Super Spuds (bigger, curvier asteroids, potato colonies)

[JadeOfMaar]

Here's a popular request, but with just a little twist. It would be nice if we could get higher classes of asteroids. I'm not concerned for the decreasing ability of players to move these things (players will find a way to overcome this. We know our mods and can develop the strategies with or without mods) but I do want to present the idea of colonizing these giant asteroids, building great bases upon (even into them) and of course, mining them. Just as NASA eventually may do, and advanced races in sci-fi games and motion pictures have done.

I'm not asking for sizes reaching Dres (Ceres) but between Ida and half of Vesta. (Or whatever in-game scale that ends with near-Gilly size? or bigger than Gilly?) They don't even need any serious investment of dev effort for their shapes, or integration into the progression systems. All I ask is for more shapes and sizes and that they can randomly appear like the rest.

 

Riding on the ability to change an asteroid's orbit at will (before anyone suggests I just find a planet modder and have them make a misshapen moon for me) I intend that these extra large asteroids can additionally be turned into mobile stations and generation ships. Manned vessels and deep space colonies (interplanetary... even interstellar) can then be built into these things and their finite but exponentially greater Ore volume and surface area would make for several new gameplay options.

 

Edited October 27, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[The Cuttlefish Empire]

REAL ASTEROIDS HAVE CURVES

[fowlplayuk]

Yes, yes and yes again to this! With a "please" of course. I don't really have anything more constructive to add to it. I think @JadeOfMaar probably covered everything. I'm massively in support of it...so when do we start? 

[Helmetman]

This is the greatest idea I've seen in a while. It's good as it is, in most ways. My only critique is that objects that size should have gravity and I would not perse think in the type of volumes and mass reaching that of Gilly, no mind Vesta.
When plopping modules to the asteroid covering it's surface as per the picture your in the over 9000+ part count even with the largest habitat modules one can find when I relativize to ksp.

I'm not sure how you envision building inside a asteroid. You mentioned this briefly.

Don't objects in KSP have specified colliders to them? Isn't the part mechanism that is applied to a asteroid the roadblock that prevents direct reconfiguration during simulation? I can't poke a hole in my Mk1 crew cabin to put my beer inside, can I?

Meaning, if you have a asteroid in which you can build it must be hollow in it's default state. Would the idea behind this involve drilling it out while having a preconfigured chamber? And if possible though, wouldn't one need countless bitmaps to animate excavatable asteroids? The exacticality of building inside it said way is more my own idea ofcourse since I don't know how you envision this part. But this is what I think about when approaching a method of building inside a asteroid. I hope it can get done though, because it seems kinda cool.

Also, what happens to the matter when hollowing out a asteroid? Gifts of fuel resources, gemstones, loads of heat and expelled particles from a chime of some sort is my bet.
I think there are many ideas in this regard. But building inside a asteroid involves excavating it, period. Seems tricky!

I also have a addition to your idea, hope you like it.

Asteroid Merging.

Something I would like to add is asteroid merging. Allow yourself to get 2, 3 or MOAR asteroids close to one another. When impacting at high enough velocity they will merge and loose some mass due to expelled debris (unpersistent debris a.k.a. fairing style).
But if the impact is to high it will scatter into tinier class A, B asteroids. (or c,d depending on the sizes ofcourse)

This way you can make a asteroid the size you want it while having to do something for it. By said means I expect someone be able to create a vesta sized asteroid, aheum aheum, I mean, Moon! (with a lot of grinding by becoming solitary in your basement if you don't already lol)
You would probably still need to smash thousands of class "G" ...., "H" to get to Gilly sized dimensions, no mind Vesta. And asteroids that have the size of Gilly by default seems more planetoid to me then asteroid, even if it's still categorized as a asteroid on paper.
By the way, how does a part behave when it is larger then the max physics range? Will the universe still hold?

There should be a clear division in this game that divides flying rockets/planes and towing planetoids throughout the solar system.
And I get your Sci-fi sentiment, and could be achieved in great extent. But the extent of towing gilly sized objects around even with interstellar propulsion systems seems a bit over Sci-fi'd if you catch my drift. 
Getting offtopic now...

 

Some general offtopic insight/complaints to KSP asteroids.
 

Asteroids don't go poof.

What I don't like about asteroids is what they do when reaching max heat/impact values. To much heat which is not hard to achieve and it goes poof, they're gone.
Silicates melt far below the heat tolerance number that asteroids can apparently survive. Assuming "K" in ksp stands for Kelvin and not Kervin.
Knowing the composition of asteroids we can safely estimate the range to where heat tolerance should have a effect. When going over it the asteroid becomes glowy and melts, and doesn't go poof. Maybe loose actual gasses and thus mass while aerobraking or even explode.
I want molten spheres of lava. I don't want it as it is, which is the kraken sitting in the background using his configuration notepad while noting "oh, your over 2500" let's remove this.
These are probably all ideas of dynamic physics/animation that the KSP game doesn't support most likely. Because asteroids are "parts" so there's only a mechanism of being as in existent. So going over a specific value is always a matter of be or not to be. shakespearian touch lol?
Personally I would like to add animations of fragmentation rather then poof when the impact limit is achieved. Only when the impact speed is many times greater does it disintegrate into a surface. 

