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The Comprehensive Colony Communications Archive (CCCA) Hello everyone! I've been seeing a lot of people confused about how colonies will actually work lately. We have received a lot of info on this over the years, but it's pretty spread out. That's why i took it upon myself to go through every Feature Video, Show and Tell, AMA, Dev Update/Blog/Chat and Interview and compile every bit of information we have about the KSP2 Colonies Milestone update, along with where and when it was mentioned. Do keep in mind that some of this info is years old at this point and may not be entirely up-to-date with the developers plans and goals anymore. Props to the KSP2 Knowledge Repository post, which served as a great independant resource to make sure i didnt miss anything. Thanks also goes out to @Spicatfor helping me go through the youtube interviews. If i did miss anything, feel free to let me know! I've highlighted the sections about (planned) core colony functionality and the features that are expected to ship with the Colonies Milestone. Do keep in mind that some of the core functionality (such as Resources) wont be in the initial release yet and will come with later Milestones. This post is also available as a PDF at the bottom of this page for easier reading, for those who prefer that. Enjoy! 1. Feature Videos · Colonies will have exotic fuel factories, such as metallic hydrogen ( + concept art) Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 1 - Next Gen Tech [Feb 20, 2020] · Pre-alpha captures of various colonies and stations Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 1.5 - Work From Home Developer Update [Jun 24, 2020] · More pre-alpha captures Kerbal Space Program 2 - Feature Videos Teaser [Oct 23, 2020] Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 2 – The Kerbals [Dec 21, 2020] 2. Dev Diaries · Colonies as one of the KSP2 Design Pillars (exploring next-gen space program concepts): - new features based on inspiration from expectations and the real world - but not on the level of complexity that dedicated colony builders have - minimizing micromanagement - colonies in function of serving ‘rocket gameplay’ How Colonies will work gameplay-wise: - Establishing a colony by launching inflatable modules on a standard rocket - Fuel is synthesized in-situ by this colony to refuel rocket> - Players bring in more resources to make colony self-sufficient - Colony grows to allow player to build and fly rockets from this new location - Orbital Drydocks and Mining Colonies are mentioned - Rearranging modules of a colony is mentioned - commitment to keep Colonies open to the modding community is made Developer Insights #3 – KSP2 Design Pillars [Apr 26, 2020] · Mention of being able to dock at each others colonies in multiplayer Developer Insights #4 – KSP2 Engineering [Jun 12, 2020] · Confirmation that Vehicle Assembly and Colony Assembly Build Interface (also known as BAE; Building Assembly Editor) will use same camera interactions Developer Insights #7 – KSP 2 UX Architects [Nov 27, 2020] · Deep technical dive into how Resource Flow will function, but no specific mention of their relation to Colonies Developer Insights #13 – KSP2 Resource System [Feb 25, 2022] · Inspiration for Colony parts is drawn from concept studies, physics treatises and hypothetical engineering trades. (No examples of such studies is listed) Also reveals new ion plasma engine which should be added along with radiators (as per Nertea), thus with Colonies (see Dev Insights #21). Developer Insights #14 - Part Creation [Jun 27, 2022] Nertea Talking About New Ion Engine [Aug 17, 2023] · Pre-Alpha Sneak Peak of a Large-size Pulsed Fission Drive (based on Project Orion). Likely to ship with the Colonies update (see Nate's AMA) Developer Insights #15 - Writing for Kerbal Space Program [Aug 30, 2022] · Connection between the Heating system and Colonies - core areas of heat management for colonies: heat-producing/removing parts & environmental heat sources/sinks (e.g. An ocean) - Environment will directly impact efficiency of Mining Colonies; being on a cold planet or being in the shadow of a mountain will result in ‘a bonus’, being on a lava planet will ‘pose a challenge’ - not getting rid of heat may result in nuclear meltdown - engines, drills, factories, and power generators listed as possible heat-generating parts for both Colonies and Vessels - atmospheres, oceans, sunlight and proximity/contact to surface features listed as possible environmental heat sources/sinks - pointing a torch drive at a colony will result in consequences - some parts/modules will be more prone to heating than others - mentions there will be ‘tools’ to understand and manage heating on Colonies and Vessels - heating model for parts and colonies will be based on average heat flux (incoming/generated heat on a part – outgoing heat = resultant heating on that part) - Radiators and heat sinks will pull heat from all parts - Thermal Flux and Extraction/Production (using Delivery Routes) calculations will always run in the background even when the colony is not being observed - the Colonies Milestone will introduce basic part heat management, basic radiators and thermal planning - More part heat managment, more radiators, exotic environments and more planning tools are planned to arrive later with the Insterstellar Milestone Developer Insights #21 - Rockets' Red Glare [Jul 23, 2023] 3. Show and Tells · Power generation modules for colonies - will progress from compact fission reactors to giant fusion tokamaks to next-generation Z-pinch fusion reactors Show and Tell - New power generation modules for colonies! [Feb 5, 2021] · Station and Colony Part Models: - Orbital Launch Clamp - Geothermal Power Generator - Colony Roads/Runways - Deep Resource Scanner - Wind turbine Show and Tell - Creating New Parts [Jun 11, 2021] · Colony Fuel Factories: From smallest to largest: Methalox Fuel Factory, Monopropellant Fuel Factory, Xenon Fuel Factory, Helium-3 Fuel Factory, and Metallic Hydrogen Fuel Factory Show and Tell - Colony fuel factories [Feb 19, 2021] · M-sized Bi-modal, extendable nozzle afterburning nuclear engine: NERV-US Will possibly ship with Colonies, as this engine has been functional but hidden (in its non-afterburning mode only) in the game since release. Appeared in an earlier Show and Tell as the ‘LANTR’. May be waiting on Part Heat Generation. Show and Tell - NERV-US [Oct 1, 2021] Show and Tell - New LANTR engine [Jun 25, 2021] · Procedural Radiators – Unconfirmed Show and Tell - Procedural Radiators [Mar 25, 2022] 4. AMAs · AMA Nate Simpson [Mar 24, 2023] 3/24 Discord AMA Answers Ask Me A Few More Things Q: Can you give any more detail about how the automated "trade routes" are going to work? Will we see ships automatically landing on / taking off from the launchpad or will it be more of a in-the-background kind of thing? How will the game handle changing delta-v requirements due to different planetary alignments? A: For delivery routes, we have clear steps. First implementation, crediting/debiting resources to vehicles and colonies based on duration. Second implementation might take into account launch windows and such. Someday, would be very cool to see vehicles coming and going. Not a promise, but a long-term aspiration. Q: Will certain resources needed for colony construction be planet/biome specific? A: The diversity of resources is what's going to make exploration mode so fun. Compared to KSP1 which was very self-directed (take temperatures, etc.), when there is a unique resource somewhere that gates your access to some category of parts/features - wow it totally changes the game. It gives you something material literally material, yeah the interplanetary/interstellar progression will really POP once you're able to dig up a specific thing that gives you a specific ability. Q: For the far off colonization update. How will buildings work? Will we assemble them ourselves by landing modules (or making them on site) and moving them into position, or will it be more of a prefabricated type of building system? A: We have a inflatable module that you put on a vehicle and once you deploy it - it's basically like setting up a camping site. It sets up a VAB-like interface. Using that and other modules, you can use resources to add even more modules to the colonies. There will be attach nodes and it'll be very similar to creating a vehicle. Also the same thing applies to orbital colonies. Q: Orbital colonies have been mentioned. Will they have a set orbit once the first part has been built, or will they be able to move with engines like other spacecraft? A: They can be moved and crashed, yes. Q: How useful will orbital construction be and how awesome are the colonies? A: Completely critical to the interstellar progression. You can't make a interstellar vehicle in a gravity well. Someone will definitely prove me wrong about that one day. Q: … Will players be able to share colony buildings (Once that comes out) and create? A: …So there will be the asynchronous progression - people dropping in and out of the server over time but slowly building up resources and sharing delivery routes between colonies. … Q: Will there more colony parts than what shown in the trailers? A: yes. Q: What kind of size range can we expect with colonies? Will all colonies be roughly the same size, or will we be able to have small 1-2 launch research colonies along with our gigantic industrial ones? Will there be any upper size limit? A: There's no plan for an enforced upper-size limit. It'll be similar to vehicles, it's made of parts - we want people to make it as large as they want. Obviously not all computers can handle massive builds, so there will probably be a player-dependent fps-based size limit. Q: "When we'll see other exotic fuel types like metallic hydrogen? Will they be added alongside some big update like colonies or will they be added before?" A: We will be bringing in new engine and fuel types across multiple updates, generally as they become instrumental to the progression. I suspect nuclear pulse will be next up, as it opens up the interplanetary progression quite nicely and is a good supplement to colony building. … Q: Will be possible to alter the surface on the planets? Like dig a pit or flatten an area for a colony? A: There are no current plans to do this - … - So yeah, we’ll keep talking about this. · AMA Shana Markham [Apr 20, 2023] Discord AMA 2 - Design Director Shana Markham Answers Q: Most players don't know how do reentry and land precisely. How will you teach players to land precisely near colony to deliver resources there, or will we get instruments to predict landing site for delivery paths? A: …Certainly when colonies comes out, advanced landings will be extremely useful. One of our writers (Jim Peck) did a knowledge-share internally about precision landings, and that taught us a lot about how in-depth that topic can be - and we have to figure out how to distill that down to make it approachable for new players. Q: How will the resources be distributed across so many planets in order to give the player a reason to explore every world? If resources aren't the catalyst for exploration, how else do plan on motivating exploration? A: … we want to look at the various resources on a planet and how it plays into your space program. Especially with colonies and exploration, you may want to build a mining colony - but perhaps it's really far away and it's annoying to get to. So instead you go somewhere else and build an additional orbital colony to help build resource pathways. Q: In the previous AMA it got said that colonies will be built using resources, but the resource gathering update comes after the colonies one, how will that work? A: Remember that question about the roadmap? This is one of the outcomes when everything is building on top of each other.. We wanted to make sure exploration is about exploration. Q: Will colonies feature automation gameplay (with-in the colony, so not the delivery route system)? It can look something like: 1) Resource extractor building mines a raw resource, 2) Resource refinery building makes a useable material out of it, 3) Assembly A: …We want to make sure automation is implemented to make sure the part of the game that is really important to us, rockets, continues to stay the main gameplay loop. Q: Will adding to orbital colonies be similar to how we already make space stations etc. or how will that work differently? A: Orbital colonies would follow a similar flow to terrestrial colonies and have the same toolset. · AMA Kristina Ness [Jun 30, 2023] AMA 3 - Art Director Kristina Ness Answers Q: Have the assets for the game been done? What does the art team do after the assets are made? A: Yes. The art team is actually, as is with most games, the art team is ahead…. our 3D artists right now are working on colony parts. All the science parts are already done and ready to go and they're all lined up. And so, they're onward to colony parts. (as of June 30th, 2023) Q: Will Kerbals be different colors based on what planets they originate from when colonies are introduced? A: That's a very fun idea. I have my own head canon about Kerbal colors. And we'll see. We'll see if that becomes canon. Q: When can we expect to see crew modules which require animations such as gravity rings, especially ones with cool deployment methods? A: Colonies!! I actually just saw a gif of a module very similar to what you are describing that I hope we can share soon. · AMA Chris Adderley (aka Nertea) [Aug 18, 2023] KSP2 AMA Series - Chris "Nertea" Adderley - Answers/Transcript Q: When colonies are implemented, will heat be required for habitation modules in colder environments? A: Not in the current design. We're mostly focusing on having players understand overheating as a concern rather than under-heating. Q: How will the "rotational" artificial gravity ring part showcased in the teasers and trailers work? Will we have multiple iterations of varying sizes? A: We're not really looking at specifically simulating different gravity levels in the game right now. It's not really part of our plans, but we do want to have, at least for colonies, different sizes of gravity ring, and not only different sizes, but different roles. A lot of different things you can put into gravity ring and a lot of different interesting gameplay you can build out of that. And that's a lot of different things you can put into gravity ring and a lot of other things you can build out of that. And that's all I'll say about that. Q: How is the colonies stuff going, there's been some recent concern on whether launching rockets will be free in science. If so, will that be an issue for progression? A: We are effectively designing our progression system in such a way that that's not an issue. I should clarify that as we're going through our milestones, the science milestone is going to be more similar to the science mode from KSP1. So you didn't really have cash in that mode in KSP1. So we're working within the same constraints in terms of that. In the far future when we have resources and things, we're often taking the approach that like, we want players to feel like they want to, they're able to do a lot of stuff from the KSC and from colonies. So I'm not gonna say launching rockets will be free. There's always going to be a cost associated with a rocket, but the amount of various resources that you might have access to at the KSC at different places is going to control what you can launch when. Q: I got the impression that there was going to be the potential for vessels/stations with truly massive part counts… is this still going to be a thing eventually, at least by 1.0? A: This is a core goal that we have in our game. It's like we need to scale things….We're gonna have a specific [performance] target for colonies, a specific target for interstellar, and then a specific target as we go towards 1.0. So the goal is to deliver more parts per ship, more parts per save, more ships per save, to make it so that you can truly have a curvil interstellar civilization. Q: What are your thoughts on greenhouses and simple life support with snacks for example? How do you see conveying that colonies are both real places where kerbals live and 'working machines' much the way vessels are? A: …We have some things in the works around Colonies that ape some of the ‘results’ of life support, which I hope will get at the idea of colonies being a little more kerbal-involved than just plunking Kerbals in a command part. Q: As a side question, stations and bases. Are these going to have something of a real use this time around, given that stations were limited to more or less just fuel depots in KSP1. I'm thinking more along the lines of long term research projects, with big pay-off for significant durations of time. Is there some sort of requirement to resupply the stations, perhaps required crew rotation, stuff like that? A: The progression we want to deliver for bases and stations mirrors IRL conceptions about how these things should work. You will start out with outposts that have limited utility – let’s call that KSP1-like. Fuel depots, maybe comms relays, etc. As you progress through the tech tree, you’ll get access to stuff that provides them with greater utility. That’s shipyards and docks, fuel factories, launch pads, etc. Eventually you’ll get the biggest parts, which are mostly focused on giving you the full capabilities of the KSC at a colony. A core piece of the utility in my mind comes with resource gathering (which is a ways off in the roadmap,) when the specific positioning and configuration of a colony becomes really important. Placing a colony with good access to progression-related resources and having easy access to heat management/power sources will allow you to build specific functions and cool vibes into each colony. Crew rotations and resupply are not currently something we would want to enforce. I hope that when we get resources and delivery routes fully operational though, that this is something modders will hit really hard because the framework of stuff like delivery routes will be there. 5. Interviews and Dev Chats · Colony parts will start appearing in Tier 4 of the tech tree and continue into Tier 5 Science and Tech Tree - KSP 2 Dev Chats [Nov 30, 2023] · ShadowZone Interviews Nate Simpson (2019) KSP 2 Developer on Multiplayer: "I Never Heard People Laugh So Hard" [Sep 6, 2019] - Base Assembly Editor to build Colonies similar to the VAB for craft - Colonies will use the same physics system as craft, so it will fall if you build too tall · Scott Manley Interviews Nate Simpson (2019) Kerbal Space Program 2 Developer Answers Important Questions [Sep 2, 2019] - Early Stage: Bring modular component that you build on site, inflatable module - When population grows you unlock some ISRU capabilities to unlock more permanent modules · PC Gamer Article with Developer Interview (2020) Space Odyssey: Our first big look at Kerbal Space Program 2 [Jul 1, 2020] - 'Boom Events' are mentioned as a player-initiated event that will increase colony population "through a method we will not describe" - Boom events will happen by making discoveries and unlocking new technologies, and have a variety of effects - Colony Nursery module is mentioned as an example, where a Boom Event will result in the creation of new colonists - Colonies will underperform when they run out of Power or Food - First time Food is mentioned! · PC Gamer Interview (2022) Kerbal Space Program 2 full interview PC Gaming Show 2023 Preview [Nov 23, 2022] - Use local resources to build colonies - Use local resources to build craft at those colonies - Orbital Construction will happen in a ‘sort of open space’ - Delivery routes to automatize a task -> build a resource extracting rover that brings resource to the colony. after doing it once, you can make a repetitive delivery so you continue to receive that resources · Shacknews Interviews Interview (2021) Kerbal Space Program 2 - Interview With Creative Director Nate Simpson [Jun 24, 2021] - As a colony grows, it will eventually become self-sufficient and not need external resource deliveries to expand anymore · Shacknews Interviews Interview (2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=easPDj-o06o&t=358s [May 2, 2023] - There will be between 200 to 300 colony parts · GrunfWorks Interviews Nate Simpson (2024) KSP 2's Creative Director talks Colonies - Interview with Nate Simpson [Mar 1, 2024] - Colonies will come with new kinds of science collection - Colonies will be placeable anywhere - ‘dozens’ of new colony parts - The Colonies Experience will be ‘whole’ at its initial release despite resources coming later, but will evolve as resources and delivery routes come online later 6. Sneak Peaks · An Orbital Colony Around Duna & Jool (video of rotating rings/arms in link) Colonies Sneakpeeks [Mar 15, 2024] This Document as a PDF: CCCA.pdf

