More planets for KSP

[Alphard]

What do you think, would it be good idea to add new planets in stock KSP? I think analogs for Saturn and ice giants would be good. Also show your pics of planets and planet packs if you have any  

My PC is broken, so I don't have any pic to start with, just random photos of Saturn and Galilean moons through my telescope:

Edited July 8, 2016 by Alphard
Images visible without clicking on the link

[storm_soldier2377]

I've always believed that the current planets should be made interesting before we add more. Right now all you can find on planets are 2-3 ground textures and maybe another feature like an atmosphere or ocean. When you've landed on one spot you've pretty much seen it all. No more planets should be added before that is changed.

[Gojira1000]

Just add the Outer Planets Mod - job done

[Van Disaster]

More distant planets are an interesting logistical challenge if you use more realistic electrical generation mods, - decaying RTGs and solar panels with proper scaling for distance from the Sun - and also things like RemoteTech which have a command delay, but yes without planets having unique things to do when you get there, it's not really a big deal.

As people have said, if you want to see what it's like, install OPM or one of the other system extensions. Warning, missions can take serveral decades just to arrive.

[Snark]

Moving to Suggestions.  (Though please note that "moar planets" is a common suggestion, there are already quite a few threads for this).

Agreed with @Gojira1000... go take a look at Outer Planets Mod, you'll be glad you did.  It implements precisely exactly what you've asked for, nicely Kerbalized (equivalents of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), with stunningly good production value.

It's just gorgeous, totally up to the quality standards of the stock game, and gives you all kinds of neat playgrounds to play in.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, definitely more planets.  No one has yet suggested a feasible way to "make the current places more interesting" or "give more things to do" that works for all game modes so I call that a dead end.

[Spartwo]

Not even the devs have explained how they plan to do it.

[Tyko]

3 hours ago, storm_soldier2377 said:

I've always believed that the current planets should be made interesting before we add more. Right now all you can find on planets are 2-3 ground textures and maybe another feature like an atmosphere or ocean. When you've landed on one spot you've pretty much seen it all. No more planets should be added before that is changed.

+1 for this. I was really excited the first time I got a probe to another planet, but a little let down that each planet wasn't a richly populated with "stuff" as Kerbin and it's moons.

Also, the stock planets give a good sampling of the types of missions that can be run - high grav / low grav, atmosphere/no atmosphere, a gas giant with lots of moons, etc. Adding more planets without really fleshing them out would increase travel times, but wouldn't dramatically change mission profiles/fun quotient.

[Scientia1423]

5 hours ago, Gojira1000 said:

Just add the Outer Planets Mod - job done

Seems legit. That would mean converting all the stock planets to Kopernicus and making Captrobau the planet designer.

 

All-in-all Squad probably has no hope of creating new planets. The previous person NovaSilisko left after creating the planets and moons for their own reasons and their ideas were incorperated into a mod (called Kerbol origins) by someone.

[kBob]

I actually think it would be more useful to have a couple more moons out past Minmus since it would be nice and it would be interesting for the many players who don't leave Kerbin's SOI as well as anyone who wants some more stock variety; one moon quite large like our moon out quite far and another Minmus or two types (with different textures) with lots of varied terrain and colors (and maybe one even smaller that orbits the large moon perhaps it broke off from that moon in the not too distant past and managed a stable orbit somehow). 

After that I'd really like to see a stock alternative solar system generation option, it would give you Kerbin as is, but generate a whole new set of heavenly bodies to explore, you could have a different career or sandbox save each with it's own solar system (tweaked to your basic specifications or totally random)...yeah I dream big.

[Van Disaster]

If there was a body the size of our moon in Kerbin SOI, *Kerbin* would be a moon.

What would we do on planets now if we could land people? mostly detailed geology-related stuff? The mapping solutions we have now are getting better at not handing all the data over at once, but there's still room for more.

[magnemoe]

18 hours ago, storm_soldier2377 said:

I've always believed that the current planets should be made interesting before we add more. Right now all you can find on planets are 2-3 ground textures and maybe another feature like an atmosphere or ocean. When you've landed on one spot you've pretty much seen it all. No more planets should be added before that is changed.

First would be to add the procedural craters from Mun to other bodies, With some variation, bodies with atmosphere should not have lots of small craters but perhaps dunes.
Perhaps biome variations too. 

[kBob]

21 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

If there was a body the size of our moon in Kerbin SOI, *Kerbin* would be a moon.

What would we do on planets now if we could land people? mostly detailed geology-related stuff? The mapping solutions we have now are getting better at not handing all the data over at once, but there's still room for more.

Obviously scaled.  I said like our Moon meaning comparison in size to the planet.  Maybe the Mun is already like this but it seems a bit small to me so I'd like to see something a bit bigger, but far out.  Basically some more Kerbin SOI variety would be nice.

[Van Disaster]

Mun is actually larger relative to Kerbin than the Moon is to the Earth. I'm not sure how much bigger you could go without dragging the barycentre outside of Kerbin ( well, if it isn't already ).

[kBob]

20 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Mun is actually larger relative to Kerbin than the Moon is to the Earth. I'm not sure how much bigger you could go without dragging the barycentre outside of Kerbin ( well, if it isn't already ).

