Will Kerbin/Mun/Minimus geography change?

[KevinTMC]

My question is just what it says there on the tin: How fixed-in-concrete should we consider the geography of the planet/moons we have?

I\'ve seen mention of plans to add more Kerbal-built features to the planet, such as cities. This would make explorations, treks to KSC 2, and such less tedious. But how about further tweaks to the geography to make it more realistic and/or Earthlike?

Rivers would be nice of course--along with the possibility of lakes at some elevation other than sea level. And if major changes were still possible, I\'d vote for less Pangaea, smaller (and more) continents, and more large islands.

(As it is now, unless KSC\'s recognizable bit of land is visible, it\'s hard to tell even what hemisphere I\'m orbiting unless I not only go to map view, but rotate the view to find KSC for reference.)

[bsalis]

From the planned features page: 'Cities and other geographic points of reference'

So yes, there will be changes. The game is in alpha. However, for me personally, I\'d rather see smaller settlements no larger than a village, with hamlet being the typical size. I don\'t want to see cities for many reasons. Such as...

* Cities properly scaled to a Kerbal would have a huge footprint on a planet with an equatorial radius of 600km.

* Either from a content creation point of view, or a game engine and rendering point of view, I can\'t see a city being done properly. Proper as in having all buildings as 3d renders. Instead you will get some buildings on a city map texture. I doubt you will see 1 mill+ Kerbals walking round either. If you have programatically generated hamlets, you can get real buildings and Kerbals walking around like you see in the VAB.

* A decent size village is still big enough to have visible Kerbal made landmarks and a runway to land at.

* Cities are serious... from an art direction it just does not fit well in my mind. Kerbals and the game itself seem to be lighthearted fun.

[Don_Draper]

People hate on Spore a lot, but I reckon the cartoony cities from that would be as far as you\'d want to go. Actual cities at the current scale would be just insane - imagine trying to fit Manhattan on the surface of Kerbin.

[TheKerbinator]

Would be cool if you could land at a village, point to a Kerbal and hire him for your space program. Picking a farmer from his field obviously doesn\'t result in a good astronaut.

[leopardenthusiast]

Would be cool if you could land at a village, point to a Kerbal and hire him for your space program. Picking a farmer from his field obviously doesn\'t result in a good astronaut.

It\'d be especially awesome if you used a set of custom parts that looked like a UFO.

[bsalis]

... Picking a farmer from his field obviously doesn\'t result in a good astronaut.

Not so sure of that! All of the Original 7 Mercury Astronauts were from small town America. These guys were the best of the best (of the best?), and not one from a major city.

[Omega500]

I would love to see a mountain range with some peaks in orbit or near it. (highest mountain on earth is Everest at around 9000 meters. nowhere near orbit). chances are it wont happen but it would be cool. Even if its on another planet would be cool

I woudl also like to see something like a Grand canyon deserts and cliffs some waterfalls be cool (dont know if that would be possible)

really looking forward to Jebs scrapyard and his little shack.

[Luigibro606]

You mean a mountain that exceeds or goes near the edge of the atmosphere? Because that would be visible on 1/3rd of the planet. Waaaay too large.

[wildkittyv1]

(As it is now, unless KSC\'s recognizable bit of land is visible, it\'s hard to tell even what hemisphere I\'m orbiting unless I not only go to map view, but rotate the view to find KSC for reference.)

The reason that you don\'t really recognize where you are has less to do with the features being unrecognizable, and more to do with the fact that you haven\'t spent that much time with it in comparison to maps you do know and landmasses you do recognize. If you spent 20 years playing KSP, you\'d be able to recognize pretty much every feature, continent, and country (even if imaginary on Kerbin) the way you can with a map of Earth.

How often do you really check the orbital map? Maybe when you\'re making your burns and changing/correcting your orbits, right? Most people, understandably, would rather watch the game screen than the orbit screen because it\'s a bit more visually appealing and has more going on unless you\'re adjusting your flight path. Spend enough time circling Kerbin and/or flying around and you\'ll soon recognize its features the same way you do with a map of Earth, or the map of an RPG where you\'ve been playing for 40+ hours and checking the map screen to see where you need to go next.

[Accelerando]

Cities are serious... from an art direction it just does not fit well in my mind. Kerbals and the game itself seem to be lighthearted fun.

Most Kerbal constructions look a lot more serious than the Kerbs themselves.

Perhaps the Kerbals live mostly underground, as others have suggested, so that only some infrastructure extends to the surface. Every so often one would see the exposed leaded glass of half-buried geodesic farming domes, surrounded by little surface maintenance hamlets, dotting the countryside. Then you would have airports and seaports accompanied by an industrial village, where you can see tunnels going into the earth transporting resources between Kerbal caves and surface warehouses. And so on...

It could eliminate concerns about cities and giant footprints across the surface of Kerbin (and hopefully the devs\' workloads). I wouldn\'t mind seeing a Kerbal megacity though...

[Talisman]

Procedural generation of cities should be done, I really want cities.

[Vanamonde]

Picking a farmer from his field obviously doesn\'t result in a good astronaut.

Oh, really?

[Dimitri_Kerman]

I\'d like different architecture for the villages if they\'d go for something like that. Gothic arches, rustic cabins, mountain log cabins in the mountains of course, Russian domes ( ? ???????!), and the such and such. But I agree, I\'d like small villages the best. I feel it\'d fit the game more.

[wizard`]

People hate on Spore a lot, but I reckon the cartoony cities from that would be as far as you\'d want to go. Actual cities at the current scale would be just insane - imagine trying to fit Manhattan on the surface of Kerbin.

I would love to see cities at night from orbit though, where entire landmasses are a sea of lights from the cities, street lamps and country towns below.