Planet Ideas discussion thread!

[MrWalrus123]

I don't know if there's any thread like this already, if there is I will take this down.

This discussion thread is for discussing planet/star system ideas.

Remember this thread is a disscusion thread.

Edited August 17, 2014 by Vanamonde

[MrWalrus123]

-Satoo (Saturn alalouge) a chilly white gas giant orbiting past Jool

*Eeloo (encladus analouge) similar to the planet we all know and love. Also has gysers

*Kreus (Titan alaouge) similar to Eve except smaller, and less mountains, but the mountains are higher. Kreus also has more rivers.

*Syroo ( Hyperion analouge) small astroid moon, roughly the size of bop but heavily cratered

*Frion: a mysterious blue grayish captured comet nuculeus, similar to minmus.

More ideas coming soon!

Edited August 18, 2014 by MrWalrus123

[GoSlash27]

Definitely a Saturn analogue with big pretty rings and some moons to explore.

I'd also like a few neighboring stars with their own planets to explore, but that's probably pushing it.

-Slashy

[Heimdall5008]

Also not really a planet, but I would like to have some (or at least one) comets with own (very small) gravity and so on.

[juanml82]

I'd also like a few neighboring stars with their own planets to explore, but that's probably pushing it.

-Slashy

With hot jupiters on them. It would need some official version of KSP Interstellar, though. No stock engine should be able to reach other stars in a decent timeframe.

Or twin planets, orbiting each other. I'm not sure if the patched conics mechanics allow for it, though.

[Stargate525]

A completely water-covered planet would be a neat challenge, though there's not a lot of real-estate left in the places that would be most plausible.

A planet with a wonky axis, something like Uranus, but landable.

Retrograde rotation planet.

A planet that hasn't cooled down properly yet. Granted, they'll have to add geological features for this to matter, and Moho might become that, but I'd love to have to choose a landing spot that's flat, level, and not too close to the lava.

[MrWalrus123]

All these Ideas are great!

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of the game's (planetary) development has been moved to the Development Discussion sub-forum. (Keep in mind, though, that lobbying for the addition of more planets is a What Not to Suggest list item.)

[MrWalrus123]

So should I take this down?

[Renegrade]

A planet with a wonky axis, something like Uranus, but landable.

I don't think KSP supports that. I believe RSS has to do some sort of hack to accomplish something equivalent.. ie, the Earth is still level, but the Moon is on a 23 degree orbital inclination to make the Earth seem tilted.

That would be interesting though.

ERr..would that affect the nav ball? 90 generally refers to the prograde of the planet's rotation... would it still mean that, or would it just be 90 along the ecliptic?

*Frion: a mysterious blue grayish captured comet nuculeus, similar to minmus.

I'd love a blue Minmus-like planet. Could be handy in terms of making Dres less boring too *cough*

So should I take this down?

I think it's fine as a discussion (otherwise Vanamonde would have probably locked it), you just can't make it into an official suggestion...

[Naten]

Erala - Cold gas giant, similar to Saturn

{

Eeloo should be moved here, Enceladus analogue

Kit - Irregular captured asteroid

Urna - Less-than-Eeloo-sized, small round moon. Icy and very rugged terrain.

}

Seral - Very far out body, similar to Sedna. I want a body that's actually a challenge to get to.

[MrWalrus123]

-Furie: An icy world the size of Kevin, but with a slightly thinner atmosphere. Orbits after saloo

*Chlas: a rocky body similar to the mun, but less cratered.

[TheTennesseeFireman]

1. Moho

2. Eve

3. Kerbin

4. Duna

--Asteroid Belt--: Features reworked, "striped" Dres with more deep, criss-crossing canyons around the equator.

5. Jool

6. Venta: Ringed gas giant, rings are risky to navigate through. Stormy atmosphere, with perpetually changing hues of teal and cyan. Features a major storm that acts as a biome with a massive multiplier.

- Zept, Yoc: Two small moonlets that border inside and outside of rings, respectively. Oblong and asteroid-like.

- Cora: Carves out a major gap in the middle of the rings; perfectly spherical, extremely pale blue to the point of nearly being white. "Fluff" texture on surface easily disturbed by spacecraft and leaves permanent markings... devoted players could write messages here!

