Why Is Kerbin So Unpopulated?

[irichey25]

Ever sense I was playing the demo of KSP, I was questioning my self all ways before launch and when I was in orbit "Why is this place so quiet and unpopulated??".

It's would be an interesting little addition if they had it so, there would be some Kerbin would walk around the launch station and such. And maybe when you start to get out and into orbit around Kerbin and you look down at the planet you would see lights and such.

Note: Not sure if a suggestion, thing should be put here or not. Sorry if it's not in the right place

[NeoMorph]

Because the devs haven't got around to it yet. Clouds, more population etc is on the cards.

[JonoRig]

But just because they are planning cities, I wouldn't expect too much, at the very least, not kerbals wandering around... It'd be a bit of a lagfest unless you can turn It off, as they want to make all the buildings destructable too

[TwoHedWlf]

Ever sense I was playing the demo of KSP, I was questioning my self all ways before launch and when I was in orbit "Why is this place so quiet and unpopulated??"

It's not unpopulated. The Kerbal is a single hive mind of sentient moss that covers most of the planet's surface. The "Kerman" are a fruiting body of this moss that that is mobile in order to spread the hive mind. These mobile fruit have an irresistable urge to travel as far as possible before dying. Hence their space program and complete lack of sense of self preservation. When they die they explode in a puff of spores(similar to a puffball mushroom). You can see this if you drop one from a ship or run into a surface hard enough. They explode in a puff.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

Anything to do with Kerbin always gets me really excited, one of my biggest hopes for this game is to be able to see the twinkling lights of cities down below when i orbit, and a much less realistic dream is to buzz a Kerbal farmer on his tractor with my space-plane.

[Brotoro]

If you knew Jebediah was up there flying rockets around, wouldn't YOU want to live underground? Safest place to be on Kerbin.

[kknight13]

This pretty much sums up what I assume happens

http://www.kerbalcomics.com/2013/02/11/episode-20-eagerness/

[Sempiternal]

It's not unpopulated. The Kerbal is a single hive mind of sentient moss that covers most of the planet's surface. The "Kerman" are a fruiting body of this moss that that is mobile in order to spread the hive mind. These mobile fruit have an irresistable urge to travel as far as possible before dying. Hence their space program and complete lack of sense of self preservation. When they die they explode in a puff of spores(similar to a puffball mushroom). You can see this if you drop one from a ship or run into a surface hard enough. They explode in a puff.

That was the best thing I've read this year.

[katateochi]

Anything to do with Kerbin always gets me really excited, one of my biggest hopes for this game is to be able to see the twinkling lights of cities down below when i orbit, and a much less realistic dream is to buzz a Kerbal farmer on his tractor with my space-plane.

^^ + 1 for this; both the twinkling lights and the frightening of farmers. Maybe in career mode, if support for the space program is diminishing, there could an option to do a covert mission to go and make crop circles and assuming you can do it undetected then it will increase the citizens interest and support of the space program.

Seriously thou, city lights would be fab, just so that when orbiting on the night side kerbin will be more than just the absence of stars.

I'd hope for some habitable buildings too, that you could fly/drive to and stash Kerbals in, in various locations around the planet. I made a house for Jeb, Bob and Bill which is some 60km from the launch center, but as its made of actual parts (rather than being a bit of scenery) it's way laggy;

(more pics and "craft" downloads here)

[artao]

After about a week of playing, I was starting to rue the lack of night-side lights on Kerbin.

Then I realized that if there WERE night-side lights, people would expect to be able to go to those areas and actually find cities and other Kerbals. And HOLY COW would that take system resources away from the rest of the game, I would think.

[legodragonxp]

Walking in stations, it needs to be done! CCP open this door! (oh wait, wrong game).

On a serious note, I would love to see cloud patterns and night lights, but I could do without major lag spikes from rendering cities.

[zzz]

I see it theoretically possible in current system to add glow maps to planets and cities like plane low res texture and modified scatterer for simple buildings, no physics, no walking kepbals, limited distance of draw - if you ok with that - then it possible and not hurt perfomance and development time too much.

