Suggestions for a New Gas Giant

[GigaG]

You may know that KSP is planning a new gas giant with rings which will be even larger than Jool-

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Gas_planet_2

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:GasPlanet2.png

Here are my ideas-the planet will be called GP2 from now on. If this sounds like Planet Factory, I think that mod's Sentar was made to imitate all known info about GP2.

Moons-

Eeloo - Craft orbiting Eeloo would get a free trip to GP2. Therefore, I don't really like the idea of putting Eeloo into orbit around GP2. Perhaps Eeloo (where it is now) could be replaced with an identically sized, identically scienced, but visually different planet with similar terrain, while Eeloo itself could be rescaled into an orbit around GP2. This would seem very unrealistic to craft orbiting Eeloo, however, for the planet to change suddenly. So, even better, Eeloo could stay where it is now, and a "fraternal twin" icy moon could go around GP2. This would be invalidated, of course, if GP2 did not go into "old" Career/Science saves. I see that Eeloo will have geysers, which would be great if it is the innermost moon. It makes perfect sense - I believe that the real life Io has its volcanoes due to tidal forces upon it from Jupiter. By the way, Laythe would need something too to matc, being Jool's innermost moon, although I don't think that the concept of making Laythe dangerous is a very good idea. Maybe a little dangerous, but not too dangerous.

Daphy - Not much detail to this description, but I would think the "fluff" should cause just a little bit of sinking of landing legs and cause liftoff to be a bit difficult for a few seconds after ignition. Sounds like a bit of mystery to me. Maybe it could be the extra-Kerbinian orgin of the Mystery Goo found by the side of the road. (not suggesting aliens, I'm saying that goo could have been transported to Kerbin via an impact event like Mars meteorites on Earth. Maybe it would explain why Daphy is so small - the impact broke it up. In the rings sounds like a great idea. By the way, to go with the "broke up" idea, how about some of the other tiny moons should go into orbits nearby. Maybe even a tiny "moon of a moon" a bit like the Magic Boulder. Maybe even a "binary moon" system - two moons with a relatively small mass difference orbiting each other a la a captured-asteroid scaled version of Pluto and Charon. After all, the wiki says that GP2 should have at least 20 smaller moons, so why not put them here?

Potatus - Sounds like a good plan. If it rotates very fast as the wiki says it will, it should have biomes, so you get more science from the equator than the poles. There should also be mountains between the poles and the equator to make roving a bit more difficult and encourage (attempted) landing.

Fonso - Oh, this sounds great. If you didn't know, this would be a moon 300km across (I guess that means 150km radius, which is a bit bigger than Dres' 138km or Ikes' 130km. If they mean 300km RADIUS, which it doesn't sound like, the size will be more like the 320km Duna.) Anyways, the moon will have a 2atm atmosphere (compare to Eve's 5atm at surface) and peaks stretching above the atmosphere. In my opinion, the largest peaks should have some ridges on the way down that require careful navigation by rover to avoid them to give getting down into the atmosphere a bit of difficulty. Not too difficult, however. I'd like to see an Eve-like surface (but still a transparent atmosphere) with lakes of methane like the Saturn's real moon Titan or KSP's Eve (although I would like smaller oceans than Eve, more like lakes.) I also would like an orangish color. In Planet Factory, the equivalent (Skelton) looks a lot like Duna and has the same radius, but I wouldn't want to see a Dunar clone, especially with a thick atmosphere.

Now for my own original ideas-

My moon ideas-

Puff - This would be a moon that is very dense, but small, giving it a high surface gravity. It would have a thick atmosphere at the surface - maybe thicker than Eve - but the scale height would rapidly thin this, although the outer atmosphere would extend high up. The surface would be essentially flat, with slow and rolling hills. Everything is crushed down in Puff's gravity - as I said before, even the atmosphere itself is. Despite its distance from Kerbol, Puff would be rather "warm." The thick blanket of gas around Puff is also a very effective greenhouse gas, allowing Puff to hover just under 0 Celsius.

Synco - This would be a small (Minmus-sized) moon in a perfect synchronous (stationary) orbit. Whether it is an inner or outer moon will depend on GP2's rotation speed. It would be highly reflective, making it visible from just above the clouds of GP2.

Borealis and Australis - Two Gilly-sized moons in a precarious dance around GP2. Borealis has a highly elliptical orbit with apoapsis over GP2's north pole, while Australis has a nearly identical orbit with apoapsis over GP2's south pole. This means they stay over their namesake poles, hence their names. They have identical orbital periods, but are timed precisely - Borealis will be passing apoapsis over the north pole while Australis makes its close approach below, and Australis will be passing apoapsis over the South Pole while Borealis makes its close approach below. The moons themselves would appear as giant ice chunks, like Minmus. However, as I said before, scale and mass would resemble Gilly. The two moons would have subtle differences - most notably, Borealis will have a tall peak on its own north pole, while Australis will have a tall peak on its own south pole.

