Space Debris and Implications Thereof

[Dr Mayhem22]

Why is there no random space debris, projectiles, or general dangers in interstellar travel? By this I imply, is it possible to make it so that one is having a nice interstellar journey to say, eve, and on the way there, space debris is constantly hurtling next to or at him. Could it be done so that if it comes within x proximity of your craft, all time-warp halts and you have to deal with the problem. Should you choose to ignore it, the following scenario depicts the events:

Jimmy is flying through space and wasn't paying attention. Some meteors were rushing towards his craft. Jimmy decided not to take evasive manuvers. Jimmy's craft was hit by a flaming rock. Jimmy's craft's tail section broke off. Jimmy was flying on one engine with low power. Jimmy Wasn't able to slow down in time and crash landed on Duna's surface. He is now stranded and cannot leave.

I did include something about low power in that, because in its current state, power is wierd in KSP. There is no real concern about power, especially because you can just put a solar panel or more importantly an RTG and not worry about a thing. When your power drops to zero, you're basically dead, but what about before then. I also propose the ability to route power to and from critical systems. This would make it more important to place your power generation in safe locations. It would be something like, with everything on, you can only afford X% power to engines, depending on your power grid within the ship. But if you were to lose an engine, or shut off your SAS, you would be able to route Y% power to the engines (likely over 100%, like what some space shuttles are able to do), essentially making you go faster. Or say that you don't need to go particularly fast, but your ship is very unweildy, so you take power from the engines and route it to your SAS systems.

These two suggestions would tie together to make interstellar travel in particular, but much of the game as a whole, a decent amount more immersive and a little less, "we're expecting a nice, turbulence-free, cruise at about X altitude, just sit back and enjoy the flight." I just feel like, if you have enough fuel once in space, you can make it anywhere you chose (I'm saying this in a very simplified way, I realise that you can't just have 9000 Rockomax Jumbo 64s and a 24-77 (the radial small rockomax engine) and expect to get everywhere and anywhere). Now, I wonder if this would be at all plausible ever in the future. The former portion of this would likely be far too taxing on the game if it were to use 100% accurate mechanics, so it would (if possible and if ever considered) likely have to be made so that, once the threat had been dealt with, it would be deleted from the game, as in, it wouldn't calculate the object's trajectory beyond that aformentioned X radius of the craft. What would you guys say to this? Is is remotely plausible, and would it help or hinder the game as a whole, especially if lose conditions (as mentioned in the 'already suggested' dev thread)?

[ManaaniWanderer]

The devs don't want there to be any random failure chance in the game, so if you fail its because you didn't include enough fuel/parachutes/batteries/power-generation/etc. or didn't make the craft strong enough to withstand the forces you put it under. Now running into debris from a prior failure is another mater, and is your fault as you knew it was there and its orbit and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[O-Doc]

The chances of hitting anything in space is almost zero. So close to zero, in fact that, it might as well be zero. Which is the same probability as hitting an object whilst flying directly through Saturn's rings. It's just not going to happen. It's a nice sci-fi plot device none-the-less. But, I'm pretty sure it won't be considered for this game.

[Guest]

The chances of hitting anything in space is almost zero. So close to zero, in fact that, it might as well be zero. Which is the same probability as hitting an object whilst flying directly through Saturn's rings.

Wrong. Saturn's rings are pretty dense, as far as space goes. While flying through them you'll definitely get hit by some small (or not so small) dust particles. Also, in LEO and especially in GTO, hitting a piece of space debris is quite likely, too, though mostly thanks to humans littering those orbits.

On the other hand, interstellar space is generally safe, unless you fly into a meteor cloud (which you pretty much need to deliberately attempt). In that case, some dust might hit, but it's unlikely to do major damage, and it's hard to hit anything larger than a speck of dust.

[Sirrobert]

Didn't you post this exactly same SUGGESTION in the suggestion forum already?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/78746-Dangerous-Space-Debris-and-the-Implications-Thereof

Please keep your suggestions to the suggestion forum, no reason to flood the forum with them

Wrong. Saturn's rings are pretty dense, as far as space goes. While flying through them you'll definitely get hit by some small (or not so small) dust particles. Also, in LEO and especially in GTO, hitting a piece of space debris is quite likely, too, though mostly thanks to humans littering those orbits.

On the other hand, interstellar space is generally safe, unless you fly into a meteor cloud (which you pretty much need to deliberately attempt). In that case, some dust might hit, but it's unlikely to do major damage, and it's hard to hit anything larger than a speck of dust.

Actuall you have to try really hard to hit an asteroid in an asteroid field

http://www.scienceadviser.net/2009/09/asteroid-belt-not-as-dense-as.html

Edited May 3, 2014 by Sirrobert

[sal_vager]

Oh, yeah I better close this as a duplicate.