Planet Ideas And Names For The Future Of Kerbal Space Program

[satcharna]

An Europa style with ocean accessible by cave or something similar

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought caves were impossible with the current planet rendering system? If not, everything should have caves. Going exploring in a cave-rover would be so cool.

[Crusher8000]

It probably is impossible with the planet rendering but they could perhaps create one like they did with the mun arch. You could connect a 100 arches after each other and have a cave that way.

[WhiteWeasel]

Wait, it was a planet? I thought it was a star?

It's more of a failed star. The planet is hot enough to melt iron & other metals and therefore emit light, but not massive enough to start nuclear fusion.

Maybe auroras for planets with 'molten' cores and atmospheres like kerbin, jool, and laythe. I don't know how it would affect gameplay, but the influence of magnetospheres and van allen radiation belts would be interesting.

[Dead Pixel]

hmmm, maybe a planet with an extreme inclination?

Seems cool in all, but it would take an arse lot of fuel to change the inclination like that and a ton of time with nuclear engines

[LeonG17]

Perhaps a planet with a orbit like a comet that also has a extreme inclination? That would be fun to try and get to.

[WhiteWeasel]

Seems cool in all, but it would take an arse lot of fuel to change the inclination like that and a ton of time with nuclear engines

Might have exaggerated there, maybe 20 degrees less? But it gets the message across.

[Spatzimaus]

Gas giants have a rocky core, but before that there's a liquid layer.

Drop the word "layer" and you'd be more correct. The liquid in gas giants isn't a nice cleanly-defined layer, like the boundary between an ocean and the sky; it's more like the boundary between an ice cube and the drink it's in. At certain combinations of temperature and pressure, the gases that make up a gas giant's atmosphere begin to transition into a liquid. The exact point that this occurs will vary substantially with all sorts of local variables, so there's not some obvious and consistent transition point; if you were descending through the atmosphere, I'm not sure you'd really notice the change, since right BEFORE that point you'd be going through "gas" that was so cold and compressed that it'd feel almost like a liquid.

As to the original question, there's not a whole lot they can do without getting ridiculously unrealistic, but I'd like to see another gas giant near the ecliptic, an asteroid belt, some Trojan bodies, some Kuiper Belt objects, and so on. I'd also like there to be ONE extremely inclined body, a dark and massive body (possibly another gas giant) orbiting almost perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. This'd be really tough to travel to, especially if it didn't appear on your system view at the start and you had to discover it somehow. Beyond that, I'd like the core Kerbol system to stay as close to reality as possible, barring the rescaling KSP uses for playability reasons.

I'd like to see an advanced career mode (i.e., NewGame+), which'd take the normal career mode and throw in a randomization function. Keep Kerbin the same, but everything else (its moons, the other inner planets, the distance of the gas giants, etc.) would all be randomly drawn from a table of reasonable choices. ("Reasonable" meaning you rule out purely impossible configurations, like a massive gas giant inside the habitable planets' orbits, or a moon larger than the body it orbits.) Maybe you'd get a game where a miniature Laythe-like habitable body was Kerbin's new moon (which'd be a lot of fun for spaceplanes), or where Eve was a moon of Jool. Maybe you'd have a game where there's no Duna at all, but the second gas giant has seven or eight moons including Ike and Gilly. Taken to the extreme, this could also allow for things like binary star systems, or other more complex scenarios. Imagine a game where Kerbin is a gas giant's moon (i.e., a game where KSC is on Laythe); this'd make a huge difference in your early spaceflight accomplishments.

[Golden Clock Industries]

Binary planet system: Mimine and Lamus.

Located around the orbit of Eeloo, when the dwarf planet is moved to a new gas giant's collection.

LAMUS

Lamus is a planet somewhere near the size of Laythe. It is able to hold onto an atmosphere, although thin.

Lamus is described as a blueish grey, slightly paler than vall. Much geological activity occurs, partially caused by Mimine's close proximity.

The activity refreshes the surface from a cratered surface like Mimine's.

Elevation changes similar to that of Minmus, but without the lakes. Just deep depressions.

Pluto Analog

MIMINE

A little more massive and larger than Vall, the chaotic (in RP ) moon of Mimine is identical to Moho in that it is heavily cratered, and has a slightly brown tint.

Elevation changes are again similar to Moho. (Actually, make it a very slight brown tint. Make it closer to the color of Tylo.

Charon analog

POSSIBLE SMALL MOON

Not much information here. Just found how similar the two planets described above were to the Pluto system.

A grey Bop, perhaps.

Nix/Hydra analog

Edited May 26, 2013 by Golden Clock Industries

[Flixxbeatz]

A sun-hugging planet (basically a planet much closer than Moho to the sun), only known by the name ISA-2013-123456 due to lack of exploration and data.

[royying]

Lava Plant with small portion of land

[EleSigma]

Lava Plant with small portion of land

Nova confirmed this a long time ago, there will be a dwarf planet in an extremely close orbit to the sun that will be tidally locked with a super-heated atmosphere and the side facing the sun will be mostly molten.