- Torvent: Titan analogue. Thick atmosphere; topography completely obscured by yellow haze. Smooth, rolling hills on surface, with many lakes. Ideal for easter eggs, rovers, and mapping projects.

- Ferron: Gray, metallic planet with no atmosphere. Slightly smaller than Tylo, but extremely high density makes it the most difficult planet to land on in the solar system.

- Spur: Tiny, icy, irregular moonlet in an eccentric, steeply inclined orbit. Clearly a captured object, offers spectacular views of the system.

7. Firmus: Dark olive green "superplanet" with solid and liquid surface. Atmosphere accommodates air-breathing jets at high altitudes, but not lower. Mesas stretch high into the atmosphere; these are the only surfaces that can conceivably be escaped from. High turbulence makes landing on them difficult. Far below, the rest of the surface is a cold, dark ocean under extreme pressure.

- Eeloo: Cyrovolcanism and more reflective surface added to make it a true Enceladus analogue.

- Loma: Captured comet with "muddy", pale purple surface. In retrograde orbit close to Eeloo, leading to great periodic views of the geysers.

8. Elegax: Dark, dim red gas giant. Largest planet in the Kerbol system, twice the size of Jool. Little turbulence, but features explosive auroras visible from its moons.

Cineris- Ash-coated moon close to Elegax. Extremely low albedo, mostly flat, entirely covered in sand-like black ash that your Kerbals and spacecraft can kick up.

-Apoch: Large molten moon; recently impacted by asteroid. Has a hot, thin atmosphere that causes overheating comparable to old Moho. Surface mostly magma excepting a few jagged, basaltic outcrops.

- 70 unnamed moonlets: All in irregular orbits, clearly the result of the Apoch impact. You can name them individually, and planting a flag on them all is a rare, celebrated achievement.

Edited August 18, 2014 by TheTennesseeFireman

[Stargate525]

Hmm, What about a planet or large asteroid that is just PUMMELED? Makes the worst mun sections look flat?

I don't think KSP supports that. I believe RSS has to do some sort of hack to accomplish something equivalent.. ie, the Earth is still level, but the Moon is on a 23 degree orbital inclination to make the Earth seem tilted.

That would be interesting though.

ERr..would that affect the nav ball? 90 generally refers to the prograde of the planet's rotation... would it still mean that, or would it just be 90 along the ecliptic?

I think it does too, but I'm betting that Squad could figure* something out.

As for the navball, the zero heading is aligned to geographical north. On a planet with an 80-something inclination, it would point over to the side. So, yea, prograde would still be the ninety.

*And by figure I mean the same way they 'figured' multiplayer.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Stargate525

[Red Iron Crown]

I'd like something that is tougher to get to, like a comet-style orbit or a planet orbiting retrograde.

That and ringed planet++. I don't even care if the rings are substantial, just want the pretty.

[Renegrade]

I think it does too, but I'm betting that Squad could figure* something out.

Well, I'm hoping they do figure(hehe) something out. It would be good if some of the 'advanced' planets (Jool, Eve, etc) could have some serious axial tilt, and some of the 'intermediate' planets (Duna, Dres etc) have mild tilt.

That and ringed planet++. I don't even care if the rings are substantial, just want the pretty.

Making pretty rings shouldn't be too hard. In fact, it's a scalable difficulty for a programming task - I can imagine the OpenGL code necessary something that just makes a translucent ring in my head.. or you could go whole hog and give it level of detail, such that it's just a simple translucent ring at a distance, but when you get closer, it turns into particles and small rocks etc (kinda like ground scatter). Dial-a-detail

I'd love to see that too.

[thereaverofdarkness]

So should I take this down?

No, you're discussing it, not suggesting it.

There are plenty of other "what kind of planets" threads, and as far as I'm concerned there simply cannot be too many.

[thereaverofdarkness]

A planet with a large moon 40% of its radius orbiting with the surfaces just 30% of the planet's radius apart--single sphere of influence with the center of gravity being significantly off-center from the middle of the planet, leading to gravity on the planet not pointing down (and not staying the same all "month" long). The moon would be orbiting such that any objects on its side closer to the planet would be pressed against it due to centrifugal force. This would make gravity on this moon VERY strange and often unstable. These would strangely not be tidally locked, thus allowing the gravity to constantly change on any given point on their surface.

Why can't planetary rings be like this?

