Local Water levels

[Guest]

I don't know if this is already planned. But it would be a shame if KSP 2 didn't have local water levels. I think it would be nice to have lakes in mountains and such.

[shdwlrd]

That's one thing that always bothered me about Kerbin, no mountain streams or lakes. It would nice to see in KSP2.

[mattinoz]

The eyeball planet would be amazing if it had tidal effects from another body.

[Sky Kerman]

I would love a lake!

[jimmymcgoochie]

I would like to see some proper water features instead of ‘rivers’ at sea level surrounded by several thousand metre cliffs on all sides especially in the mountains; however this would then require the water to either flow downhill as it should, which would be a real pain to code,, or else be a stationary object with a slight slope on it which could be a real pain to code too. I doubt that nice water features are high on the list of a space simulator type game’s priorities.

Edited February 15, 2021 by jimmymcgoochie

[BigStar Aerospace]

It would be cool if there was a planet with water levels that change based on it's distance to it's star.

[KerikBalm]

51 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

I would like to see some proper water features instead of ‘rivers’ at sea level surrounded by several thousand metre cliffs on all sides especially in the mountains; however this would then require the water to either flow downhill as it should, which would be a real pain to code,, or else be a stationary object with a slight slope on it which could be a real pain to code too. I doubt that nice water features are high on the list of a space simulator type game’s priorities.

I would also like this... and TBH, if the new planets don't add something new, why bother going to them? An interesting destination should be high on the list of game priorities.

How good would KSP be if all the planets were simply perfect spheres of varying radii and surface gravities?

I, for one, would love the ability to have different water levels, and sloped water surfaces.

A very simply implementation could be an oblate ocean that doesn't rotate at the same rate as the terrain, to at least allow tides (and its slope would only be "level" at high and low tides)

[pandaman]

Yes lakes etc at different altitudes, as well as dry bits below 'sea level' would be nice.  As well as creating an opportunity and a plausible explanation to have different 'fluids' at different altitudes with unique biomes or properties.

Could they make the 'water sphere' off centre with the planet centre, or keep it central and make it slightly egg shaped, then by rotating the water at a different rate to the 'rocky' bit it would simulate tides to some degree.

Eg.  Kerbin rotates in 6 hours.  Move, or bulge the water sphere towards the equator a bit and spin it every 3 hours. You will get one high and one low tide each day.  Or maybe have it always 'bulging' towards the Mun.

Edited February 15, 2021 by pandaman

[KerikBalm]

@Pandaman09 'tis exactly what I just proposed :p

[pandaman]

6 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

@Pandaman09 'tis exactly what I just proposed :p

Yes, I missed that, sorry.  Didn't mean to steal your idea.  

They do say great minds think alike though. 

Hmm, looks like there is another Pandaman,  if @Pandaman09 is still active on here.

[Dr. Kerbal]

I personally think this is a great ide making planets more natural, maybe they should add currents in rivers!

[KerikBalm]

19 hours ago, pandaman said:

Could they make the 'water sphere' off centre with the planet centre, or keep it central and make it slightly egg shaped, then by rotating the water at a different rate to the 'rocky' bit it would simulate tides to some degree.

Eg.  Kerbin rotates in 6 hours.  Move, or bulge the water sphere towards the equator a bit and spin it every 3 hours. You will get one high and one low tide each day.  Or maybe have it always 'bulging' towards the Mun.

Just a little critique: It should be a symetrical oval, not egg shaped. Normally, tides should come nearly twice per day. It may seem counter intuitive, but there is a bulge toward the moon AND AWAY FROM the moon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#Principal_lunar_semi-diurnal_constituent

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

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by KerikBalm

[RyanRising]

20 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

I would like to see some proper water features instead of ‘rivers’ at sea level surrounded by several thousand metre cliffs on all sides especially in the mountains; however this would then require the water to either flow downhill as it should, which would be a real pain to code,, or else be a stationary object with a slight slope on it which could be a real pain to code too. I doubt that nice water features are high on the list of a space simulator type game’s priorities.

It wouldn't allow for stuff like tides, but couldn't you manage it with a heightmap for the water? Essentially putting another layer of terrain on the planet with a different type of collision? That doesn't immediately seem like a nightmare, though I'm sure it could turn into one eventually.