A class "E" sack full of lead or a class "E" sack full of feathers?

The point with asteroids ranging many meters in x, y and z is that they don't decelerate drastically through the atmosphere because of it's weight and momentum. Something which KSP asteroids should do and at higher speeds due to the momentum (not slow down to 200 m/s or thereabout) above the surface only because the atmosphere in KSP is still a lesser wall and asteroids being a sack of feathers. Asteroids ain't heatshields and shouldn't have a lot of drag. This unrealistic drag effect is greatly extended when mining the asteroid first before landing. Hey, it is good advice for getting a asteroid down in KSP. But it's just stupid and unrealistic. By any means, mining should shrink the asteroid, thereby reducing it's cross section and drag.

So besides adding things in the realm of KSP asteroids I would make a few changes to them. 

Oh, and this isn't a hijack.
But your giving a suggestion that I definitely like but on the basis of a game aspect (asteroids) that I find unfinished. Personally I would like those points being addressed as well, but nice suggestion nonetheless.

If you feel any of the points albeit moot are worthwhile to add to the OT or be discussed, please do. 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

@Helmetman The mods I had in mind at the time are: 

This one presents, in summary, ground-attached parts which simulate just the entry point into the underground, and whose IVA extend beneath the surface, providing some level of interactivity with the ground. If, say, its dev @steedcrugeon develops many of these parts with varying IVAs and varieties of modules typically found in crewed parts, that plus having ground attached (gigantic?) Hangars by @allista, you're nearly already covered for having lots of usable space "inside" the asteroid.

This one equally inspired my idea as its main function is in hollowing out an asteroid and converting it to the Rock resource, then attaching "tank hatches" giving it embedded, reconfigurable tankage for whatever resources interest you. This mod also contains Mass Drivers which are akin to Torch Drives that are fueled by the asteroid itself (Rock resource).

Apart from ART above, I believe this mod does or will contain several engines very well suited to serving as main propulsion for an interstellar asteroid colony. The existing fusion engines already look like Epstein Drives, and its maker has plans to make Venture Star alike engines.

Now, as for your advanced ideas like better physics, mashing them together, and greater heat tolerance, I'm not aiming for any of that at all but I would be very grateful if Squad considered that. I'm ensuring that my request is simple enough to keep the likelihood higher that Squad will bother with it (consider how many of these request threads actually get answered and appear in a game update, and how long it takes if so). Then the modding community has something to go wild with rather than keeping on dreaming.

Many of the little things you also mention, like the asteroid shrinking as it's mined out, also likely won't happen. KSP is a very complex game but yet it's also still a basic one, produced by a very small company and which caters to the very few things we a humans can currently do in aerospace. Space mining irl is still a far off dream to us, not to mention, dynamically resizing parts in-flight (the asteroid is a part, believe it, and by extension cannot carry its own gravity and SOI) can get very messy.

KSP Asteroids as a concept is incomplete, yes. I've noticed. They are limited in size, have a weak heat tolerance, and aren't very flexible for modding. It would be icing on the cake if they were more mod-friendly, such as controlling their textures, size and resources, and even making our own models for them just as we can do for ship parts and planets.

[steedcrugeon]

Now @JadeOfMaar I'm not particularly good with asteroids (I have yet to successfully rendezvous with one, let alone capture). however I do like where this idea is going. what say I throw a little sumtin' sumtin' together for you to test for me?

[JadeOfMaar]

@steedcrugeon Sure. I'm up for it.

[NSEP]

Cool idea! I would also like to see different types of asteroids/potato's, like water, carbon or iron, that would vary in ore precentage and other resources. Each different type would also have different science values, water asteroids would have higher science because they host amino acids or something.

[JadeOfMaar]

@NSEP I just want the things to be more moddable, that's all I'm asking of Squad, then we can re-size, re-shape, re-texture them ourselves. Some mods already change an asteroid's resources once installed. Those would be Custom Asteroids, Kerbal Komets, and Asteroid Recycling Technologies. Custom Asteroids iirc actually creates asteroid groups like that (Ferrous, Carbonaceous...) but I can't speak for varying rewards per type. Still, that's some nice stuff to wish for.  

[Tyko]

yea, having more than one asteroid model would certainly add some variety. Seems like all the stock asteroids have the same surface features. 

[cratercracker]

This would be super great if we had bigger asteroids, even the class E seem a bit too small.

I also back then had an idea for the carreer contract that will look like this:

Extract the asteroid remain from point (x) and bring it to point (y) (one of the space centres)

(Further the distance from the space centre= more money paid)

(Will force the  player to build aircraft, ground vehicles and maybe even watercraft)

[Kernel Kraken]

Or you could have several asteriods bridged together for the colony- i still dont get how you would hollow out the colony. I could see surface bases though.

[JadeOfMaar]

6 minutes ago, TheMadKraken2297 said:

Or you could have several asteriods bridged together for the colony- i still dont get how you would hollow out the colony. I could see surface bases though.

There's nothing visual to the hollowing out. The point is either all the Ore is mined out to make room for tanks using Asteroid Recycling Tech, or surface parts are attached that have subsurface centers of mass and subsurface IVAs as in GoingUnderground, and the attachment of part count/phys load-reducing Hangars.

* Mod names in bold.

[Kernel Kraken]

Oh.