If SQUAD added Gas Planet 2 what would you want the moons to be like?

[Hannu2]

If new 3 dimensional surface model is excluded as an unrealistic hope, I would like to have a planet with inclination of 20-40 degrees. Also moons should have various and large inclinations compared to each others and to the ecliptic. That would give some new maneuvering challenges. Otherwise there is not much interest in colored balls what OPM mod could not give. Or many other mods for those who wants more wild celestial bodies.

[noobsrtoast]

4 hours ago, Joonatan1998 said:

I don't think any add the kind of rings I suggested, probably because they would be hard/impoosible to make without being too computer resource intensive.

well thats unfortunate

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Toirus

An irregular moon about 5-10km across, but very potato. About 1/50th Kerbin gravity. Highly elliptical orbit, but low inclination around it's parent body. Perhaps made of ammonia ice and various metals. Dirt yellows and muted blues. The kicker: it has a doughnut hole that pierces it's center of gravity. This would make for a zero-point at the center that could contain a space station, or maybe a strange Kerbal rave party. The second kicker: an atmosphere that starts below ASL, and so you would have to be in the "tunnel" to be effected. Of course, this would be a crazy thin atmosphere -like Kerbin at 60km altitude- but would serve to draw everything towards the center, instead of tiny orbits that never decay.

 

Saphine

Synchronized with it's parent body in such a way that it never sees the sun. Constant eclipse. As such, this 400km wide satellite is much colder than it's siblings. In fact, the presence of certain chemicals in it's substantial regolith have served to crystallize it's surface into contorted fractal features. The surface, where rarely flat, is made of vast facets of permafrost. The terrain is so highly irregular in places that landings are some of the most dangerous in the Kolar System. Other areas are impossibly flat for kilometers in each direction. From high up, it resembles a 20 sided die, but as you get closer the fractal nature becomes clear. 

[paul23]

On 10/15/2016 at 4:55 AM, panzer1b said:

Honestly the number one thing i dislike with the current planets is the lack of actual unique features.  I know its unlikely we will get that much detail because of performance requirements, but stuff like valleys, hills, cliffs, ect is majorly lacking in the majority of KSP planets.  Take Duna, aside from horrific stock textures, it is just too flatish and lacks any stand out features or anything (yes im spoilded by sci-fi movies but at least give us something to make those low altitude dogfights more sci-fi movie like, trench runs, lots of terrain that you need to dodge).  A few planets are actually decent imo.  Kerbin is good minus a few terrible textures such as the snowy coast north of KSC being jagged squares.  Mun has its share of trench systems, cliffs, bumpy terrain, and flat as well for when you get bored of dodging rocks while trying to bomb something.  Pol is very nice with its low gravity, really neat rock formations, and just lack of flat period.  Most planets could be fixed by just giving them better textures and normal maps (im looking at you Jool, terribly terrible texture, pretty much forces you to use cloud mod to stop eye bleeding), but land modification would be welcome even if it did ruin save game compatibility.

As for new planets, id love one more planet with a jet engine capable atmosphere but something completely different from laythe and kerbin, perhaps with lowish gravity like Duna or even Mun and not sure what for terrain.  Id also love to see a volcanic planet (not sure if lava could be implemented but itd be really neat if that was doable, as well as the thermal effects of landing in lava), with lots of volcanos and stuff.  Finally, while i have no expectation of it, id absolutely love something that looks like it was abandoned by aliens or whatnot and contains synthetic constructs (preferably with glowing bits here and there).  The planet would have leftover structures, perhaps post apocaliptic to make the lack of any life plausible, with lots of wiring on teh ground, lanch pads, spaceports, houses, factories, ect (some destroyed some intact), maybee even a few with power leftover (glowing windows, ect).  Actually, now that i think about it, some sort of basic city like formations would be very nice if they were implemented in a future game version.  Im not saying tons and tons of detail, but something like 2-4 cities on kerbin would be super cool, even if they were very low poly and didnt have much building variety.  Just something to change up the complete lack of synthetic constructs (and while we have easter eggs they are way to minor to count) would really make the game much more enjoyable imo (sadly the mod that lets you do this isnt updated to new versions)...

