Stock planet expansion roadmap

[Warzouz]

After looking at some marvellous planet mods, I was wondering : why Squad doesn't have additional planets on its roadmap ?

The Kerbol solar system seems to be a smaller replica of our own. But it seems largely unfinished. Now that the 32 bits limitation is lifted, there is no real reason not to add new planets.

[Majorjim!]

agreed. And they have always said once the 32bit limit is broken new planets would be on the list of things to do. I would love gas planet 2/with moons and some Kuiper belt type objects too. Waaay out there. 

 So much to fix though. I hope that vacation is refreshing for them. 

Edited May 9, 2016 by Majorjim

[EivlEvo]

I actually looked at this as one of the major reasons they went to the 64bit shift. I really enjoy what Squad has done (apart from my Duna base getting shredded in the 1.1 upgrade heh) but from a business standpoint, they could probably pretty easily monetize the expansions now. I also would like to consider that KSP turbo is basically the beta for an interstellar version.

I suppose time will tell.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

But I think an accurate model of Saturn's Rings is well beyond our patched conic system. The Saturn System  alone would add an almost infinite number of planetary objects.

A more fulsome asteroid belt though... only a few hundred.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[royying]

After the unity upgrade, can Squad add the atmosphere back to eeloo?

[Red Iron Crown]

Where is this public roadmap of which you speak? 

[regex]

2 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Where is this public roadmap of which you speak? 

Yeah, seriously.  I've been waiting to see an honest-to-Johnny, Squad-sanctioned, dev-edited, official roadmap for the longest time.

Edited May 9, 2016 by regex

[klgraham1013]

I'd rather have more interesting places to go, than more places to go.

[sal_vager]

1 minute ago, klgraham1013 said:

I'd rather have more interesting places to go, than more places to go.

I agree, we have plenty of real estate going begging without adding more, also, Eeloo had an atmosphere when?  It's only some fluff afaik.

And, maybe it's a good thing Squad doesn't reveal a roadmap, it lets them modify their plans if it becomes necessary or desirable (maybe a player suggestion turns out too good to not include @Snark), and avoids the issue of gripes from players who don't think feature X should be on the map

[regex]

10 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

I'd rather have more interesting places to go, than more places to go.

What counts as interesting?  Seriously, what are your suggestions?  Do they include more interesting things for sandbox players, science players, and career players to do, or are they just suggestions to liven up career mode?  Are they simply extra terrain because that'll be just as boring once you've exhausted it?

People are always going on about having more things to do but there are rarely any decent suggestions.  Building bases and mining is utterly boring and we already have tons of mods that add that sort of content, adding animations to Kerbals would just be pointless fluff after the initial excitement, adding an atmosphere to a planet doesn't exactly add to its interest, adding blowholes is just ... it messes up your landings?  I just don't see it, I guess, what are people asking for here?

More places to go sounds fantastic, it's tangible content in a game about space exploration.  Randomly and procedurally generating a solar system would be great as well.  Finer-grained terrain on the same old planets in the same old orbits we've had since three years ago?  Not really interested, it'd be pretty much the same old Kerbin-system in high-def...

[Freshmeat]

I would find the planets a lot more interesting with more dramatic terrain, and some variation on the scale of hundreds of meters instead of tens of kilometers. It would make exploration rovers like Curiosity worthwhile. However, that would require some serious magic, as a scale like that would be a huge amount of data.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

IMO interesting places would include more geological variance, up to and including more mountains, canyons, interesting features like hidden pockets of liquid or ice in craters, dangerous things like volcanic activity, and surface variations like slippery ice, swampy/muddy areas that would require a bit more force to escape from, sandy regions, etc. What about areas that would be cool to play around in, like a canyon that could serve as a fun challenge to fly through, or a trail/circuit that one could drive rovers over that people could compare their times to complete? Also, it would add more dimension to make temperature matter more. If the planets were given another pass for details it would add a lot more interesting things. I feel adding more game-like gameplay could add a great reason to visit and stay on planets.

Now that I think about it, multiplayer would be really fun with ad-hoc racetracks on every body. How cool would that be, design your own rally rover

Edited May 9, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[Greenfire32]

I would rather they make the existing planets more interesting than simply add more planets. Currently, if you've been to one, you've been to them all with the exception of Laythe.

Heck, even if they let us set up actual colonies/extra-terrestrial launch pads that would give me more incentive to go further than just the moon.

[sal_vager]

43 minutes ago, regex said:

What counts as interesting?  Seriously, what are your suggestions? 

Well, I can't speak for other players, but I'd like to see...

More terrain features, including procedural terrain features (scatters) so there's more variation when you're exploring, and make them collidable.

