Labeled Landforms in Map View

[Timmon26]

This is more of a cosmetic thing, but I'd love to see the landforms and regions on different planets named and labeled, in the style of an atlas, like this NatGeo map of Mars:

Spoiler

The labels would follow the curvature of the planet and bend around natural borders, as if they were printed on a globe, and could be toggled on or off along with the biome overlay. Here's how the Mun might look from space:

Spoiler

Labels would only appear after the landform or biome was discovered by a telescope or overflying spacecraft.

I think something like this could give players a real sense of direction and place within the game world, which is sort of lacking in KSP1. It's often hard to tell apart the islands of Laythe or craters on Tylo; one region is the same as the next. Having consistent names for all these places would also give the community a sense of continuity when they share stories of where they've been or what they discovered. Having proper names for landforms is a lot more convenient than having to refer to "the big island" or "that little archipelago west of KSC, you know, the wiggly one".  The major landforms would be custom named by the developers, while smaller ones could use a random name generator like KSP1's waypoint naming system.

[AtomicTech]

That would be helpful, especially for hunting for that one spot for the colony!

[shdwlrd]

Not a bad idea, it would help with passing the general locations along to other players. But it could destroy people's head canon. There will be players that won't want to use the stock naming and will make up their own names. 

[t_v]

Assuming that KSP 2 will still incentivize exploring many regions on planets (I mean how else will we get to see the amazing work on planetary surfaces? Also, colonies and resource depots.) it would be great to have a memorable way to identify places, and names certainly work well. 
 

6 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

There will be players that won't want to use the stock naming and will make up their own names. 

I think the system for names should be tweaked a bit, so that individual players can edit names of locations, remove names of regions, and add names. Technically, the only parameters would need to be text, location and size, they don’t necessarily have to be tied to a region. 

[Timmon26]

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Not a bad idea, it would help with passing the general locations along to other players. But it could destroy people's head canon. There will be players that won't want to use the stock naming and will make up their own names. 

Yeah, that's a downside to stock landform names. A renaming function would fix this, but even if there wasn't one, I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. In almost ten years of head canon, almost no fan consensus has emerged about what to call specific places, aside from the canon biome names. The one exception may be the mohole, which was canonized in response to fan consensus. So I don't think people will mind if the landforms are named in advance by the devs. It also gives the devs another creative channel, as it's an easy way to world-build, and many of the labels could be humorous, based on easter eggs or in-jokes.

____

This is a bit of a tangent, but landform names being revealed as players discover them would tie into the exploration system. My hope is that planets and moons won't be detailed at the start, and will only become visually interesting when players actually reach them. Exoplanets and exomoons initially won't be visible in the map at all, and once discovered would only present as indistinct spheres. Direct telescopic observation from Kerbin (or within the same system, for exoplanets) would reveal rough shapes and colors. Only when a player gets up close will the landforms of the planet appear, at which point they would be given names. From there, the player can do more detailed scans to find biome boundaries, resource deposits, and anomalies. Something like this:

Spoiler

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Timmon26

[gussi111]

I really like this, great idea!

[pandaman]

Great idea. 

As for a stock renaming option, I dont really see the point.   Nobody afaik has complained that they can't rename the planets.

And the option to name geographical features does sort of exist in KSP1 already - just add a waypoint and name it as you wish.  And I expect the same function will be in KSP2 in some form.

[Axelord FTW]

I liek, no snoz.