Moar Volcanism!

[Human Person]

I wanted to bring this topic up again (old thread here) because I believe the game would immensely benefit from it. For further discussion, also consider cryovolcanism volcanism.

I'd like you to answer the following questions. Feel free to submit further questions If you feel like they contribute to the discussion.

1. Where would you put volcanoes and what properties should they have?

I'd put at least one big volcano on Duna, representing Olympus Mons. This one doesn't necessarily need to be active (still it would be a nice feature to have smoke trails and maybe lava flows at the top), but it should be extremely massive and extremely high. Actually, it should have such a great height that it makes it hard to land on it because you can't hope for Dunas already thin atmosphere so slow you down sufficiently at that altitude.

2. Could this be implemented easily?

Yes and no. Yes, because (if it isn't active) it would just change Dunas topography- and biome-map. No, because it would change a big part of Duna entirely and people who have ground-stations there might be upset.

3. What does it add to the game (except for itself of course)?

It would be necessary to be considered when aerobraking at Duna (so your aerobrake doesn't turn out as a high-g  lithobreak ) and this would be a completely new and unique feature. Also, you have to consider that the atmosphere would hardly be helpful when landing there. So all in all, it would add a destination for medium to experienced players without making the game harder for beginners.

 

I'm curious about your ideas!

I'm not sure if this topic belongs here, maybe It's rather a general discussion?

Edited March 16, 2017 by Physics Student

[Wjolcz]

There's only one place in the Kerbal system I would like to see a volcano or two: Laythe. If you think about it it makes perfect sense. It has a thick atmosphere and is near a gas giant. What do these two things have in common? Tidal heating. And tidal heating = volcanos. And active volcanos = lots of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases = thick atmosphere.

Imagine a pile of smoke coming from behind the horizon and the big green ball of gas above it.

[eddiew]

23 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

There's only one place in the Kerbal system I would like to see a volcano or two: Laythe. If you think about it it makes perfect sense. It has a thick atmosphere and is near a gas giant. What do these two things have in common? Tidal heating. And tidal heating = volcanos. And active volcanos = lots of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases = thick atmosphere.

I'm not against volcanoes elsewhere, but this does make a lot of sense. Interior heating is a very logical reason for those nice liquid oceans, as well as the small islands that poke up through the surface   If we're going all-in, cryo-volcanoes on Vall would be cool too, since it seems blue and icy. 

Moho, Eve, Duna, Ike, Dres, and Eeloo have no mechanism for tidal vulcanism - but if memory serves, Venus has volcanoes, and we have no theories that suggest it ever had a moon, so maybe that isn't a good enough reason to avoid them on Eve? It got its thick atmosphere from somewhere...

As for inactive volcanoes, I quite agree that some more terrain variance would be good. The stock planets tend to feel a little unadventurous from a landscaping PoV... See @KerikBalm's Rald for comparison. Taking a map of Mars and scaling it for KSP, we end up with huge volcanoes and canyons so epic we can do proton-torpedo runs along them  

[Ultimate Steve]

I somewhat support this. It would make the game slightly more interesting.

Two thoughts right off the top of my head:

1. What if the Moholes are actually really weird volcanoes?

2. If the tallest mountain on Eve was made into a volcano, it would be really infuriating to land there and then have your ship blown up in an eruption.

[nascarlaser1]

45 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I somewhat support this. It would make the game slightly more interesting.

Two thoughts right off the top of my head:

1. What if the Moholes are actually really weird volcanoes?

2. If the tallest mountain on Eve was made into a volcano, it would be really infuriating to land there and then have your ship blown up in an eruption.

actually there seems to be only 1 Mohole... so it would become a weird volcano...

 

I support this idea.

[Human Person]

57 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Moho, Eve, Duna, Ike, Dres, and Eeloo have no mechanism for tidal vulcanism - but if memory serves, Venus has volcanoes, and we have no theories that suggest it ever had a moon, so maybe that isn't a good enough reason to avoid them on Eve? It got its thick atmosphere from somewhere...

 

 

Only small bodies are cooled down enough to have no volcanism anymore. Big terrestrial bodies are "still hot" meaning they haven't cooled down yet.