Mechanical power from water is easy and is more than 5000 years old, so that will clearly be a thing very quickly. Mechanical wind power is almost 3000 years old, both less concentrated and less reliable, but still pretty useful and should be back fairly quickly. Turning either of those into electric power mostly requires magnets and wire, so intermittent local power(like a flour-mill that doubles as a battery charger) should be reasonably common, but if it gets set up by someone with limited understanding of electric theory(such as myself) such a charger is likely to damage the batteries with every charge. Fortunately, batteries are more than 200 years old, so if you have copper and zinc, you can turn those into electrical power as well. Unfortunately, oil is of limited use without refineries, and refineries would be a primary target(tanks run poorly without fuel after all), so only chemists would be able to run vehicles until new refineries were produces(I think fractional distillation can provide something functional, but I would expect it to be hard on any engine that uses it) Straight crude could be burned as fuel, but would generally be inferior to coal, as liquids are harder to store and handle than solids. Wood would likely be superior to both where it is available, as it is much less likely to produce hazardous fumes when burned. So long as fuel reserves held out, food production would be in good shape, but would go down dramatically once farmers run out of diesel. Food processing would likely have issue before that however. Fortunately, it looks like almost all of the population is is major cities(86% in cities of 50k+ in 2020 for the US), so a drop in food production is probably not as critical as it would otherwise be. There would probably be at least a decade of 'everyone is a farmer' with the related loss of population to starvation before we stabilized and started growing again. Assuming no one was in a position where they could take advantage of our weakened state to invade.

