander that had pontoons (using many structural fuselages). If I got lucky and was over land, jettison the pontoons and land with lander legs. If not, keep pontoons and land on the water (wish they had currents!).

My question is, is all liquid equal? Meaning, if I sent a similar lander to Eve, could I splash down on it's liquid in a similar manner, or is some liquid less dense than others and I need to make my pontoon supported vessel more floaty?

Thanks in advance!

[xtoro]

Good question. And I would say that yes, the "water" behaves the same on all bodies. But, Eve for example has stronger gravity so you'll sink more and need more buoyancy.

[smjjames]

Eve's liquid (which is definetly not water) seems to be denser and things break more easily, but you also have to account for gravity as well. Besides Kerbin, the only other bodies with some form of liquid on them are Laythe and Eve.

You could use hyperedit to test with identical craft and see how they behave on Laythe and Eve.

[Geschosskopf]

On Laythe, a seaplane floats higher in the liquid than on Kerbin, probably due to the lower gravity. Otherwise, I've noticed no real differences other than Laythe's oceans are murky instead of clear. Can't say for Eve.

[Sharpy]

The water in the pond by the Administration Center behaves definitely differently.

My theory is that while all "waters" of the Kerbol system are in fact liquids composed of the matter denser than Osmium, that is comprising most of the Kerbol system allowing the planets so small to have gravity so strong, KSC, wanting to show off its wealth and scientific advances, filled the pond with a material elusive and nearly unobtainable on Kerbin - actual H2O. That's why, with density of everything in the system, including Kerbals and spaceship parts, everything sinks right to the bottom of the pond as if it was thin air, our earthly water being so light it provides nearly no resistance to any of Kerbin matter.

[Snark]

A physics note: For buoyancy, gravity is irrelevant. Objects do not sink deeper if gravity is heavier, or float higher if it's lighter. The reason is that when the object becomes heavier due to gravity, so does the liquid it's floating in, by the exact same factor.

All that matters for determining how high or low an object floats is the relative density-- i.e. what's the density of the object, relative to the density of the liquid.

For example, if I have a chunk of stuff that has N% the density of water, then if I float it in water, N% of its volume will be below the waterline. Doesn't matter if the gravity is 1 G, or 0.001 G, or 1000 G.

That said: That's how it works in real life. There's no way to know how they model it in KSP (especially since there's no objective measure of the liquid density). Have never done experiments to compare craft floating on different planets.

[jwenting]

one way in which they behave differently is when trying to harvest resources from them. Not all bodies have the same. But that's with 3rd party addons like kethane, karbonite, UKS so not the stock game where there's only ore which is mined only from land.

[Sharpy]

I can say Eve and Kerbin waters differ in density a little bit - the difference is quite small though. Kerbin buoyancy is a little higher.

I'll publish the results when my Eve Submarine project is complete though.