Well if it can't be done without problems than just another Mun sized one would be fine.  I'm not a planet maker I thought it would be fine because all  the large bodies are on rails, shows how much I've looked into it ;).

[ZooNamedGames]

Planets look unlikely as the developer for them has left and the game seems content complete (hence release). Doesn't mean the game is done adding content, but isn't likely as planets add additional aspects to the career and science modes. So I say that it's unlikely and personally I feel the game is great as it is, it's fine in it's own Kerbal fashion as it's a smaller analogue scale. I say it's complete as is as far as planets are considered.

[Red Iron Crown]

9 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Planets look unlikely as the developer for them has left...

I dunno, they might go the route of hiring a modder to implement their stuff in the core game. Stockifying OPM would be great and would be quick as all the assets already exist, IMO.

[KerikBalm]

I am also rooting for stockification of OPM... although I would change Slate to be more of a mars analogue (Surface pressure of about 0.01 atmospheres, compared to Duna's 0.0667; Surface gravity of 0.37 compared to Duna's 0.3. Keep the radius the same).

Also OPM makes the kerbin system quite analogous ot our own system. I've strengthened that analogy by adding two additional bodies that sort of share an orbit with Dres, as Vesta and Pallas analogues.

The gem of my modified system is the Mars+Oceans+LifeAndThickerO2containingAtmosphere planet at kerbin's pseudo L4 point. Its < 1/10th the mass of Kerbin, but still more massive than Duna. This is based on simulations for the putative real life Theia impactor which was destabilized from L4/L5 after growing more massive than ~10% Earth's mass.

Its by far the most interesting planet I've explored in KSP... but Mars does have pretty interesting terrain.. ain't nothing like the real thing (though some real life bodies would be pretty boring. Dres has a canyon... Ceres has a white spot... Ceres may be a pretty boring source for a height and color map for KSP)

[ZooNamedGames]

44 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I dunno, they might go the route of hiring a modder to implement their stuff in the core game. Stockifying OPM would be great and would be quick as all the assets already exist, IMO.

Ok, so it's possible.

I still feel that the game is fine as is, a perfect Kerbal image of our solar system.

[Brownhair2]

I'm still waiting for GP2. Nova why you leave 

[Holo]

You know those poetic descriptions of Pluto where you hear about it being really cold and that the Sun just looks like another star in the sky? Something like that in Kerbal Space Program would be great.

And the rest of the gas giants, because just having Jupiter is no fun for anyone. There aren't even any rings, which are like the best part of the solar system! No pleasant-looking blue orbs to hover ominously above retrograde moons!

[Van Disaster]

4 hours ago, Holo said:

You know those poetic descriptions of Pluto where you hear about it being really cold and that the Sun just looks like another star in the sky? Something like that in Kerbal Space Program would be great.

Here's the view from the outer edges of the OPM extension - unfortunately the outer planet pair ( this is SigmaBinary enhanced ) are currently at their closest to the sun, so it's not as far as it could be.

[RatchetinSpace]

On 7/9/2016 at 2:59 AM, regex said:

Yeah, definitely more planets.  No one has yet suggested a feasible way to "make the current places more interesting" or "give more things to do" that works for all game modes so I call that a dead end.

I think weather would be a really good mechanic to make current places more interesting and give more stuff to do. Rain and storms could make for fantastic views and wind and air pressure differentials would make for a fantastic game play experience, making landing on planets with atmospheres a lot more challenging than just 'spamming parachutes'. 

I do agree we should add planets though. Atleast two, One Saturn analogue and an Ice giant analogue, or maybe the planet discussed by devs earlier which would have an extremely thick atmosphere and lots of gravity. Along with the Saturn planet an extensive moon system. Ice gypsters on moons, asteroids to mine in orbit, it'd be great. 

I personally think the devs should focus on both adding more planets and also adding weather of some sort. The current mods available are a bit too buggy and don't add stock-alike planets (I'm not a fan of rainbow moons) and don't extensively simulate weather the way I think an immersive experience should.

 

[maxie]

Definitely agree. The ksp team once thought of adding an asteroid belt but ended up dropping it because It caused a performance problem on computers and replaced it with Dres. I think that the ksp team should add more planets in the outer reaches of the current star system. Planets with tens of moons, each with geysers and cool geology. Having only cool as the only gas giant makes ksp less entertaining due to the limitations of exploration in the system. In my view, I suggest that the ksp team to add 2-3 planets in the outer regions and a additional asteroid belt. Given the size of adding a new planet and asteroid belts, this should be a long term goal for the development team to make ksp better and more adventurous.

[Loren Pechtel]

On 7/8/2016 at 9:22 AM, Snark said:

Moving to Suggestions.  (Though please note that "moar planets" is a common suggestion, there are already quite a few threads for this).

Agreed with @Gojira1000... go take a look at Outer Planets Mod, you'll be glad you did.  It implements precisely exactly what you've asked for, nicely Kerbalized (equivalents of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), with stunningly good production value.

It's just gorgeous, totally up to the quality standards of the stock game, and gives you all kinds of neat playgrounds to play in.

 

Question:  Now that we have a 64-bit system are the memory issues a thing of the past?