Should there be black holes in later versions of KSP?

[Kasuha]

A planets gravity in KSP comes from an infinitely small point at the centre of each planet which is essentially a black hole

Surprisingly enough it's the same in reality. Surface gravity of a homogenous sphere is exactly the same as if the gravity was coming from a single point in its center with the same mass.

The only difference is that if things get under surface in KSP and don't explode, they keep falling under increasing gravity towards that single point. While if you'd start digging towards center of the Earth (and survive), the gravity would eventually decrease to zero.

[coolitic]

You do realize if there were to be a black hole it would suck in all the planets right?

[CaptainArchmage]

Yes. I'm not sure how they will do it but at the very least it would provide for interesting research opportunities.

I think in one of the planet factory discussions, a black hole is already possible by creating a black sphere of the correct diameter as a planet in a specific orbit. The extreme gravity would probably rip the spacecraft apart before impact, and the spacecraft could in a simple model just explode after touching the collision mesh. The only thing missing are the gravitational lensing effects.

If there are very distant celestial objects that can, at least for beginning players, be observed for science, we might get a mission to "construct an interferometer telescope in space" to observe them, so a closer black hole interacting with another star could be observed for science. In fact, this would apply to observing planets around nearby stars.

The interferometer space telescope would involve multiple launches and getting spacecraft to follow specific orbits around Kerbin or in the Kerbin system, so it would be quite a challenging mission, but definitely possible given what we can do in KSP.

Edited January 23, 2014 by CaptainArchmage

[r4pt0r]

my condolences, but this is a poor idea.

[crazyewok]

If the game ever goes multi star system it could work and we could play how far round the accretion disc we can get before your completely and utterly royally screwed.

[Sesni]

The black holes need to be pretty easy to detect though.

[crazyewok]

The black holes need to be pretty easy to detect though.

Easy you would see the the accretion disc. You cant see a blackhole but you can see the material being pulled toward it at high speed.

Just so you know Im against black holes as it stands with just the Kerbin system. But if the game went intersteller with multiple star systems I wouldnt be againt them as they could be a nice little science point.

Edited January 23, 2014 by crazyewok