Axial tilt for planets

[Red Iron Crown]

Though what you said gave me an idea: that the Mun should be inclined and minmus should be equatorial (while Kerbin remains un-tilted); this way, it will be easier for new players to get to minmus (because it requires less deltaV and it's equatorial), but wouldnt make interplanetary missions more difficult by adding an axial tilt.

New players rarely go to Minmus first, I think because it's not as visible and everyone wants to try their hand at a Moon landing. That and the newbie perception that close targets require less fuel.

[arkie87]

New players rarely go to Minmus first, I think because it's not as visible and everyone wants to try their hand at a Moon landing. That and the newbie perception that close targets require less fuel.

That... and the fact that the first KSP screen says "Mun or Bust"

The only reason Mun requires more deltaV is because its gravity well is deeper; otherwise, if Mun's and minmus's gravity wells were equal, minmus would require more deltaV. So perhaps, make minmus bigger/denser so that Mun is easier to get to since players will go for it first anyway (especially since earth doesnt have a second moon so new players wont suspect it even exists...)

[mattinoz]

That... and the fact that the first KSP screen says "Mun or Bust"

The only reason Mun requires more deltaV is because its gravity well is deeper; otherwise, if Mun's and minmus's gravity wells were equal, minmus would require more deltaV. So perhaps, make minmus bigger/denser so that Mun is easier to get to since players will go for it first anyway (especially since earth doesnt have a second moon so new players wont suspect it even exists...)

plus the contracts pay you to go there first.

[prophet_01]

Yep I also went to the mun first. I also did it apollo style, which was a bad idea (not as bad as never trying to dock before ). Most players I talked with mentioned that they wanted to do things somewhat historically. And although minmus is far easyer to land on, new players tend to not notice it or don't rly prefer it over the mun.

From my point of view that would favour the variant of a mun in an equatorial orbit. Minmus would be tilted to match the the solar system's orientation.

Axis tilt would generally make space feel a lot more 3-dimensional and I think bigger

Edited November 25, 2014 by prophet_01

[Chewy]

I feel like the various planets and moons could be located so a new player experiences increasing difficulty as they progress. Start with Kerbin with a slight tilt (10-15 degrees). Put Mün in an orbit directly on Kerbin's equatorial plane. Then put minmus in an inclined orbit as it currently is. Note that nothing within Kerbin's SOI is at all different with respect to Kerbin's axis, so nothing changes for the early game other than the sun tracking a different line through the sky (fewer eclipses).

In order to make the first interplanetary trips to Duna and Eve a bit easier, the first launch windows for those planets, when new players would typically be trying their first trip outside Kerbin's SOI, could be preset to occur at Kerbin's equinox. This would allow players to make the transfer from an equatorial orbit (or any other inclination for that matter) and still get an encounter.

[r_loewe]

i think since kerbin is the earth analog give it a 23.5 degree tilt

[marcello639]

I completely agree, but for Ksp2. I don't think such huge changes should be done in fully released game

[Ourworldalpha1]

for noob sake what about we align the kerbin system on kerbin tilled equator but make the other planets orbit a different inclinations so you need to launch at a specific heading or do plane change maneuver in orbit

easy for noobs and gives a challenge for pro players not like noobs would know Interplanetary travel until Mun landings a learning curve you call it

P.S I am not a noob

 

Edited July 10, 2016 by Ourworldalpha1

[Djolox]

NECRO!!!

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

Equatorial Minmus - no pls. In the beginning it took me a time to figure out how to fly properly to equatorial orbits and to fly around Mün. Minmus was a great oppoturnity to learn how to axial tilt properly. Tilting orbits is something you'd want to learn in Kerbin's SOI where you can easily get the crew back if something goes wrong and even if everything goes south the crew is still recoverable. Changing orbital tilt is not something you want to learn in interplanetary space.

If this would be an option I'd be all for it. Have a like!

[juanml82]

Holy necros Batman! Anyway

 

On 26/5/2014 at 8:10 PM, LethalDose said:

I support planets with axial tilt. Now that being said...

Axial tilt, while important for "realism" or "believablity" in the game, isn't a foundational mechanic to game play (Which is what I must assume "scope complete" refers to, since the devs haven't actually defined the term). Therefore, I think planets with axial should be added before launch, but after the game is "scope complete".

I think giving Kerbin itself an axial tilt is an absolutely dreadful idea. New players coming into the game will have one more difficulty launching into orbits on the ecliptic. Learning to rendezvous in LKO becomes substantially more complex unless they are launching "correctly" from the start of the mission. Interplanetary missions also become somewhat more difficult to account for as they will almost certainly not exit kerbin on the Kerbolar ecliptic. The gains to be had from Kerbin on a tilted axis with Minmus in a coplanar orbit are, IMO, much much to small to offset the steeper learning curve to new players.

I'm not disagreeing because "I don't want things to change" and I'm not disagreeing for the sake of being contrary. I just think Kerbin having an axial tilt by default is a bad idea.

If "planets with axial tilt" were an option players could select at the beginning of a game, I'd be all for it, and I'd happily check that box. But, overall, I don't think it would benefit new players at all.

Alternatively, KSP could have proper navigation aids: you have axial tilts and a countdown to when to launch to get into the ecliptic, as well as markers in the navball indicating the direction you need to be pointing, should you want that.

Throw in porkchop plots and proper in-game methods of planning an interplanetary burn and we may avoid this:

On 27/5/2014 at 10:09 AM, Red Iron Crown said:

You and I play very different games, apparently. LKO is a brief stopover on the way to the real destination for me.

