If you could redesign/improve the Kerbol System, what would you do?

[Findthepin1]

If you could redesign/improve the Kerbol System, what would you do?

If I was asked this question, I'd probably say something along the lines of I think Laythe should look like this

And that Eve should have a tall, continuous Iapetus-like equatorial ridge, and liquid water at high latitudes.

And that Vall and Minmus should look more like real icy objects (i.e. white, not blue), something like Eeloo.

And that Eve should have oxygen, though barely enough to fly planes at low altitudes.

And that Duna should have little lakes at the lowest altitudes.

And that Eve should have global low-lying purple thunderstorm clouds, and sparse high-altitude white cirrus clouds.

And that Kerbin, Laythe, and Duna should have regular clouds.

And that Jool, Eve, Kerbin, Laythe, and Duna should have weather (i.e. lightning (except on Duna), rain (purple on Eve), etc.)

And that Kerbol should have solar flares.

There's probably more, but I can't think of any right now. Maybe a modder out of ideas will like these ideas, I say they can use my ideas.

What would the KSP Universe be like if you had created it?

Edited October 18, 2015 by Findthepin1

[maceemiller]

Duna should have a drive thru KFC, the Mun a McDonald's

[Guest]

I'd make the solar system realistic in density and radius. Then adjust orbits a bit to make it more realistic.

[Red Dwarf]

I'd implement OPM. Other than that, I think the system's good

[Pthigrivi]

This is fun

Moho should be really hot with parts right on the verge of overheating without radiators. It could also be tidally locked, with a cool side on which large ore formations could be found, but no sunlight ever shone.

Eve could have many bright volcanoes and fissures and silvery, metallic oceans beneath a thick, violent atmosphere. It too could have high ore concentrations, but its dense atmosphere would block most sunlight, and its high surface temperature would make mining difficult.

I know its really difficult but it would be amazing if Kerbin had cities, farms, and dense forests. Aurora, clouds and waves of course would be nice as well. Ore concentrations around the Mun would be highest in the Polar Lowlands, and on minmus along craggy slopes. Minmus could also have a hyper-thin atmosphere pooling as a thin layer over the flats.

Duna could be swept with dust storms that would coat your vessel and even blow off unretracted solar panels. High ore formations would be found at the poles and also near geysers closer to the equator. It would also be cool if there were a small number of fossil beds yielding high science multipliers.

Dres should be the largest among a belt with many large asteroids. It could have a high degree of axial tilt and sporadic ice formations around which high ore concentrations could be found.

Jool could have deep bands of cloud, aurora and a few thin rings. I like Laythe as a watery world, but icy poles could also be cool. Weather there could be really dramatic with big storms and high waves. The land should be rocky, but in a few places a green coat of moss and protected coves filled with stromatolites would yield high science bonuses. Geysers would also be cool. Val could also have icy geysers, a tenuous atmosphere that didnt reach above the peaks, and spotted liquid lakes across its equator that shimmered rainbow-like with hydrocarbons and yielded high ore concentrations. I would actually move Tylo in closer than Laythe toward Jool, and make it more Io-like with high heat, enormous volcanoes and volcanic pits, and coated with red, yellow, and black tuff. Bop should have pockets of ice, and Pol could have high ore concentrations and even higher eccentricity making it an interesting fueling outpost.

Eeloo should obviously be modeled much closer to what we now know about pluto.

And GP2... hmmm

[FungusForge]

Give Duna more features; volcanoes, actual hills, large pointy rock formations, dried lakebeds. Duna just has a crippling sameness.

All the islands on Laythe would be volcanic, however in the larger parts of the ocean there would also be massive ice flats.

Kerbin would get hillier hills and deserts, because if it isn't a mountain it all feels the same.

The asteroids would also be moved out the Dres's neighborhood because otherwise Kerbin is a Dwarf Planet. There still would be stray visitors, but there wouldn't be an impact threat every 3 weeks.

I'd also throw in Arkas.

[r4pt0r]

Caves on some planets, with a unique cave biome inside them

Duna should be much rockier in places (and roving over rocks should be dangerous, the terrain scatter on all bodies should be solid)

Eve's ocean should dissolve rocket parts (or just over-heat parts) over-time, to represent a very caustic/acidic/generally-unfriendly ocean.

Add gas planet 2

Add rings to either GP2, or to Jool.

[Endersmens]

I'd make the solar system realistic in density and radius. Then adjust orbits a bit to make it more realistic.

How did I know the first words would be "More realistic"

Not sure what I would do. Maybe just add more planets.