Yeah. A net loss of ~$200 million in cancelled projects and severance packages. An approximate 5% reduction in the overall workforce. But a reduction in overall operating costs by ~$165 million annually. What really gets me about the article is that they are touting GTA VI as being the next big game, and it's expected to be the top-selling game of the decade. I know that Rockstar and Private Division are two entirely separate subsidiaries of TT...but one has to wonder how much management is shifting overall corporate focus to GTA, and how much that shift is impacting other titles such as KSP. I'm not saying it is, and I'm not saying it will happen. I'm just curious, is all.

And that's another issue with the developers using the up-vote process as a way to determine what bugs should get priority. As an example, docking is a critical component to the game; without it, you (not you personally, but you in a general sense of players) might not be able to go interplanetary, and will certainly not be able to go interstellar. But if nobody sees the bug, and therefore they don't up-vote it, the developers think "Well, this isn't all that bad" and they ignore it in favor of something else that's actually not important at all. Like in your example, the mission to get 35 science for landing 200+ tons on Minmus. That developers are relying on this system instead of using some common sense with bugs is mind-boggling. If they want to use the up-vote system to determine what non-critical bugs the community cares about should get fixed next, then fine. But don't prioritize something small over something integral to the game simply because a lot of people want more science rewards instead of being able to dock.

Is being done for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoporosis#Potentially_modifiable The bedridden patients and low-mobility people suffer from it even at 1 g. P.S. It's a remedy! The Martians should be fat and heavy! The potato diet is excellent for Mars. 0.4 g means 200 kg of normal body mass for a Martian. For Mars!!

Since you don’t have to open steam to actually play KSP2 it’s hard to draw any useful information from this. I have less than 6 hours logged, yet I’ve dumped at least 200+ hours into KSP2

Rocket download here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V88bacJOnow65gsWFgV2mxYtl3Rm1bfe/view?usp=sharing

