How difficult would it be to add giant space stations using planet mechanics?

[PTNLemay]

This isn't so much a request as a general... "what if". I know it's possible to create custom planets and add them into the game using planet editors, but I'm wondering... could you create a cylindrical shaped object say... 5 km across and 20 km long? Like a huge O'Niell Cylinder, who's orbit is on rails. I was reminiscing on Rendez Vous With Rama just recently and I was wondering how hard it would be to edit in a Rama mission. With a huge cylinder appearing at the edge of the solar system, coming in towards the sun on a hyperbolic orbit. You'd have to catch it, match it's heading, then land on one of the end caps, then leave before it escapes the solar system. We could say it gives you a nice sizable reward of science and prestige (cash too if we want).

Since the outer surface of the cylinder is (I believe) travelling faster than 50 m/s we could keep the code simple for that surface and just say any part that touches it goes poof (like when your ship gets too close to the Sun). I don't actually know if this is easier to code than normal surfaces that you can land on (I'm not much of a programmer), but I'll assume it's that way. The only surfaces we would really want to land on are the end caps, and even then it would have to be near the middle. We can keep them relatively featureless, since it's just a big ol' cylinder.

Now making the interior... that would be another story entirely, and probably well beyond the current game engine. But yeah, any modders who know how the planet editors work, could this be done?

Edited January 14, 2015 by PTNLemay
typos

[NathanKell]

Since RSS includes Deimos and Phobos (which are, ballpark, that size), you certainly could have the exterior. It would have to be entirely a convex hull, however, excepting any PQSCity-added objects.

[PTNLemay]

And the game does have planet rotation... You should be able to set it at about 1 rotation per minute. That would make landing on the curved edge of the cylinder difficult, but not impossible.