Does anyone else find Kerbol too big?

[regex]

Seriously, it's enormous, takes up a massive amount of sky.  Kind of disconcerting and breaks with the "reality" of KSP, IMO.

Kerbol's radius: 261,600km

Sun's radius: 696,342km

It's not really "to scale" with the rest of the solar system and could probably be reduced in size to somewhere around 66,300km (about 11 times the size of Jool).  That puts it nicely in scale and reduces the blinding glare.

[omelaw]

wasn't it for make Mun and Kerbol near same size when look at the sky at Kerbin?

[magnemoe]

22 minutes ago, omelaw said:

wasn't it for make Mun and Kerbol near same size when look at the sky at Kerbin?

This makes some sense, also its not like you can skim the surface of Kerbol in 1.0x back in 0.20x you could do low attitude flyby. However the actual rendered surface was far below the 0 km attitude, craft blew up at 1.7 km or something
This again has to do with speed. an low Kerbol flyby was around 100 km/s if I remember right and would generate glitches if you was a few kilometers above the render surface. 

[Snark]

It's also kind of interesting that the sun is the only body in KSP whose density is actually less than its real-life counterpart.  Kerbal planets and moons are freakishly dense (about 10x real planets' density), to be able to have the gravity that they do despite having such a tiny size.  The Kerbal sun, however, is only around a quarter as dense as ours.

If I had to guess why:  it would be that the size was chosen to give it a reasonable appearance in the Kerbin sky (as @omelaw suggests); then the mass had to be low for game-balance reasons (e.g. length of planets' years, amount of interplanetary dV needed, etc.)

 

[regex]

43 minutes ago, Snark said:

then the mass had to be low for game-balance reasons (e.g. length of planets' years, amount of interplanetary dV needed, etc.)

Sure, no reason to change the mass, everything works pretty well, Kerbol is just huge.

I've actually tried it smaller using Kopernicus and the RO shaders, looks much better.

[Red Iron Crown]

regex wanting a stock KSP celestial body to be smaller, am I on the Bizarro World forums again?

[Superfluous J]

Years ago when I first started up the game, I was impressed at how the Sun (Or Kerbol as people insist on calling it) and Mun were - I assume - intentionally made the "right" size so that when you look at them, they appear to be the size that it *feels* the Sun and Moon appear to be here. Having actually done the math before (I'm a nerd. I was more of one in college) I instantly knew they were way too big. I assume that whomever designed the system knew this as well. But the Sun and Mun *felt* right, which is far more important than them actually being correct.

I have not changed this opinion in almost 3 years of playing. So no, I do not think that either the Sun and Mun are too big in the sky, nor too small in actual diameter. I think they're just right.

Edited March 4, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[Temeter]

Makes sense. On a lower level, the sun kinda feels too big for me.

Totally supporting Regex on this one, would love to see a change! It's not a huge issue tho.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

Its already too small to actually burn as a star, you know.

And I think it does a good job of representing the difference in size between planets and stars(within the fun-size solar system of Kerbin) Not to big, IMHO

Edited March 4, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[regex]

11 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

regex wanting a stock KSP celestial body to be smaller, am I on the Bizarro World forums again?

After playing RO for so long Kerbol just looks too damn big.  Even my original 6.4x config for RSS scaled the Sun differently than everything else.

2 minutes ago, Temeter said:

Makes sense. On a lower level, the sun kinda feels too big for me.

Totally supporting Regex on this one, would love to see a change! It's not a huge issue tho.

Maybe I'll throw out a Kopernicus config once it's updated for 1.1 since I'll be doing it for myself.  Also agree that its not a huge deal, just doesn't look right to me.

[cicatrix]

The core problem is: Kerbin is too small! Too dense.

Everything else is derived from this first statement - the size of Mun,  Kerbin's orbit, the sizes and orbits of all other planets and finally - the size of Kerbol. 

Mun and Kerbol should look like the same size from the surface of Kerbin and that's why the size of Kerbol is as it is.

 

I really don't know why Squad picked that size of Kerbin, but I have a suspicion that it is somehow related to spaceplanes and overall difficulty. They even rigged the IsP of the engines to make them less powerful than their Earth counterparts or otherwise reaching the orbit speed would be too easy. Also orbital speed is only 2,3 km/s and this making re-entry not as dangerous as it is in real life.

