Asteroid Abuse

[Ironwatsas]

I've been told Asteroids and small bodies are a planned feature, but I've recently been thinking of something...

Rather than have asteroids be in fixed orbits, have smaller ones be manipulable in a way. Basically, once asteroids are included, there should be a sort of anchor-clamp that lets a kerbal ship latch onto it permanently, allowing either for affixing thrusters or using the asteroid as a base.

There are plenty of applications! The ability to move small asteroids below a certain threshold (e.g. "how many boosters I can put on it") would make them ideal for placing in a specific orbit and building bases on. Or you could find one rich in Kethane or other minerals and haul it to a location where said minerals can be collected and moved with minimal Delta-V cost.

And ofcourse, this would open the door to "Asteroid Defense" missions, where you have to prevent one from whacking into Kerbin and killing everyone (or, alternately, finding an asteroid and whacking it into Kerbin and killing everyone). Or just playing a bizarre game of rock-conkers in Kerbol's asteroid belt.

Hilarity would most likely ensue.

[jwenting]

yes, and allow kids to turn them into weapons and bombard planets with them...

Is this another "I want weapons" thread?

Seriously, just having asteroid belts will be a game changer for things like missions to other planets where you have to traverse them.

[PurelyPommy]

I would instantly head for the biggest asteroid so i can destroy Kerbin with the mighty power of the astro-missle

Another idea would be bringing them into Kerbin orbit and turn them into fuel depots or something.

[Beeman]

Is this another "I want weapons" thread?

The original post clearly points out the intended purpose of being able to manipulate asteroids. There's real-life agencies and programs that operate specifically to discover dangerous asteroids and different ways we might prevent them from hitting our planet. Obviously, some people would instead just crash things into kerbin(and do basically nothing, most likely) but to be able to live out some of the engineering plans and goals from the real-world in KSP is part of what makes KSP so appealing. It'd be nice to be able to redirect a comet on a potential collision course with Kerbin.

It'd also be nice to grab a medium-sized near-kerbin asteroid and bring it closer to Kerbin's orbit for mining purposes, as the original post also mentions.

Don't be so negative.

As for my opinion on the topic...I"m not sure how I'd feel about it. Honestly, I'd like having more things to do in space. More ways to mine, more reason to build crazy contraptions for whatever reason. But at the same time, I feel like if they were things you could grab and move around...they'd essentially be floating ship debris. Basically, anyways...and it'd probably cause a bit of lag. They'd probably have to spend a fair bit of time optimizing them junks, so maybe this is something for them to think about later on.

Still a really interesting topic, though I think it's been suggested before. Probably a lot >.>

[LeadMagnet]

Don't think jwenting is being negative, just observant! His point about traversing an asteroid belt is very good. Going through an asteroid belt at 5Km/s would make even Jebediah's pucker meter peg! Turing an asteroid into a weapon, I'm sure the US government already has plans for this and in KSP,

!

You also make very valid points. Kethane operations on an asteroid would be epic!

To stay on topic, I think the existence of an asteroid belt would be a bit much for KSP physics and a tad bit laggy. Unless it's a very, VERY small one.

Having the odd (5 or 10) small asteroids in random orbits could be fun. Making it so you could, possibly, adjust these orbits would be great.

So yes, I agree. Asteroid belt? MEH...

[Outlander4]

Don't get too excited, people, the density of the real-life asteroid belt is so low you won't even notice passing through it.

Star Wars/Star Trek - esque asteroid belts would either grind themselves to dust due to the collisions or collapse to form a planet or something.

I know it's disappointing. We'll just have to live with it.

[LeadMagnet]

Don't get too excited, people, the density of the real-life asteroid belt is so low you won't even notice passing through it.

Very true, but the risk is still present (1)(2). With my luck, I'd hit a grain of sand!

Edited August 15, 2013 by LeadMagnet

[Outlander4]

Very true, but the risk is still present (1)(2). With my luck, I'd hit a grain of sand!

The risk is VERY low, but with a...err...'carefully chosen' trajectory everything is possible! It'd be more along the lines of 'oh no another encounter...and another...and another...oh no, now I need a correction burn. Bugger'. It's still fun.

[Ernest3.14]

I concur with this idea. How might it be implemented though? Currently all orbits are on rails/pre-calculated...

[DAVIDESCOTT]

I concur with this idea. How might it be implemented though? Currently all orbits are on rails/pre-calculated...

Spawn them procedurally when a craft gets near them, keep them on rails for the duration of that crafts stay in the area. You could get some fun and interesting behavior from that. You would have to have some kind of collision model in the instance when your procedurally generated objects collide.

[Ironwatsas]

Spacecraft orbits aren't.

What I was thinking is... what if there was merely a 'zone' between Duna and Jool wherein asteroids spawned, but only if a ship or probe (or telescope?) entered within a certain range of them. The player would need to somehow 'tag' them by some manual means such as landing a probe or assigning a name. So they could actively track a certain number of asteroids, but only as many as they want/need to.

Alternately, have asteroids work like debris in that you could select how many the game would let spawn at once, depending on how much processor power you have available. Also like debris, you can turn them off in map view.

Or possibly some combination between the two. The Near-Kerbin asteroids, random orbits, or Komets(?) would be generated like debris, while the main belt would just have a random spawn zone.