If not - then no way and it's topic for "101+ Impossible/stupid requests" thread

[erkha343]

I see it theoretically possible in current system to add glow maps to planets and cities like plane low res texture and modified scatterer for simple buildings, no physics, no walking kepbals, limited distance of draw - if you ok with that - then it possible and not hurt perfomance and development time too much.

If not - then no way and it's topic for "101+ Impossible/stupid requests" thread

Cities are already a planned feature.

[zzz]

Cities are already a planned feature.

If it will be - it will be somthing like I say, this is what i'm about, It's realistical way, all this habitable walking tractors is not

Edited May 20, 2013 by zzz

[astocky]

I see it theoretically possible in current system to add glow maps to planets and cities like plane low res texture and modified scatterer for simple buildings, no physics, no walking kepbals, limited distance of draw - if you ok with that - then it possible and not hurt perfomance and development time too much.

If not - then no way and it's topic for "101+ Impossible/stupid requests" thread

Can you imagine what Jeb would do with a spaceplane and the Sydney Harbour bridge

[anarkhon]

Kerbin not the kerbals original home,they crashlanded here with a big colony ship,they need to rediscover the spacetravel again,they living in few underground facilities like KSC and KSC2,they come this star system because got the signals from the Duna.

[cesium133]

Can you imagine what Jeb would do with a spaceplane and the Sydney Harbour bridge

<conspiracy theory hat on>

So what you're saying is the Kerbin Trade Center attack in New Kerbal City was in fact just Jeb with a couple out-of-control spaceplanes?

[comham]

Placeholder graphics.

[Jeb-head-mug kerman]

I wish kerbin had more cities like kerbin city.

[ThePULSAR]

Because KSP don't has a story or a lore

[zuuhis79]

Because all kerbals have extincted all over Kerbin and the remaining ones have gathered to space center. The space program is their last and best hope of survival...

[Jetski]

1 hour ago, zuuhis79 said:

Because all kerbals have extincted all over Kerbin and the remaining ones have gathered to space center. The space program is their last and best hope of survival...

That's probably a bad thing the way my space program usually goes.

[Tex]

3 hours ago, ThePULSAR said:

Because KSP don't has a story or a lore

The awesome things about singleplayer games supposedly "without" lore is that you can completely make up your own. Some people say that the Kerbals at the KSC are the last survivors on the planet, some say the rest of Kerbal civilization is hidden underground for whatever reason. Maybe the Kerbals just don't have a need for anything besides a space center. The lore is left to the player to decide, and while I do agree it would be amazing to have cities to look at, not having them opens up the possibility for a bunch of fanfics and things.

Also, the cloud mod I have adds city lights to Kerbin as well, so I use my imagination and believe that I have a bunch of Kerbal cities now 

[problemecium]

On 5/20/2013 at 3:20 AM, TwoHedWlf said:

It's not unpopulated. The Kerbal is a single hive mind of sentient moss that covers most of the planet's surface. The "Kerman" are a fruiting body of this moss that that is mobile in order to spread the hive mind. These mobile fruit have an irresistable urge to travel as far as possible before dying. Hence their space program and complete lack of sense of self preservation. When they die they explode in a puff of spores(similar to a puffball mushroom). You can see this if you drop one from a ship or run into a surface hard enough. They explode in a puff.

Now that's a good theory! Much more original than the oft-cited "Kerbals live underground" explanation.

I myself thought they lived underwater, but the addition of submarine travel in 1.0.5 makes that seem less likely (we can now go underwater and verify that there are no cities there).

[GeneralVeers]

On 5/20/2013 at 0:36 AM, irichey25 said:

Ever sense I was playing the demo of KSP, I was questioning my self all ways before launch and when I was in orbit "Why is this place so quiet and unpopulated??"

Because of all the rockets that keep falling out of the sky and crashing everywhere??

Now that your post made me think it over, I'm actually pretty cool with Kerbin being the way it is. There is simply The Space Program. All else is unimportant and unnecessary. The Space Program Is All.

<cue zen music>