Incidental planet smashing!

I feel as if this, in and of itself, is mostly useless. I have a feeling this is but a beginning to more destruction.

Build halleys and not annihilate?

then you haven't gotten the memo that KEWs will be scaled. and maybe even partially counterable.

as for having the possibility of setting up a doomsday clock on your map-maker... only good things can come from that. I don't see the issue with a possibility.

It'll be especially awesome if a moon collides with another planet.
If it's programmed that the moon is destroyed in the collision, not only will it look freaking amazing, but that'd just be a horrific game-changer.
Anyone on that planet will be in immediate jeopardy, and if the moon's locked down then that moon can either be moved to safety (once moving orbits makes a return) and be used as a nuke launching station, or kept as a doomsday timer.
Or just launched into another planet altogether.

Asteroids are becoming more and more tactical weapon-like. And I love it.

I like it, but glancing shots like this should change the orbits of both bodies. I know PA is not about realism, but Newton's and Kepler's calculations are not really that complicated. Nor that realistic, for that matter.

Newton/Kepler are perfectly realistic.

Tell that to Lorentz and Einstein.

I think you misunderstand the physics involved. Newton's laws of motion are what most of space travel is based on and they work just fine. Things like GPS use non-Newtonian physics to account for time dilation and what not, but getting from A to B is 99% Newton since the craft and planets are not approaching anywhere near relativistic speeds. The more you know...

Complete with reference!
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf3-2.php

I understand the differences, and my previous comments are still correct. Newtons laws are only a close approximation, and are certainly not "perfectly" realistic.

You definitely don't understand. But that's okay...

Point A:

Unfortunately we get the choice between a fun game and a realistic one. There's no budget for both sadly. If you want both, KSP is the game for you.

Point B:

I tried out the escape the planet before collision game idea, it's quite fun actually. Sorian has another challenge ahead of him in getting the AI to pay attention to planetary orbits and realise if it needs to GTFO before getting wiped out though. Also, I guess the next step would be dynamically changing maps based on said collisions, and we'll have something pretty awesome and dynamic on our hands.

NOW I'm getting psyched about this.

I just realized something; Uber has implemented variable crater size (and variable planet destruction) depending on the size of the bodies and the angle of contact! Too bad we don't have variable damage from it yet though

Here's a video of a couple planets with synchronous orbits skimming by one another. I don't want to spoil the surprise too much though.

When I was testing 2 planet collisions, it said that I lost to AI. I was like, why me? Used chronocam and saw that AI sent his comm to other planet right before the collision, so he was traveling in deep space when planets touched. I was pretty damn surprised.
AI does that already.

That crater was very anticlimactic.

That was the point

I think that's the AI just expanding as usual though. Although I can't know for sure.

But the timings... There are only two planets, and life on both is going to be annihilated, and AI sends himself in transit, the only place safe in whole system, window that is opened for a few dozens of seconds, right before the collision. Either very impressive coincidence, or well written AI.

Yeah, obviously I can't tell which one it is, but I'm not sure if Sorian would've gotten around to do this just yet as it's just been implemented. But you never know!