How do you think rings will work in KSP?

[Mr. Me]

I think the devs should follow Sentar's rings.

[Themohawkninja]

Nope wikipedia sucks.

No, not really.

Poulet F.; Cuzzi J.N. (2002). "The Composition of Saturn's Rings". Icarus 160 (2): 350. Bibcode:2002Icar..160..350P. doi:10.1006/icar.2002.6967

^^That also states that the rings are 20 meters thick.

Also, according to NASA:

Saturn is much larger than Earth. More than 700 Earths could fit inside Saturn. Saturn's rings are thousands of miles wide. If there were cars in space, it would take more than a week to drive across some of Saturn's rings. On the other hand, the rings are quite thin. They are only about 30 to 300 feet thick.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Themohawkninja

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

No, not really.

Poulet F.; Cuzzi J.N. (2002). "The Composition of Saturn's Rings". Icarus 160 (2): 350. Bibcode:2002Icar..160..350P. doi:10.1006/icar.2002.6967

^^That also states that the rings are 20 meters thick.

Also, according to NASA:

What the kerbal? It would take a week to drive across saturns rings but the rings are only 30 to 300 feet thick? Am I missing something?

[lajoswinkler]

Just because boulders would not have a collision mesh doesn't mean a machine can render a huge number of them.

The best thing for a ring would be an semitransparent, textured annulus, optionally surrounded by a thin veil of fog, like a flattened torus with the densest part where the annulus is.

[Themohawkninja]

What the kerbal? It would take a week to drive across saturns rings but the rings are only 30 to 300 feet thick? Am I missing something?

Weeks to drive from the outer most to the inner most (or visa versa) ring, not from the top to the bottom of the rings.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

Weeks to drive from the outer most to the inner most (or visa versa) ring, not from the top to the bottom of the rings.

Oh, Because a car that takes a week to go a couple hundred feet is really slow.

[Themohawkninja]

Oh, Because a car that takes a week to go a couple hundred feet is really slow.

Yeah, I think we really need to get the official definition for thickness of a ring. I'm pretty sure the distance from the inner-most to the outer-most is the depth of the ring, and the distance from the top (which requires its own definition if you ask me) to the bottom of the ring is its' thickness.

[Capt Snuggler]

Oh, Because a car that takes a week to go a couple hundred feet is really slow.

wheels do no work in space

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

wheels do no work in space

I know and its impossible to go under 5 feet per hour in space because you would've slammed in to saturn.

[Tex_NL]

Just because boulders would not have a collision mesh doesn't mean a machine can render a huge number of them.

Rock scatter twice the density that is currently found on Mun won't cripple your CPU/GPU. Add to that a layer of fog (particle effect) and there won't even be a need to render any distant scatter. It can simply be deleted.

[Stargate525]

Simple answer: there won't be any. Too much work.

[Atoning Unifex]

I reckon a very simple layer like has been suggested by someone a little while ago, however it would be cool if there was maybe a way to implement some sort of drag effects if passing through the rings.

[Hyomoto]

I'm surprised at some of the comments here. So, when you look at the i-Novae engine you just think, "Wow, what a miracle!" Just look at something like this Unity Space Toolkit.

Yes, KSP could very much have all of this and more. There are developers doing this and more. It could be done on smaller computers ... and more. You have to keep in mind that Squad is pretty rookie when all things are considered. KSP is great, and I love it very much but I'm under no delusions. The major limitations of KSP are most likely the developers, as fair as I can tell, aren't making use of any middleware, are fairly inexperienced as far as engine design goes, and the project (for better or worse) is a bit of a 'see what works'. So give Squad the credit they deserve, but don't assume that this is 'as good as it can be' or that it would be impossible to do better.

[Capt Snuggler]

I know and its impossible to go under 5 feet per hour in space because you would've slammed in to saturn.

lol that too.

[CaptRobau]

Since rings are so thin and is composed mostly of pebble-sized objects I think a 2D texture is the best way to go. SpaceEngine does this really well by having a single opaque image at a distance, but when you get close a moving detail texture is applied which gives the idea of the rings having some content to them. Water works in a similar way: single texture high-up, tiled detail textures close-up.

[AwesumnisRawr188]

Maybe a passive image, until you get close, at which point it will start to spawn random rocks within your immediate distance? Such as rocks further than 300m will not spawn, but will be a passive image in the ring? Sounds neat, but might be hard to implement.