Science experiment maps, like biome maps but specific for each science device, so you can go find areas of higher/lower temperature/gravity/tectonic activity etc, and even find fault lines, anomalies, etc, also make the devices directional.

More easter eggs, as well as easter eggs that can only be found with the above directional science devices, but also points of scientific interest, with sci and rep bonuses above what we get just for being in a rarer biome.

A lot of this can be planet specific, giving a reason to go further than Kerbin/Mun/Minmus, there should be stuff to find, not just ground to stick bases on.

[The_Rocketeer]

55 minutes ago, regex said:

What counts as interesting?  Seriously, what are your suggestions?  Do they include more interesting things for sandbox players, science players, and career players to do, or are they just suggestions to liven up career mode?  Are they simply extra terrain because that'll be just as boring once you've exhausted it?

How about some sort of mythos/backstory about the Kerbol system/Kerbin life? Like, take the desert pyramids location - that begs so many questions: who built them?; why?; who's the giant Kerbal in the hat? etc. Now, what if visiting that location revealed some sort of 'evidence' that pointed you in the direction of another location, where more 'evidence' was discovered, etc? KSP stops being a sandbox playground/contract fulfilment sim, and becomes a treasure hunting adventure. Maybe Kerbals are originally from Laythe? Maybe Kerbol is dying? Maybe that asteroid on a collision path is actually a relic of pre-KSC spacefaring heroes? Maybe Darth Vader's Jeb's father? There are so many stories that could be told thru this medium.

Now, I just pulled that out of my bodily orifice in the last minute, but it only took a little bit of imagination. The fact is our culture often needs reminding that real meaning isn't about the destination, it's about the journey.

[Just Jim]

4 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Well, I can't speak for other players, but I'd like to see...

More terrain features, including procedural terrain features (scatters) so there's more variation when you're exploring, and make them collidable.

Science experiment maps, like biome maps but specific for each science device, so you can go find areas of higher/lower temperature/gravity/tectonic activity etc, and even find fault lines, anomalies, etc, also make the devices directional.

More easter eggs, as well as easter eggs that can only be found with the above directional science devices, but also points of scientific interest, with sci and rep bonuses above what we get just for being in a rarer biome.

A lot of this can be planet specific, giving a reason to go further than Kerbin/Mun/Minmus, there should be stuff to find, not just ground to stick bases on.

I wasn't going to comment, but after reading this, I have to agree wholeheartedly!   I love roving and exploring what planets and moons we already have, and it would be great fun to see some new and interesting scatters.  Some new underwater scatters would be most welcome!

And I would personally love to have some more biomes and Easter eggs to hunt for!  

[AlphaMensae]

3 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Well, I can't speak for other players, but I'd like to see...

More terrain features, including procedural terrain features (scatters) so there's more variation when you're exploring, and make them collidable.

Science experiment maps, like biome maps but specific for each science device, so you can go find areas of higher/lower temperature/gravity/tectonic activity etc, and even find fault lines, anomalies, etc, also make the devices directional.

More easter eggs, as well as easter eggs that can only be found with the above directional science devices, but also points of scientific interest, with sci and rep bonuses above what we get just for being in a rarer biome.

A lot of this can be planet specific, giving a reason to go further than Kerbin/Mun/Minmus, there should be stuff to find, not just ground to stick bases on.

Exactly, look at the what the Apollo missions and all the Mars landers/rovers have done and found, stuff like that should be included.  Apollo 15 went to Hadley Rille, Apollo 17 found the orange soil in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, ice has been detected in lunar polar craters, ice/water on Mars, and not to mention all the varied surface features on Mars that make Duna look like a cue ball in comparision.  There needs to be lots more stuff to look for.

 

[Curveball Anders]

4 hours ago, Warzouz said:

After looking at some marvellous planet mods, I was wondering : why Squad doesn't have additional planets on its roadmap ?

The Kerbol solar system seems to be a smaller replica of our own. But it seems largely unfinished. Now that the 32 bits limitation is lifted, there is no real reason not to add new planets.

I might be playing Devil's Advocate on this and state that the reason is that Squad wanted to have a varied universe with a somewhat real selection of objects.

A Mercury-ish, a Venus-ish, a Mars-ish, a Gas giant with assorted moons, a strange one (hello Dres), a far one and assorted 'roids.

Adding more could add on the planetary level, but it's Kerbal Space Program, not Geological nor Exo-biological.

And, there's always mods.

I would rather that Squad spent time fixing and tweaking game basics, handing 'funky stuff' over to modders (and continue to support those modders).

 

[regex]

vOv  I guess I just don't see it.  All that extra detail is just fluff people are going to get bored of, same-old, same-old.  "Ho hum, Duna again".  Same with adding a story, which will just be stale by the second or third play-through while undermining the story I'm writing by playing.  I'd much rather have more places to go and expend delta-V, or even a new solar system to test myself against every time.