A lower gravity means no atmosphere can form: or well an atmosphere would really thin -- like duna.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

29 minutes ago, paul23 said:

A lower gravity means no atmosphere can form: or well an atmosphere would really thin -- like duna.

My understanding is that a low gravity, yet dense atmosphere could be a thing, it would just have to be crazy thin, and made of generally heavy vapor/particulate. 

[JadeOfMaar]

@DrunkenKerbalnaut Sorry, dude, but Toirus can't be done-- well, not one that has a hollow center. The middle will still be a solid plane like an inflatable swimming pool. But maybe someone could create essentially a Neutron star with 2+ co-orbital moons.

As for Saphine, orbital mechanics can't allow an object to hang in space relative to its parent. It can be co-orbital and not a moon but will still have a sunward side exposed to Sun. Otherwise it will fall into its parent or flyby and leave that SOI. The concepts for them are amazing, nonetheless. One would think Saphine is a silly terraforming experiment or a humongous art project by the aliens who left their junk on Kerbin.

9 hours ago, paul23 said:

A lower gravity means no atmosphere can form: or well an atmosphere would really thin -- like duna.

-- like Thatmo from OPM?

[qzgy]

I'd like a binary moon system. So, two moons orbiting a center of mass point orbiting the gas planet.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

3 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

...Toirus can't be done...

...orbital mechanics can't allow an object to hang in space relative to its parent...

Do you mean from a programming standpoint, or in respect to physics?

 

and what about stationary orbits?  Or in the case of "Saphine", simply good timing (1 year = 1 month). 

Edited November 4, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[JadeOfMaar]

@DrunkenKerbalnaut Toirus can't be done in programming (not with the hollow center). It's quite unlikely that there is a provision in the game for true donut worlds.

Saphine's hanging in space as a child body is physics-breaking and to an extent can't be programmed. Once any two objects are different distances from the star (especially one behind the other) they will always have varying orbital speed and the body in behind will come out from back there. About stationary orbits: Multiple worlds can "do the conga line" in KSP as long as they're none are moons of their fellows. There's the risk, though, of the game getting fed up of player's crafts occupying several SOI at once.

About good timing, do you mean to have the moon's dark time last a whole kerbin year? This moon might as well be a dwarf planet around a black hole.

[Wjolcz]

Always have one with an atmosphere.

[mythic_fci]

I'd say a volcanic moon with liquid lava flows that will overheat Kerbals and parts, along with volcanic eruptions. Then perhaps some planets with unique atmospheres - say, a place with a really cold atmosphere that reduce rocket engine thrust and make jets unusable (despite a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere).

[Darnok]

18 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

My understanding is that a low gravity, yet dense atmosphere could be a thing, it would just have to be crazy thin, and made of generally heavy vapor/particulate. 

Venus like planet would be nice...

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

10 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@DrunkenKerbalnaut Toirus can't be done in programming (not with the hollow center). It's quite unlikely that there is a provision in the game for true donut worlds.

Saphine's hanging in space as a child body is physics-breaking and to an extent can't be programmed. Once any two objects are different distances from the star (especially one behind the other) they will always have varying orbital speed and the body in behind will come out from back there. About stationary orbits: Multiple worlds can "do the conga line" in KSP as long as they're none are moons of their fellows. There's the risk, though, of the game getting fed up of player's crafts occupying several SOI at once.

About good timing, do you mean to have the moon's dark time last a whole kerbin year? This moon might as well be a dwarf planet around a black hole.

I'll take your word for it. I have no clue about the physics behind such a thing. My assumption was that if certain planets can have day/year ratios wildly different from the earth-like setup, the same could be done with sattelites and their month/year rhythm. Basically, as long as we get some fringe, off-the-wall new stuff, I'm happy. The binary dwarf idea (Pluto/Charon style) would be legit.