Edited August 19, 2014 by thereaverofdarkness

[Sasuga]

I'd like a planet that's in a polar orbit over the system and comes around very rarely. It'd be neat if its orbit line only showed up when it was with-in a relatively close range, so that it's hidden (sort of, as once discovered to be in the game every forum and wiki will have it) the rest of the time. Still, until it shows up its orbit line doesn't show, and once it leaves past the outer planets its orbit line disappears.

[Stargate525]

A planet with a large moon 40% of its radius orbiting with the surfaces just 30% of the planet's radius apart--single sphere of influence with the center of gravity being significantly off-center from the middle of the planet, leading to gravity on the planet not pointing down (and not staying the same all "month" long). The moon would be orbiting such that any objects on its side closer to the planet would be pressed against it due to centrifugal force. This would make gravity on this moon VERY strange and often unstable. These would strangely not be tidally locked, thus allowing the gravity to constantly change on any given point on their surface.

...Ow, my head.

What about a planet that isn't spherical? a potato-shaped one that hasn't settled back into a sphere from a recent large collison?

[MrWalrus123]

a comet that is peanut shaped would be cool (all of these ideas are great! )

[NERVAfan]

...Ow, my head.

What about a planet that isn't spherical? a potato-shaped one that hasn't settled back into a sphere from a recent large collison?

I think that would be hard to have something big enough to be a proper planet stay out of shape for long (geologically) after a big collision; Vesta is like that in our solar system, but I'm not sure how much bigger it could be and still work that way.

It would be nice to have a Vesta-equivalent near Dres' orbit though... as well as making random asteroids appear there as well as in Kerbin-crossing orbits.

However, you could have a planet of any size distorted out of shape by having a fast rotation, causing the equator to bulge outwards.

I'd like something that is tougher to get to, like a comet-style orbit or a planet orbiting retrograde.

I'd never get there, but that would also be cool, to have something for the people who have already returned from Jool's atmosphere and Eve's surface.

---

I'd kind of like to see a super-Jool big gas giant or small brown dwarf at the edge of the system, with moons.

[Stargate525]

I think that would be hard to have something big enough to be a proper planet stay out of shape for long (geologically) after a big collision; Vesta is like that in our solar system, but I'm not sure how much bigger it could be and still work that way.

It doesn't have to. Geologically-speaking, 'not long after' could still be 5000 years. Plenty of time for KSP.

Just imagine how confused the ancient Egyptians would have been had they seen Venus and Mercury collide...

[Hyakkidouran]

I am not going to suggest planet names or say where they should be orbiting. i trying to think about this in terms of gameplay.

Here are things that would be funny to see and experiment around as player :

- A gas giant with rings is probably very hard to implement from a game programmer perspective, but it is probably the thing most players are hoping to see, me included. I guess it's probably easier to code if the rings are made of thin particles acting like a "fog" rather than thousands of actual thin rocks.

- A gas giant that has an atmosphere containing oxygen. You could not land on it, but you could fly in its atmosphere using air-breathing engines.

- Eve, except for orbiting, is actually the hardest planet to do things on, which is kind of a rookie trap as it is close to Kerbin. Maybe we could use a planet on the same concept and "easier" somewhere. (for instance, 1.2g gravity and atmosphere twice as thick as Kerbin).

I hope this helps, but if you ask me, the game is already hard and long enough, and we don't really need many more planets.

I have played maybe 120 hours of KSP, and I am barely at the point where I managed to land my first huge-scale expedition on a distant planet. 120 hours is a lot more than most games, and I can foresee needing at least as much to do everything I want to do (setting up a mini-base on each body, basically)

If you don't cheat, this game is HARD, and you really need a lot of time to do anything.

I think that keeping Eeloo (or replacing it with a different body on the same orbit) and adding one planet and one gas giant (hopefully with rings!) that has a set of 2-3 moons would allow the player to explore most possible situations and would avoid overwhelming the player with too much to do.

If you follow my suggestions, I guess that gas giant would be one with rings and that allows the use of jet engines, and has 2-3 moons. And the "easier Eve" would be a planet somewhere, maybe close to Kerbin to keep the idea of a "easier planet".

In fact, if the developers wish to, they could go with the idea of two "sister planets" that share the same orbit with a different angle around the sun. But maybe they don't want to do that because it would be too different from our solar system.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Hyakkidouran

[GigaG]

I already contributed to some ideas in my own thread. Here are some more...