Carve - This moon would be about the size of Kerbin's Mun. It would have a thin atmosphere about 5km high. But wait... why am I on the surface, but I'm still 5km up? Well, that's because the atmosphere is actually 10km high and very thick at the bottom - while most of the atmosphere is light gas, some of the mixture it is heavy and sinks. So where does it sink to? A 5km deep canyon that follows the equator. How do I aerobrake? Simple, put yourself in an equatorial orbit and fly into the 5km deep, narrow canyon that goes around the whole equator. The canyon would be a valuable, science-rich biome, but you would have to descend into the final km, going from a Duna-like thin atmosphere to the thick, dense fog in the bottom of the canyon. Oh, and the canyon also puts you much, much closer to the moon's relatively strong gravity. Make sure your chutes don't break as you go from barely any atmosphere to Eve-like thickness, and make sure you aim for the center of the canyon, or else you might find yourself tumbling down a cliff!

Non-moon ideas-

Rings - The rings will, I imagine, almost certainly not be made of asteroids or anything else. That would be way too laggy. It would just be drawn on. However, I suggest maybe giving the ring a more broken-up appeareance as you get closer. I also think the ring should produce the occasional asteroid.

Vortices - Short-lived hurricanes on GP2 that last for a few days. Skim the atmosphere and you might get some extra science! But don't get too low - Kerbal scientists think that the Kraken living below is hungry when he whips up a storm!

How do you like my series of ideas?

[r4pt0r]

Squad has not promised GP2, Nova planned it and is no longer a dev. nothing has been confirmed or denied for certain

edit: also of note, I advise against using the community run wiki as evidence for facts. the wiki you linked to has no affiliation with squad, and the "planned features" listed within aforementioned wiki are also not indicative of squads future plans.

Edited July 29, 2014 by r4pt0r
fun facts.

[Guest]

Squad has not promised GP2, Nova planned it and is no longer a dev. nothing has been confirmed or denied for certain

Unfortunate but true.

[Red Iron Crown]

Those are some interesting ideas nonetheless. I like Borealis and Australis in particular.

[Rainbowtrout]

Unfortunate but true.

Logically, they would add it eventually. After multiplayer, and career mode, we're looking at features to flesh out gameplay for the more advanced player, such as better aerodynamics, planets, etc, etc. As far as I'm aware, Nova was the one working on planets, and he no longer works at SQUAD. Perhaps, hiring another modder like they did with bac9, will help advance such things.

[GigaG]

Also, will KSP one day be "finished" and never updated? Or will it continuously update even after release like Minecraft?

[Guest]

Logically, they would add it eventually. After multiplayer, and career mode, we're looking at features to flesh out gameplay for the more advanced player, such as better aerodynamics, planets, etc, etc.

Logically all those things would be added. Unfortunately, though, the only answers we get regarding those is "maybe". Hopefully the devs will be kind enough to show us a roadmap of sorts that can verify such things but, as it stands, I have very little faith in those sorts of cool "advanced: things being added, especially if they're not perceived as "fun" by the devs.

E: This planet idea, for instance, is great. It would add greatly to the stock experience (especially for older players who have been everywhere) which is pretty lacking IMO. It would also give more stock options for RSS users who have taken KSP to the next level.

Edited July 29, 2014 by regex

[tychochallenge]

You may know that KSP is planning a new gas giant with rings which will be even larger than Jool-

By the way, Laythe would need something too to matc, being Jool's innermost moon, although I don't think that the concept of making Laythe dangerous is a very good idea. Maybe a little dangerous, but not too dangerous.

my friend, nothing in the universe is 'a little' dangerous. If Laythe existed in real life (in comparison to jool), there would be massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the moon, not to mention the radiation that bombards Laythe's atmosphere and land. Underwater will be safe, but in orbit, 2 minutes outside your ship and you're dead. There would also be massive auroras all over Laythe considering its thick atmosphere. Even though the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere hints to possible photosynthetic life floating in the oceans, they float near or on the water's surface. Which means that they would all be killed by radiation. The volcanoes will do the rest to poison the atmosphere. On the ocean floor, chemosynthesis is possible but who knows.

Anyway, Eeloo HAS been planned by the developers to be relocated to orbit GP2 when they release it. When the debs released Eeloo, it was at first only meant to test the feasibility of 3:2 resonances like Neptune and Pluto. But then .21 completely changed the way planets are added to the game and GP2 was held back again. An then they became more interested in career and multiplayer. Also, new planets are on the 'What not to suggest list'

[Random Tank]

Also, will KSP one day be "finished" and never updated? Or will it continuously update even after release like Minecraft?

I'm thinking this is likely, as it keeps players playing due to additional content.

Yeah, as previous people have said, GP2 isn't a given, or might not be coming at all; Maxmaps' recent AMA proves this even further because they said that a new planet isn't in focus and may not happen at all... Current planets need work first.

Also, I like how you've thought out the 2 polar moons, but polar orbit moons can't really happen... Look at Jupiter; it has thousands of moons (most being tiny captured asteroids) but not a single one (in a stable orbit) orbits over one of jupiters poles... Supposing KSP uses orbits based on real planets and real physics, I don't think this should happen. It's also a huge PITA.

[xrayfishx]

One thing I have to note here - many of these ideas would require overhauling the atmosphere system. As it is, the atmosphere's height and density are derived from the same number. Squad would have to switch to the system RSS uses. I doubt that is going to happen.

[GigaG]

^From what I've heard, the atmosphere has a surface density and a "scale height." Are they calculated from one entry?

Also, as for polar moons being unrealistic, look at the Magic Boulder. Not quite the same, but still.

Edited July 29, 2014 by GigaG