 

As far as the donut, I think I see where your coming from. Planet surfaces are probably defined as vertices at x distance from center. What if it was modeled like our current asteroids, just bigger? Slap it on rails around our new gas giant, and give it an SOI. 

Edited November 4, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[JadeOfMaar]

True. Some off-the-wall stock stuff would really be nice. Asteroid-like thing? Sure. Maybe even make it a really giant Magic Boulder.

Spoiler

You can easily get Pluto-Charon style (and pardon me for suggesting mods now) if you install Kopernicus, OPM and the tiny Sigma Binary mod, Plock and Karen become binary.

Seeing this (a moon in the Opete star system in Kerbal Galaxy 2 mod) gave me all the understanding I need to say that donut planets and nearly every funky shape someone would want are nearly possible.

 

 

[paul23]

Things like binary systems are incredible hard to create: while from a far enough point it acts as a single point mass at the combined center, getting anywhere near the surfaces disrupts this, and means that you can't use a 2 body approximation anymore.

 

On topic of low mass high pressure  atmosphere: while the game mechanics can easily support this, KSP does strive to be "believable realistic"; in reality you need a certain minimum mass for a planet to be able to keep it's atmosphere: otherwise it will get blown away by solar pressure. 

Similar thing to "donut shaped planets": realistically they can never exists: the very definition of (dwarf) planet states that its gravity should be strong enough to deform itself to a ball-like shape. (Where planets have the extra that they should've cleared their neighborhood of similar sized objects). On top of that, once again "what about gravity": this is again near impossible to calculate once you get closer.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

8 hours ago, paul23 said:

Things like binary systems are incredible hard to create

...[snip]...

means that you can't use a 2 body approximation anymore.

...[snip]...

Similar thing to "donut shaped planets": realistically they can never exists: the very definition of (dwarf) planet states that its gravity should be strong enough to deform itself to a ball-like shape.

Binaries in KSP:

Imagine the SOIs as a Ven diagram, with an infinitely small overlap. Not technically right, but close enough to suspend disbelief? EDIT: perhaps an invisible gravitational parent would be necessary, where these SOIs converge. Damn 2 body BS. Has anybody written a 3 body system for KSP?

 

Donuts:

 while your criteria for planets (dwarf or proper) are as close I can remember them to be, the conversation is about satellites. A captured asteroid, relatively new to it's neighborhood, will undoubtedly be of highly irregular shape and composition. And may even have some work of it's own to do, as far as "clearing it's neighborhood". 

Just pulling this out of my @$$, but perhaps an icy body that collected metals as it travelled, then a near pass to a star caused the ice core to dissipate, leaving our cool donut asteroid, soon to be captured around some gas giant?

Edited November 5, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut
Brain,fingers,internet. I forgot the order :)

[Starwaster]

I'd rather have a better gas giant than another gas giant. Or a better gas giant instead of worrying about what the moons of a hypothetical gas giant #2 are going to be like.

I'd rather have a gas giant whose 'surface' is thousands of kilometers down instead of a couple of hundred. (or however deep it is now)

[paul23]

Imagine the SOIs as a Ven diagram, with an infinitely small overlap. Not technically right, but close enough to suspend disbelief? EDIT: perhaps an invisible gravitational parent would be necessary, where these SOIs converge. Damn 2 body BS. Has anybody written a 3 body system for KSP?

 

Do you even realise why you can use SOI? The SOI boundary is the position where a third body would feel equal gravitational acceleration from both bodies. Now since gravitational acceleration reduces with the third root of the distance, and increases linearly with mass this works very well in systems where one mass is much larger than the other. You have only a very very small region where the forces of both bodies are even relevant.

However in the case of two equally sized bodies  this is not the case: the region where both bodies pertubate a third body equally is quite large. As such using a SOI would be silly; or even if you use a SOI you would have a sudden change of forces when you cross the "boundary". - a massive change, and the orbit would look "silly".

