Add several tiny moons to Jool

[DAL59]

In RL, Jupiter has over sixty very small moons.  Why not add a dozen, gilly sized procedural moons high over Jool, with large inclinations?  They might not even need biomes.    

[JadeOfMaar]

2 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

In RL, Jupiter has over sixty very small moons.  Why not add a dozen, gilly sized procedural moons high over Jool, with large inclinations?  They might not even need biomes.    

That can easily be done, but it may require a mod, Kopernicus. This asteroid belt would be (as you ask) the same as the one between Kerbin and Duna (and hiding around Dres).

[DAL59]

No, they would be on rails actual planets, with SOIs, though what you are talking about could also be implemented for certain, given that dres has it.  

[JadeOfMaar]

Actual planets? You're better off asking someone to make a mod like that. Squad will want a very, very good reason to add any little planetoids, let alone a dozen of them.  What usefulness would they have to the community at large? 

[Spricigo]

22 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

What usefulness would they have to the community at large? 

Visual pollution of the tracking station? More lifeless rocks to not visit (like Dres)? 

That said, if celestial bodies were to be added to the game. And if the devs wanted my opinion in particular about it:

    1. A moon in retrograde orbit around its parent. 

     2. A tiny comet, in a highly elliptical and long orbit.

I'd be grateful for a mod that add only one retrograde moon at no more than three comets. Not something the lack ot is 'ruining my gameplay' just that 'would be cool'

[DAL59]

The planets would not need custom textures or biome maps.  They could be random.  

[mrhexed]

This is the best Idea ever! I would love some Celestial bodies to discover!

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

The planets would not need custom textures or biome maps.  They could be random.  

They don't need, but IMHO it's a good thing they have. Random planets from a mod can be interesting but  i have a big no for random stocks planets.

Spoiler

Quote

Random stock planets

NO!

 

[DAL59]

Actually, the terrain of a few stock planets is procedural.  

[Spricigo]

19 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Actually, the terrain of a few stock planets is procedural.  

That's a different thing and I'm perfectly fine with it. As I'm ok with the idea of alternative solar systems, including randomly generated in a per save basis.

 What I consider a bad idea is to not have the same default solar system. How those are created don't matter, but once made into the stock system any change need to be very carefully considered. 

[NSEP]

My answer is regulair asteroids, maybe a different 'icy' type with more Ore to mine or something or maybe another resource to mine like. Maybe even gold that you can sell and gain alot of funds from while back on Kerbin. You need to make them unique and attractive somehow.

[DAL59]

4 hours ago, NSEP said:

Maybe even gold that you can sell and gain alot of funds from while back on Kerbin.

That is one thing I think KSP really needs- the ability to use mining for profit.  

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

for profit.  

The game already throw so much money at us that a stripper would be ashamed. 

But adding a new minerable resources (e.g. gold)  is quite simple and already done by mods.

[Chel]

I think we have enough moons around Jool already. If you want more, then there are mods for that.

[dvp]

Couldn't you just drag some Class E asteroids into Jool orbit? Or are you trying to do the gravity ballet?

Edited October 9, 2017 by dvp

[Magzimum]

Yes, I would be in favor of more stock planets/moons. No objections if they all appear around Jool.

Requests for new planets / moons are a frequently recurring topic on the forum. I once wrote my wishlist in a thread which requested a 2nd gas giant. I'll just copy my suggestions here again, since it seems on topic. I tried to include as many variations as I could think of, to get as many new challenges as possible.

On 7-11-2016 at 2:04 PM, Magzimum said:

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. [edit: I did by now - Love 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.

 

Edited October 10, 2017 by Magzimum

[Matuchkin]

On 02/10/2017 at 7:10 PM, DAL59 said:

In RL, Jupiter has over sixty very small moons.  Why not add a dozen, gilly sized procedural moons high over Jool, with large inclinations?  They might not even need biomes.    

IRL, Jupiter actually has thousands, but a lot of them are too insignificant to note. This is impossible to simulate in-game, but how about this: We can give our gas giant a different "asteroid" system, in which the asteroids in question are actually moons (i.e. larger and rounder, etc, but size and shape can vary greatly). When you find one of these moons, you can track it like a normal asteroid and name it, but the track sticks around permanently so as not to clutter up your tracking station with useless moon names. We can possibly change around science experiment results in Jool's vicinity, to emulate (a). high radiation levels near the giant (b) atmospheric analysis, (c) etc.

Edited October 10, 2017 by Matuchkin

[John FX]

I voted no but not because Jool would not benefit from more moons.

Instead I voted no because IMHO more moons would benefit Dres to a greater degree.

EDIT :

Also another reason is because I would prefer to have more to DO on a moon once you got there rather than there be more moons on which to do nothing.

Edited October 10, 2017 by John FX

[kerbiloid]

Including this one.

Spoiler

Wait... That's no moon!

Though, make it original-sized (110 km or how much) with a 1x1 Kerbal² square door in a secret place as an Easter Egg.
Inside - a small room with a lightsabre, consuming 100 EC/s when activated.

They could move the icy Minmus from Kerbin (where the water is liquid) to Jool as an ice moon. Then it would stop crashing any sense of building a base on the Mun rather than on the Minmus.
But they won't because this will break gameplay balance for newbie and casual players (which are probably the majority of KSP buyers).
Additional moons would please regular players, but would confuse and maybe repel the casuals.
At the same time, regular players just use Kopernicus.

Edited October 10, 2017 by kerbiloid

[UranianBlue]

If you want to make more moons orbiting around Jool, please do so. Just be sure to use the right download of Kopernicus and use KittopiaTech to make planet textures; don't use SpaceEngine unless you are prepared to take the texture and modify it a lot in Photoshop.

By the way, KSP isn't very accurate about how many moons each of its analogs has. If you want a mod with a bunch of tiny moons orbiting Jool, I can make it by the end of the month. However, before KSP makes new moons of Jool, Squad needs to make a Uranus analog, and native support for other star systems.

6 hours ago, Magzimum said:

Yes, I would be in favor of more stock planets/moons. No objections if they all appear around Jool.

Requests for new planets / moons are a frequently recurring topic on the forum. I once wrote my wishlist in a thread which requested a 2nd gas giant. I'll just copy my suggestions here again, since it seems on topic. I tried to include as many variations as I could think of, to get as many new challenges as possible.

 

Have you played OPM or KerbolOrigins? Those immediately rule out everything except for your dwarf planet demands. You're in luck! I'm working on a mod right now called "Dwarf Planets Plus" that could be released as early as Halloween if enough people want me to complete it.