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Quick question for any exo-geologists out there, would caves form on all bodies? In my understanding caves on Earth are the result of erosion from moving water or sometimes from magma or ice leaving a hole, or rarely simply a gap between tectonic plates. Planets with no atmosphere or water cycle and no tectonic movement wouldn’t have any caves, right? So mars has lava tunnels but the Moon should only have overhangs at best where a meteor hit in just the right spot. 

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6 hours ago, t_v said:

Quick question for any exo-geologists out there, would caves form on all bodies? In my understanding caves on Earth are the result of erosion from moving water or sometimes from magma or ice leaving a hole, or rarely simply a gap between tectonic plates. Planets with no atmosphere or water cycle and no tectonic movement wouldn’t have any caves, right? So mars has lava tunnels but the Moon should only have overhangs at best where a meteor hit in just the right spot. 

Lava tubes, liquid erosion, sink holes, specific impact crater + landslides.. these are some of the ideas that come to mind.

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So on the Mun, which ones of those would be relevant? Lava tubes I thought required tectonic movement to occur, liquid erosion isn’t really a thing, and don’t sinkholes require an underground space to already exist in order to fall? So the only thing left is overhangs caused by very specific impact craters. 

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Given all the momentum in what I gather how planets and terrain are modeled and rendered the only obvious way I could see overhangs, much less lava tubes and such, would be to only instantiate them when in very close proximity as a special case.  So the game makes a "craft" built of rock and dirt replacing the displaced normal terrain when in "load" distance and renders cave mouths visually only (no actual opening) as textures at a distance.  When not in proximity the normal planet rendering would be leveraged.  

Given the point of KSP is mostly to build rockets and go places I don't see the required overhead (no pun intended) as being worth it to the devs any time soon to provide holes to hang out in, but from the science, realism, exploration, variety, and colony standpoints it is interesting

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13 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Lava tubes, liquid erosion, sink holes, specific impact crater + landslides.. these are some of the ideas that come to mind.

All of them are a good idea. One of the loading texts for ksp does say "Spelunking on Tylo"

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