[Empiro]

A quick small change I would make is to move Minmus outside of Kerbin's SOI and make it something like a trojan moon of Kerbin (there's a mod that already does this).

I think that right now, there's little reason to go to the Mun more than once in career and science play. Once you figure out how to match inclined orbits, landing and returning from Minmus is much easier compared to the Mun, and biome hopping is way too easy to do (and I actively avoid doing that in my games). There's also little point to establishing a mining base on the Mun since it's cheaper and easier to do it on Minmus.

Making it further out would make it far more difficult and costly to get to, and I think it would encourage more players to do more things on the Mun.

[Francois424]

I would fully develop it to continue to match (more or less) our system.

So adding Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, each with a few moons (say Saturn and Uranus gets 4, Neptune gets 3, Pluto gets 2).

I want something very very close to Halley's Comet trajectory, but since everything is scaled it would be too. Perfect to land a base on if not in a hurry and take it off at the Neptune analog for a rather free (if only long) ride to the edge of the system.

Once those are all added, add stuff/flesh-out/improve ground texture for any and all celestial bodies... including the skybox.

All of these addition would simply double (perhaps more) the time it takes the players to wrap-up everything. With 64-Bits memory should not be an issue and for lower systems, just make a menu option to uncheck the extra planets after Jool if they don't have enough memory or to load the basic (ie current) textures.

I feel the outer planets are sorely missing and even tho we have amazing mods to correct that, I'd love the official stock game to take care of this.

Everyone would have the same system and it does not matter if no one goes to Uranus or Pluto, it would be a fun option to have.

EDIT: I might change the color of Kerbol into an orange-red sun. I'd have to test and see how it affect luminosity and gameplay... if too dark it becomes annoying afterall.

[Frozen_Heart]

Outer planets.

GP2 which would be a slightly smaller version of Jool with rings and 4 moons.

A Uranus/Neptune analogue with 2 or 3 moons.

A proper far out pluto analogue with 1 big moon.

Also make it a proper size and density.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Frozen_Heart

[luizopiloto]

Another Star System... with more planets and an habitable one... with ancient civilization ruins... and with a place to enable a new SpaceCenter...

[KerikBalm]

If you could redesign/improve the Kerbol System, what would you do?

And that Duna should have little lakes at the lowest altitudes.

I agree with this one... not the rest.

The clouds idea is ok, but it doesn't really add anything to gameplay, and makes it run a bit slower - and there are already mods for that.

If I was asked this question, I'd probably say something along the lines of I think Laythe should look like this

http://www.nicerweb.com/sketches/video/HabitablePlanet/albedo.JPG

#1) Laythe is so far out that solar heating is probably not very relevant, so I don't support that

#2) If solar heating is relevant, most models predict a tipping point where once ice expands past a certain lattitude, the planet will "snowball" increased albedo makes the planet even colder, which makes ice advance, which increases albedo even further... until the planet is covered in ice. This picture looks like its past that tipping point, and it should snowball

And that Eve should have oxygen, though barely enough to fly planes at low altitudes.

#1) that would require a big change to how it works, because right now its just a binary condition... has oxygen, or doesn't have oxygen... its not easy to change it to have high and low oxygren concentrations so that you get less of the resource "intake air" despite a more dense atmosphere.

#2) Why should Eve have free oxygen from a chemistry standpoint?

#3) Why should eve have oxygen from a gameplay standpoint

One thing I would like to see added is an air augmented rocket... which would give improved fuel economy over a normal rocket, regardless of the presence of atmospheric oxygen (although it could have two modes, one consuming oxidizer, one that doesnt)... I suspect such a part would serve your gameplay wishes for eve, without actually having to change eve.

It wouldn't work so well on duna because the thrust augmentation drops off as the air gets thinner

Anyway... Our solar system has "gas giants" and "ice giants" - recognizing the distinction between jupiter/saturn and uranus/neptune, astronomers have split the former group of 4 gas giants into these categories.

KSP lacks an ice giant... I would add a neptune analogue (as I understand it, something in the game engine prevents axial tilt, so we can't really do a uranus analogue) with a retrograde icy moon, and a few tiny moons very far out on very very inclined orbits.

Then I'd move Eeloo even rather out to be in resonance with that ice giant, and give it a large moon.

[jarmund]

An addition planet slightly larger than Gilly, orbiting dose to Kerbol in a polar orbit. would name it Gateway and fit it with ships and artefacts from the book.

