Small changes to comets, asteroids, and ore mining

[Jeb x Valentina]

Hi! it's me, today, instead of a challenge, I came up with and idea to rework asteroids and comets, and tweak the mining system a bit in KSP2  

1) Generic asteroids and comets

As you may already know, we have asteroid classes already in KSP1, going from A (smallest, at least 3 meters in lenght) to E (the biggest, at least 30 meters in lenght (in comparison, that's the size of a blue whale)) and comparing to to real life, in which the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was 10,000 meters in lenght (bigger than Mt, Everest, and almost as big as Kerbin in KSP1) that's just too tiny. So, we should introduce three new asteroid classes: class F asteroids, class G asteroids and class H asteroids; AKA generic asteroids, in order to compensate realistically sized bodies in KSP2.

1.1) What would generic asteroids be?

Generic asteroids, unlike normal asteroids, won't be randomly genarated; instead, they would be part of the Stock planet pack, have their own generic (not random) name,  and appear in every game, plus, they would have their own surface features in Breaking the Ground. They would be divided in three classes (Note that none of them can be grabbed nor moved by Klaws to avoid bugs):

F class: Asteroids varying from  35 meters to 60 meters in lenght,
G class: Asteroids varying from 75 to 120 meters in lenght, Ships can land on them and kerbals can stand on them
H class: Asteroids varying from 300 to 1300 (half Gilly's size) meters in lenght,  Ships can land on them and kerbals can stand on them, like if they were on Gilly or any other small, in-game celestial; plus, they cannot be captured by any other celestials. 

These will also have their own SOI and will affect spacecrafts, and even normal asteroids that got too close. 

Generic comets would work the exact same way, except some changes...

2) Comet changes

In-game comets are basically the same as asteroids, except for their tail, so here I'm suggesting a few comet tweaks.

2.1) The coma

IRL, comets have a really, really thin atmosphere known as the coma, and although it is rendered in-game, it doesn't act like an atmosphere, so why not making it act like one? 
It's thickness would be 10% of the comet's radius, to allow a bit of airbraking, and its atmospheric pressure would be 10^0.1 Pa at the top, and at the bottom, 10¹ Pa. It would be rendered as a diffuse, Blueish-white sphere surrounding the comet, unlike the the atmospheres in the KSP2 celestials, it will lack clouds, and it would look like KSP1 Kerbin's atmosphere, but more diffuse, thin, and transparent.

Note that comets C class and below will lack an atmosphere-like coma and will only have it for decoration purposes.

2.2) Tail rework

In-game comets already have a tail, but it's not very appreciable without mods and from up close, it just disappears out of sight
So, I would suggest to make the tail more bushy, and, add little particles inside it, like Gurdamma's rings in KSP2, but instead of resembling rocks, they will resemble ice chunks.

3) Additions to the ore mining system

Ore mining in unmodded KSP1 is not very exciting unless used for refueling, and you cannot earn any science from mining it, so, let's change that

3.1) Studying ore

This concept is all about adding ore studying devices, that, once you got  at least 50 units of ore, will be operable. These would be radially attatched to ore tanks, and work like an in-game Karbal taking a surface sample, but, it will provide 50% more science than a kerbal taking a sample

4) Misc. notes

1. The Generic asteroids would be placed in strategic places so that they never impact any body, like Eeloo with Jool
2. The dresteroid belt will be removed (since Dres will be more exciting now ) and will be replaced by analouges of the Asteroid belt, Kuiper belt and Oort cloud
   Asteroids will be common in the asteroid belt, comets will be quite common in the Oort clud, and in the Kuiper belt it's gonna be a mixture of both
3. Eeloo will be placed inside the kuiper belt analouge
4. the ore analyzer will have 3 sizs, small, medium and large, similar to the Breaking Ground Scanning arms

Edited June 9, 2022 by Jeb x Valentina
Changed that all generic asteroids cannot be moved by klaw to avoid bugs

[Jeb x Valentina]

did any of you like it?

[BowlerHatGuy3]

This is really good. I don’t know if you would be able to use a comets coma to aerobreak but for the most part this is a good overhaul. Big suggestion like this are kind of scary though, since KSP2 is already late enough in development where changes like this aren’t gonna happen. This is a case of whether they’ve already added it or not. 

[Jeb x Valentina]

4 hours ago, BowlerHatGuy2 said:

This is really good. I don’t know if you would be able to use a comets coma to aerobreak but for the most part this is a good overhaul. Big suggestion like this are kind of scary though, since KSP2 is already late enough in development where changes like this aren’t gonna happen. This is a case of whether they’ve already added it or not. 

alr 

[Pthigrivi]

Another thing is rotation, which could pose some interesting landing challenges. Probably most of the visual effects like particles and the coma would be aesthetic rather than functional. Also I just wanted to post these dope gifs of Churyumov:

Edited June 10, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[t_v]

19 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Where is this taken from? Is the probe about to land on the surface, or is this zoomed in as it passes by? I don’t know much about this mission but it looks really cool. Also, a few things to note, the surface of the comet seems to be made of particles as opposed to solid rock/ice, and those rocks are sitting there apparently gravitationally attracted enough to the comet to not be thrown off by the rotation of the comet. Cool stuff!

[Pthigrivi]

15 minutes ago, t_v said:

Where is this taken from? Is the probe about to land on the surface, or is this zoomed in as it passes by?

I believe this is taken by Rosetta’s Philae lander on its (ill fated) bouncy encounter. The images of the surface certainly are amazing, but it’s important to note that this gif compresses 25 minutes of imagery so the particles are moving quite slowly, and much of what you see are background stars rotating in parallax. 

[Vl3d]