How do you feel about this ?

[allmhuran]

I think that more planets would be nice, but we need more work done on the existing ones.

I'm not really interested in more planets just for the sake of them. We have big ones, small ones, ones that are easy to reach, ones that are hard to reach. Another one wouldn't actually add anything new as far as I can see, just one more place to take the same ships to do the same jobs.

How do I feel? Apathetic. I think they should work on giving us new things to do and new ways to do them, and getting what we already have correct before they start giving us new places to half-ass our way through half-finished tasks.

I would totaly be fine if they wouldn't add more planets until scope completion. Once every system of the game works like it should, they can add all the content

I'll be another to second the call for much, much more interest on the current planets. They really want bringing to life, not just visually but also linking in with the science system.

Yeah, all of this.

New planets do not add any new gameplay. If they added a new planet out past Eeloo you wouldn't really do anything different to get to it than you do to get to Duna, you'd just have to bring more fuel and burn for longer. Similarly, once there you wouldn't have anything new to do, since the only thing to do with any planet is click through science dialog boxes.

I want to see how the gameplay systems interlock with the hope that the different destinations serve different purposes with different gameplay aspects. Until then I don't think new planets or new biomes really do anything.

[Asmayus]

snip

You've hit the crux of the issue for me; yes, more places to explore sound very enticing, but I've never bothered to go to most of the planets. I know that I certainly have the know how, and the skills to do so but once I get there there's nothing to do. I've done Eve, Mun, Minmus, and Laythe. Each was challenging in it's own way but once you get there the gameplay just evaporates.

And I don't think science and biomes are really the answer, either. Sure, I can go the this crater on the mun, and that crater on the mun, and click a few buttons and come home but that isn't fun. It's the same issue that plagues rovers; I've built my fair share, and flown them out to places, but I got bored astonishingly quickly. KSP is all about the journey. And once it's over, you are left with nothing to do.

That was the real appeal of resources for many people. It would give you a reason to stay on a planet and build refineries or drilling rigs. In contrast, science encourages you to leave quickly so you get your points sooner. This was especially noticeable when I was gathering science on kerbin for my 0.24 game - I'd land in a biome, press buttons for science(!), and hit recover. Took about a minute from touchdown. I can't help but feel that a game about exploration should make you want to stay in an area.

This community is pretty awesome but I'll just clarify something: look at my join date. I love this game, and have been haunting the forums for a very long time. This certainly isn't intended to come across as a whine, and I don't have any answers/suggestions to deal with what I raised above. I'm kind of hoping someone from squad is reading, and that this inspires a little discussion. And if you are: Thank you for KSP. It isn't said often enough

[prophet_01]

^this

u are right with the exploration aspect. I just thought about the fact that i barely visited any biome on kerbin longer than a couple of minutes. I only land there sometimes when returning from mun or minmus to gather some free science.

a few weeks ago i finally set food on eeloo. I am close to 600 hours now and still not been to all planets and moons yet. It's not that i can't, i just don't see a point to land on dres or some of jools moons. I only went to moho and eeloo for the challenge. Once i got there i was fairly disapointed. It didn't feel like exploring to me.

I tested visual enhancers a while ago and it helped me a lot to get intetested in exploring again. Pretty graphics aren't the point here. It just helps with the feeling and it gives the planets a unique touch. U dont need fancy textures for that. Some different lighting for eeloo and moho to visualize the distance from the sun would already flesh them out a fair bit. Those small things make a difference. Just rememeber visiting the mun for the first time after the polishing from a grey flat sphere of stone in the vacuum to something that feels like a real place.

[DocMoriarty]

The last thing we need in KSP right now are new planets. I don't even konsider Kerbin finished, more like experimental state, 20% finished. There should be a lot more surface features like cities, easter eggs and whatnot. Also all other planets and moons still need reasonable biomes and science tree should get stretched so that it makes actually sense to go to Duna etc. for more science. And then before new planets are comming i'd prefer to get moar parts, resources, building blocks for space and ground stations and and and... More planets add ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the game that we haven't seen a thousand times already.

[Col_Jessep]

And then before new planets are comming i'd prefer to get moar parts, resources, building blocks for space and ground stations and and and...

That's a very good point! I would prefer more parts and something like Kethane over new planets. The two new engines the last patch added allow for some interesting new ideas. Just imagine some of the parts of Interstellar, B9, KW... would find their way into the game. Solar sails, beamed energy, fusion power...

Beamed energy alone would make satellites, spacestations and bases useful and open up interesting new contracts. Same with Kethane. What about ScanSAT-type parts and contracts to explore entire worlds and take pictures of some interesting craters, canyons, mountains and seas? Space tourism might be interesting to increase funds.