[Bekiekutmoar]

Moho: good in current state

Eve: light brown color, thick cloud cover around 8-10 km height, dense haze below the clouds and due to the heat engines should overheat more quickly

Gilly: good in current state

Kerbin: good in current state

Mun: good in current state

Minmus: good in current state

Duna: butterscotch color, icecaps at the poles a little smaller and more dependant of height. Light cloud cover at 3-4 km height

Ike: good in current state

Dres: good in current state

Jool: very dense clouds at around 80-100 km height. Appearance of Jool like in EVE (Environmental Visual Enhencemants + Astronomer's pack)

Laythe: could use overhaul of landscape but oceans should still dominate. Sky would be somewhere between grey and blue, light to medium cloud cover.

Vall: color somewhere between grey, white and blue.

Tylo: a thin atmosphere with white/grey haze at the horizon

Bop:good in current state

Pol: good in current state

Eeloo: a thin atmosphere with white/grey haze at the horizon

[Vermil]

I would fully develop it to continue to match (more or less) our system.

So adding Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, each with a few moons (say Saturn and Uranus gets 4, Neptune gets 3, Pluto gets 2).

I want something very very close to Halley's Comet trajectory, but since everything is scaled it would be too. Perfect to land a base on if not in a hurry and take it off at the Neptune analog for a rather free (if only long) ride to the edge of the system.

Once those are all added, add stuff/flesh-out/improve ground texture for any and all celestial bodies... including the skybox.

All of these addition would simply double (perhaps more) the time it takes the players to wrap-up everything. With 64-Bits memory should not be an issue and for lower systems, just make a menu option to uncheck the extra planets after Jool if they don't have enough memory or to load the basic (ie current) textures.

P.S. And I think I would add life to Eve. Plants at least. ...And Trilobites.

I feel the outer planets are sorely missing and even tho we have amazing mods to correct that, I'd love the official stock game to take care of this.

Everyone would have the same system and it does not matter if no one goes to Uranus or Pluto, it would be a fun option to have.

EDIT: I might change the color of Kerbol into an orange-red sun. I'd have to test and see how it affect luminosity and gameplay... if too dark it becomes annoying afterall.

That's what I'd do too. Sort of. More planets to make a rough correspondence with our system. However, I'd make more of them landable (or having real good moons).

I'd also add details and interest to the planets and moons.

But one other thing I think warrants consideration: When you've landed on Duna, you're likely to next look at Laythe as an exciting goal. However, the difference in difficulty is huge. Laythe is a challenge on a whole different level. So one thing I'd do is to insert an attractive target between Duna and Laythe in difficulty.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Vermil

[Kuansenhama]

Oh, yes, this is fun...

So I think the Kerbin-Mun-Minimus System would be pretty much unchanged. I might made Minimus a bit more inclined on its orbit and change the color to more of a bluish white, with patches of brown/gray. I know in the game they make a joke that it looks like mint ice cream, so I guess now it would have to be blueberry ice cream. But the really light greenish-blue just rubs me the wrong way. I'd also make it more inclined in its orbit to make it harder to get to since its pretty easy to grind out science there when playing on career.

Moho and Eve systems would be unchanged.

I'd personally like to redesign the Duna system to be more realistic, with two small gilly-like asteroids for moons. Or maybe just one.

Onto the Dres-teroid belt. I'd add a few more objects on orbits similar to Dres. Nothing too crazy. I wanted to add worlds called Nobal and Sosun. Nobal being larger, icy and more inclined. Sosun being smaller, rocky/metallic and having a very long rotational period.

Jool system would replace Laythe with a planet more like Io, with volcanoes and a colorful surface produced by sulfur. Perhaps 0.5g and tenuous no oxygen atmosphere. Don't worry about Laythe, It's just been moved. I know a lot of people love Laythe, so I'm not getting rid of it.

From here it would basically be Snarus, Urlum and Niedon from OPM with all of their respective moons and with Eeloo acting as the game's pluto. I would give Eeloo a satellite called Charkon. (Charon) probably very similar to it in a lot of ways.

Then, at about 5x the orbit of Eeloo would be a nemesis star on a rather circular but 20 degree inclined orbit. (Small, red dwarf star) In order around it, it would have:

A large gas planet orbiting the star, with texturing similar to Jupiter. This hot jupiter would be being blasted away by the solar wind and orbiting in but a couple days on a highly inclined orbit. The material ejected would form a faint spiral around the star.

A large, hot desert planet with a few canyons with rivers in them. Bluish green oceans and reddish sandy beaches. Oxygen atmosphere 1.2ATM ASL and 1.3g. Possible name: Lystos. Lystos would have a moon called Kyte, a black volcanic sandy moon with a black and white surface and a tenuous atmosphere.