As for the physics - Kerbol's size and density plays no part in forming the orbits of the planets as they move 'on rails' meaning no orbital physics is simulated here.

 

[regex]

10 minutes ago, cicatrix said:

The core problem is: Kerbin is too small! Too dense.

Yes, yes, but we're not discussing the elephant in the room right now, though.

Quote

I really don't know why Squad picked that size of Kerbin, but I have a suspicion that it is somehow related to spaceplanes and overall difficulty.

Solar system size was set long before spaceplanes were a thing.  Probably had something to do with making KSP "approachable" or some other such nonsense. 

Quote

As for the physics - Kerbol's size and density plays no part in forming the orbits of the planets as they move 'on rails' meaning no orbital physics is simulated here.

Incorrect, the math is correct for a solar system with bodies having the given characteristics.  E: Seriously, go ahead and change Kerbol's mass and see what happens.

Edited March 4, 2016 by regex

[Robotengineer]

Unofficial meme of the Kerbol is too Damn Big movement.

 

Edited March 4, 2016 by Robotengineer

[Temeter]

2 hours ago, regex said:

Maybe I'll throw out a Kopernicus config once it's updated for 1.1 since I'll be doing it for myself.  Also agree that its not a huge deal, just doesn't look right to me.

That would be lovely! <3

2 hours ago, cicatrix said:

I really don't know why Squad picked that size of Kerbin, but I have a suspicion that it is somehow related to spaceplanes and overall difficulty. They even rigged the IsP of the engines to make them less powerful than their Earth counterparts or otherwise reaching the orbit speed would be too easy. Also orbital speed is only 2,3 km/s and this making re-entry not as dangerous as it is in real life.

It's probably so you don't have to spend 10+ minutes every time you want to reach Orbit. Or vastly more if you got physics lag.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Temeter

[OhioBob]

3 hours ago, cicatrix said:

Mun and Kerbol should look like the same size from the surface of Kerbin and that's why the size of Kerbol is as it is.

However they're not the same size.  If you do the math, the Sun's disk subtends an angle of 132 arcminutes and Mun's disk subtends an angle of 115 to 121 arcminutes. 

[Kerbin vonKerbal]

It's a fictitious solar system. Therefore Kerbol is the right size.

[KerbMav]

2 hours ago, OhioBob said:

However they're not the same size.  If you do the math, the Sun's disk subtends an angle of 132 arcminutes and Mun's disk subtends an angle of 115 to 121 arcminutes. 

To simulate the corona?

[Azimech]

As much as I love simulation, it's more in the physics department on a craft scale. I don't care for a different size of the planets, moons and star. As previously noted, time needed to play a game is a major factor in this turbulent day & age, real life is always trying to pit itself between the user and his gaming experience.

So for a stock game, let's leave all the bodies as they are. Squad would probably receive a storm with complaints again anyway.

[ZooNamedGames]

I feel it's too small!

[steuben]

I don't. Stars are mind failingly huge... no they are eldritchly huge.  and kerbol is small as such things go.

[Kerbart]

I fully agree. It makes the Elcano Kerbol challenge take waaaay too long!

[regex]

3 hours ago, Azimech said:

As much as I love simulation, it's more in the physics department on a craft scale. I don't care for a different size of the planets, moons and star. As previously noted, time needed to play a game is a major factor in this turbulent day & age, real life is always trying to pit itself between the user and his gaming experience.

So for a stock game, let's leave all the bodies as they are. Squad would probably receive a storm with complaints again anyway.

Changing the radius of the sun wouldn't affect gameplay time in the least, especially if care was taken to retain the current orbits, which is not a hard thing to math.

[AbacusWizard]

6 hours ago, Kerbart said:

I fully agree. It makes the Elcano Kerbol challenge take waaaay too long!

You're driving a rover around the Sun?

[Kerbart]

2 minutes ago, AbacusWizard said:

You're driving a rover around the Sun?

Yeah, but only at night, to prevent overheating.

[Greenfire32]

1 minute ago, Kerbart said:

Yeah, but only at night, to prevent overheating.

Take +1 internets for that