Radioactive decay is also a source of internal heating, not only tidal forces.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Physics Student

[Benjamin Kerman]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

2. If the tallest mountain on Eve was made into a volcano, it would be really infuriating to land there and then have your ship blown up in an eruption.

Sorry Bradley Whistance

TL;DW: Lands on Eve's tallest mountain to be able to get home.

[Ultimate Steve]

4 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

TL;DW: Lands on Eve's tallest mountain to be able to get home.

But then again, >50% of people use that mountain as well.

[Spaceception]

2 hours ago, Veeltch said:

There's only one place in the Kerbal system I would like to see a volcano or two: Laythe. If you think about it it makes perfect sense. It has a thick atmosphere and is near a gas giant. What do these two things have in common? Tidal heating. And tidal heating = volcanos. And active volcanos = lots of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases = thick atmosphere.

Imagine a pile of smoke coming from behind the horizon and the big green ball of gas above it.

YESSSSS, I WANT THAT SO BADLY!

[W. Kerman]

VOLCANOES VOLCANOES VOLCANOES!

[KerikBalm]

10 hours ago, eddiew said:

I'm not against volcanoes elsewhere, but this does make a lot of sense. Interior heating is a very logical reason for those nice liquid oceans, as well as the small islands that poke up through the surface   If we're going all-in, cryo-volcanoes on Vall would be cool too, since it seems blue and icy. 

Moho, Eve, Duna, Ike, Dres, and Eeloo have no mechanism for tidal vulcanism - but if memory serves, Venus has volcanoes, and we have no theories that suggest it ever had a moon, so maybe that isn't a good enough reason to avoid them on Eve? It got its thick atmosphere from somewhere...

As for inactive volcanoes, I quite agree that some more terrain variance would be good. The stock planets tend to feel a little unadventurous from a landscaping PoV... See @KerikBalm's Rald for comparison. Taking a map of Mars and scaling it for KSP, we end up with huge volcanoes and canyons so epic we can do proton-torpedo runs along them  

Many of laythe's islands are sort of ring shaped. Some may interpret these as impact craters, I choose to interpret them as volcanic cauldera.

Don't some of them remind you of features like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini_caldera

So... I say that there is already evidence of volcanism on Laythe.

As for Eve/Duna: Tidal heating no: internal heating yes. A large size means the core retains heat better. A large size with higher metal content (ie, not many light "volaties" - which for non gas gianst happens closer to the sun, whereas farther from the sun more of the mass comes from water ice or even nitrogen ice) means more long lived radioactive elements at the core.

Uranium 238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years: All the U238 in Earths core has only undergone about 1 half life since Earth formed. That radioactive decay produces heat, and with a large enough mass to volume ratio, that head builds to significant levels. Of course we also need to consider thorium (14 billion year half life for the most common isotope!), U235 - 0.7 billion years: there have been ~6.5 half lives of this stuff since earth formed, the concentration was once so high that natural nuclear reactors existed. When the Earth first formed, the concentration of U235 would have been about 85x higher. We need to enrich it now to make bombs and nuclear reactors... we wouldn't have back then.

It seems the last ones formed 1.7 billion years ago (when U235 would have been 5.38x more abundant):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

That's one heck of a heat source for volcanism.

 

And yes, my Mars derived planet has many volcanic features... Olympus mons, 3 other large shield volcanoes nearby / by the Tharsis region, a cone volcano elsewhere, a large badly eroded volcano north of the line of 3 large shield volcanoes, and then a number of much smaller volcanic features that are grouped in the "minor volcanoes" biome

The volcanic feature derived from Olympus mons (approx 3x exaggeration of steepness) with the config that moves it ti wgere stock duna is, and moves duna and ike into orbit around it

Edited March 17, 2017 by KerikBalm

[kerbiloid]

Volcanoes/geysers are always good, unless you must live on top.
They make a planet look not so static, as well as meteors, clouds, dust whirls, auroras, from time - huge waves (maybe tsunamies, maybe from underwater volcanoes).
While you don't need assets for them, they are just particles. It's a cheep way to beautify a planet like a set of colored lamps beneath a dull concrete wall.
Mysterious floating lights surrounding the top of a mountain are fine, too. Anomaly is anomaly. Remember Fallout 3/NV/4, when you're getting into a radioactive zone.