I think this is a flawed way of thinking about the future. It's naive to think the same trends we see now and in the recent past will continue forever. People thought there would be flying battleships based on the development of airships in the early 1900s as a "natural" continuation of the technology, and it never happened. People thought there would be no more capital ships after torpedo boats made them "obsolete," also during the early 1900s. And people thought the adoption of nuclear power in the US in the late 1950s meant that by 1990 there would be a small nuclear reactor in the basement of every home in America. When thinking about this stuff, its important to think about the economy of it. Based on the size of airline fleets and number of total employees, I have seen estimates that it takes about 50-100 employees to maintain a single aircraft. How many employees does it take to maintain a single rocket? How much extremely specialized labor when compared with maintaining aircraft? Where is SpaceX going to get this army of ground staff to support their launch of 1000 Starships during each transfer window? In my state it costs about $300,000 to build a new home right now, minus permits and land costs etc. This is very close to the average US cost of 298,000 in 2023. For lack of alternative ideas, I'm going to assume SpaceX uses the "normal buildings in domes" design they have in the artwork on their website. Musk wants to house 1 million people on Mars. Let's say there are 4 people to a home. So $75 billion to build the habitats. This doesn't include the expensive domes, complete with life support on a scale never seen before. The domes will need to be even bigger because there will need to be room for the other aspects of the city. It won't just need more buildings, but a sewage system, schools, farms, the power source, and so on. So the dome will be enormous. The ISS has about 1000m cubed of pressurized volume and cost $100 billion or so in total. I'm going to be very generous and cut that in half, assuming use of robots will help cut costs, but then I'm going to add $5 billion for those robots. So let's say 1000m cubed of volume on the Mars base will cost $55 billion to build. The city of Portland, which is probably smaller than what the Mars city will be due to lack of farmland, is 233km squared area. I'm going to treat the volume of the dome as if it were a cube, and the extra volume that wouldn't be there on account of shape will go to the farmland. So let's just say to have good circulation and allow birds to live in it, it will need to be a generous 1 km tall (the artwork shows it higher). So, the volume is just 233km cubed. So, it would cost $233 billion dollars to build a pressurized dome for the city. From r/theydidthemath Let's be generous and use the lower estimate. About 250 sq km for 1 million people. Cost of dome + homes (minus maintenance, services, sewage, transporting dirt for farming, etc.): ~$488 billion. The article from Payload Space that estimated SpaceX's revenue I found put operating costs in 2022 at $3 billion. They launched 61 rockets in 2022, rounding that down to 60, we get $50 million to launch one rocket. How many Starships will it take to build the city? Way more than Musk theorizes. An interesting Seattle Times article did the calculations and the weight of a home came in at about 300 tons. So 300 million tons of material need to be moved to Mars for the housing alone. Starship 3 can bring 200 tons to LEO, and with 4-5 refueling flights could bring that to Mars. So 1,500,000 Cargo Starship launches would be required to send the materials, ignoring things like volume restrictions and what have you. Add 4 tanker flights per launch, and that would be 7,500,000 Starship launches. Thus SpaceX's operating costs including the launch of these rockets, in total, would amount to $375 trillion. This doesn't include the 10,000 Starships needed to launch the million colonists, nor the cost of launching the dome, dirt for farmland, robot laborers, and so on. And of course the associated tankers. Nor the actual cost of the materials themselves. These would be internal launches and thus generate no revenue. In contrast, the Earth's GDP in 2022 was about $100 trillion. Starlink had 2.3 million subscribers in 2023, and generated $4.2 billion in revenue. If Starlink somehow rose to 32 million subscribers and beat out Comcast to become the biggest ISP in the US, they'd have, very roughly, $63 billion in revenue each year. This doesn't take into account inflation. SpaceX alone could not pull this off. $375.5 trillion for the Mars city, and that estimate is low balled. And it won't even turn a profit when it is complete. It will just be a regular old city, but costing $50 million to send stuff to and fro on a good day. Contrast with how sending a 20 ft shipping container to Japan costs about $1,200 dollars. A Mars city will, in all likelihood, never turn a profit. And remember those failed predictions about technology in the early 20th century? Let me introduce you to some more bad projections. In the 1920s, people predicted the end of poverty, infinite growth, and even declines in culture because people were becoming so wealthy they wouldn't want to do anything. Then after the crash of '29, people were predicting permanent damage, endless poverty and unemployment, and no hope of recovery ever. So even though Goldman Sachs predicts the global GDP being $227 trillion in 2050, which maybe could put it at $1 quadrillion by year 2300- at which point the US GDP might be about $300-400 trillion (all at a rate of growth of $100 trillion every 25 years), that would still require a company with the ability to invest an amount equivalent to the US GDP in something they will get no return on investment in. All that assumes there is no Second Great Depression, no nuclear war, no AI disruption to the economy, and no disastrous damage from climate change. I really dislike the idea of things being inevitable. If we want something to happen in the future, we have to work for it, we can't assume it will just come to us. No one is really working towards anything right now, and I feel like that's just going to allow another bad cascade of events that will lead to great damage and set humanity back 50 years. Every generation has talked about something being inevitable, then had things turned on their head and started saying the other way around was inevitable. There is great collateral in the process. I wish for once we would recognize the future is unknown and try to shape it by our own will, instead of letting it take the trajectory set by people who are either in retirement homes or dead. Because it isn't a trajectory at all, just feeling our way through the dark with no interest in our existence beyond the present. ------ Okay, now for fun let's see when a company might have the wherewithal to fund its own Mars colony, based on these unchanging linear projections that I simplified. SpaceX's total revenue was about $8 billion according to that same Payload Space estimate. So 3/8 of that was operating costs. Assuming SpaceX's revenue can grow with the economy: maybe SpaceX and Tesla merge into one mega corporation, along with Twitter, maybe it produces the world's best mac and cheese, who knows. I'm going to use that trend as the GDP. So SpaceX's total revenue will be $16 billion in 2050, and $32 billion in 2100. I'm gonna round it up to $10 billion in 2023 so this is easier. So $40 billion in 2100. $64 billion in 2200, $128 billion in 2300. By the year 3000, it will be $400 billion. $800 billion in 4000, but let's bump that to a trillion. So it will be $3 trillion dollars by the year 8000. After that, it would take about 200,000 years for SpaceX's operating costs to reach $300 trillion dollars. The extra 75, also rounded up, to 100, would take another 667 years or so to gain. So SpaceX will have enough money to build a city on Mars starting in 208,667 A.D. By this time, two moons of Uranus will have collided, the Arecibo message will have reached its target, and Pioneer 10 will have passed within about 3 light years of Ross 248, a red dwarf, which circa 60,000 A.D. will have become the closest star to Earth for a brief period of time (10,000 years). Disclaimer: This is half serious attempt to calculate the cost of a Mars colony, half tongue in cheek criticism of statements that say things like "All we need to do is send some software engineers to Mars and the colony will be profitable." I did not check my math. The only really serious thing is my critique of making predictions about the future by assuming current trends will last forever.

“Counterpoint” (from a more recent interview) But I also prefer the 200-300 estimate, @Genekermanisamoneylaundere