Then you can find one that suits you and do stuff like this!

[boomerdog2000]

What if once you got close enough to an asteroid with the appropriate part on the ship you could add a docking port to it. Similar to this mod http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/20-asteroids-from-fasa-2/

[SyberSmoke]

As posted above, you can create a belt and procedurally generate a number of larger asteroids as points of interest. If a ship gets close enough, other asteroids could also be generated with in a set radius around the ship. These asteroids could have a conditionally "fixed" orbit, so left alone the asteroid will just be there and when the kerbal leaves, so does the asteroid.

But if the Kerbal ship decides to land on that asteroid, then the asteroids orbit can be changed and considered an object. So say you get enough parts out there and engines, you could nudge it out of orbit treating it as a super massive ship. This would be a HUGE endeavor and I doubt that it would be at all fast. I would also suggest that besides placing engines, you would also need to drop a special control center to manage the rock as you take it to where it is going.

This is not a small effort, and it would be the culmination of MANY launches as your literally building a ship out of the rock and would need attitude control, thrust, and retro's. But it could be a fun thing to do.

[Luis]

Even a 10m diameter asteroid would mass about 1250 tonnes (4/3 x Pi x R^3 x density), assuming a it's made of rock. An iron/nickel asteroid would be even more massive. Deflecting the orbit of that would require enormous amounts of fuel. Anything larger than that would be entirely out of the question. Even if you could mine the fuel directly on the asteroid itself, the time required to accellerate it would be preposterously large.

[Ernest3.14]

What if you used nuclear "bombs" (not weapons!) to divert their orbits?

[goldenpeach]

Or more kerbalish:diverting an asteroid and make it collide with the primary asteroid,with careful and precise collision you should(in theory) be able to change its orbit the way you like

[SyberSmoke]

Even a 10m diameter asteroid would mass about 1250 tonnes (4/3 x Pi x R^3 x density), assuming a it's made of rock. An iron/nickel asteroid would be even more massive. Deflecting the orbit of that would require enormous amounts of fuel. Anything larger than that would be entirely out of the question. Even if you could mine the fuel directly on the asteroid itself, the time required to accelerate it would be preposterously large.

Actually you would not need as much fuel (Still need allot) to move an asteroid. If you plan it right, you can use the gravitational pull of near by bodies to slingshot your rock towards where you want it to go. This is not a small effort though and it would take time...allot of time to achieve. But really if they are planning to bring rocks from the belt to earth so they can be mined with convenience...why not offer something similar to those interested in KSP.

I will say this though, This like probes would not be something a player SHOULD focus on. This is something that deserves an out of seat autopilot. Where a coarse can be plotted and then left to the placed Kerbles or piloting system. Some of the concepts in the game scream for this kind of interaction (Ion Engines) and so I hope it is also planned.

Any way back of coarse. Oooo...Asteroids do have one other cool thought. A random mission in career mode. KSP Observers have spotted a rouge asteroid on a intercept trajectory with Kerbin. It is our mission to launch a series of missions that will divert the asteroid and save the Kerbals from utter destruction. After all, Jeb would get so lonely since his awesomeness would protect him from all harm.

What if you used nuclear "bombs" (not weapons!) to divert their orbits?

And much to the contrary of science fiction, a nuke would not make a good method for diverting an asteroid. A nukes blast is not focused enough to provide the jolt needed to move something like that. Plus you do not know if the asteroid is stone, metal, or a debris pile. So using a nuke could cause it to shatter into a million smaller objects.

Edited August 16, 2013 by SyberSmoke

[Holo]

yes, and allow kids to turn them into weapons and bombard planets with them...

This is an excellent example of why we should remove all fuel tanks, engines and parts from the game.

[Eric S]

And much to the contrary of science fiction, a nuke would not make a good method for diverting an asteroid. A nukes blast is not focused enough to provide the jolt needed to move something like that. Plus you do not know if the asteroid is stone, metal, or a debris pile. So using a nuke could cause it to shatter into a million smaller objects.

Orion disagrees with the first point and agrees with the second, though since it never actually flew, should be taken with a grain of salt. Shaped nuclear charges do exist (I was surprised to learn this), and an even semi-realistic Orion drive outclasses just about any other drive in KSP except for the far-flung Sci-Fi addons. On the other hand, it does require a pusher plate, and I'd assume you'd need a pusher plate in the case of an asteroid unless you weren't too worried about increasing the amount of debris in space.

TLDR: Using general purpose nukes to change an asteroid's orbit would quite likely be a bad idea, but assuming you could brace it properly, an Orion drive could probably do the job. Of course, turning the thing would be a nightmare.

Personally, I think that adding asteroids in non-fixed orbits would be a very optimizeable feature as long as they're treated similarly to craft, right up until players start moving them. It would be easy to add 100 or even 1000 objects that spend almost all their time on rails, as long as you're not trying to display them on the map or in the tracking station, and it wouldn't be hard to only check their exact positions when you're near the asteroid belt. Hmmm.... you'd have to remove that optimization for any asteroid that the player has moved, but as long as they don't just go crazy with the asteroids it would be fine. Yup, all it would take is sane players. I'm sure we can find a handful of them somewhere.