Of course there is no need to implement a whole "From Dust" in KSP, but they beautify "Spore" very much.

Also they are biomes, mineral deposites, and possibly could make vertical air flows making flight more hard (to be set in settings).

Also Jool definitely requires Io. Io means volcanoes, otherwise it's not Io. There are four useless stones flying around, why not make one of them be Io.

P.S.
And Kopernicus has particle generators, see its samples.

Edited March 17, 2017 by kerbiloid

[nascarlaser1]

Perhaps they could make an entire new planet dedicated to just volcanos?

 

also, slightly off topic, but did anyone else originally come to this thread because they misread it as "more vulcanism" or it just me?

 

I like Spock lol. 

[Azimech]

Just particles wouldn't interest me. Interaction with the particles is far more compelling.

Imagine flying in an oxygen atmosphere and you're flying through an ash cloud. Your jet engines stop working and may not recover when you leave that cloud, damage to external features due to the abrasiveness of the ash etc.

Maybe communication problems due to static electricity and the occasional lighting bolt.

Close to the caldera or lava flow: heat buildup.

Direct damage to craft or death of a kerbal due to collisions with pyroclasts.

The possibility of a pyroclastic flow depending on volcano type ... I imagine we'd need fluid dynamics for that.

Buildup of tefra of various types & sizes.

Changing weather and/or climate after a massive eruption (yep, we need a weather system first).

And a lot of science points to gather so players have a real incentive to risk going near them.

 

[Human Person]

3 hours ago, nascarlaser1 said:

also, slightly off topic, but did anyone else originally come to this thread because they misread it as "more vulcanism" or it just me?

 

 

I actually had to check my spelling a couple of times on that. It's also because volcanism is spelled Vulkanismus in german. The o bothers me a lot.

Quote

Perhaps they could make an entire new planet dedicated to just volcanos?

That would be nice. How about a small planet even closer to Kerbol than Moho, with a thick atmosphere and lava instead of oceans. It would be so hot there most of the parts overheat if not actively cooled. 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Physics Student

[nascarlaser1]

12 minutes ago, Physics Student said:

I actually had to check my spelling a couple of times on that. It's also because volcanism is spelled Vulkanismus in german. The o bothers me a lot.

lol. I wonder if Spock would find humor in this.. He'd find it to be a logical mistake .

[KerbalKore]

1 hour ago, Azimech said:

Interaction with the particles

shouldn't be to hard to write a simple .dll to cause overheats when touching the particles.

 

PS. i am no modding expert so sorry if this is insulting to modders.

[Azimech]

39 minutes ago, Bill the Kerbal said:

shouldn't be to hard to write a simple .dll to cause overheats when touching the particles.

 

PS. i am no modding expert so sorry if this is insulting to modders.

"Touching" the particles means there would have to be a collider. Since we can't add colliders to particles (they would grind the game into a slideshow) there would have to be a different solution. A zone made out of a primitive like a box would would work, different atmospheric values like ambient temperature, lift, drag, pressure and the amount of oxygen.

[JadeOfMaar]

On 3/17/2017 at 0:09 PM, Azimech said:

Just particles wouldn't interest me. Interaction with the particles is far more compelling.

Imagine flying in an oxygen atmosphere and you're flying through an ash cloud. Your jet engines stop working and may not recover when you leave that cloud, damage to external features due to the abrasiveness of the ash etc.

Maybe communication problems due to static electricity and the occasional lighting bolt.

Close to the caldera or lava flow: heat buildup.

Direct damage to craft or death of a kerbal due to collisions with pyroclasts.

The possibility of a pyroclastic flow depending on volcano type ... I imagine we'd need fluid dynamics for that.

Buildup of tefra of various types & sizes.

Changing weather and/or climate after a massive eruption (yep, we need a weather system first).

And a lot of science points to gather so players have a real incentive to risk going near them.

 

On 3/17/2017 at 1:25 PM, Bill the Kerbal said:

shouldn't be to hard to write a simple .dll to cause overheats when touching the particles.