Given the extreme environment of Eve, I’ve always wondered what effect this has on engine performances. The Vector, Dart and Mammoth are often recommended for Eve, but I never really saw any quantitative numbers backing them up. Fortunately, the staging interface in the VAB lets us set the environment to Eve at sea level and it’s only a matter of using math to derive Isp values from the deltaV values. As expected, I found that the Vector, Dart and Mammoth do pretty well while most other engines suck. Interestingly, the Thud also performs pretty okay. The highest Isp values for Eve are: Dart: 267; Vector: 152; Thud: 101; Mammoth-II: 97; Mainsail: 96; Spider: 74. All others are below 50 (except possibly the Rapier; I forgot to test that one). The Isp values translate to the highest thrust values: Mammoth: 1332; Mainsail: 501; Vector: 411; Bottle-Rocket: 230; Clydesdale: 228; Dart: 142; Kickback: 115; Thud: 92. Using Eve’s gravity of 16.68 m/s2 (1.7x Kerbin), the highest TWR values are: Dart: 8.5; Vector: 6.2; Hammer: 5.6; Mammoth-II: 5.3; Mainsail: 5.0; Thud: 3.5; Kickback: 3.3. Optimal launch configuration While the Dart has the highest efficiency and TWR, it lacks absolute thrust and an efficient engine is useless if it can’t get its payload off the ground. Since the delta-V calculation doesn’t account for gravity pulling the rocket down, I find that instead the most useful quantity for a launch is the total change in momentum (or impulse) that an engine can deliver, which is equal to the net upward force integrated over time: J = integral (F - g*(mpayload + mengine+ mfuselage + mfuel - R*t)) dt Here F is the engine thrust, g is the local specific gravity and R is the fuel burn rate in kg/s. We can assume that for most cases mfuselage = 0.125 * mfuel . The total burn time can be calculated from t = mfuel /R. The equation then results in: J = (g/R) * ((F/g - mpayload - mengine)*mfuel - 0.625*mfuel2) By solving for dJ/dmfuel = 0, we can find the amount of fuel for which the maximum impulse is achieved: mfuel = 0.8*(F/g - mpayload - mengine) Interestingly, this means that for every ton of payload, you need to substract 800kg of fuel to keep the impulse maximized. From this, we also get the optimal launch TWR: TWR = 1 + (F/g - mpayload - mengine) / (9*F/g + mpayload + mengine) This means optimal launch TWR is always <1.111, getting lower with increasing payloads and gravity, depending on the engine. By adding the optimal fuel mass to the impulse equation, we find the maximum impulse: Jmax = 0.4*(g/R)*(F/g - mpayload - mengine)2 Since g=16.68 m/s2 for Eve, and F, R and mengine are constant for each engine, the only remaining free variable is mpayload. Engine comparison As you can see, the Mammoth-II can potentially deliver the most impulse by far for any payload. In second place is the Vector for payloads below 12t, but above 12t the Mainsail would be a better second choice. Without any payload, the Dart has almost as much maximum impulse as the Mainsail, but that quickly drops off. However, to get the most out of the Mammoth, you’d need an enormous amount of fuel. Without local production, this would all need to be brought in from Kerbin and you would need to manage to land it on Eve without burning up in the dense atmosphere or smashing too hard into the surface due to the high gravity. So, maybe the best value to look at would instead be the maximum impulse per kg of starting mass. The math becomes a bit more complicated at this point, but the Dart would now become the best choice for payloads below 2.5t. Between 2.5t and 5.3t the best choice would be the Vector and for payloads above that the Mammoth-II brings the most impulse per kg: Now, do keep in mind that these are the values per engine. Given the LG size of the Mammoth-II, you could argue it should actually be compared to 7 SM or 3 MD engines for similar footprints. In that case, the Mammoth becomes completely inferior to 7 Vectors and would only be better than 7 Darts for impractically heavy payloads of over 40t. It would perform about the same as 3 Mainsails or 36 Thuds: 7 Vectors would however require much more fuel for maximum impulse than a single Mammoth. So yet another way is to compare the amounts of engines that need a similar starting mass to achieve their optimal impulses. For very large payloads, that would be the case for either 7 Darts, 3 Vectors or 1 Mammoth-II. For smaller payloads, the 7 Darts would deliver far more momentum, followed by the 3 Vectors: Staging configurations For a final comparison, I considered a payload of about 3t (a command pod, a Terrier, sufficient fuel for a circularization burn and some appendices) and an asparagus staging configuration. Using 7 Dart engines would require 3.6t of fuel for the center engine and 13t of fuel for each of the 3 outer stages (so 6.5t per engine), giving a total of 24,000 kNs of impulse and a starting mass of 58t. Using 3 Vectors would require 14t of fuel for the center engine and 34t of fuel for the outer stage (so 17t per engine), giving a total of 22,500 kNs of impulse and a starting mass of 70t. A single Mammoth-II would require 50t of fuel for a total impulse of 18,300 kNs, with a starting mass of 74t. Again the Dart comes out on top, but I do have to note that I used sea-level values for all stages. Performances of the Vector and the Mammoth would especially improve a lot while gaining altitude, while the Dart would only improve a bit. You could consider using a Vector at the center stage with 6 Darts on the outer stage, but the additional fuel for the Vector would then count as a higher payload for the prior stages. This makes the Darts much less effective and it would only result in a total of 19,300 kNs of impulse, while having a starting mass of 74t. In fact, since the Dart suffers so much from higher payloads, asparagus staging is probably not even the most efficient way to use it. Just using 7 Darts without staging would give us a much larger impulse of 43,200 KNs, for a starting mass of just 55t. Using drop tanks while keeping all the engines would be even better. Of course, this doesn’t account for the effects of drag as a result of the wider rocket and the increased acceleration, so the best results might actually be achieved by an in-between solution. Conclusion Given all these results, I would at least have to conclude that the Mammoth-II and the Mainsail are never good picks, at least not when they have to be brought in from Kerbin. The optimal choice would be to use Darts. For larger payloads the Vector is a viable choice to lower the amount of engines, or when stabilizers aren't enough and you really need thrust vectoring (which the Dart doesn’t have). The only advantage that the Thud brings is that it’s radially attachable, but you would need a lot of them to make them work. This was pretty interesting to work out as preparation towards the Under Pressure mission, but it's all just theoretical. I don't have a lot of actual experience with Eve, so I'm wondering how this all corresponds with your experiences.

Hi all Here's my entry - I'm already second place I made it with 11.77 tons. I have ~150 hours in KSP2 and ~200 hours in KSP. My first tries were without a reaction wheel as well but I found that way too annoying and invested the 75kg.

Neptune Camera Download and Releases (GitHub) Source Code (GitHub) Only compatible with KSP 1.10.X and above. Neptune Camera is a utility to add basic camera functionality to parts. Images produced by the camera are saved to the KSP Screenshot folder. The following features are present: Different camera types (Full colour, Red, Green, Blue, Ultraviolet*, Infrared** and Greyscale). Optional errors (dropped pixels) on images taken. Optional noise grain. Configurable FoV and resolution. Full colour cameras can produce separate Red, Green, Blue, and greyscale images if required. * The "Ultraviolet" images are produced with a Protanopia colour filter. ** The "Infrared" images are produced with a Tritanopia colour filter. Examples Here are a few tiny 128x128 images produced from the launch pad, using various modes of the camera: Here are a few tiny 128x128 images, demonstrating how the R, G, and B images can be stacked to produce cool "exposure effects" when the craft is moving: Result: Images of Kerbin, in ultraviolet and infrared respectively, with some general grain noise. A tiny 256x256, full colour image, with no error noise, and an animated sequence of frames. A live preview window can be toggled to view what the camera is currently looking at. Finally, images can even be stacked to create panoramas! Setting Up Neptune Camera If you're a part-modder, setting up Neptune Camera is easy! Step 1, when setting up the part in Unity, add a transform, with Z+ pointing the direction you want the camera to point (Y+ being the "up" direction). Step 2, add the Neptune Camera module to your part. MODULE { name = ModuleNeptuneCamera cameraTransformName = cameraTransform cameraType = FULL_COLOUR cameraHasCustomFieldOfView = True cameraFieldOfView = 70 cameraFieldOfViewMax = 110 cameraFieldOfViewMin = 20 cameraHorizontalResolution = 128 cameraVerticalResolution = 128 cameraHasErrors = True cameraErrorRate = 5 cameraHasNoise = True cameraNoiseMaxStrength = 25 cameraHasCustomNearClipPlane = True cameraCustomNearClipPlane = 0.01 cameraHasCustomTitle = True cameraCustomTitle = "Camera" cameraHasDisplayWindow = True cameraHasConfigTransform = False cameraConfigTransformPosition = 0, 0, -0.125 cameraConfigTransformDirection = 0, 180, 0 } A few things are configurable here: cameraTransformName - the name of the transform on the part to attach the camera to. cameraType - the type of camera this is (see below). cameraHasCustomFieldOfView - whether to use a custom field of view. cameraFieldOfView - the field of view of the camera. cameraFieldOfViewMax - the maximum field of view of the camera. cameraFieldOfViewMin - the minimum field of view of the camera. cameraHorizontalResolution - the width of the image produced. cameraVerticalResolution - the height of the image produced. cameraHasErrors - whether errors (dropped pixels) should be added to images produced. cameraErrorRate - the percentage % of the image that will be scrambled with error noise (whole numbers only 1-100). cameraHasNoise - whether noise should be added to the images produced. cameraNoiseMaxStrength - The maximum percentage % strength of the noise produiced (whole numbers only 1-100). cameraHasCustomNearClipPlane - whether a custom near clipping plane should be used. cameraCustomNearClipPlane - the clipping plane distance. cameraHasCustomTitle - whether the camera actions should be prefixed with a custom title (Allow multiple cameras on the same part). cameraCustomTitle - the custom title to use. cameraHasDisplayWindow - Whether a live preview window is available for this camera. cameraHasConfigTransform - whether to use a transform specified in config. cameraConfigTransformPosition - the position of this transform. cameraConfigTransformDirection - the rotation of this transform. Values will be defaulted if not specified in the config. You don't need to specify every value in your own config. Valid camera types: FULL_COLOUR FULL_COLOUR_ONLY RED_COLOUR GREEN_COLOUR BLUE_COLOUR GREYSCALE_COLOUR ULTRAVIOLET_COLOUR INFRARED_COLOUR A note on cameraErrorRate, though this runs 1-100, this value is actually 1-100% of a 10% maximum error rate. Therefore a value of 100 will equal 10% error, and a value of 10 will equal a 1% error rate. You can exceed this if you want, a value of 200 will equal 20% error - but anything above 10% scrambling is basically garbage. Why? I wanted a very basic camera util to capture space probe style photographs, I.E. Venera landers: Another major draw was the idea of creating multiple single colour images and stacking them, to get cool parallax / sliding / exposure effects. Compatible Mods TantaresSP Bluedog Design Bureau (Some support) Know any others? Let me know and I'll add to the list. Credits and Special Thanks This would not be possible without some major help setting up the render-order, culling, and taking care of various other technical hurdles encountered during development. Without further ado, major thanks to: @sarbian @sirkut @JPLRepo These guys are wizards, and it would take me months to get this working without them. My huge gratitude. Licence All Rights Reserved