KSP was conceived as a game to be played in LKO. The Mun and Minmus are additions to it and the rest of the planets are an afterthought. You can't really go to Tylo, Eve or even Laythe with the original "trial and error" conception.

So players who play without the proper mods (probably the majority of them) don't go beyond Kerbin's SOI. It's too complicated because of the lack of tools to do it. Squad gets telemetry data of everyone who doesn't opt-out and realizes most people play within Kerbin's SOI. So they focus on airplanes, atmospheric reentry in Kerbin and a contract weighting system which doesn't take transfer windows into account. In turn, this discourages players into going to other planets. This is also aggravated that going to other planets (Duna being the exception) require late in-game tech, so if "finishing" the game is reaching the end of the tech tree, there is no incentive to try to go to other planets, which can't really be done in stock without alt-tabbing to the Internet, calculators and so on.

At the end of the day, it reinforces the cycle and means we end up with lackluster graphics for other planets, the ridiculous time warp limit in Gilly, a heat system that took several updates to finally work across all atmospheric bodies, no new planets, no space station parts, no base parts, etc, etc.

[Red Iron Crown]

14 hours ago, ImmaStegosaurus! said:

Equatorial Minmus - no pls. In the beginning it took me a time to figure out how to fly properly to equatorial orbits and to fly around Mün. Minmus was a great oppoturnity to learn how to axial tilt properly. Tilting orbits is something you'd want to learn in Kerbin's SOI where you can easily get the crew back if something goes wrong and even if everything goes south the crew is still recoverable. Changing orbital tilt is not something you want to learn in interplanetary space.

If this would be an option I'd be all for it. Have a like!

Are you mixing up axial tilt with inclination?

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

7 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Are you mixing up axial tilt with inclination?

Yes.

This is shameful.

[Kerbart]

14 minutes ago, ImmaStegosaurus! said:

Yes.

This is shameful.

Meh. Standing in the office elevator and discovering you're wearing two different shoes, that is shameful!

[Red Iron Crown]

1 hour ago, ImmaStegosaurus! said:

This is shameful.

No shame in it. It is, after all, rocket science.

[juanml82]

6 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Meh. Standing in the office elevator and discovering you're wearing two different shoes, that is shameful!

Meh. Going to play football after work and realizing you kept your shoes instead of changing to tennis shoes, that is shameful!

[NSEP]

I think it is a really good idea, but just dont change the tilt of Kerbin, or at least make an on/off switch. I think the axial tilt is more of a thing for every planet/moon expect The Mun and Kerbin, because those are the easiest to explore bodies, and i dont want it to become harder. I think the tilt is needed in some places were not much people go, like Dres or Moho, just to make it more challenging. But for mods like, RSS, its probably the best idea i can think of. So that are my opinions.

[Hotel26]

One thing that has always impressed me about KSP is:

a) the decision to NOT model the true solar system was very wise; (because it allows:)

b) it may seem subtle at first, but the more you explore, the more you realize that the Kerbol system is a set of cleverly graded exercises.

Two things, really. 

Changing anything that already exists and that players may have heavily invested in exploiting (e.g. mining sites) is likely to be a dangerously political move.

I haven't been everywhere in the system yet but That Day is approaching, so my vote would be "add another planet, [pretty please]" and, yeah, put a different spin on it. 

[Kerbart]

As others pointed out, @guigui30000's idea is fantastic. It solves the eclipse problem, continues to make Minmus an excellent outpost for interplanetary missions and keeps things pretty much the same for beginning users. 

When do we start?

[TheKosanianMethod]

I think I heard so where that unity doesn't allow for tilted axis. I think.

[Red Iron Crown]

13 minutes ago, TheKosanianMethod said:

I think I heard so where that unity doesn't allow for tilted axis. I think.

Not exactly. The planetarium code is all Squad's rather than Unity's as far as I know, the issue is not one of whether the engine support axial tilt but more that so much of the existing code is written with the assumption that all bodies' axes are parallel. It would take close to a complete rewrite to support tilt natively, which seems unlikely at this stage of the game's development. Much as I would like to see support for this added I am not optimistic.

[klesh]

3 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

The planetarium code is all Squad's rather than Unity's as far as I know, the issue is not one of whether the engine support axial tilt but more that so much of the existing code is written with the assumption that all bodies' axes are parallel. It would take close to a complete rewrite to support tilt natively, which seems unlikely at this stage of the game's development. Much as I would like to see support for this added I am not optimistic.

 

So, more of an oversight on whoever wrote the original planetarium code at Squad for not considering axial tilt from the get go?

[Alshain]

5 hours ago, klesh said:

 

So, more of an oversight on whoever wrote the original planetarium code at Squad for not considering axial tilt from the get go?

Oversight... or completely intentional design.

[Ub3rshadow]

On 5/22/2014 at 5:40 PM, technicalfool said:

Also if more planets eventually get added, can we have a lop-sided gas or ice giant like Uranus? That could make visiting any moons around it a bit interesting.

There's a fairly new kopernicus addon called TiltEm, which implements axial tilt. It isn't very advanced yet, so it's being used by any planet modders from my knowledge. With the mod you get a config file which gives axial tilts to the stock system though. It is buggy but it's being worked hard on.

[Duck McFuddle]

I love the idea that it would be tilted to line up with Minmus. I love going to Minmus (Look at my profile pic and rank name) and I hate having to fix the inclination. Minmus is a much more fun and interesting place to go, and for newbies, I think it would be better than the Mun. As for the idea of an axial tilt in general, I like it as well because it would add much more realism to the game.