-GP2 - I made a thread with my own suggestions for this...

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88683-Suggestions-for-a-New-Gas-Giant

-Azuria - A Neptune/Uranus equivalent for KSP. It has an oxygen atmosphere (as others have suggested) and a blue color. The planet orbits in a slightly elliptical orbit. It has a ring system relatively close to the planet. As for size, it could be smaller than Jool (but still much bigger than Eve or Kerbin), especially if the big GP2 is implemented. It has a moon system, and each moon has its own extremely unique or difficult features. Azuria is in a 15 degree inclined orbit.

-Jebland - Formerly known as "Aykd" (ARE YOU KIDDING, DUDE?, pronounced "ayked" with the "ay" rhyming with "day"), this moon orbits just kilometers above where the atmosphere of Azuria starts. Named for the Kerbal most likely to follow the moon in its orbit, Jeblandis the size of Gilly, but very dense and tidally locked. It's almost impossibly dense composition prevents it from being torn apart by tidal forces (although re-entry is fairly imminent.) Nevertheless, the moon is stretched into a prolate spheroid. It has no apparent north or south pole, but rather "towards" and "away" poles, as its true north and south poles are on the "equator." The "towards" pole always faces Azuria. Jebland is in a highly inclined orbit, so you had better maneuver in advance to get to this place.

-Fissure - This icy moon is between the sizes of Duna and Kerbin and is the second-largest moon of the Azuria system. in a highly elliptical, steeply inclined orbit. It has a Kerbin-like atmospheric pressure, but the atmosphere is NOT oxygen. It is thought to have been a captured object, much like the real-life Triton. It doesn't get in the way of existing moons, but it is thought to have destroyed all moons that have dared get near its orbit, causing craters where the ice is gone, exposing the rock below.

The moon was likely created in a foreign land in the early days of the Kerbol system as a binary planet, where one was captured by Azuria and one was ejected from the Kerbol A system in a manner similar to Triton. The water on the surface was liquid due to the high concentration of decaying radioactive elements, but today, radiation heat is minimal.

Due to its close apporoaches to Azuria, it experiences high tidal forces, causing stress in the icy surface. It also rotates quickly - it never has been tidally locked to Azuria and seems to not be slowing down. The planet bulges a little at the equator. The icy surface has cracked near the equator to form a series of fissures, giving the moon its name.

-Nada - This moon is next to nothing. It is literally smaller than Gilly. However, it literally orbits Fissure in a polar orbit, making it the first moon-of-a-moon. Nada is tidally locked to Fissure.

-Rubble - A large captured asteroid, this very elliptically-orbiting moon's apoapsis coincided with Azuria's ancient outer ring system. The new moon coalesced material from this ring, which disappeared over millions of years, only leaving a wide "asteroid belt" of small objects whose orbits were perturbed by Rubble. The asteroid's formation gave it its name - it is a "rubble pile" and has a white and grey appearance from the ice, rocks, and dust that fell upon it. Since Rubble finished forming, a small, fast body has crashed into it, leaving a crater which shows Rubble's old, brown surface.

-Solo - This moon is known as the loneliest moon of all. It is Kerbin-sized and lies at the very edge of Azuria's SOI. It has a thin atmosphere that has no oxygen, but the gravity is... wait for it... 2.5 times Kerbin's. It doesn't disturb the inner moons due to sheer distance. Solo orbits above Azuria's equator. Jebediah has considered using it to assist in throwing his ships around the Azurian system with little concern for the safety of the Kerbonauts inside.

-Erif- This Duna-sized planet orbits so close to Kerbol that the star fills most of the sky. It is tidally locked and has a slightly eccentric orbit. The planet's day side is covered in lava, but has islands of very tough rock - it essentially resembles a lava version of Laythe. The molten rock ends just behind the terminator, where there are spotty islands which intermittently heat and cool due to the libration of the planet. Engines on the day side will overheat quickly, and any part that touches the lava will overheat rapidly. A kerbal who touches the lava will die. The planet's night side is very cold, due to the lack of a substantial atmosphere to distribute heat (in KSP, this means no atmosphere.) Tidal forces crack the surface the surface wherever solid ground exists, the far side, and there are also several impact craters.