Mod idea - Shooting Stars

[BoilingCold]

I was watching Deep Impact the other day (not a bad film!) and it gave me an idea for a mod. How about shooting stars in atmospheres? Purely a visual mod of course, but how cool would it be to see the occasional trail of a meteorite burning up in Kerbin's atmosphere, or Eve's?

You could even make them seasonal, with increased frequencies during certain times of the year, mimicking the meteor showers we see on Earth, e.g. the Leonids.

I have no idea how difficult this would be and I know nothing about modding, but I thought I'd share the idea anyway.

[Chezburgar7300]

This would be amazing. It'd also be pretty cool if you could see them in the distance from LKO and above. Would download in a heartbeat!

[Alshain]

It'd also be pretty cool if you could see them in the distance from LKO and above.

Wha? Shooting stars in the distance while in orbit? How does that work?

[GeoPhizzix]

Wha? Shooting stars in the distance while in orbit? How does that work?

I think something like this, maybe.

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[Chezburgar7300]

That is exactly the image I saw a few weeks ago. And yes, that is what I was talking about GeoPhizzix.

[BoilingCold]

That's very cool I don't think all the shooting stars would have to be made of Kerbals, although there could always be an option....

[Alshain]

Oh, when you said "in the distance" I thought you meant out in space. Which of course shooting stars out in space would be stupid. I guess I don't think of the planet as being "in the distance".

[TheFlyingPigs]

i think something like this, maybe.

http://imgur.com/a/ru6xn

yes god yes

[S1gmoid]

Just going with the flow here, but I guess it might be possible to catch the event when an object on rails enters an atmosphere, and is deleted (ie. presumed crashed). From there on, the mod could rely on the Trajectories mod to calculate a trajectory, and draw a fiery trail through the atmosphere at the right position...

Of course for this to really produce lots of shooting stars, one needs either a lot of space trash, or an asteroid clusters mod that adds lots of tiny orbiting rocks.

[GeoPhizzix]

Just going with the flow here, but I guess it might be possible to catch the event when an object on rails enters an atmosphere, and is deleted (ie. presumed crashed). From there on, the mod could rely on the Trajectories mod to calculate a trajectory, and draw a fiery trail through the atmosphere at the right position...

Of course for this to really produce lots of shooting stars, one needs either a lot of space trash, or an asteroid clusters mod that adds lots of tiny orbiting rocks.

The pic with the kerbal following the NASA photo, was more tongue and cheek on my part.

The "easiest" (I use this term loosely) method is to have a type of visual enhancements style mod that runs an RNG event to show an occasional streak across currently viewed atmosphere. In this method, the need for any rails, debris, etc. would not be needed. I do recall, that there was once a mod, that added micro-meteor impacts using and RNG system (correct me if I am wrong) and would show tiny flashes where the impact occurred, moving the vessel slightly.

So, with that thought and my twisted sense of humor, just imagine the pretty streaks of light from orbit while your nice new space station gets pelted like plastic ducks in a carnival game.

[S1gmoid]

The pic with the kerbal following the NASA photo, was more tongue and cheek on my part.

The "easiest" (I use this term loosely) method is to have a type of visual enhancements style mod that runs an RNG event to show an occasional streak across currently viewed atmosphere. In this method, the need for any rails, debris, etc. would not be needed. I do recall, that there was once a mod, that added micro-meteor impacts using and RNG system (correct me if I am wrong) and would show tiny flashes where the impact occurred, moving the vessel slightly.

So, with that thought and my twisted sense of humor, just imagine the pretty streaks of light from orbit while your nice new space station gets pelted like plastic ducks in a carnival game.

Sure, random shooting stars must be entirely possible. That said, I do think that it would be cool if such a mod enabled you to go camping somewhere on Kerbin to watch the old, decommissioned KSS de-orbit and burn up...

[GeoPhizzix]

That said, I do think that it would be cool if such a mod enabled you to go camping somewhere on Kerbin to watch the old, decommissioned KSS de-orbit and burn up...

I second that motion!