SunJumper

Probably the most self aware I ever was in a dream, I dreamt that it was a zombie apocalypse situation, and I had to prove myself to the group else I would be killed, so I attempted to materialise some weapons in my hands. When I failed, I thought to myself, "I'm in a dream, I should be able to do this!"

In flight, struts are massless, so the Schwarzchild radius is zero.

For the moon or below, I would want either a chemical or nuclear propulsion system. For the solar system, perhaps a torch-ship of some kind or a slower-than-light Alcubierre drive. Anywhere further would probably require an advanced K-Drive, a faster-than-light Alcubierre drive, or maybe something with teleportation.

I actually like this idea more than my own.

I'm presuming that the individuals don't have access to that amount of energy. By preliminary calculations, an object at 0.9999c has a kinetic energy of 12.2 times that of its mass energy. The object was created in the system's asteroid belt, and is set on a collision course with a small nudge. Hence, it is travelling at ~15 to 20 km/s. Then again, thinking about the countermeasures, it may be easier to send in a few black holes in. The target is a planet sized city on a shell suspended over a gas giant (saturn sized and massed), with a population numbering in hundreds of trillions, armed with billions of satellites watching the sky for natural (but not artificial) asteroid phenomena. Ie, an asteroid losing some mass might not be noticed if it is ~10km across or less. Millions monitor these satellites, millions more monitor the sky. Defences include millions of nuclear lasers to redirect asteroids and fusion torch-ship missiles to nudge asteroids out of impact trajectories, of which thousands will fire at any one object if necessary.

What material made into an impactor to impact a planet would give those living on said planet the least amount of notice before impact. (Ie impact the most stealthily) I'm guessing either glass/clear plastics to be transparent to visible light (although this may not be the case for non-visible light), or a substance that is completely black to as many wavelengths as possible (probably same issue as before). Edit: The object would either be rod shaped, or pancake shaped, and have a volume of ~10 - 50 km^2

Don't show yourself getting into orbit unless it is your first time doing so or your rocket is exceptionally spectacular or explodey.

Probably to the nearest unit, including magnitude prefixes

By dynamic numbers, I refer to values that can be different in different situations. For example, a science log of "At 80km up, Kerbin looks very round" would have the "80km" value always be that. With this idea, you could replace "80km" with "&alt" or something, and if you were orbiting at 90km, the log would say "At 90km up, Kerbin looks very round". A small change that can add to immersion. Examples of quantities: Altitude Surface Velocity Velocity Gravity Acceleration Temperature Pressure Light Crew count Ship's mass Examples of other possible things: Random crew member's name Planet name Ship name

It is known that a gameplay area that is too big either results in overkill with level storage, or tedium with respect to long travel times. What would you consider to be the optimum gameplay area?

The energy requirements are already known, but fuel requirements depend on what propulsion you use, and on whether it is permitted to use resources from the mun itself. Using ion propulsion however, you may need less than a petatank (here 32000kg of xenon)

Other math topics in ksp: volumes/surface areas of spheres Atmospheric pressure and the exponential function Inverse square law of light and gravity Probability of landing in the ocean Significant figures Approximating/back of the envelope calculations

If I wanted to destroy the planet, I'd start with orbital bombardment to wipe out all life. Unimposed by the natives, I'd then wait until an object can be sent to hit the planet at about 99.9% of the speed of light. Planet destruction doesn't have to cause native's extinction. To the person that mentioned the Nicoll-Dyson laser, imagine setting up such a laser powered by a supernova...

Word to the wise, you can "weld" all those parts with Ubiozur's part welding mod, and have the structure be made of one or two parts...

I'd say that the uses for independently scaling resources with respect to the total capacity is less useful due to the fact that the rocket engines are engineered to have a standard fuel consumption ratio. Here's the scenarios I can imagine: 1) The fuel levels of both resources are at a 45:55 ratio and the tank is full. The stock scenario we are all used to. 2) Same as above, but the tank is partially full. You have now tuned the craft to have a TWR of 1.05/1.5/2.0/whatever. Or, you have tund it to fly around the world, carrying less mass and hence giving you an edge over 0.22 entries. 3) The ratio is the same but the tank is empty. You launch these into orbit with hab space or whatever, and refuel with special refuellers. Or you could have those tanks be full of fuel and burn that fuel for orbit, saving a little more mass. This may be useful for mission simplicity, however. 4) The fuel is whatever and the ratio is different. All engines have the same ratios. You now waste one reactant, depending on mission profile. 5) Same as above, but some engines have different ratios. Rather than manually setting the ratio with the resource sliders, a discrete ratio slider is used, to prevent wastage. 6) Spaceplane time. The rocket fuel tanks have the oxidizer removed, and in terms of mass ratio, the tank still outperforms the stock jet fuel tanks. Oxidizer is not wasted. Perhaps the oxidizer is replaced with more liquid fuel, if the player can do that. I thought for a while and couldn't think of any more scenarios. Maybe with nuclear reactors, they may be launched without nuclear material for 'safety' in the event of a launch failure (set Testium to zero). Who knows.

I think the longest I've had was ~20 minutes, but I tend to launch small rockets. Longest mission took ~20 days irl and ~3000 years in-game...

It is not uncommon for me to dream about swimming in air. Not flying, swimming. Uncommom relative to the population, that is. If I remember tonight's dream, I'll let you know.

Also, taking this literally, a space mission is economically viable if it can return material that costs more than the mission itself. For example, the Apollo program (Rockets only, not counting mission support, ground facilities, etc, things that could be reused, while the Saturn V rockets definitely could not) cost about 14.8 billion. Now, taking sample mass as purely gold, the 380.5kg would be 17,000,000 dollars. If you take the people out and pretend each mission brought back 110.3kg, that is ~1500kg, or 66,900,000. In the latter case, that is a loss of 99.548%.

What about solar power? Have solar panels in space and beam it to Earth.

That would require decoupling. In tier 0, the only decoupler you have is one that is heavy and very hard to use (it's called a SRB)

Animals, plants, and art (movies, books, etc). I'm guessing information would be the primary thing traded. Any material we have an abundance of is not one we have enough of an abundance of to contend with an interstellar species.

Top Secret Mission Fly this specific payload into the sun. Requirements: 1) The entire payload impacts the sun. 2) The payload spends no more than ~12 hours below 500km. Notes: Although this is a simple challenge on its own, the ~8 to ~13km/s required delta-v boosts the difficulty. Also, the mysterious payload could be anywhere from one ton to fifty.

I'm guessing it will be a mod

Hmm, good point. If I were any good at building planes I'd do the following challenges: 1) Decouple the fuel tank with wings and mechjeb, and have it land the tank. Then land behind it. 2) Horizontal landing without wheels. 3) Decouple the cockpit once touched down but not stopped, and have everything survive. Also, out of curiosity, can we land before the runway to quicksave?