Should KSP 2 have explorable cave systems on some planets?

[gussi111]

This just popped in my mind when I read about easter eggs we wanted to see in KSP 2 and I instantly imagined finding a dead humanoid half frozen deep within Duna caves. 

What do you think?

[The Aziz]

Well

From Dev insights #1

Quote

We can’t wait for the next opportunity to share our progress with you all. In the meantime, we’re still hard at work in the radness mines, discovering and extracting new veins of totally sweet gameplay. I’m very sorry for this last sentence, but I’m leaving it in.

From Dev insights #3

Quote

We want players to build crazy orbital drydocks and mining colonies on stalactites.

I'm just saying...

[gussi111]

14 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Well

From Dev insights #1

From Dev insights #3

I'm just saying...

You think they are hinting something there?

[shdwlrd]

Just now, gussi111 said:

You think they are hinting something there?

Just read the articles. Quotes without context can mean anything. 

[ballisticfox0]

2 hours ago, gussi111 said:

This just popped in my mind when I read about easter eggs we wanted to see in KSP 2 and I instantly imagined finding a dead humanoid half frozen deep within Duna caves. 

What do you think?

Some older stuff directly said no overhangs or caves, but it was from 2019 so it may have changed 

[gussi111]

21 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Just read the articles. Quotes without context can mean anything. 

Yeah I did try to read them but I'm not sure what they mean when they say that.

[LHACK4142]

I'd love caves in KSP2, personally.

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

stalactites

Those are actually the ones that hang from the ceiling...

[gussi111]

24 minutes ago, ballisticfox0 said:

Some older stuff directly said no overhangs or caves, but it was from 2019 so it may have changed 

 

12 minutes ago, LHACK4142 said:

I'd love caves in KSP2, personally.

Those are actually the ones that hang from the ceiling...

So if they apparently claimed no overhangs and no caves, how could we possibly have stalactites?

[ballisticfox0]

15 minutes ago, gussi111 said:

 

So if they apparently claimed no overhangs and no caves, how could we possibly have stalactites?

want and have are different things

Quote

We want players to build crazy orbital drydocks and mining colonies on stalactites

for the question of should, I would love to see caves, but from what I've seen in the way they have set-up planets it isn't possible

Edited August 9, 2021 by ballisticfox0

[The Aziz]

2 hours ago, ballisticfox0 said:

Some older stuff directly said no overhangs or caves, but it was from 2019 so it may have changed 

 

1 hour ago, ballisticfox0 said:

from what I've seen in the way they have set-up planets it isn't possible

It's not possible in ksp1 due to the way they created planets in the first place. No word (that I'm aware of) has been said about such possibility (or lack of) in the sequel. In fact, we've seen that some parts of the surface are sculpted by hand, so if they can pull off some trickery to put in surfaces with faces that do not have to point outwards from the center of the planet, then it's possible.

What I'm trying to say, it's a complete rewrite, and things that were a dream are now a reality (eg. Axial tilt)

So yes I believe those were hints. You don't usually use too many very specific metaphors in one final sentence, right?

[shdwlrd]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

So yes I believe those were hints. You don't usually use too many very specific metaphors in one final sentence, right?

It could just be a very bad phrasing (dad joke bad in this case.) for the creative process for the 1st quote. And the 2nd seems to be wishful with the prospect of what you can do. 

PD and Intercept has been good at not letting hints on their road map and what functionality the game will have slip out in written media. The best source is the interviews when someone says something out of place. AFAIK, no one has mentioned anything about planets outside of the general specifics.

[Admiral Fluffy]

3 hours ago, ballisticfox0 said:

want and have are different things

Quote

We want players to build crazy orbital drydocks and mining colonies on stalactites.

I think it means “they want the players to be able to do that” 

The Devs aren’t players. They make the game, so there probably will be some cave features.

[cubinator]

17 hours ago, The Aziz said:

 

It's not possible in ksp1 due to the way they created planets in the first place. No word (that I'm aware of) has been said about such possibility (or lack of) in the sequel. In fact, we've seen that some parts of the surface are sculpted by hand, so if they can pull off some trickery to put in surfaces with faces that do not have to point outwards from the center of the planet, then it's possible.

What I'm trying to say, it's a complete rewrite, and things that were a dream are now a reality (eg. Axial tilt)

So yes I believe those were hints. You don't usually use too many very specific metaphors in one final sentence, right?

They've said that the ground can't be deformed by the player - so, you won't be able to build your own hill or dig a tunnel, at least at first. However, that doesn't rule out caves.

[Guest]

Maybe a tylo cave, but probably nothing else since that kinda starts moving away from a rockets game and more of a mining simulator

[adsii1970]

14 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Maybe a tylo cave, but probably nothing else since that kinda starts moving away from a rockets game and more of a mining simulator

I am on the fence with this one.

I would love to see more biomes to explore and develop in KSP2. Caves could be interesting, but not as in what we think of caves or caverns. Maybe more like a pocket or fold of the surface. Just something a little more than random craters and crystals sticking out of the ground. But...

