Your opinions on the solar flare/winds?

[kiwiak]

No random events?

So lets make CME completly predictible.

Player would know date of solar flare up to the second it starts.

Do you plan trip to Mun? Suure, you can send ship without shielding, there is 9 months until next solar flare, you will make it. Sending Jool mission? Better equip these guys with shielding or even some kind of artifical magnetic field generator.

Of course LKO orbit should be protected from flares by magnetic field.

Oh, and some planets due to their magnetic field should be very dangerous for live crews, like real life Jupiter is.

Well, anyway, someone should make mod for this because i think squad have right now some other thing on their mind.

[Sirrobert]

No random events?

So lets make CME completly predictible.

Player would know date of solar flare up to the second it starts.

Do you plan trip to Mun? Suure, you can send ship without shielding, there is 9 months until next solar flare, you will make it. Sending Jool mission? Better equip these guys with shielding or even some kind of artifical magnetic field generator.

Of course LKO orbit should be protected from flares by magnetic field.

Oh, and some planets due to their magnetic field should be very dangerous for live crews, like real life Jupiter is.

Well, anyway, someone should make mod for this because i think squad have right now some other thing on their mind.

I do like the sound of that.

It would need to be advertised VERY clearly ofcourse, but it would add a nice extra dimention to interplanetary things

[UberFuber]

Solar wind and solar sails sounds interesting.

Perhaps a possibility for mod to allow a special "solar panel" that, depending the sun's exposure, provide a certain amount of thrust when deployed?

[Eric S]

That's all well and good for those who already know how to play the game but you have to think about new players as well.

Which is why the Mun is in a zero-inclination orbit, but Minmus has a non-zero inclination. This pattern repeats itself when you start playing around with planetary transfers. Duna, which is probably the first interplanetary destination of most new players is once again minimally inclined and almost the least elliptical orbit of any interplanetary destination, beaten only by Eve. The planets farthest away from Kerbin, Moho and Eeloo, are both more inclined and in more of an elliptical orbit than any other planets within the system.

If you're trying to challenge an experienced player who's trying to get to the Mun under the same circumstances as a new player, the new player isn't going to stand a chance. Hence, when you can, you put the challenges meant for more experienced players somewhere where the inexperienced player is less likely to trip over them.

[DevoidLight]

If you're trying to challenge an experienced player who's trying to get to the Mun under the same circumstances as a new player, the new player isn't going to stand a chance. Hence, when you can, you put the challenges meant for more experienced players somewhere where the inexperienced player is less likely to trip over them.

The thread started about orbits around Kerbin. I was most worried about adding difficulty to a player's first few flights.

[Eric S]

The thread started about orbits around Kerbin. I was most worried about adding difficulty to a player's first few flights.

Agreed, and I was supporting what you were saying, though I didn't make that clear. Something like this suggestion doesn't fit in well with scaling difficulty unless you come up with a reason for it not to be an issue in Kerbin orbit.

[DevoidLight]

Agreed, and I was supporting what you were saying, though I didn't make that clear. Something like this suggestion doesn't fit in well with scaling difficulty unless you come up with a reason for it not to be an issue in Kerbin orbit.

Ah, my bad. Somebody mentioned that Kerbins magnetic field could somehow protect it from flares. I don't know how scientifically accurate that is but there could be something to it in terms of gameplay and balance.

[Nodrokov]

Flares or random meteors that damage ships or probes? Those events are so rare in real life as to be unnecessary to incorporate in the game. Now, one could use the flares as a hazard if a ship or probe is deliberately sent to a close orbit of the sun, say halfway between Moho and the sun.

Solar winds would be something that could be set up as a mod with a solar sailing craft. While providing propulsion for free, it should be in the form of 1/10 the push of an ion drive with the sail allowing for speeding up or slowing down in relation to the solar orbit. One would be able to use solar assist to visit outer planets and return. Such missions, however, should take several years to acomplish.

That seems fair, it would be a little ridiculous if you had your ship randomly destroyed by solar flares, unless, of course, you are going suicidally close to the sun. Also, the solar sail would have to obviously be fairly weak, also I think it might make it more fair if it were incredibly frail, so that any atmospheric use would almost immediately rip it to shreds.