A selection of my eclipse photos. Taken from Midlothian, Texas. Nikon D90 300mm zoom telephoto. ASA 200. f/11. A partial phase shot through a cheesy filter (made from the lens of some old eclipse viewing glasses, mounted in a cardboard frame). 1/30 sec. You can see the two sunspot groups that were easily visible on the face of the Sun. Diamond ring just before second contact. 1/1000 sec. This shows the inner corona and solar prominences. 1/30 sec exposure showing middle of corona. The reason any eclipse photo has problems looking anything as cool as the naked-eye view is that your eye has a much larger dynamic range than a photograph, so the inner parts of the corona get washed out while the outer tendrils of the corona are too dim to register. One can take a lot of photos covering a range of exposures and then combine them in Photoshop...I did that with a sequence of photos I took of a 1999 eclipse, but it was a lot of effort and I didn't get good exposures of many intermediate times during this eclipse. Below is a 0.6 sec exposure showing outer corona. The ghost image on the left is due to internal reflections in the lens. The corona shape for every eclipse I've seen has been different, and in this one the two spikes off to the left were most noticeable (although the dark rift at the bottom in the photo above was also interesting). Diamond ring after third contact. The largest prominence was visible in the lower right during this half of the eclipse. You can see that we were fighting some clouds that were moving across the face at this time. Cruise ships are a possible way around this problem.