[Bej Kerman]

21 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

I would like to see some proper water features instead of ‘rivers’ at sea level surrounded by several thousand metre cliffs on all sides especially in the mountains; however this would then require the water to either flow downhill as it should, which would be a real pain to code,, or else be a stationary object with a slight slope on it which could be a real pain to code too. I doubt that nice water features are high on the list of a space simulator type game’s priorities.

"I doubt that nice water features are high on the list of a space simulator type game’s priorities."

Ok?

[KerikBalm]

4 hours ago, RyanRising said:

It wouldn't allow for stuff like tides, but couldn't you manage it with a heightmap for the water? Essentially putting another layer of terrain on the planet with a different type of collision? That doesn't immediately seem like a nightmare, though I'm sure it could turn into one eventually.

Interesting idea...

If you could rotate the ocean independently of the ground, you could have tides, but this would screw up lakes and such. I guess you could have a heightmap that makes an oval shape (oblate spheroid) with a non-synchronous rotation for tides, and a heightmap with a synchronous rotation for lakes and rivers.

Tides or (rivers and lakes) with such a system, but not both at the same time... Unless we have 2 water layers for one planet...

[paul_c]

An oval shape is only very slightly less inaccurate than a fixed water level, to simulate tides. The height of a tide is mainly based on the bathymetry of the sea floor in the local area. It is possible to predict but it would be an order of magnitude harder; but it could be pre-done then modelled.

Of course, water would no longer be modelled as "level" and need to incorporate a slope, flows, a water cycle, clouds, viscosity, etc too....don't hold your breath.

[pandaman]

5 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Just a little critique: It should be a symetrical oval, not egg shaped. Normally, tides should come nearly twice per day. It may seem counter intuitive, but there is a bulge toward the moon AND AWAY FROM the moon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#Principal_lunar_semi-diurnal_constituent

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

 

Yeah, I do know.  I just wanted to quickly illustrate the basic concept though, so didn't think about it enough at the time.

On the face of it this doesn't seem to be a very difficult thing to do.  But then I'm not the one who has to make it work.

Edited February 16, 2021 by pandaman

[KerikBalm]

1 hour ago, paul_c said:

An oval shape is only very slightly less inaccurate than a fixed water level, to simulate tides. The height of a tide is mainly based on the bathymetry of the sea floor in the local area.

Yes, but at least it would illustrate the basic principle, and tides are related to the motions of celestial bodies, so I would say that they fit the scope of the game a bit better than rivers and streams.

As with many games, there are big limitations to just having water be some level or surface. The arma series always had one water level for the oceans, with all rivers and lakes being sea level... Until Arma 2, which had mountain lakes as well (all river-like features conveniently were dammed, so no sloped water features). Arma 3 went back to a single water level (dunno why), and the lakes in arma 2>3 ports don't quite work 100% right (3 reworked water interaction extensively)

It seems like many games can't quite get water of different levels right...

And all this is far from fluid flows. We wont be seeing anything like the tidal currents through narrow connections between the big mare on titan, ir the various strong tidal currents on Earth.

Edited February 16, 2021 by KerikBalm

[Incarnation of Chaos]

I'd love someone who is far more familiar with this stuff to answer my question if they're so inclined.

Why do we have to include all water in the full simulation ? What would prevent there basically being two kinds of water.

One would be tied to celestials, contribute to the mass, interact gravitationally and so on. And the other would be used more like a prop, placed where needed. It would still have mass, and bouyancy, but a simple boolean flag would exclude it from the full simulation.

Because if we just want to kayak down a mountain stream, I don't think we really care about the gravitational contribution of that water to the planet. 

 

[RyanRising]

In contrast to my earlier optimism, what makes me think even the simpler implementations of differing water levels might be very hard to implement is the fact that we still have imitation water in KSP1’s admin building pool.

Edited February 16, 2021 by RyanRising

[Wubslin]

45 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I'd love someone who is far more familiar with this stuff to answer my question if they're so inclined.

Why do we have to include all water in the full simulation ? What would prevent there basically being two kinds of water.

One would be tied to celestials, contribute to the mass, interact gravitationally and so on. And the other would be used more like a prop, placed where needed. It would still have mass, and bouyancy, but a simple boolean flag would exclude it from the full simulation.

Because if we just want to kayak down a mountain stream, I don't think we really care about the gravitational contribution of that water to the planet. 

 

I'm not "familiar with this stuff", so please take my opinions with a bucket of salt.

