Comets

[luizopiloto]

We have asteroids... what about comets? things 2x bigger than Class E asteroids, made of ice and a very beautiful trail...  and visible from Kerbin surface when relatively close...

[Stelum]

It would be cool if you could explore, orbit, and even land on the comet.

[Qwarkk]

I'd love to have asteroids and comets with their own gravitational field so I can carry out something similar to Rosetta.

[nascarlaser1]

I would love if you could just see stuff in general from the surface of Kerbin. I keep trying to hurl stuff into the atmosphere, then go to the KSC to watch it burn up, but I can always see the tag, and never the actual object :(.

Now that my rambling is over,

Great idea btw! I really like it.

[Hydrothermalventclam]

There is a mod that adds comets with the nice trail that you like, but I think it is part of one of the planet packs.  I agree that comets with trails would be awesome.

Also,

7 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

I would love if you could just see stuff in general from the surface of Kerbin. I keep trying to hurl stuff into the atmosphere, then go to the KSC to watch it burn up, but I can always see the tag, and never the actual object :(.

With Distant object enhancement, you can see stuff from the surface of Kerbin.

[nascarlaser1]

Just now, NathanMcGuire30 said:

There is a mod that adds comets with the nice trail that you like, but I think it is part of one of the planet packs.  I agree that comets with trails would be awesome.

Also,

With Distant object enhancement, you can see stuff from the surface of Kerbin.

is that another mod?

[omelaw]

45 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

is that another mod?

yes.

[nascarlaser1]

11 minutes ago, omelaw said:

yes.

ok. I am currently on 1.1, so till 1.2 is officially released, no mods for me

[Hydrothermalventclam]

On 9/19/2016 at 5:39 PM, nascarlaser1 said:

ok. I am currently on 1.1, so till 1.2 is officially released, no mods for me

Distant object enhancement does not add any parts, or change anything about your crafts, so it won't cause any problems if you change your save file from 1.1 to 1.2, just delete distant object enhancement, and wait for it to be updated.

[nascarlaser1]

1 minute ago, NathanMcGuire30 said:

Distant object enhancement does not add any parts, or change anything about your crafts, so it won't cause any problems if you change your save file from 1.1 to 1.2, just delete distant object enhancement, and wait for it to be updated.

I do not want to install 1.2 till it is out officially, since it may A. have bugs, and B. so I can learn all of what is updated, so I know if my old shuttles will break when I updates. also, I do not have 1.1, I have 1.0.0.

[luizopiloto]

44 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

I do not want to install 1.2 till it is out officially, since it may A. have bugs, and B. so I can learn all of what is updated, so I know if my old shuttles will break when I updates. also, I do not have 1.1, I have 1.0.0.

Copy your 1.1 installation to another place, and update to 1.2 pre-release... You will still be able to play 1.1.3 from the copied folder...

[Vanamonde]

Some posts have been trimmed from this thread. Please keep the discussions on-topic. 

[KerbMav]

On 19.9.2016 at 10:29 PM, Qwarkk said:

I'd love to have asteroids and comets with their own gravitational field so I can carry out something similar to Rosetta.

I do not know if Unity can handle objects with a SOI moving in and out of other objects' SOIs?

On 19.9.2016 at 10:32 PM, nascarlaser1 said:

I would love if you could just see stuff in general from the surface of Kerbin. I keep trying to hurl stuff into the atmosphere, then go to the KSC to watch it burn up, but I can always see the tag, and never the actual object :(.

Now that my rambling is over,

Great idea btw! I really like it.

You can only see vessels (asteroids count as such) at app. 2.5 km and even then they are not completely affected by physics if I remember correctly.

[nascarlaser1]

21 hours ago, luizopiloto said:

Copy your 1.1 installation to another place, and update to 1.2 pre-release... You will still be able to play 1.1.3 from the copied folder...

I do not have 1.1.3. I have 1.0.0.0 (I think I added too many zeros). 1.0.0 was only out for 1 day, which means that there are 0 mods in the world, that work for it. I never bothered updating to 1.1.3, do to the wheels.

Edited September 21, 2016 by nascarlaser1

[Jonfliesgoats]

Comets are a fantastic idea!  

[problemecium]

The idea sounds wonderful, but I have concerns.

If anyone else has been following the development of a game called "Space Engine" you've surely caught on to the ongoing issues regarding comet tails. Currently the science of volumetric rendering (stuff like clouds) is immature and many mainstream game engines offer very limited facilities for doing it. The most common technique is to just fudge it using a large number of particle sprites (2D images) overlayed on top of one another. KSP does this.
The problem with doing that with comet tails arises when you get close to the comet - the tail itself appears huge from that distance, many times larger than the screen. Consequently the entire screen ends up covered in particle sprites, which is brutal on graphics cards - particularly "weaker" ones such as Intel's integrated chips.
Long story short I fear that making decent-looking comets in KSP will entail either coming up with a very clever and difficult to code rendering system, or will simply murder everyone's computers.