Most of their plans were having anything common neither with technological/economical reality, like the original lunokhod on tracks (hi, lunar dust, 40 km ever) and with nuclear reactor or the rover train, following the lunar terminator in a travel around the Moon (hi again, lunar dust, 40 km ever), nor with engineer's common sense, like these ones So, while it's theoretically feasible to make a spaceship shaped as a statue of Icarus, more dull designs are usually preferred. I didn't know that, that's interesting to know. You are welcome. http://kbhmisaeva.ru/ The N1 was cancelled because it was too handcraftish, unreliable, and limited in payload due to its spherical tanks, enormous cross-section and countless engines. A cylindric rocket can be made (and it was done many times) longer, shorter, narrower, double-diameter bottle or cylindriconical, have lateral boosters to vary the payload. A cylindric shell of UR-200 first stage can be made a launch container for UR-100, the UR-100 made narrower to have a narrower container, of same cylindrical sections like R-9 stages, and when the engines and the gap obturator have gotten better, UR-100 can be replaced with wider UR-100N in original UR-200-wide containers. And all of that on the existing equipment, from standard section, just having them repurposed. And having every rocket matching the railroad car standards until the very late Energy central body. That's what an industrial way is. This spherical-conical snowman was able only to incompletely fill the tanks to launch less than the 95 t max. It wasn't able to carry more than that. So, Glushko just had burnt the heresy with fire, and started making a proper thing. The Space Race was a purely American shadow boxing. The Soviet people were aware of Soviet achievements when they happened, but knew nothing about failures. So, Sputnik, Lunnik, human spaceflights, and orbital stations were actively forced by the official propaganda, but I remember the very late 1980s, when the articles "Do you know that the USSR had its own lunar flight program?", "Look! We had a project of N1 superrocket" began to appear and were looking conspirologically. The official version was: "Meh! While they have sent the people to the Moon, we have done the same even without sending people, so what? Better look at our orbital stations, which they don't have." Also, every second believe that the Apollos were filmed in a studio, because of no stars on lunar sky and radiation belts killing everyone. The space doesn't occupy most part of human mind. Can't understand, sorry. They were afraid of success of what? It doesn't matter. The very way of the Saturn family engineering is typically industrial, like Henry Ford blesses. The Titan and Delta as well. Like UR and Energy, too. All of them are unified and standardized, all of them use existing parts of predecessors, all of them are made of lego. How do the engineers do? They take an alumagnesium alloy standard slab from the metallurgical plant, polish it with a milling machine, cut into standard panels, bend them to a standard curvature, weld fixed amount of them into a cylindrical ring, make its inner surface waffled with another milling machine, send it to the storehouse. They do the same for vessel heads of standard sizes, and for power set elements. They use standard industrial equipment for that, the more common - the better. The less experienced staff is required - the better. The less staff is needed - the better, ideally only automated machines. And this in turn means, the simpler are shapes - the better. Only cylinders, short wide cones, small hemispheres. No long cones like R-7 lateral boosters or the ... anticone? like the R-7 central body, or N-1 stage hulls, large spheres of different diameters like N-1 tanks (six diameters for 3 stages, almost all wider than a railroad car, and one or two wider than a regular river barge). Very excellent, when you can take ready-to-use parts from several different part manufacturers. They take as many cylindric rings of assigned diameter from the storehouse, vessel heads welded into shorter rings of the same diameter, stack them and weld together, making a cylindric tank of required diameter. When they need to make it shorter, instead of two rings with opposing vessel heads they take one with a double hemisphere inside, and make the tank ends nested. When they need longer, they add a standard section, when they need shorter, they take a section less. To reinforce it from inside, they use power sets elements of standard curvature and length, not bend thm ogively. When they need an ogive fairing, they don't bend it out in Tin-Tin rocket style. They stack a set of short cones. Looks worse, made easier. When they need the lower stage wider than they have or the transport allows, they make a bunch of existing narrower cylinders like in Proton or Saturn IB, instead of growing a 16 m wide something like for N-1. They always remember that the local (especially military) specialists are monkeys with grenades, and the farther from the rocket they keep their hands, the better for everyone. Ideally the rocket should be hidden in a faceless cylindric container, delivered by train, put onto the launchpad, and forgotten. Its self-control (leaks and so on) is also better to self-control by the rocket, lighting a red lamp if the pressure between the rocket and the container is changed, or some electric resistance or capacity is changed. Originally the plan was to deliver the rockets already fueled, but after realising that the experienced military hands will more probably crash a fueled rocket than splash the fuel while fuelling, the idea was rejected. So, they deliver it empty, put in, and fuel. To make a container for a smaller rocket, they take sections from the bigger rockets (UR-100x / UR-200), because they are. To make a command post, they take a container from the big rocket, put the post inside instead of a rocket, and hang it in similar silo (R-36M family). To make an orbital telescope, they take a spysat and overturn it (Hubble/KH-11). They follow same dimensional requirements forced by the railroad, so the Shuttle cargo bay ideally matches Almaz station, even when they don't relate to each other. They don't hesitate taking each other's designs to let the things be easy, thus ISS and Shuttle international docking port standard is a Soviet docking port for Buran with changed electric cable positions (while originally the Shuttle was going to dock to Skylab using Apollo-like port), while OKB-1 and OKB-52 designs sometimes have treacherously unusual diameters or perimeters in integer feet. (Actually, they have integer or semi-integer number of aluminium panels per cylindric sections, but somehow the panel sets match integer feet, lol). The way used in N-1 design is a typical barn rocketry. "Let's take all those water tanks, stack them like a snowman, fill with petrol and liquid air, and attach thirty rockets from dragsters. If we need more, let's just buy more metal sheets, cut and weld them manually, like we made the water tower." It's ideal for the barn rocketry, but absolutely bad for mass production. It would be normal for mass production if they were using mass manufactured tanks of standard size, attaching NK-33 developed from NK-15 after testing that in a dragster rally and mass produced. But all those part were not mass manufactured, they were dedicated. So, to make the N-1 kind of rational, they should be producing the set of its tanks as normal industrial vessels for liquids. To do that, in 1920s they should think: "We are going to standardize fuel tanks for farms and fuel stations. What if in the future we will want to stack them and make a rocket. Let's now calculate which diameters we need." It would be possible, as the N-1 tanks have integer capacities in cubic meters, but it didn't happen. The R-7 tricky shape is caused by the RD-107/108 engine. It's weak (80..<100 tf) and bulky (~2.5 m together with attitude thrusters). So, it requires a 2.7 m wide rocket, but can't lift a cylindric one, only the carrot, 2.7 meters at the wide end. It happened because after making RD-103M for R-5M, Glushko bureau failed for various reasons (high-frequency pulsations, too thick chamber wals, etc.) RD-105,106,110 of ~100 tf thrust, and he decided to make the kerolox engine of the lowest adopted thrust, 25 t (like V-2, but more robust and on kerolox). Combining a quad, and adding the 100 tf turbopump from the failed projects, he made the original RD-107 without attitude controls, ~100 tf. But as the attitude controls from 3rd party would crash the harmony, he developed the known RD-107 with 2 and RD-108 with four attitude thrusters, thus the engine became 75..80 tf, so too weak even for IRBM. So, the way they chose was to take a central booster as inverted carrot with RD-108, attach four boosters with RD-107, and thus R-7 appeared, It was three times overpowered (4 t warhead instead of the required 1.5 t), but it was even better because originally the warhead had 10x30 km error. Though, as the warhead department was failing the warhead re-entry, and there was declared an International Geophysical Year (the USSR, the USA, and the PRC had loudly declared their intention to launch the first satellite in that year, and immediately screwed it), Korolyov suggested Khrushchev to spend one headless R-7 from the storehouse to troll the 'Muricans with sat. Khrushchev was glad and agreed. Thus the first satellite flew into space. After putting five R-7 on military service and realizing that they are a total failure as ICBM, (they ordered to Korolyov / Korolyov asked them for) make a R-9A rocket. Korolyov was not punished for R-7 because the governmental order on R-7 creation was signed by the best people of the Soviet state, so whom should they accuse in that case. Kuznetsov bureau was making the NK-9 engine for it, and Glushko was making RD-111 as post-RD-107 with 4x40 tf chambers (like in the most powerful alcoholic RD-103M, but based on RD-107 design). Glushko was first, and R-9A was equipped with RD-111, raw and untested, so unstable. NK-9 appeared later and were used in the experimental global GR-1, based on the R-9A, and in the upper stages of N-1. Based on NK-9, the Kuznetsov bureau developed NK-15, and then NK-33 and its further family. Glushko suggested Korolyov to make R-7 bigger, give it six lateral booster, and replace RD-107 with RD-111, to make it 20 t capable, but to that time the UR-500 was more perspective and sane than another bunch of carrots on a huge rotating "Tulip", while the RD-111 was not properly finished, so the further R-7 and RD-107 upgrades were done by other bureaus. *** Now let's imagine that in mid-1950s the Soviet Governmental Commission had listened to the Korolyov description of R-7 and tulip launchpad, made a cuckoo sign, deciding that no ICBM and saved money is better than no ICBM and spent money, and totally dismissed him from rocketry and space, sending him to the rocket factory as a manager (the post where he was good). Obviously, no sat or Vostok is flying somewhere, Zenith spysat (closer to Corona or Sputnik-3) keeps being developed (irl replaced with Zenith-2 aka Vostok). Maybe the 'Muricans are the first in space, let them be happy, but more probably that in absence of Russkies in Space they keep screwing that space and finally lose the race again, lol. There is already 1.65 m Yangel's middle-range R-12 on pseudokerosene and nitric acid, replacing R-5M, and short-range SLBM R-13/R-21, all of them derived from R-11, derived from Wasserfall, derived from A-4. Next step is R-9B on UDMH and nitric acid, cancelled (due to then-weak engines and Korolyov's opposing to Yangel, who was formally his deputy) and turned into a family of IRBM and ICBM, i.e. R-14 and R-16. The size is the same as in real history. Thanks, railroad, for your 325 cm wide cars, causing R-16 1st stage 290 cm. Thanks, Thor, for your 8 ft (aka 244 cm) as the R-14 only stage. Thanks, R-14, for your 244 or 246 cm as the R-16 2nd stage. IRL also thanks R-9A for your 268 cm as R-14 shirt, compatible with the R-9A launchpad. Btw by taking a metal sheet 174x70 cm (or in case of Proton 200x80 cm), we can easily get some perimeters and diameters. From the railroad dimensions, we have 290 cm of max diameter inside a car, and 448 cm oversized. Thus, the widest part of Proton is 435 cm, but by splitting a shroud in quarters, we can have 570 cm wide shroud. Also, that's why the Shuttle cargo bay is 4.5+ m wide, exactly matching Salyut. Yes, thanks to the Roman horses. The A-4 is 165 cm in diameter, but twice as wide ~325 cm in wing span, so transportable straight by a railroad, or diagonally by a trailer which is transportable by the railroad. For wider stages only barges are appropriate. Barges can contain integer number of the Intermodal Containers of fixed size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container#Specifications. Basically, they are 2.438 m wide. Taking intercontainer gap as 5 cm, we have standard barge payload zone widths: 2 containers = 2x2.438 + 3x0.05 = 5 m 3 containers = 3x2.438 + 4x0.05 = 7.5 m 4 containers = 4x2.438 + 5x0.05 = 10 m (most common) 5 containers = 5x2.438 + 6x0.05 = 12.5 m 6 containers = 6x2.438 + 7x0.05 = 15 m (river-sea class barge, avoid it for its renting price) 24 containers = 24x2.438 + 25x0.05 = 60 m MSC Gülsün (Notice the perfect match of the sizes and the Metric units. It's probably done by French or Germans to troll the Anglosaxons). The same dimension limits are also clearly visible in the automobile trailer sizes, and bridge standards. The railroad car is 22..25 m long, thus all rockets or rocket stages are shorter than 22 m. If they are longer, they consist of two parts, assembled after the railroading. The central UR-700 (9-block) booster and the additional boosters of UR-700 (15- and 18-block) consist of two main 4.1 m wide parts: fuel tank and engines, and oxidizer tank. Each is delivered by its own car. The lateral UR-700 (9-block) boosters has a third part on top, transfusion tank, consisting of 12 m high tilted cone and ~10 m cylinder. The central and lateral booster tanks of UR-700 (15- and 18-block) are longer by one 2-m high section, 7 and 5 instead of 6 and 4 rings. All of them are shorter than a railroad car. That's the engineers' way of doing things. Science is for nerds, who live in their Mathematrix. True engineers measure in train cars and barges by hands. That's the Way. *** So, in absence of R-7 and R-9 the R-14 and R-16 pair appears by several years earlier, and has same dimensions. The they are taken and used by OKB-52 in their development of UR family. UR-200 is a standard launch vehicle for 2.5 t orbital payloads (IS/US sats), and in this reality becomes the first rocket to put in LEO all three first sats, and something like Mercury (1.7 t), if they decide. Actually, it would be a 0.8 sized single-seat cabin of further LK-1 with some lifesupport aggregate attached below, like they prefer, with 2..6 orbits lifespan. Non-maneuverable, pure Mercury. By implementing the intermediate concept which led from 3 m wide UR-200 to 4 m wide UR-500, they would attach four lateral booster of then-coming-UR-500 with engines from UR-200 (nailed, not jettisonnable, like in UR-500, but with their own fuel tanks in every), enlarge the second stage to 2.9 m, and get a rocket with 5 t payload, ideal for Vostok (4.8 t) or simplified LK-1 (standard 2.511 capsule, but no maneuvering). Vostok is basically a stratospheric balloon cabin, used in many ways since Piccard created it first for FNRS-1, so its usage in a spaceship looks obvious, either as a cabin, or as a habitat. Basically, this gives Vostok/Voskhod and Soyuz. So, even if the very first ship was based on LK-1 design, it's very possible that Vostok would be repeated in this reality as the first day-to-week flight ship for basic experiments. The Mercury-like cone would anyway be airbreaking ballistically, at the same 10 g. Once RD-253 come into scene, a UR-500-compatible, 4.1 m wide, 250 t heavy rocket with twin RD-253, third stage of UR-500 as 2nd stage, with payload capacity of 6+ t, i.e. a total alternative for R-7 appears. It would be launching Soyuzes and LK-1. Btw, LK-1 has a triple purpose. Its rear booster (delta-V ~ 3 km/s) can put it in LEO, or send it from LEO to the lunar flyby, or return it from the lunar surface to the Moon (they called it LK-3). Actually, a rather multifunctional ship with that booster as integral part. It was replaced with LK-700 to increase it volume, to add two lunar EVA suits. Otherwise they should be getting out in undies rescue suits, and have just several minutes to plant a flag, listen the anthem, make a selfie, grab several nearest stones and jump back to the cabin. This would happen in early 1960s. In absence of N-1 distraction, the RD-270 is developed, the UR-700 appears first 9-block, then 15- and 18-block, up to 270 t payload. The UR-500 adopts NK-33 family as UR-500MK, then grows up twice, becoming a 70 t capable kerolox rocket. The next step is 8.8 m central booster with four expanded parablocks from UR-700 (15-block), followed by UR-700M of 12 m central body and seven lateral 8.8 m boosters, 700+ t of payload. As RD-170 was designed from the RD-270 turbopump and, they say, NK-33 ancestry, a RD-170 or quad NK-33+ still appears to make the rocket kerolox. Probably, the further progress would be possible only as a combination of Sea Dragon and Nexus, so they would wait for wiki article with its DIY pdf on it.