I would like new planets but I agree with Squad that some other features are more important right now.

[Skorpychan]

He's right. Improving what's there already is a must. After that's done, new stuff can be added.

[Laie]

I've done Eve, Mun, Minmus, and Laythe. Each was challenging in it's own way but once you get there the gameplay just evaporates.

Get out, take a photo for the album, leave. Three years to get there, 15 minutes on the ground, three years to get back.

[Seret]

Tbh, I'm pretty disappointed that it doesn't sound like we'll get any new planets. They would have been fun.

However, I'm not that surprised. It's been sounding more and more like there's not going to be a huge amount of new stuff going into the game before release. I'm expecting that they'll finish up career, add multiplayer, knock off the rough edges and then that will be it.

[Temeter]

I recently got to the moon and traveled over 60km through difficult terrain and 5 or 6 biomes. Hard, but so rewarding and fun.

So i'm all for improving the stuff we have. I've not yet been on all planets and moons, mainly because many just aren't that interesting.

[Oafman]

Yeah, all of this.

New planets do not add any new gameplay. If they added a new planet out past Eeloo you wouldn't really do anything different to get to it than you do to get to Duna, you'd just have to bring more fuel and burn for longer. Similarly, once there you wouldn't have anything new to do, since the only thing to do with any planet is click through science dialog boxes.

I partially disagree. I think that new planets and new moons could add significant new challenges. Clearly, the ideas which were floated for Gas Giant 2's moons would add a good number of new things to consider:

• Eeloo: Planned to orbit the new planet, NovaSilisko has stated that there will be geysers on it. The prototype geysers have been shown to work "Quite well."
  
• Daphy: A very small asteroid covered in "Fluff". It may or may not be in the rings themselves.
  
• Potatus: Another small moon. It will have a high inclination relative to GP2. NovaSilisko has claimed that it will rotate extremely fast, stretching it into an oblate spheroid.
  
• Fonso: Will be about 300KM across, and will be the second moon to hold an atmosphere, which will be two atmospheres dense. The extremely mountainous surface will have peaks that stretch into the vacuum.
  

Similarly, planetary rings, safe to enter at some altitudes but not at others, would entirely change the old 'dump the ship into any old equatorial orbit and forget about it' approach which exists currently.

But where I think we do agree, is that Squad ought to have many more pressing priorities, before they consider adding new destinations.

[Wheffle]

Adding content when the underlying systems aren't complete makes things more complicated down the road. Once the game is feature complete I'm sure the content will come pouring out.

[Pyromartian]

As a side note if they ever implemented a planet with rings, hope would that work game wise? Would you take damage of you passed though it, or would it just be an aesthetic piece?

Adding rings could be considered adding detail to bring a planet up to Kerbin's level.

I'm on my phone now and I would check the thread for answers but the forum is limited for mobile.

[kbatman]

As a side note if they ever implemented a planet with rings, hope would that work game wise? Would you take damage of you passed though it, or would it just be an aesthetic piece?

The planetary rings we know of so far are not solid and are made of various sized pieces of matter - they do have quite a bit of empty space in them...

Probably safest to aim for one of the areas that has been somewhat cleared out by a moon.

[Wanderfound]

(snip good post)

Agreed. Thanks for writing that.

[Dangerous_Beans]

As a side note if they ever implemented a planet with rings, hope would that work game wise? Would you take damage of you passed though it, or would it just be an aesthetic piece?

given there is no stock re-entry damage/heating, it would probably just be aesthetic. or maybe just break solar panels.

sounds like something people could (and would) mod in.

[Wanderfound]

given there is no stock re-entry damage/heating, it would probably just be aesthetic. or maybe just break solar panels.

sounds like something people could (and would) mod in.

While I'm not using DR, I'm finding FAR to be almost as good for the same purpose. Reenter too fast with anything except a bare capsule and you're nearly guaranteed to see an aerodynamic failure. Careful aerobraking is becoming a major part of my game.

[LethalDose]

/clip

The argument for scale vs kind works so long as there are no other "kinds" of planetary/moon surfaces to create.

I somehow doubt the 15 bodies that currently exist in KSP have completely exhausted every possible surface/orbital environment.

In NovaSilisko's post on GP2, there was the idea for a moon with a thick, lower atmosphere, but very tall mountains that reach above the top of the atmosphere, and a rapidly rotating moon that has a substantially higher altitude at the equator than the poles.

Heck, how about a moon in a retrograde orbit, like Triton?

