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Hannu

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Everything posted by Hannu

  1. Not very good idea. If we accept acceleration of 50 m/s (5g) and velocity is 10 km/s radius of the ring must be v^2/a = 2000 km. Radius of Earth is about 6400 km. Radius will be impractical even with highest imaginable accelerations and most of energy and mechanical force would get spent to bend the trajectory of projectile. There are good reasons why barrels of guns are straight and railguns are not exceptions.
  2. I think that chlorine trifluoride wins this competition. Liquified fluorine and ozone are also nasty things but not as bad. Pure ozone is unstable even in cryogenic state but there has been tests with mixed oxygen and ozone. Nuclear bombs sound bad but they are extremely reliable devices. As far as I know any nuclear bomb has never exploded unintentionally. Dangerous chemicals are much less predictable. They cause corrosion, can explode spontaneously in some conditions, leaks are extremely poisonous or fire hazardous etc. There are good reasons why extreme stuff have not used in modern rockets. Unfortunately there are situations where hydrazine variants are only practical possibilities.
  3. You are right. Ultimate answer to all scientific questions is that "world just seems to work so". If we find answer to some question we find also dozen new questions. I replied because I have heard that so many people think that magnetism (especially ferromagnetism) is something specially poorly understood thing in physics. Even college teachers teach so. It is not true. Magnetism is as well understood part of electromagnetism as anything else. True reasons why we have electric charge and electromagnetic interaction are of course hidden but as far as we assume postulates of quantum electrodynamics we can calculate all detectable magnetic phenomena which our computers can handle. It just needs long and complicated calculations.
  4. I do not know but there are two possibilities. One is that feedback system keeps masses at constant distance and wanted information is extracted from feedback data. It is very common technique in measurement electronics. Other is that they let masses fall freely and return them to initial positions when necessary. It may be more accurate but there are breaks in measurement. There may be misunderstandings in that kind of popular articles.
  5. Many people say so, but magnetism is well understood physics. Especially ferromagnetism (permanent magnetism of iron) is quite hard to understand or explain and it is omitted from physics textbooks except university level solid state physics books. Maybe that feeds such misunderstanding. Real magnetic circuits are complicated and magnetic forces have low range. Air gaps in electric motors are millimeters, lifting electromagnets need a contact etc. Probably you have to use some arbitrary unit and accept contradiction with real physics. Or explain it with some magic magnetism. Real world have also other problem. There does not exist ferromagnetic material which is light enough for spacecrafts. Other materials feels only very negligible forces in magnetic field.
  6. I will go to Dres but I have made it only once from Duna station. DV requirements from Kerbin or Duna to Dres vary very significantly between launch windows because Dres have inclined orbit. Transfers are the most economic when Dres is about Kerbin's orbital plane when the spacecraft arrives or departs there. Duna is practically in Kerbin's plane so there is no significant difference between them. First window from Kerbin to Dres have arrival date of y3 d78 (Kerbin's time). Dres is then about 2440 Mm above Kerbin's orbital plane. It takes more than 1600 m/s normal velocity to achieve that point and total dv (ballistic orbit from 100 km equatorial to 100 km) is 4094 m/s. But if you start at second window you arrive at y4 d282. Dres is then only 20 Mm above the plane and total dv is only 3070 m/s. Your trajectory via Duna arrives at y4 d290 when Duna is also very near the Kerbin's plane (-57 Mm). You should compare dv requrements to second window from Kerbin. You may get advantage if you use Duna as gravity assistant but typically it is not economic to brake on bodies between arrival and target bodies (if you do not have to get fuel or investigate several bodies). I have tried gravity assists couple of times because they are interesting in mathematical and physical sense but unfortunately KSP's trajectory planning does not support such complicated trajectories and they are very laborious to do and very sensitive to errors. DV is so cheap and there are no outer planets in stock KSP so that there are not any gameplay reason to use gravity assists.
  7. Is it cheating depends on your rules. I can not answer it. Is it kerbal? Maybe not. Even Squad have used term "kerbal way" to explain some irrational, humorous and childish choises. But I feel that it is very great thing that they allow to mod this game to fill very different needs. It can be played by humorous "more boosters and fancy explosions" -way or it can be modded to very nerdy simulator for those who like math and engineering problems. I like engineering way. It is somewhat easy because everything is perfectly predictable (I would like to random failures of things), but "kerbal" way would be very boring after couple of funny explosions. Random trial and error would not reward my brains as well as careful planning and execution. But why so many people think so much is something cheating or wrong? This is just a computer game.
  8. I have 2200 x 1380 window on 2560x1440 screen. I can put other windows at edges and monitor other processes or use easily other programs.
  9. Probably no. All my software is for Windows and I want to make other things (render with PovRay or make some other long CPU intensive tasks, use browser, use my own help programs etc.) when I play KSP. I played my last game on Windows without graphical mods because it was so annoying to be unable to use Windows programs during gaming.
