Kerbin Cacti Need to be Remade

[LaytheDragon]

Recently, when Jebediah landed at Kerbin after a flyby of Minmus in my career save, I noticed that the cacti ground scatter look a bit absolutely terrible. They completely lack detail of any sort, and have no variety other than in size, not to mention the size variety isn't varied enough to see many realistically-proportioned cacti. More realistically-sized cacti combined with the monstrous ones, more detail on the cacti, and more cacti models (one or two more) would add tons of flavor to the barren desert.

See a Kerbin cactus for yourself.

Edited December 21, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[MKI]

LOL

I only landed in the desert a few times, and that was a while back when I had scatter off haha.

But yea they seem at best "simplified". 

I assume they shouldn't be 100ft tall (!) cuse that not only is scary but could throw me off once I get around to flying halfway across the planet to do some scans. 

[klgraham1013]

Trees on Kerbin are weird.

[Superfluous J]

By all means this should be the top priority.

</sarcasm>

[Rithsom]

I think they are big so that they can be seen from further distances, such as from an aircraft several kilometers in the sky.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Rthsom

[pandaman]

I always found the terrain scatter a bit disappointing personally, partly due to the graphics (as shown), but mainly due to the lack of collision mesh so I just don't use it.

If/when a persistent collision mesh system gets implemented then I'll give it a try.  Not high on my priority list though. 

[Rdivine]

We are talking about talking green men with bulging eyeballs and a conical head resembling the children of kraken on this 1/10th scale planet called kerbin. 20m high trees and cacti aren't out of place.

 

But then, i believe the terrain scattering needs to be remade.

 

P.S. I'm totally a kerbal, not a tall, pink-skinned alien with skinny limbs . Do not suspect me :/

[tater]

The saguaro pics posted look to be only slightly large assuming they were on earth, given the 0.6m height of a kerbal. 0.5 m diameter is not crazy for them (I've spent a couple weeks in Phoenix during the last year).

[Pthigrivi]

Wow we're really scraping the barrel today, eh? 

Just for reference saguaros do reach over 20m. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saguaro

[LaytheDragon]

6 hours ago, Rdivine said:

20m high trees

The large trees look more than fine (if needed, I have a perfect example picture for that). But those cacti are absolutely disgusting (they look like a heavily mutated cucumber from far away where detail is hard to see, except massive and undetailed at all distances) and unvaried. They should have graphics at least on par with the rocks that are found on the Mun. And actually, ALL of the terrain scatter (including rocks) found in the game is huge, as if it were made for a 1:1 scale solar system, but it normally actually looks nice. But I do believe there should be a larger variety of cacti sizes and more types of cacti (barrel cacti in addition to saguaros, ranging from very small to twice the size of a kerbal, would add variety). Also, the grass and scrub on Kerbin is undoubtledly massive, making it not a good sight (because it's ugly).

Terrain scatter needs a pass-through in 1.1 (as a holiday present, a new cacti texture please?), 1.1.1, or 1.2, especially the cacti (which have aesthetical problems, in addition to no colliders).

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Wow we're really scraping the barrel today, eh? 

Yes, we do need barrel cacti *no sarcasm*, that damage landing legs and wheels when touched *a touch of sarcasm*, and that kill any kerbal who dares scrape them *a bucket of sarcasm*^{(Unless the barrel cacti are as huge as the current terrain scatter, and have dragon spike sized thorns. If they do, then *no sarcasm*)}.

Edited December 21, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[Kerbart]

Have you ever seen a saguerro? They're stunningly large. Looking at the pictures the Kerbin ones don't seem spectacularly oversized. Maybe a bit larger (to scale) compared to the earth ones. But not that much bigger.

[LaytheDragon]

That doesn't take back the fact that there is no cacti variety (there currently is only one type, all with same exact shape at different sizes) in KSP, and that the cacti are outrageously bland and undetailed (better low-res cacti than THAT should be easy for Squad to make).

[Pthigrivi]

Hey definitely terrain scatter could use some work, don't get me wrong, it's just kind of funny that we're freaking out about cacti when Kerbin has no clouds and the VAB doesn't have a dV calculator. Patience, Kwai Chang. 

[LaytheDragon]

26 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Hey definitely terrain scatter could use some work, don't get me wrong, it's just kind of funny that we're freaking out about cacti when Kerbin has no clouds and the VAB doesn't have a dV calculator. Patience, Kwai Chang. 

Those are both covered by mods (and an in-situation dv display would be a better compromise, so you would only know your current dv left in the current stage). I have tried not the BeautiLifeScatter, RealCactus, or BetterTerrainScatter mods, because they don't exist. Thus, the first thing to do is suggest better cacti to Squad (the purpose of this thread), who could update the cacti model probably in less time than they could make an inflatable heatshield (relative to before they made one, when the entire heatshield art would have to be drawn out). This also gives awareness so we can hopefully get a modlet for better cacti in the meantime.

Edited December 22, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[Superfluous J]

You realize this is probably just going to cause them to remove all ground scatter from the game indefinitely?

#BringBackTheCacti

#OnlyPartiallyJoking

[AbacusWizard]

There may be a reason why terrain scatter is OFF by default.

 

(I usually turn it back on anyway because I like those spiky rocks on Pol. Too bad they're intangible though.)

[r_rolo1]

9 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:

There may be a reason why terrain scatter is OFF by default.

Yup, technically terrain scatter is still a WIP ... in spite of not being touched basically since planets were added to the game. Too bad, but I agree that it is something that should not be in top of the devs priorities ( but we can argue that it should probably in front of stuff that was already implemented, like the "Warp to next morning" button :/ )

[Superfluous J]

On 12/23/2015 at 11:30 AM, r_rolo1 said:

Yup, technically terrain scatter is still a WIP ... in spite of not being touched basically since planets were added to the game. Too bad, but I agree that it is something that should not be in top of the devs priorities ( but we can argue that it should probably in front of stuff that was already implemented, like the "Warp to next morning" button :/ )

I actually use that button all the time, though I'd have never even thought to request it.

Edited December 24, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[moogoob]

On 2015-12-23 at 11:30 AM, r_rolo1 said:

Yup, technically terrain scatter is still a WIP ... in spite of not being touched basically since planets were added to the game. Too bad, but I agree that it is something that should not be in top of the devs priorities ( but we can argue that it should probably in front of stuff that was already implemented, like the "Warp to next morning" button :/ )

Don't go dissing ol' warpy!

[r_rolo1]

Well, I didn't said that the warp to morning button doesn't have it's uses  , I just said that IMHO the terrain scatter was in line for some dev attention for far longer  Last time the devs made any substantial change to terrain scatter was in ... 0.15, maybe?. That was years ago :/

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, r_rolo1 said:

Well, I didn't said that the warp to morning button doesn't have it's uses  , I just said that IMHO the terrain scatter was in line for some dev attention for far longer  Last time the devs made any substantial change to terrain scatter was in ... 0.15, maybe?. That was years ago :/

I'm hoping they're leaving it until when they can seriously address it, and add things like cities, forests, intercontinental highways, other space centers, etc on Kerbin and unique interesting things on other worlds that you can actually interact with. And caves. I want caves.