[CozmikR5]

A plasma planet, kinda like Abudban I in "that space MMO". I have no clue if such a planet is realistic but it looks damn cool!

[Ironwatsas]

Well, a few ideas actually. Since it's been said there would be new systems added at a later date, that's probably the way to go, with the really exotic stuff in the other systems.

KERBOL:

>Second Gas Giant (Tenative name "Waha"), a saturn-like world with rings, between the orbits of Jool and Eeloo, with several moons.

-<Titan-like moon

-<Ring system (damages ships that fly through it)

-<Mimas-like moon

-<tiny asteroid Moon

-<"Broken" moon, in the process of being ripped up by gravity contributing to the rings (with hollow cavities to explore, but a chaotic environment)

->Asteroid Belt (players can name their own asteroids as they wish)

->Comets, on orbits of various eccentricity and inclination (Tenative names "Kally", "Lun", "Voss", etc

->Kerpier Belt (Kupier Belt) with sparser asteroids, and the Tort Cloud, which is a sparse dust field.

---

For other systems, my thoughts are...

WISNA: (Single Red Dwarf type star, fewer planets than Kerbol, but the closest star)

It's planets include

->Gabas: A 'hot jupiter' sun-hugging type planet with no moons (or very tiny ones)

->Neko: Another, more habitable, but relatively small gas-giant with a few moons

<-Iglu: An icy moon with liquid water underneath (Europa-style)

<-a few other moons

GLYPTAL: A chaotic binary system with a few small planets and a lot of asteroids. Rich in metals for later mining perhaps?

->Britt: Another, torn-up planet being eaten by the two stars.

->Asteroid belts: Atleast two of them, one around each star, and alot of rogue asteroids ranging from teeny to gilly-sized. Good places for Kethane mines and Orbital bases perhaps?

OMO: Massive, high-mass Red Giant star, extremely large (going out to Kerbin or even Duna's orbit), with most of it's planets already consumed, and emmitting strong radiation, so some kind of shielding would be needed.

->Lava belt: A field of planetary fragments ringing Omo, pretty much encompasses the whole ecliptic of the system.

->Moko: A volcanic planet being heated to destruction by it's parent star. Tidally locked and bombarded by stray asteroids, possibly with a coma of molten debris following it. Very dangerous.

->Coa: A hot, dusty desert planet, sort of like Duna, farther out in the system. Sort of habitable. Possibly radioactive and covered in auroras.

->Atleast one gas giant on the edge of the system (Near where Jool or Eeloo would be) with some moons?

NEBULA:

Exactly what it says, some kind of dense nebula, possibly with a protostar or two, or a young star system. It should look... nebula-ish and contain goodies.

BLACK HOLE: We need one somewhere. Obviously it would have ridiculous gravity, possibly a star or something orbiting it, and be the sadist's choice for chucking Kerbals into.

[Mihara]

A procedurally generated asteroid belt would be nice. Something with a few hundreds of asteroids of pretty random shapes and sizes. Only 1-3 named bigger rounder ones.

[CalculusWarrior]

Now that you mentioned a black hole, I really want one. I wonder if spaghettification would be implemented?

[RogueMason]

I'd like to see this:

I drew this in GIMP a while ago. Here are some facts about it:

PLANET

Name: Isus

Radius: 5000km

Apoapsis: ~71,000,000km

Periapsis: ~70,000,000km

Inclination: 0.02^o

Type: Ice Giant

Atmosphere: Yes

Sea level temperature: 4500K

Upper atmosphere temperature: 12K

Composition:

• Gases (in lesser quantity than ices): Hydrogen, Helium (or Kerbal equivalents)
  
• Ices (in greater quantity than gases): Water, Methane, Ammonia (or Kerbal equivalents)
  

Atmospheric extension: 4000km from lowest point.

Moons: 2

No liquids present on surface (i.e. lakes, oceans, etc.)

No planetary ring systems

-------------------------------------------------------

MOON

Name: Minduis

Radius: 270km

Apoapsis: 51562km

Periapsis: 50437km

Inclination: 0.5^o

Type: Rocky

Atmosphere: Yes

Sea level temperature: 34K

Upper atmosphere temperature: 5K

Composition (Surface):

• Igneous
  
• Metamorphic
  

Composition (Atmosphere):

• Gases: Oxygen, Methane, Hydrogen (or Kerbal Equivalents)
  

Atmospheric extension: 10km from lowest point

No liquids present on surface (i.e. lakes, oceans, etc.)

Craters visible.

-------------------------------------------------------

MOON

Name: Eeloo

Radius: 210km

Apoapsis: 64558km

Periapsis: 49080km

Inclination: 0.7⁰

Type: Ice/Rocky

Atmosphere: No

Composition:

• Ices: Water, Methane, Ammonia (or Kerbal Equivalent)
  
• Igneous
  

Ice sheets with small exposures of rocky surface

-------------------------------------------------------

The Moon Minduis is visible in the above picture, orbiting Isus; Eeloo would be on the other side.