  10. I know. Therefore I said that I do not believe that we will get significantly better planets although it would be technically possible (or easier) with 64 bit memory limits. It would not be productive business compared to console ports or multiplayer.
  11. I have to admit that my knowledge is couple of months old, but then OPM had just colored balls with somewhat nicer textures and topographies. I like OPM very much and understand that developers are restricted to simple planet model of KSP. However, I thought much more detailed planets. Complex 3D geologic structures from continent scale to meters, moving fluids (including weather effects), physical effects (temperatures, gases, flying particles), local resources and interesting places to explore, large variety of scatter objects etc. Something like Minecraft world but of course much more complex, beautiful and physically realistic.
  12. Technically yes, but unfortunately it seems that Squad does not have any interest to develop planets. There are some mods but they give only similar boring colored balls than stock game. Current planet modeling can not give more. They should make some kind of procedural planet generating algorithm to put enough details on planets. But it would be huge project and I do not believe it before I see.
  13. Probably people who are interested in space physics or aerodynamics are also more interested in computers and other technology than average people and have better computers.
  14. 16 GB is maximum of Win 7 Home but Pro version can handle more. It depends also on motherboard. 16 GB was typical maximum in reasonable priced motherboards couple of years ago.
  15. 16 GB. Maximum memory allocation of KSP has been less than 7 GB (0.90 Linux version with several graphical mods).
  16. I suggest that exploration would be added to KSP. There could be randomly generated spots on planets where you can find large number of science points (or other resources). Some things would need an orbiter with suitable detectors and some things would need a lander or rover. Maybe you could use an orbiter to search potentially interesting locations and get some points. Then you could send surface probes to further investigation and maybe get more points. I know that Squad hates randomness. It would not have to be really random. If the system was based on one 32 bit seed number there would be the stock world same for all and 4 billion unknown worlds for explorers.
  17. That would be a great idea. Caves, tunnels and other underground structures would give much more interest to relatively simple celestial bodies. However, as far as I know, it would need large modifications to program code. Current body modeling can not handle such geometries. But in any case planets need a large overhaul. Maybe it would not be too hard to use better models with inside cavities.
  18. There is no "real" limit. Small amount of air molecules escape and they can be detected at very large distances by using sensitive detectors. Many planetary probes have such plasma investigation devices. Drag may be significant up to altitude of at least 1000 km, depending on mission. What do you mean with real? Standard definition gives about 11.2 km/s. Orbital velocity of lowest practical circular orbits are about 7.8 km/s The gravity field of a galaxy and nearby stars are dominant in interstellar space. You can be bound to galaxy or escaping it. There are also larger structures in universe galaxy clusters, superclusters etc. There is no known place free from gravity in visible universe. It is about 400 km. Drag and correction maneuvers change it. I do not know who decide it. http://www.heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx
  19. The most efficient way to make TDI burn is to use an inclined parking orbit. Porkchop plot program gives inclination angle and angle to prograde which helps to achieve correct LAN. Burn is prograde and you can calculate dv by using standard trigonometry. The largest inclination of the parking orbit I have seen was 24 degrees. In such cases it would be more economic to use a transfer with plane change. However, such a maneuver is relatively difficult to plan with the KSP's inaccurate maneuver system so that errors do not take an advantage over simpler ballistic transfer.
  20. This needs relatively high TWR. If I land by hand I have less than 1 before deorbit burn. TWR increases slowly during braking but I have to decelerate most of the time. I know that it is easier to do with more TWR but it is fun to do things near limits. Normally I use MechJeb, because I want to land to the exact point. It also need quite high TWR (1.5 before deorbit).
  21. You will find that it is very unpractical place of the cosmic gas station. You do not save much dv (if any because inclination) but times between launch windows and travel times are large. Gas station around Minmus is much more economical.
  22. Landing on Tylo is practically a large suicide burn from orbit to surface. If you have enough TWR and dv, it is very predictable even with huge ship. Timings are difficult to estimate without quicksaving but if you try couple of times you learn to do it. Eve have complex aerodynamics. Difficulty depends greatly on how large and complex your ship is. It is trivial to drop small probe or rover on Eve, but it you want to come back you need massive and powerful ascent ship. Then aerodynamics gives nasty surprises. I would say that Tylo is harder for small or medium size craft and Eve is harder for very large crafts.
  23. Therefore I wrote (should be). But probability of problems is low if you do not have very new or very exotic hardware. If it does not work you do not lose anything (probably, making backups before OS installation is always very good idea).
  24. As far as I know, games do not work properly in virtual boxes. But you can have a boot menu in which you can select Windows or Linux. If you install Linux (at least Ubuntu or Mint) to Windows computer it makes a boot menu (GRUB) automatically. You need about 100 GB unpartitioned space in hard disk. Installation is (should be) easy and it takes less than an hour.
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