You know what would be fun?

[syfyguy64]

Building a ring of orange tanks around minmus, or the mun, and have it be fully docked as one craft... around the mun.

Would be interesting to see if the physics would bug out or what.

It's just an idea I had.

Nothing more, though it'd be pretty amazing.

[DoggyGuy]

That would be hard for your CPU but maybe on Blocky part wide enough to fit around Bop would work

[Captain Sierra]

Not possible. The way KSP handles physics prevents it from being doable. Scientifically speaking, it is in fact doable to have a ring around a planet, however, it is near impossible to actually assemble one.

[FlamedSteak]

Even with hyperedit it would take an insane amount of time and would probably crash attempting to render it.

Though it would be interesting to see how the physics engine would handle a craft occupying it's apoapsis and periapsis at the same time.

[lajoswinkler]

If anything you should mention Gilly, being the smallest body in KSP universe (13km wide), but no, it's not possible. Even if the game took into account physics outside ~2km radius, which is not the case, rigid rings aren't stable and would crash shortly. I think even Manley mentioned that on his channel.

Saturn's rings are composed of particles. They bump int each other, but each one has its own orbit. Rigid ring would be in a state of unstable equilibrium, where the slightest push would eventually lead to the complete collapse, and such state is impossible to achieve in macroscopic universe.

[samstarman5]

Not possible. The way KSP handles physics prevents it from being doable. Scientifically speaking, it is in fact doable to have a ring around a planet, however, it is near impossible to actually assemble one.

Anything is possible. However, you would need a world with perfectly distributed mass to achieve such a feat. As it is, with an differences in mass, you get changes in gravity. Anyone who has at least visited the Mun and Minmus know that with less gravity means different speeds for the same orbital height. That subtle difference around a real world would tear apart such a structure long before it reached a kilometer in length. Maybe two kilometers with stronger materials and parts.

That lunar ring station featured in Starship Troopers? Bologna. Not only would it not hold up under differences in gravity over the Moon, but the tidal forces with the Earth and other bodies in the solar system would yank it apart within a month.

[Echostatic]

That would be fun to watch.

[mrxak]

Presumably there would be expansion joints and ridiculously strong futuristic materials composing the entire structure. Any civilization with the energy to even get such a massive structure in orbit would surely have advanced materials as well. Would it be an engineering marvel? Heck yeah. But even large structures today on Earth are designed to be somewhat flexible, or they'd tear themselves apart too from wind or the shifting of the ground. We just need new materials that can handle greater stresses than we're used to accounting for.

[TheAstronut]

Though it would be interesting to see how the physics engine would handle a craft occupying it's apoapsis and periapsis at the same time.

Put any craft in a perfectly circular orbit and find out.

[TheAstronut]

Unless it was actually made from something floppy and elastic like balogna. If you could build the station out of some sort of highly-elastic material it may work.

oops... doublepost

[omegamatrixhh]

Anything is possible. However, you would need a world with perfectly distributed mass to achieve such a feat. As it is, with an differences in mass, you get changes in gravity. Anyone who has at least visited the Mun and Minmus know that with less gravity means different speeds for the same orbital height. That subtle difference around a real world would tear apart such a structure long before it reached a kilometer in length. Maybe two kilometers with stronger materials and parts.

That lunar ring station featured in Starship Troopers? Bologna. Not only would it not hold up under differences in gravity over the Moon, but the tidal forces with the Earth and other bodies in the solar system would yank it apart within a month.

You can't say that anything is possible and then conditionalize the statement. I suppose that yes, in a universe that has completely different laws of physics, where the natural shapes and features of celestial bodies are suited to such an endeavour, then it would be possible to build a ring as OP describes. However, in both this universe and the KSP universe, such a prospect has a probability of success of effectively zero.

[TheAstronut]

No, the KSP universe has perfectly centered mass, and no tidal forces, so if the physics engine were perfect this would be achievable (if highly difficult).

[OtherDalfite]

No, the KSP universe has perfectly centered mass, and no tidal forces, so if the physics engine were perfect this would be achievable (if highly difficult).

Actually it does simulate tidal forces, they are just very very weak. So weak in fact, that they can't be seen and are perturbed by floating point errors on your craft, causing it to spin in other random directions, thus cancelling out the force. There was an experiment done a long time ago (before the Mun, I believe) and it did prove to be true.

[regex]

Building a ring of orange tanks around minmus, or the mun, and have it be fully docked as one craft... around the mun.