[bonoginbomber]

Binary planet system: Mimine and Lamus.

Located around the orbit of Eeloo, when the dwarf planet is moved to a new gas giant's collection.

LAMUS

Lamus is a planet somewhere near the size of Laythe. It is able to hold onto an atmosphere, although thin.

Lamus is described as a blueish grey, slightly paler than vall. Much geological activity occurs, partially caused by Mimine's close proximity.

The activity refreshes the surface from a cratered surface like Mimine's.

Elevation changes similar to that of Minmus, but without the lakes. Just deep depressions.

Pluto Analog

MIMINE

A little more massive and larger than Vall, the chaotic (in RP ) moon of Mimine is identical to Moho in that it is heavily cratered, and has a slightly brown tint.

Elevation changes are again similar to Moho. (Actually, make it a very slight brown tint. Make it closer to the color of Tylo.

Charon analog

POSSIBLE SMALL MOON

Not much information here. Just found how similar the two planets described above were to the Pluto system.

A grey Bop, perhaps.

Nix/Hydra analog

Me like...

If binary is too hard to implement in Unity, they can always make a conventional planetary system.

1 issue though - once more gas giants are added they'll need a much higher orbit than Eeloo currently has.

[dom.stb]

Personally I'd rather see further development of the planets and moons we already have instead of just adding more. Right now they're really just different colored spheres of varying sizes.

I second this completely. More detail on the current system's planets would add more gameplay than ten more planets I think. I want to have stuff to do and see when I land on them, and not just anomalies that you can walk up to and look at, I want things you can interact with (taking samples, researching new fuel sources or something, I dunno).

[rodion_herrera]

A sun-hugging planet (basically a planet much closer than Moho to the sun), only known by the name ISA-2013-123456 due to lack of exploration and data.

Like the purported "vulcanoids" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanoid_asteroid

[rodion_herrera]

I wonder if spaghettification would be implemented?

Some users are already experiencing spaghettification on Duna, as a recent "Ummmmmmm" titled thread shows

[Decho]

As many have also said I'd rather more detail on the current planets. The biggest thing for me would be more science instruments and applications, like seismometers, which would realistically necessitate a lot of work being done on the planets to make it rewarding ie. internal density distribution, possibly plates etc. which could then lead to earthquakes and if you wanted to be really ambitious even volcanoes and eruptions. I for one would be very excited by the possibility of being able to lay out a series of seismometers and try to predict eruptions.

[Golden Clock Industries]

Binary planet system: Mimine and Lamus.

Located around the orbit of Eeloo, when the dwarf planet is moved to a new gas giant's collection.

LAMUS

Lamus is a planet somewhere near the size of Laythe. It is able to hold onto an atmosphere, although thin.

Lamus is described as a blueish grey, slightly paler than vall. Much geological activity occurs, partially caused by Mimine's close proximity.

The activity refreshes the surface from a cratered surface like Mimine's.

Elevation changes similar to that of Minmus, but without the lakes. Just deep depressions.

Pluto Analog

MIMINE

A little more massive and larger than Vall, the chaotic (in RP ) moon of Mimine is identical to Moho in that it is heavily cratered, and has a slightly brown tint.

Elevation changes are again similar to Moho. (Actually, make it a very slight brown tint. Make it closer to the color of Tylo.

Charon analog

POSSIBLE SMALL MOON

Not much information here. Just found how similar the two planets described above were to the Pluto system.

A grey Bop, perhaps.

Nix/Hydra analog

The Nix/Hydra analog might be named Mikla, Clar or Alice.

I think Alice is a really nice real name for a [captured] asteroid. :3

EDIT: We need a face like this:

Edited May 26, 2013 by Golden Clock Industries

[lolmama]

I'm not really bothered about new places to visit, but if i had to choose i would love to have a frozen icy body like Eeloo but with an atmosphere and a huge variety of terrain with soaring mountains and deep abysses. However, i would rather have the current planets focused and made more detailed.

[Mihara]

I for one would be very excited by the possibility of being able to lay out a series of seismometers and try to predict eruptions.

Sample return missions first, then.

Actually, that sort of thing should be within reason for a mod...

[rodion_herrera]

I think Alice is a really nice real name for a [captured] asteroid.

Well, if said asteroid is made up of some weird, exotic material like black Obsidian glass (LOL) then I would prefer the name "Wonderland" to "Alice"

That being said, I wish for a body made of that--some black, glassy substance, like Obsidian. To the resident (planetary) geology majors and professionals (and self-taught scholars) in the forum, yes, I'm aware that it would perhaps be physically impossible to have such a configuration, even if obsidian is volcanic in origin, but hell, unless Squad explains, in scientific terms, how Minmus was formed (and what it is made of), then I think there's no counter-argument for a large hunk of black glass floating in the Kerbol (or other) system.

Edited May 26, 2013 by rodion_herrera