 

Similar problems arise with donut shaped bodies: how would an "orbit" look like? Remember for KSP all bodies are point masses (even satellites themselves can't have a rotation while on rails): this allows for kepler orbits and smooths calculations between "on rails" and "while in physics calculation zone". However with a donut shape this would be "silly": would you (while inside the donut) have a very strong gravitational force toward the empty "center"? Keplerian orbits say you would - yet any physicist can explain this is bad and doesn't look good.

 

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

On November 5, 2016 at 7:27 AM, paul23 said:

(1)Do you even realise why you can use SOI?...

(2)... As such using a SOI would be silly; or even if you use a SOI you would have a sudden change of forces when you cross the "boundary". - a massive change, and the orbit would look "silly"....

(3)...would you (while inside the donut) have a very strong gravitational force toward the empty "center"?...

 

(1) Just enough to play the game, not enough to be arrogant about it. EDIT: after re-reading, I realized this part may seem personal. Not my intentions. 

(2) I have a folder full of screenshots that showcase such "silly" orbits causes by SOI changes, and in most cases I only had to go to Minmus to see them. I've decided I wouldn't take this game too seriously, and certainly not as scientific canon. It's perfectly fine if you prefer it that way, as I understand the desire for immersion. 

(3) That was the idea, as I find no fault in leveraging the "silly" parts of this game to explore things that might never be seen IRL. Like photosynthetic frogs pioneering interplanetary travel.

 

I envision this donut to be a neat place to experience odd gravitational directions, and it's epicenter to be a pretty damned sweet place to park a small space station. It seems to me that if the donut had the mass of an equivalent sphere, despite it's hole-y-ness (haha), the net sum of it's pull would find equilibrium at whatever center point there is. Should that gravity be low enough, and the bonds of the satellites regolith stout enough, a void or tunnel at said epicenter would resist collapse for a few thousand years.

Just long enough for Jeb to do a barrel roll through it.     

Edited November 7, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[Magzimum]

If we're making a wish list anyway, I will just go all in:

Gas giant (on topic of this thread)

Firstly, yes please. I would love to get a 2nd gas giant in the game, Around a Gas Giant, I'd like to see a few types of moons:

• Titan - I agree with a few others here: lower gravity, thicker atmosphere - leads to new lander designs.
• Triton - a moon with a retrograde orbit - just so that the new Jool-5-challenge around the new gas giant is even harder.
• An all-liquid moon. Just so that landing and taking off gets a little harder.
• A bunch of regular rocks, because not all moons can be special.

I don't consider it realistic to be asking for active volcanoes or geysers. But it would be nice to have some striking geological features that can be seen from orbit (such as the Mun's canyon). Maybe a Verona Rupes (i.e. a straight cliff of 5-10 km high, somewhere on a small moon, far far away)?

Dwarf planets (going off topic)

I'd like a few more large asteroids (think Ceres, Vesta). Not because they add new challenges, but just because it adds to the realism of the solar system, and because with more rocks floating around in space, you'll always be in the launch window of something. And because Dres is so alone. I really should visit Dres.

Pluto analogue (wandering off further off topic)

Finally, I'd like a Pluto analogue - a tiny world quite far away, with even tinier moons. Whether the game engine can handle a relatively large moon like Charon around a smaller planet like Pluto, I don't know (I guess not). But I'd be happy if they scale down the moons. The fun would be that it's s just a real system with everything much smaller. Hell, if they just give Eeloo a few moons of its own, the size of Gilly or a tiny bit larger, I would be delighted. Such a miniature system would create new and interesting challenges.