That said, the kind of stuff you're describing is VASTLY in excess of the level of detail you would see, or could reasonably hope to see, in Kerbal Space Program 2. I mean, gravitational interaction? The game uses patched conics 90% of the time. The truth is that in KSP 1 oceans were perfectly spherical surfaces that represented zero altitude datums on planets that had them, and if you managed to pass under the surface the game would apply a blue shader to your screen and give you swimmy physics. And that's perfectly fine. Water in KSP 1 is just a two dimensional boundary in 3D space with zero mass. In fact the only thing in the game that actually has mass is Kerbals and rocket parts, and that's perfectly acceptable because it's a game about flying rockets around. Implementing general physics solvers in KSP 2 just to have flowing rivers or whatever is nuts. That isn't to say you couldn't have rivers, though. They'd just need to be of the traditional video game type, which is to say like the way KSP 1 water was implemented - via boundaries, shaders, force effects, all that stuff.

My personal thoughts are that it would be amazing if in KSP 2 water levels were a boundary like in the first game, except they would be able to deviate from a perfect sphere in elevation. That way you could have land below sea level, or lakes in the tops of volcanoes, or downflowing rivers like you describe. Programming boundaries that have overhanging geometry would be an entire other problem to solve, but that would enable true underground features like caves. It's evident in the first game that this wasn't possible, as "caves" like could be found on Tylo are just props that sit on top of the landscape.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

8 minutes ago, Wubslin said:

I'm not "familiar with this stuff", so please take my opinions with a bucket of salt.

That said, the kind of stuff you're describing is VASTLY in excess of the level of detail you would see, or could reasonably hope to see, in Kerbal Space Program 2. I mean, gravitational interaction? The game uses patched conics 90% of the time. The truth is that in KSP 1 oceans were perfectly spherical surfaces that represented zero altitude datums on planets that had them, and if you managed to pass under the surface the game would apply a blue shader to your screen and give you swimmy physics. And that's perfectly fine. Water in KSP 1 is just a two dimensional boundary in 3D space with zero mass. In fact the only thing in the game that actually has mass is Kerbals and rocket parts, and that's perfectly acceptable because it's a game about flying rockets around. Implementing general physics solvers in KSP 2 just to have flowing rivers or whatever is nuts. That isn't to say you couldn't have rivers, though. They'd just need to be of the traditional video game type, which is to say like the way KSP 1 water was implemented - via boundaries, shaders, force effects, all that stuff.

My personal thoughts are that it would be amazing if in KSP 2 water levels were a boundary like in the first game, except they would be able to deviate from a perfect sphere in elevation. That way you could have land below sea level, or lakes in the tops of volcanoes, or downflowing rivers like you describe. Programming boundaries that have overhanging geometry would be an entire other problem to solve, but that would enable true underground features like caves. It's evident in the first game that this wasn't possible, as "caves" like could be found on Tylo are just props that sit on top of the landscape.

Well I know that, but I was replying to the discussion as a whole. Everything being discussed here except for the concept of having water not at sea level is way out of scope for KSP2.

Also caves aren't going to happen aside from pre made assets, since the developers confirmed that the terrain system is unchanged from KSP1.

But yeah going back to the general idea, I think it's solvable for sure. Especially when we throw the idea of any kind of complex interaction out the window like you said xD

 

 

 

 

[Wubslin]

1 minute ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

since the developers confirmed that the terrain system is unchanged from KSP1.

Hmm, really? There go all my crazy ideas for weird misshapen planetoids and asteroid fragments...

[Incarnation of Chaos]

3 hours ago, Wubslin said:

Hmm, really? There go all my crazy ideas for weird misshapen planetoids and asteroid fragments...

Asteroids aren't actually celestials, at least in the traditional sense. So they might not share the same limitations.

 

[OrdinaryKerman]

5 hours ago, Wubslin said:

asteroid fragments

if KSP2 can have partial rings, and it's been said somewhere that rings will turn to scatter objects (like trees) up close, then some 'half-rings' around a star or planet can do a good job of being an asteroid debris field. 

5 hours ago, Wubslin said:

weird misshapen planetoids

That can be done with heightmaps (e.g. Gilly or Zip from the Japris planet pack)

Also space objects (asteroids and comets in KSP1) are just parts that can be modeled however you like and spawned ingame

Edited February 17, 2021 by OrdinaryKerman