The first moon of @The White Guardian's Planet Cyran mod is entirely lava ocean on the parent-facing side and its spews very large red particles into space (its lore is that it's being eaten by its parent and actively dissolving into Cyran's rings). Said particles also actually hit your ship and bounce off so they are not far from being able to cause damage. Perhaps, using the same physics applied to the Object Thrower's thrown objects there can be an implementation of intangible rolling spheres that spawn and overflow from inside the volcano, enabling the danger of coming close to a lava river without having the heat effect dumbly fill the planet in a single large spherical region.

And going along with how EVE clouds are spawned and controlled it would be neat if cloud-like 3D volumes could be defined from a texture or a preset primitive shape and then assigned a mechanic wherein while they are clipped a negative stats system would activate and modules would start to breakdown. Kerbalism imo is a fine example of this. If biomes can have their own science multiplier that would be great. Maybe this already exists but is so underused that most of us think it doesn't exist.

The next great thing to do is to insert precious mineable resources in these regions so not only will volcanoes be fabulous for but for what can be processed from there or the kinds of   a retrieval operation would yield.

On 3/16/2017 at 6:00 PM, eddiew said:

but if memory serves, Venus has volcanoes, and we have no theories that suggest it ever had a moon, so maybe that isn't a good enough reason to avoid them on Eve? It got its thick atmosphere from somewhere...

Earth has many volcanoes and many of them are still undersea or are instead hydrothermal vents which release loads of noxious material. Venus may have sufficient plate tectonic activity, a child process of internal heating and a fast spinning liquid interior. So have at it.

On 3/16/2017 at 5:24 PM, Veeltch said:

There's only one place in the Kerbal system I would like to see a volcano or two: Laythe. If you think about it it makes perfect sense. It has a thick atmosphere and is near a gas giant. What do these two things have in common? Tidal heating. And tidal heating = volcanos. And active volcanos = lots of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases = thick atmosphere.

Imagine a pile of smoke coming from behind the horizon and the big green ball of gas above it.

Layte indeed was originally envisioned as a lava world. Some of that concept must have carried over. It would be neat if maybe Kerbin's large crescent impact crater had volcanism in it then the KSC Volcano and ice geysers in @Galileo's Planet Pack would finally be complete. Heck, imagine all the visuals he'd develop once this became a thing!

 

Edited March 27, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[W. Kerman]

I'm sorry, but I saw the title and I got a fever. And the only prescription is....

Spoiler

MOAR COWBELL!!

 

[kerbiloid]

Eyjafjallajökull should be translated to Kerbish and then localized.

[YNM]

I think the bigger question is : can static plume be implemented in the base game ? If yes, it'd answer a lot of things :

- Volcanism (say, molten lava on Kerbin and Eve, sulphur (or something else) on Laythe)

- Geysers (on Kerbin and on... Tylo ? What's the Europa equivalent in game ? I forgot.)

- Coma and tails off comets (I really want that !)

Etc.

[KSPFanatic102]

I think the whole idea is Awesome , i really wanna see more work on the planets textures and landscape, including Volcanos , Canyons , Dunes , and more i support this idea 

[Razorforce7]

I voted yes because I like the idea and it deserves "yes" and likes and whatnot.

Honestly, it's the idea itself I like, just not the stock suggestions and development kinda thing.

The planet Duna (any planet) are hardcoded objects in the game, right? So they cannot be edited, right? However, they can be replaced, right? or not
I'd prefer a graphical environment that is completely moddable. But if changing planets in the Solar system is possible someone could make i.e. Duna with Volcanos. If it is not possible, then please make it so.

I also like to see more modders invest time in graphical addons. Things like user defined autogenerated objects (trees, rocks, snow patches, gravel and ocean whales) < Just to name a few

I basicaly want anything that allows filling up the bare Landscapes with objects and maybe even make them dynamic with i.e. Volcanos. And yes this eats ram and cpu, but hey, it's a option.

Why isn't this here yet?

 

[mattinoz]

 

Could this be done as a special form of Resource Harvesting Equipment that gets procedurally embedded in the planets instead of changing the planet models?

Part of the move to bring procedural craters to more bodies maybe.