Trans-Neptunian objects (almost outside the SoI of the topic)

Finally, finally, finally, maybe a tiny dwarf planet the same as Sedna. This should just be tremendously far away, on a 10000 year orbit, with a perihelion about 50-100 yrs after the game started, so that the players have pretty much 1 chance to catch it at its Periapsis. It would only be discovered by your space agency with the tracking station upgraded to max. If the developers have a sense of humor, it could be at its Periapsis in year one, and therefore moving away from you throughout your career, unless you play for >5000 yrs game time. For those not so up-to-date with what Sedna is: it's Pe is at 76 AU (76x the Earth-Sun distance), and its Ap is at 936 AU. Its orbital period is about 11400 years, but we don't really know it exactly. I wouldn't really care what it looks like, since this challenge would be all about getting there.

[StupidAndy]

well i think that the planet should have rings. and i have an idea on what it should be like

one problem i have with KSP is that you don't have to worry about space junk, i mean, it doesn't register the fairing debris (yes i know this would cause some computers to RUD, but there should be something!) but what i think the rigs should be like is kinda like reentry, where when you are in an area of the planet's rings, you would have lots of little particles hitting your ship, so you would have to have something to protect you from the particles. an the damage you get, stays there, unlike the heat from re entry, which makes sense. an a way to stop computers to have random kraken attacks would to have the particles in a 70x70m rectangular prism (a stretched cube for the people who don't know) so your computer doesn't just randomly go boom

HEY THAT COULD WORK FOR SPACE JUNK!

[Joonatan1998]

On 7.11.2016 at 9:00 PM, StupidAndy said:

well i think that the planet should have rings. and i have an idea on what it should be like

one problem i have with KSP is that you don't have to worry about space junk, i mean, it doesn't register the fairing debris (yes i know this would cause some computers to RUD, but there should be something!) but what i think the rigs should be like is kinda like reentry, where when you are in an area of the planet's rings, you would have lots of little particles hitting your ship, so you would have to have something to protect you from the particles. an the damage you get, stays there, unlike the heat from re entry, which makes sense. an a way to stop computers to have random kraken attacks would to have the particles in a 70x70m rectangular prism (a stretched cube for the people who don't know) so your computer doesn't just randomly go boom

HEY THAT COULD WORK FOR SPACE JUNK!

I think you should also be able to match the orbital velocity of the ring particles to reduce/stop the damage.

I think I read somewhere that the rings are pretty thin. (Tens or hundreds of metres?)

Edited November 20, 2016 by Joonatan1998

[StupidAndy]

4 hours ago, Joonatan1998 said:

I think you should also be able to match the orbital velocity of the ring particles to reduce stop the damage.

I think I read somewhere that the rings are pretty thin. (Tens or hundreds of metres?)

1. yes, if you match the velocity of most of the rings, you should be able to see them float peacefully around your ship, which would make for some REALLY great screenshots
2. yes they are thin, the main rings, only 30 feet (10 meters for you not imperialists) thick

[Ragingdonut]

On October 14, 2016 at 7:22 PM, JacobJHC said:

If sqquad were to add Gas Planet 2 what would you want the moons to be like?

Personally I would want there to be a Titan analogue. I want a moon with low gravity (roughly 1/10th of a G) and an atmosphere of 1.5x Kerbins in pressure. This would closely match Titan and would be very fun to explore. I would also want a trojan moon somewhere, maybe Phoebe analogue, Phoebe is a moon around Saturn that might have been spherical once but was beaten out of shape. 

That's just what I want. What would you like to see added to GP2. Eastereggs? Moons? another monolith?(YES) 

I want one of the SMALLEST moons to be a gas giant as well. A slightly smaller one, but still gassy. Jokes aside, I would love a hoth-esque planet. I like the idea of the planet that is insanely un-round. Final idea, how about a neutron star like planet. Smooth, small, and rapidly rotating. The atmosphere of the moon would be strangely shaped, thick at the equator, and thin at the poles, due to centrifugal force.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Ragingdonut
Addition to comment

[Dire_Squid]

Ya know, not to be condescending, but I 'love' how people give these planets and moons very fancy names.... yet look at KSP, and how all the planets and moons have intentionally derpy names (think "Minions", people).

 

I wanna see bodies that fit the naming aesthetic, like Farkle, Gub-gub, Steev, etc.