A Kerbal's Guide to our solar system

[CarolRawley]

Hello from Junipinaria, the planet in orbit around Jebediah! It is a rather boring planet, but the locals worship us like Gods!

[jgjiscool]

262 ... metres?

[GroundHOG2010]

262 ... metres?

Yes. Metres. The standard mesurment for the whole of physics for distance. And is included in MS^-1,MS^-2 and so on and so forth.

[rdfox]

I think he meant, 'Isn't the star Jebediah supposed to be out past the Kerper belt and the Koort cloud?'

Which, with 0.10.1, would require an altitude of millions of kilometers... ;P

[Herra Tohtori]

Landing on another celestial body would require ability to switch the orbit focus to said body first, then land on it. Don't see why even Kerbals would use Kerbin's sea level as reference point when landing on another world.

[CarolRawley]

is a joke, guys ;P

[jgjiscool]

You could have at least photoshopped in a 'K' and/or made the number really big!

[CarolRawley]

no good at that sort of thing...

sorry.....

[jgjiscool]

Don't worry. I'm trying to make a 3d MMORPG and I can't do 3d textures. Or animation. I can code it though!

[thorfinn]

This is quite interesting and well done, but if I were you I wouldn't make the system so... normal. Kerbin is already quite unrealistic after all, with its enormous density (even if it was made of solid uranium it could not mass that much...) so I believe that we are quite free to go overboard a bit with the science fiction and unusual configurations.

Tidally locked planets, for instance, with a small habitable zone between a sunburnt side and an icy one; or fast-spinning giants with variable gravity, like Hal Clement's Mesklin in Mission of Gravity or the prison planet of Outlaw Star. Also, truly binary planets, with the center of gravity far out in space between them, that would create some really easy AND really hard orbital mechanics at the same time; and those with more SF culture of me surely will point out many more ideas.

A little thing that I've always liked was the idea of thick asteroid fields, or even a small 'moon', at Lagrange points 4 and/or 5 as early interplanetary targets.

[rdfox]

Part of the point of making it so 'normal' (and honestly, based on the data we have so far, the Sol system is anything BUT normal!) is to keep the main Kerbol system comfortingly familiar to players, whilst still being different enough to be exciting (and small, so flight times are relatively short!).

The idea is that while Kerbol is a fairly familiar-seeming system, once you get to interstellar travel, you start finding weird, unusual systems that include those sorts of things, to further challenge you.

And I maintain that Kerbin is actually a miniature Dyson sphere that was built around a neutron star orbiting Kerbol over a billion years ago, but dust and such have accreted on it to the point that it now appears to be an impossibly dense planet, instead, and even sprouted its own forms of life on the new outer surface... ;P

[thorfinn]

And I maintain that Kerbin is actually a miniature Dyson sphere that was built around a neutron star orbiting Kerbol over a billion years ago, but dust and such have accreted on it to the point that it now appears to be an impossibly dense planet, instead, and even sprouted its own forms of life on the new outer surface... ;P

BRILLIANT! :D

(Though I have doubts about integrating interstellar travel in a setting like KSP. Once you have real starship drives, everything else becomes too damn easy, doesn't it?)

[Tiberion]

But imagine a tech tree where you start off with normal rocketry, and while your ground-based academies will slowly improve tech, you really don't make tech leaps until you have orbital research.. Munar research, which might net you ion drives or fusion impulse... and then finally, when you explore the outer system.. you can discover exotic materials like anti-matter. (or whatever, the discovery would unlock the kerbal equivalent of a superelative drive)

[Satellife]

There a few things I would like to see implemented into KSP in the future.

One of them being a monolith orbiting Juturn, perhaps? Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey was an inspiration to an entire generation of IRL spacecraft engineers, technicians, scientists and astronauts. It seems fitting to pay a small homage to the piece of fiction, while acting as an interesting 'easter egg' as well.

[greatorder]

so, that brown dwarf on the outer reaches of the solar system is basically nemesis?

PLEASE LET ME VISIT IT!

[CarolRawley]

Hey Silisko!

If you could supply the diameters and orbital periods of the planets and sun, that would be very much appreciated. Thank You!

[NovaSilisko]

Hey Silisko!

If you could supply the diameters and orbital periods of the planets and sun, that would be very much appreciated. Thank You!

Well, me and Harv worked out the size of the sun and kerbin\'s semimajor axis. The sun is 0.01x the mass of earth\'s sun, with a radius of 200,000 km

Kerbin orbits at a distance of 5 million km away, with an orbital period of roughly one month.

The Mun orbits kerbin over a period of 48 hours, at a distance of 13,000 km.

[Zeroignite]

Well, me and Harv worked out the size of the sun and kerbin\'s semimajor axis. The sun is 0.01x the mass of earth\'s sun, with a radius of 200,000 km

Kerbin orbits at a distance of 5 million km away, with an orbital period of roughly one month.

The Mun orbits kerbin over a period of 48 hours, at a distance of 13,000 km.

Is the sun gonna be painted red-dwarf color, or will it stay yellow and run on the same magic that explains Kerbin\'s density?

[thorfinn]

Is the sun gonna be painted red-dwarf color, or will it stay yellow and run on the same magic that explains Kerbin\'s density?

I vote for a red sun. So, when the Kerbals will discover warp drive and come to Earth, they will get superpowers.

(Slightly more seriously: the map says it\'s a K star, orange dwarf).

[Zeroignite]

I vote for a red sun. So, when the Kerbals will discover warp drive and come to Earth, they will get superpowers.

(Slightly more seriously: the map says it\'s a K star, orange dwarf).

Ah, I missed that on the diagram. Looks like that mass is indeed a K-type... and I remembered how tiny red dwarfs are.

[NovaSilisko]

I\'m gonna petition it to be orange.

[6677]

The 8 planets thing isn\'t a mistake by the way. It\'s implying there\'s another planet out there that hasn\'t been found.

Our solar system has 8 planets anyway. Pluto has been officially reclassified as a planetoid. For reference theres supposedly around 30 planetoids in our solar system but many of them are in the asteroid belts. Some also classify titan as a planetoid

[icefire]

Pluto is a dwarf planet, not a planetoid, and YES the terms ARE different.

[6677]

Pluto is a dwarf planet, not a planetoid, and YES the terms ARE different.

I do apologise for my mistake. I just took the info from my physics textbook. Not an old one mind you, 2011 edition.

[CarolRawley]

well then mister 2011, what does it say about Nueva Vega?