Duna’s atmosphere is too thick.

[BowlerHatGuy3]

Considering Duna is a Mars analogue, I feel that the atmosphere is too thick. In the game you can get most craft down with a few parachutes and a couple of engine bursts. There was even a time that a rover I built landed safely with one inline parachute and no engines. 

Meanwhile irl, landing on Mars is a hassle. Parachutes can only really slow you down to 100m/s (200mph) and the rest of the descent needs to be powered.

There’s gameplay reasons to make Duna’s atmo thinner as well. It could be kinda like a stepping stone. The first legitimately dangerous landing that the player makes in campaign mode.

[The Aziz]

Nah, don't make the starting system any harder than it is. Go wild with exoplanets though.

[AngryBaer]

My impression is that compared to real life all of the KSP parachutes are much too good. Take the Soyuz...

Look at the size of the chute compared to the tiny capsule. And it still does a rocket engine powered soft landing in the end. Landing on Earth is kind of a hassle too.

That being said, KSP is kind of a cartoonish representation of spaceflight. If you want a challenge, perhaps what might work is adding parachute drag to the realism sliders, like how you can adjust docking tolarance or could adjust how much heating would destroy parts in KSP1 .

 

 

[DoCDoC]

I will be honest, instead of nit piking a  too much on parachutes fall velocity, I would de happy with more Easter eggs like NASA does on theirs.

Edited July 19, 2023 by DoCDoC

[PicoSpace]

Just limit yourself to only using drogue chutes, problem solved. Or when modding comes in, crank down the atmosphere for your own "is there atmo?" pleasure.

On 7/15/2023 at 12:50 PM, BowlerHatGuy3 said:

Meanwhile irl, landing on Mars is a hassle. Parachutes can only really slow you down to 100m/s (200mph) and the rest of the descent needs to be powered.

 

[Hotel26]

If I recall, Mars atmosphere is 1% (compared with Earth) and Duna is 30% compared to Kerbin.

My reasoning about Duna is that it is the only place that presents a light atmosphere that presents its own (unique) challenge for aviation.  Whereas 1% atmosphere is the same as none for aircraft.

So, viewing the Kerbol system as a graded set of exercises in aerospace/orbital mechanics, Duna makes good sense.  I think, in general, KSP resemblance to the Earth system is merely whimsical.

If I wanted 'reality', I guess I'd try RSS -- but I don't.  Simple, clear challenges have the best pedagogical value.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Hotel26

[The Aziz]

I mean, Kerbin's atmo is also enormous compared to the planet's size. At ⅒ of the radius, atmosphere should stop at what, 10km? But that wouldn't be fun. So it's all scaled for gameplay purposes. Not talking specifically about density, but it's still related, it needs to be higher to be any different from non-atmospheric bodies.

[BowlerHatGuy3]

11 hours ago, PicoSpace said:

Just limit yourself to only using drogue chutes, problem solved. Or when modding comes in, crank down the atmosphere for your own "is there atmo?" pleasure.

 

Only using drogue chutes is lame tbh. I just want early landings to be more intense y’know?

[Sovetskysoyuz]

On 7/23/2023 at 11:43 AM, Hotel26 said:

Whereas 1% atmosphere is the same as none for aircraft.

Aircraft have already flown on Mars (the Ingenuity helicopter) and NASA has proposed fixed-wing designs too (Mini-Sniffer, ARES). The thinner atmosphere is a significant constraint but not a showstopper for Martian aviation.

[Lowi_Sace]

On 7/15/2023 at 6:50 PM, BowlerHatGuy3 said:

Considering Duna is a Mars analogue, I feel that the atmosphere is too thick. In the game you can get most craft down with a few parachutes and a couple of engine bursts. There was even a time that a rover I built landed safely with one inline parachute and no engines. 

Duna's admosphere is a bit thicker, more like mars in the past. This would allow you to still use planes amd that makes it, my opinion, great for gameplay (eve thic, kerbin normal and duna thin)

On 7/16/2023 at 3:29 AM, AngryBaer said:

Look at the size of the chute compared to the tiny capsule. And it still does a rocket engine powered soft landing in the end. Landing on Earth is kind of a hassle too.

That is more for the astronauts and not the capsule. I just imagine kerbals being able to withstand higher imact forces than humans (maybe becausd they are smaller) 

[Hotel26]

10 hours ago, Sovetskysoyuz said:

Aircraft have already flown on Mars (the Ingenuity helicopter) and NASA has proposed fixed-wing designs too (Mini-Sniffer, ARES). The thinner atmosphere is a significant constraint but not a showstopper for Martian aviation.

Mars is known to be brutally HARD.  The Real Solar System is not an easy or forgiving nor FUN place to play.

 

[didkodidko]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:23 AM, Hotel26 said:

Mars is known to be brutally HARD.  The Real Solar System is not an easy or forgiving nor FUN place to play.

 

It's the best thing that KSP player can do. I play only RSS and it's magical.

[RevanX_LSR]

On 7/29/2023 at 1:54 AM, didkodidko said:

It's the best thing that KSP player can do. I play only RSS and it's magical.

RSS without RO on sandbox wasn’t that hard. It’s just “bigger rockets”. Except venus.

[Strawberry]

I think their should definitely be an exoplanet with a true thin atmosphere for that challenge, that being said I like duna's thick atmosphere. Chances are duna is going to be the first planet a new player goes to, and getting their is a hassle as is for a new player, so it's pretty fair for it to be pretty easy to land and get back. That being said, one of the things I'm looking forward to most about more star systems is you can guarantee the people who get their are experienced, so you can ramp up the difficulty of planets.