Would be interesting to see if the physics would bug out or what.

It's just an idea I had.

Nothing more, though it'd be pretty amazing.

I eagerly await your screenshots.

[Garek]

Actually it does simulate tidal forces, they are just very very weak. So weak in fact, that they can't be seen and are perturbed by floating point errors on your craft, causing it to spin in other random directions, thus cancelling out the force. There was an experiment done a long time ago (before the Mun, I believe) and it did prove to be true.

Actually, tidal forces don't need to be explicitly simulated. They just kind of appear if you apply gravity to each part of a vessel separatly instead of treating the complete vessel as a single point-mass.

[Tw1]

Not possible due to limitations of the game, from what I heard. Eventually, your ship's centre of mass will approach the surface of the planet, and consider itself crashed and blow up. There's also the render distance issue, which, from my experiments, is measured from the centre of mass, and though you can have a vessel that exceeds that, other things further away won't be loaded. This not loading will make docking tricky.

But there may be a way around it.

Perhaps, by using a super heavy part, that can be undocked and moved along the structure, you could overcome the second problem. You'd need at least two of these, with at least one being docked at all times, so the centre of mass stays in position. The rest of the station would have to be very lightweight- trusses, docking ports, and not much else.

Perhaps, the first problem could be overcome by assembling the station in two sections. The weighted section of one would need to be at the prograde end of one, and the retrograde end of the other. Then, you'd need to dock them.

But, unless you were amazingly well aligned, you wouldn't be docked at the other end. I'd be very hard to zoom out and check.

Perhaps, a better idea would be to build it in Kerbin orbit, adding bit by bit untill you go around in a complete circle, still using the weights to shift COM trick.

You'd be able to see both ends to dock the final bit between them.

Then hyperedit, or if you're even more ambitious, fly it into place. This way, you only have to cope with huge part count, possibly wobbly joints, etc.

Gilly would be an obvious choice for doing this kind of thing, from the wiki's numbers, you could probably get away with a station about 100Km in diameter.

[arq]

You could extend the drawdistance out a bit more. I know Lazor mod can do this out to 99km and for Gilly you'd really only need about 30km. The station would be roughly 85km in circumference, so would involve assembling hundreds of pieces in orbit, but could possibly be done. People discuss this all the time, but so far it seems no one has ever really tried.

[Rage097]

If this is accomplishable, The place to do it would be gilly. Lowest gravity, smallest body. The issue would be assembling it. Even with cheats it'd be very tedious and eventually you might establish a Gilly base or strand land a few kerbals on eve rather than send yet ANOTHER tank over.

Not to mention your CPU would commit suicide over it.

[Excalibur]

You should read the Ringworld novels by Larry Niven. He was derided after the release of the first novel as the ring he portrayed in 'orbit' around a neighbouring star was physically impossible. Because of this he retconned; in subsequent books the the Ringworld had an automatic RCS-type (albeit RCS on a titanic scale) system to keep the ring's centre of mass at the centre of the star, thus preventing the ring colliding with the star's photosphere.

Basically as the ring is a rigid object it isn't actually in orbit around the star - it's this that causes all of the issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld#Errors

As previously stated by others the limitations of KSP would stop you from even completing a fraction of such a ring anyway.

[AfailingHORSE]

The only thing that I know that will not make this possible is the 2km render distance

[llamatoes]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/tt-neverunload]

This.

Oh, and Hyperedit, as lugging this thing from kerbin to Gilly will be hard.

[Comrade Jenkens]

i'm pretty sure that KSP simulates objects further away than 2.5km IF it is part of the same ship. Some of my ships have been quite large yet they load into the physics area as a single mass, rather than piece by piece as the ship enters.

But yeah, the PC would explode before the structure was anywhere near large enough

[vetrox]

Theres only one way to find out...

[magnemoe]

Has someone made some serious long objects, like connecting 3-500 merter kas cables between rovers it should be possible to get over 2.5 km?

I know that the game not allways unload at 2.5 km. Had an experience then an huge ship was visible as more than an point out to close to 4 kilometers. Yes it had an lander undocked from it who was two kilometers away so it might have stopped unloading.

[thunderstar]

i think it would be imposiible because the physiscs range is about 2.5 km and that's isn't enought space to create such a thing, maybe if in future versions they release small asteriods that you can orbit with their own gravity, it may be possible