Caves, caverns, and other interesting formations

[Justicier]

I am curious if there is any interest for the current set of rocky worlds in the Kerbal solar system (Kerbolsystem?) to have more "points of interest" to navigate to (and through) with rovers or hoppers. There are some cool easter eggs out there right now like the arches but I would love to see something more varied with its own biomes. I believe that having cave systems to explore would add a rather interesting dynamic to the game... not to mention an added challenge to surface vehicle designers. It would be an added challenge because many caves can be rather haphazard in formation... winding back and forth for a few hundred feet then suddenly plummeting vertically into vast caverns with more passages winding deeper still. So not only will your rover have to do... what a rover does... but it will also have to be able to fly *precisely* through tight formations that are either too rugged for wheels or would cause it to be damaged in a flip or fall.

I only suggest this because I have not seen any posts from the devs discussing it... I know NovaSilisko had planned for some very cool things such as geysers in the past and maybe caves also were thought of at the same time. I have hope that the Devs will be expanding on surface details once the core gameplay updates start winding down, and I believe some variety to rocky worlds other than simple elevation changes would be a great place to start.

[Ultimate Steve]

I agree, it would be awesome. However, with non-easter egg caves, you need 3 layers of terrain colliders (surface, cave roof, cave floor) in order to make it work. It would also be difficult on planets with an ocean, as deep caves would be flooded.

That said, that was a fast explanation. It would be awesome to have caves.

[HoloYolo]

What would be in these caves? Aliens? A new easter egg? Darkness the whole way through?  Love the idea. 

[ZooNamedGames]

I'm all for it!

[max_creative]

You can't destroy ground, so you can't actually build a missile silo on the Mun or anything, but this would be cool idea! I support caves! Just, without the green explody things please.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

33 minutes ago, max_creative said:

You can't destroy ground, so you can't actually build a missile silo on the Mun or anything, but this would be cool idea! I support caves! Just, without the green explody things please.

I don't know if it's still possible, but while back there was a mod (might not have ever been finished for all I remember) which some guy made which allowed the creation of craters when you crashed stuff. I might see if I can find it in the morning, but it's 12:35 at night where I am, so I should probably go to sleep now

[Justicier]

8 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

I don't know if it's still possible, but while back there was a mod (might not have ever been finished for all I remember) which some guy made which allowed the creation of craters when you crashed stuff. I might see if I can find it in the morning, but it's 12:35 at night where I am, so I should probably go to sleep now

I think I remember the mod you're referring to, it allowed for dynamically deformable terrain... haven't seen anything regarding it's development for quite some time.

10 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I agree, it would be awesome. However, with non-easter egg caves, you need 3 layers of terrain colliders (surface, cave roof, cave floor) in order to make it work. It would also be difficult on planets with an ocean, as deep caves would be flooded.

That said, that was a fast explanation. It would be awesome to have caves.

In order to make caves a part of the overall planet mesh it would be a bit of a frustration to implement. I was thinking more along the lines of very large "easter eggs" to make up the cave formations. I think this could be more easily accomplished by making a cavity in the overall planet mesh, then plopping down the cave model into the cavity. Not sure how this would look from a distance (possible graphical artifacts/glitches) or if the Unity engine would allow for such a large model with its own colliders without slowing to a crawl. I really like the idea of caves on some worlds being flooded, say on Laythe, it would be a bit more variety and another interesting part of the challenge :-)

[panzer1b]

Id love to see stuff like this because it would really make planetary exploration more interesting.  That said, a good first step would be to add a few easter egg like natural formations, and fix the ones that were left underground (like the cave on tylo).  Not an ideal solution, but it doesnt require adding alot more colliders and polygons (all of which do affect performance).

That said, if the devs find the time and can pull it off without making the game much laggier, i am all for cave like formations on planets where it makes sense to have them.  Maybee we can even get a massive cave where you can like fly into a planet's core while we are at it.  It would be very interesting to experience the 0 gravity zone inside a planet (ofc assuming its not a melted core in which case the EVA kerbal instantly goes poof).

[Racescort666]

Cloud City on Jool? How cool would that be?

[swjr-swis]

On 10/1/2016 at 3:46 AM, Justicier said:

It would be an added challenge because many caves can be rather haphazard in formation... winding back and forth for a few hundred feet then suddenly plummeting vertically into vast caverns with more passages winding deeper still.

Instant flash back to those side-scrolling 'lander' and cave-exploring type of games from the ole 8/16 bit era, navigating our tiny ships without hitting the walls (too hard).

Sigh. Fine. I'm off to dust off and hook up my C-64 again...

[Justicier]

2 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

Instant flash back to those side-scrolling 'lander' and cave-exploring type of games from the ole 8/16 bit era, navigating our tiny ships without hitting the walls (too hard).

Sigh. Fine. I'm off to dust off and hook up my C-64 again...

Haha, I must admit, I was indeed thinking of such games when I made the topic... nostalgia man, it's a powerful thing

Although there is also a fun little game called "Lunar Mission" on mobile that I've been playing during down time at work:

 

[Van Disaster]

Would need a completely new planet system ( ie, half the game ). Don't look for caves anytime soon...

You could do silos by making a big pit & filling it with a static silo model, but getting to actually match the terrain is not easy given how low res the terrain is.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Van Disaster