Kerbal Space Program 2: If you could add a planet/system would would it look like?

[Bej Kerman]

46 minutes ago, Dr. Kerbal said:

Thats would be better than plaents being tossed!

What?

[minerbat]

if i ever make a planet mod, this is probably what it will be!

[Guest]

Puf already seems cool enough. I love that planet

[TLTay]

How about a "doomed" moon that is destined to be ingested by the gas giant it orbits, and is only just barely above the atmosphere at closest approach?

[Guest]

How about a red giant star system, with some planets within spitting distance of the photosphere?

[Omni122]

On 2/27/2021 at 4:59 PM, TLTay said:

This is a cluster of debris that arranged in such a way that the center of gravity and center of rotation are open to space. A player can fly through the center. This body contains surfaces of positive, negative, and zero gravity and in  many angles about the center. Many new challenges and interesting orbits/structures are possible with this. Low gravity and smallish size allows players to explore the unique dynamics of the body using RCS. Good item to add to Jool for using as a base to build interstellar ships.

While this would be cool, it's doubtful that it could be implemented in a game with an already very finicky physics engine***. Also the way these objects interact are wildly unrealistic, any pile of bodies in such a configuration would naturally collapse into a contact quaternary*.  Also, the tidal forces at the center of mass would probably tear apart any object but I'm not so sure about that one.

 

On 3/1/2021 at 8:39 AM, Bej Kerman said:

Any orbits here would be unstable because the gravity wouldn't be even anywhere.

This also isn't technically true, take the Dawn spacecraft and minor planet 4 Vesta**. Vesta is not a sphere, its is irregular, but the dawn spacecraft still orbited in  an ellipse. This is because an object orbits the center of mass of any cohesive object or group of objects (See: Barycenter).

At the end of the day, while something like this is cool, it isn't really feasible from both a gameplay and real-world perspective.

 

 

*: There's no way "contact quaternary" the technical term but I'm just going with it

**: Although Vesta is a wildly different object from the one described above, it still illustrates the main point.

***: I can't really know how polished the KSP 2 engine will be, it could be entirely different.

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Omni122

[Bej Kerman]

4 minutes ago, Omni122 said:

This also isn't technically true, take the Dawn spacecraft and minor planet 4 Vesta. Vesta is not a sphere, its is irregular, but the dawn spacecraft still orbited in  an ellipse.

I'd like to point out that Vesta isn't 4 small objects held together by hopes and wishes.

[Omni122]

Just now, Bej Kerman said:

I'd like to point out that Vesta isn't 4 small objects held together by hopes and wishes.

Yeah, but I couldn't find a better way to illustrate that an object orbits the COM.

[TLTay]

12 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

I'd like to point out that Vesta isn't 4 small objects held together by hopes and wishes.

It's held together by silly string and snack wrappers.

[Lord Aurelius]

If I'm wanting a really unusual planetary system, maybe have one full of alien constructs like Halo style ring worlds, hollow spherical planets that are giant metal lattices with deep shafts going down to the core and huge void spaces, rotating O'Neill cylinders scattered throughout the system, and a Dyson swarm of dead satellites around the star.