A water/Ice planet with but a thin band of ocean around the equator. (Kind of like the OP's picture of Laythe) The same size/g force as Duna, but a little more atmosphere. This would force players to pick non-equitorial landing sites.

A fast spinning oblate planet like Inaccessible from original KPF. This one would only spin slightly slower than gravity would allow, though.

A retrograde planet, similar to Dres with a satellite/moon.

A blue gas planet like Sentar from the original KPF. Somewhat inclined relative to the plane of the star. Laythe would be one of the Moons. It would also have a moon like Thud with 3g and no atmosphere, at least one one shepherding satellite and perhaps a retrograde or highly inclined moon.

A high eccentric comet planet like (uhh Hale?) from KPF.

My reasoning behind all of this is I wanted to make the Kerbin system a touch more realistic and based off of the real solar system. I've heard a few people complain about the realism of the Duna-Ike system. I still wanted it to feel 'Kerbal', sort of cartoony and exaggerated, since this is after all a game, but fix a few of the things that I know bother people most. (Hence I wouldn't do things like make Eve yellow instead of purple or make Jool look like Jupiter). Then, the Nemesis system would exist with all the fantasy and far-fetched planets. All the requests for retrograde planets and other absurdly challenging and sci-fi planets can be put into the nemesis system.

Players who want the game to be realistic can have their cake, but for the players who like a more sci-fi approach or want planets that are a little more crazy challenging are generally the same ones who use mods, and hence could use a warp drive or hall thruster or whatever else the modmakers cook up to travel to the nemesis system and play around with the more absurd planets. Everybody is happy. .

[Sky_walker]

Well, I would scrap the surface of all the planets in a game and re-think it from ground up. Money permitted - I would hire geologist to help out creating some interesting interconnecting geologic features on a surface (canyons, mountains, riverbeds, etc.), introduce some some active features (volcanoes, cryovolcanoes, geysers, seas of methane, etc.), basically: Use planetary geology as a list of possible features to implement into the game.

My main goal would be to make planetary exploration a thing. Something that pretty much doesn't exist in the game as of now.

[*Asterix*]

I'm happy with the Kerbol System's current state. I think everything looks good, and I think it's better to keep the planets' cartoonish looks. I don't really want a super realistic system, since the game itself is more of a cartoony environment. Other than that, I might add in axial tilt to planets in the game to make things a bit more realistic, astrophysics-wise.

[Vermil]

One other thing. I tried to add it as a P.S. but my edit didn't work for some reason.

I'd add life to Eve. Plants at least. ...And Trilobites.

[FlyingPete]

I do like the general layout and aesthetics of the system. I would make Moho tidally-locked to Kerbol though, with intense heating on the day side. You'd be able to operate without heat issues on the night side, but then of course solar panels are useless and you'd need another source of power.

I think Eve would benefit from reinstating the high-altitude plateau that was in previous versions. Gives you a cause to design large rovers and get pinpoint landings right. If you want the convenience of landing anywhere without having to drive to your destination, you have to pay for it with a large ascent vehicle.

More star systems would be nice. I'm not sure if the game engine allows it, but the best way IMO would be to have the stars fixed relative to each other. You'd go straight from Kerbol's SOI to that of the destination star.

[problemecium]

TBH, the biggest change I'd make is to make all the planets bigger so as to have believable densities (pun not entirely intended).

[Joonatan1998]

-Make Kerbol smaller to fit the scale of the other objects

-fix the resonance of Jools moons

-make small asteroids finite.

-Add some tiny object orbiting very close to kerbol.

-Maybe make minmus less silly and laythe more frozen.

[TheBrisbyMouse]

1. Give Laythe more land

2. Give Jool a liquid surface to "land" on and give science from

3. GP2 and moons

[r_rolo1]

1 -A real, honest to God, asteroid belt. And some trojans in Sun-Jool L4 and L5 points ( this would be doable with the current physics ) would also be nice

2- Some planets beyond Jool, to be able to give a use to Jool gravity well for slingshots. The game loses so much by not having atleast a planet that is exterior to Jool ( remember kids, by IAU rules, Eeloo is a dwarf planet because it is not the dominant body in it's orbit ( Jool is ) ) ...

3- Fix the Mun intersecting crater rims. Craters do not​ work like that

P.S.

4- Make the rivers that exist in game to be actual rivers and not very long canyons at sea level. Also add rivers to Eve ... or there is no ( purple ) rain in Eve ? :/

Edited October 18, 2015 by r_rolo1