At the same time I do not want the game to becomes so heavy in RAM and GPU usage that it becomes impossible to play on a three-year-old potato of a computer.

[K^2]

On 8/9/2021 at 1:18 PM, ballisticfox0 said:

Some older stuff directly said no overhangs or caves, but it was from 2019 so it may have changed 

Yeah, the terrain tech was completely overhauled since then. They might support cut-outs now, which are basically holes in your height map, and then you can stick a physics mesh in there. Kind of like the way you can get overhangs with Mun arches in KSP. If you allow for holes in the height map, it's a lot easier to include an entire cave system as a 3D model.

Of course, I highly doubt they'd go procedural for these, as developing a good procedural caves generator, something you'd be happy to just run in an otherwise highly polished game, is actually a lot of work. So if there are cave systems, I'd expect just a few hand-made ones as special points of interest. I wouldn't expect a lot of cave systems to discover all over.

[theJesuit]

On 8/10/2021 at 5:53 AM, gussi111 said:

This just popped in my mind when I read about easter eggs we wanted to see in KSP 2 and I instantly imagined finding a dead humanoid half frozen deep within Duna caves. 

What do you think?

* kerbaloid

Fixed that for you.

But in all seriousness:

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

<snip> I'd expect just a few hand-made ones as special points of interest. I wouldn't expect a lot of cave systems to discover all over.

This I think.  I really want a cave system where, if you send in a rover, the roof occludes the signal.  So you need a relay at the entrance, or a couple of relays.

Then at the end of a small connected network of caves you find:

Spoiler

A Squad Monolith

 

[KerikBalm]

13 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Maybe a tylo cave [...]

13 hours ago, K^2 said:

Yeah, the terrain tech was completely overhauled since then. They might support cut-outs now, which are basically holes in your height map, and then you can stick a physics mesh in there. Kind of like the way you can get overhangs with Mun arches in KSP. If you allow for holes in the height map, it's a lot easier to include an entire cave system as a 3D model.

[...] there are cave systems, I'd expect just a few hand-made ones as special points of interest. I wouldn't expect a lot of cave systems to discover all over.

I doubt that we will see anything other than 1 "real" terrain surface. That doesn't mean that you can't have cave "objects", as we saw to a limited extent in the Tylo cave, and sort of with the Mun arches (I believe you can find some colonies hanging from those in Youtube videos).

The Arma series also has terrain with just a single heightmap (thus one "real" terrain surface), but there are small caves in the official maps that are composed of walkable objects such as boulders. (similarly, it also supports bridge objects that can be driven over, and the Ai can osrt of handle it).

Then there a number of user made maps where they just assign a very low elevation to a place (ie, make a pit), and fill it with a 3D cave/bunker object.

If KSP1 had the Tylo cave, I expect KSP2 to have some sort of Cave object - but I expect them to be limited in size and number, and sort of be easter eggs.

 

 

[ballisticfox0]

14 hours ago, K^2 said:

Yeah, the terrain tech was completely overhauled since then. They might support cut-outs now, which are basically holes in your height map, and then you can stick a physics mesh in there. Kind of like the way you can get overhangs with Mun arches in KSP. If you allow for holes in the height map, it's a lot easier to include an entire cave system as a 3D model.

Of course, I highly doubt they'd go procedural for these, as developing a good procedural caves generator, something you'd be happy to just run in an otherwise highly polished game, is actually a lot of work. So if there are cave systems, I'd expect just a few hand-made ones as special points of interest. I wouldn't expect a lot of cave systems to discover all over.

Mun arches are in the anomaly scatter system and aren't relevant.

From what I've heard though they are still using a derivative of PQS, you could make caves by having that be the 'bedrock' layer, then having a terrain layer on top of that like parallax.

Right now it is hard to tell if the top terrain layer is anything like the PQS surface underneath. If it applying a couple meters above the pqs (such as in parallax), caves aren't happening, if its 500m~ above the PQS terrain then maybe.

The other way to do this is what SNW does and create scatters that create a cave

As for generation you have to remember that kerbin still has a surface area of 4.52×10⁶ km, handmade, procedural placed is the way to go.

Big issue is load range, too far and you'll kill your fps, too low and your cave base will sink through the ground.

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by ballisticfox0

[asap1]

hmm it's a great idea but I think we would need better kerbal mobility. here's what I mean by that. kerbals just walking around aren't that mobile you can increase their speed by sticking them in a rover but there less agile and it's not that great for cave exploring. so my thought is since the theme of ksp2 is near feature tech how about exosuits. this could mean adding a couple of parts like a grappling hook,stabilizer gyro,more grip pads,better suspension systems, and climbing spikes/tools. something kinda like the prawn suit from subnautica. 

also possibly more ground anchors and foundations. with maybe the ability to edit the terrain in a cave or even make your own for planets with a hostile enough environment.

[Admiral Fluffy]

8 hours ago, asap1 said:

better kerbal mobility

I couldn’t argee more. We need kerbals to go faster

[shdwlrd]

37 minutes ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

I couldn’t argee more. We need kerbals to go faster

That explains their need for speed.