Right there, three novel moons. Enough for a new Gas Giant. Add some rings, and you're done. Yes, the surfaces should be more interesting, but that doesn't preclude the addition of a new gas giant. The Kind vs Scale argument isn't valid here. The fact that it's not looking likely that GP2 is going to be included is another "swept under the rug" feature that Squad appears to be trying to cancel by ignoring it away.

[r4pt0r]

but squad never said gp2 was a feature. that was the musings of a former dev

[LethalDose]

but squad never said gp2 was a feature. that was the musings of a former dev

I don't believe he was a "former" dev when he mused, especially since he said he already had the prototypes for Eeloo's cryovolcanoes working. And it was around the same time that the now notorious "spaghetti resource" tree was presented.

Further, GP2 being an announced feature is irrelevant to my point the "scale vs kind" argument is moot. If it never was a feature, then that should be made clear.

It's absolutely impossible to know what to expect from Squad. They can't effectively communicate with the community (for another example see the recent Modding Mondays/Curse debacle with Maxmaps). The topic of the thread is how the community feels about Maxmap's big 'ol "maybe" re: new planets, and I feel frustrated and disappointed.

Again.

[Commander Zoom]

My thoughts:

One, everyone is going to have different priorities. So everyone, at some point, is going to ask "why are they working on [thing I don't care about much/at all] and ignoring [thing I wish was coming out tomorrow/already in the game]?" And every one of those statements/complaints is equally meaningful and meaningless.

I, personally, would like to see a full set of biomes added to every body in the Kerbol system. Yes, a mod to do so exists, and I use it, but I would like this to be part of the stock game, something official. For me, at least, it's a matter of completeness. Presently, we have Kerbin and its moons fully biome-d, and then there's "the rest". It doesn't have to be next update, or the next, but I do want to eventually see all the planets and moons (however many we end up with) "finished" like that. However - other features will probably come before, and I'm not going to make myself feel bad about that, or complain that other people got what they wanted before I did. That would be pointless.

I also think people who got/bought into this game back in the single digits, back when we didn't even have a Mun or orbital maps, have a different perspective from more recent arrivals. (I see a lot of 2013 and 2014 join dates in this thread.) Sometimes I look back at all that's been added in the three years since then and am amazed. I understand that some of you may not want to wait or think it's right that you have to, possibly as much as another three years, for the game to finally be "done". You want what (you thought) you paid for and you want it by the end of this year at the latest. But I really think you'll be happier, in the long run, if you try to relax and trust that it will be done "when it's done." If you're bored with the game as it is, take a break - go do something else, and come back when there's something new. I have a lot of demands on my time - work, sleep, other games - and I often don't have as much time as I'd like to play, let alone get bored, with KSP. Maybe that's a weird sort of blessing.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Commander Zoom

[tygoo7]

I would rather have the current planets be more interesting to explore. Right now the only interesting things are the ground scatter and just one or no easter eggs. I think it would be cool to have geysers, caves, and other stuff people said on a thread. Sure, I want more planets, but I just don't think it should be much a priority right now. I think they should focus on new features and especially bug fixes.

[Temeter]

Stuff like Cave Systems would be amazing. Not sure how well that would work with the current game-systems, though.

[r_rolo1]

TBH , while i would like more planets, I would probably prefer better planets, places that you want to visit more than once ... and barring the Kerbin moons, not even a handful of exceptions do that ( Eve, Duna, Laythe ... maybe Pol or Moho, due to some unusual geological features that are hard to cover in one trip ). Squad already talked a lot about how to make for that ( the still on ice extractable resources and more biomes ), but some extra geological features would be nice ( the relative lack of volcanoes in KSP baffles me, just for starters ... and the lack of rivers valleys outside of Kerbin as well ( I can understand Laythe, but Eve? ) ).

P.S: Oh, and BTW Squad: when two craters overlap in RL you don't get both rims intact intersecting eachother ... you get only the newer one or at worse a single one in between:

From here

Think on that in the next reskin you make of the game

Edited August 1, 2014 by r_rolo1
some corrections

[Felsmak]

So I heard you were talking about planets. How do you like these ones?

[HafCoJoe]

In my opinion Kerbol has a very good number of planets currently, though it would be awesome to have extra. You have to take into consideration just how many planet a solar system can take and still function within reason. There is room for one more gas Giant, but not much more. Maybe a "simulation" building/gamemode where there are extra planets? In the mean time, there is the planet factory mod and such things. Anyone agree with my "simulation" idea?

Edited August 5, 2014 by Avera9eJoe