[J.Random]

New planets? They haven't even polished existing ones yet.

[AlphaMensae]

It would really help if you weren't able to unlock the whole stock tech tree by just going to the Mun and Minmus, thus providing no real reason to go beynd the Kerbin system.  Either greatly reduce the science returns from the Kerbin system or ramp up the tech tree science requirements.  Leave the big science returns to planets like Jool and any beyond it, so there's a purpose in going to say, a Saturn-like planet, even if it's just an umanned probe.

[SelectHalfling0]

56 minutes ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

IMO interesting places would include more geological variance, up to and including more mountains, canyons, interesting features like hidden pockets of liquid or ice in craters, dangerous things like volcanic activity, and surface variations like slippery ice, swampy/muddy areas that would require a bit more force to escape from, sandy regions, etc. What about areas that would be cool to play around in, like a canyon that could serve as a fun challenge to fly through, or a trail/circuit that one could drive rovers over that people could compare their times to complete? Also, it would add more dimension to make temperature matter more. If the planets were given another pass for details it would add a lot more interesting things. I feel adding more game-like gameplay could add a great reason to visit and stay on planets.

Now that I think about it, multiplayer would be really fun with ad-hoc racetracks on every body. How cool would that be, design your own rally rover

There is a canyon on Kerbin, but I would love if there were more (and some on laythe) to provide serious challenge flying.

[The_Rocketeer]

@regexI don't see how built in Kerbal-mythos damages the 'my story' experience. Even if there was any danger of that, you could make it optional, just like Career/Science modes. It wouldn't even need to be linear, the various locations/reveals could be randomly generated per game. But anyway, it was a suggestion off the top of my head to illustrate a point.

What I'm really getting at is, as you rightly point out, more content is not the same thing as more fun. However, there are ways to make new opportunities for fun by giving more meaning to the reasons for experiencing what content KSP already has.

Throughout the development process, the devs have steadily added more places to go (the various moons and planets), more ways to go there (ion drives, nuclear rockets, spaceplanes etc), and more reasons for going there (science/contracts). What they haven't really added is a more over-arching reason for doing all this beyond 'it's there to go to'. Contracts tried to address this, but I don't think anybody would say they get a sense of fulfillment just from testing some sort of part in orbit of Duna.

I think this is where a little more 'story' might come in. Doubtless there are other ideas that might work better than my suggestion. Whatever, sometimes I'd like to play KSP without having to be too creative about mission goals, but without the cardboard aftertaste of the contracts system. That wouldn't stop me having my own Sandbox/career where I invent my own story, but it might stoke the fires to come up with new ideas about where to go next and what the big plan is.

[regex]

5 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

What I'm really getting at is, as you rightly point out, more content is not the same thing as more fun. However, there are ways to make new opportunities for fun by giving more meaning to the reasons for experiencing what content KSP already has.

5 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

What they haven't really added is a more over-arching reason for doing all this beyond 'it's there to go to'.

Ah, well, for me that's much like real life, I make my own reasons for doing things, and that's one of the reasons I love sandbox games.

5 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Whatever, sometimes I'd like to play KSP without having to be too creative about mission goals, but without the cardboard aftertaste of the contracts system. That wouldn't stop me having my own Sandbox/career where I invent my own story, but it might stoke the fires to come up with new ideas about where to go next and what the big plan is.

Adding fluff content is just staving off the problem IMO.  Adding more procedural content, generating new places to go, that would expand the game mightily to me.  I don't need contracts to tell me to explore a place, I just have to decide it's worth doing.

vOv

[RandomUser]

More varied and higher quality terrain would be cool, I agree.  But the game needs a planet that is even harder than the rest.  Landing on any of the objects in KSP is relatively easy depending on how easy you make it.  For example, do you want to do a return mission?  Do you want to do a Jool V challenge?  For me things like that make it more challenging, which is nice (even though I've never done a Jool V challenge, or a return mission for that matter).  But, getting to the planets is rather easy.  I got to Eeloo the other day without even intending to go there. 

So far the game appears to have an analog for our planets, Moho/Mercury, Eve/Venus, Kerbin/Earth, Duna/Mars, Dres/Ceres, which is even in a sort of asteroid region, just like our Ceres, and are both dwarf planets too.  after which comes Jool/Jupiter.  Am I missing something?  Certainly.  Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  Now, am I saying the game needs to have some massive expansion that adds all these planets?  No, not necessarily (Despite how amazing that would be), what I am saying is that their needs to be something way farther out than Eeloo, for which what comes to mind is Neptune or Pluto, maybe Saturn, just for the rings.