I've built some pretty big stuff recently, and although it still requires the judicious placement of some struts manually, it's way, way better than it was before. My docked together Eve 10 stack on LKO must be like 200 meters long, and although the framerate on it is terrible and it occasionally develops phantom motions and shakes itself to bits apropos of nothing, it doesn't exhibit any wet noodle behavior that I've seen. As to the solution being "duct tape", i.e. autostruts, are you sure there is actually a better solution than that using this physics engine? If you call those "tack welds" rather than autostruts, it seems like a llegit solution to me. There are definitely much worse problems currently they should be focusing on before they try to improve their wobbly rockets solution, unless of course that solution is in fact what is tanking the frame rate.

CHAPTER 0: OUR DREAM YEAR 1, DAY 1 - LAUNCH OF THE CKR SPACE PROGRAM 200 years ago, the nations of Kerbin agreed to join into one global government, called the Communist Kerbin Republic (CKR). Ever since the start of the CKR, its citizens had always looked to the stars. Even with its shaky start, the dream stayed alive. Unfortunately, the nation formed just as the industrial revolution was starting, so the stars always remained just out of reach. Well today, the dream comes alive, with the creation of the brand new CKR Space Program. Its goal is to conquer the new frontier of space travel, and spread all across the Kerbolar system. Of course, we're thinking too far ahead. For now, we need to figure out one thing: can we even get there? CHAPTER LIST Chapter 1: Dawn of the Space Age Chapter 2: Mun and Done Chapter 3: Expanded Influence Chapter 4: Stepping Out Chapter 5: Advancement and Innovation Chapter 6: Walking Among the Stars Chapter 7: Gaining Experience Chapter 8: Setting the Foundation Chapter 9: Full Force -------------------------------------------------------------- Well, here we go again. Another mission report. Maybe this time I'll actually get around to updating it. Why exactly am I making this mission report though? Well, I'm honestly very disappointed with the huge lack of soviet based mission reports. There are several based on NASA. Hell, even Beyond is based on NASA. But there's something about Soviet spacecraft that has character to them. The round spacecraft shapes in contrast to the sharp-pointed fairings, the round circular windows. Sure, the Soviet Union wasn't the greatest of countries, but from how much they've contributed to space travel, they at least deserve some form of recognition on the forums. Inspirations: @Hotaru's mission report CCKP: An Eventful Return for giving me the idea of doing a Soviet thread. @Misguided Kerbal's mission report Starbound - A JNSQ Adventure for the semi-historical thread idea and what I'm basing my layout off of. @TwoCalories's mission report The Sky is Not the Limt: A modded KSP1 Career Playthrough for his Kerbalized Soviet craft, as well as TwoCalories himself being a valiant friend of mine on the forums. THIS IS NOT A PRO OR ANTI COMMUNIST THREAD, NOR A POLITICAL STATEMENT. I WANT TO SAY THAT BEFORE SOMEBODY YELLS AT ME.

uhh... guys, I have a most precarious situation to share with you. I currently have a spacecraft ferrying three tourists on track to do a free return flyby of the mun. The problem is, however, is that I have never done such a long mission before, and forgor to pack solar panels. (I DIDNT know that probe cores requires elecrticity to stay alive, not just to execute actions) My only hope is the 200 units of electricity and 175 m/s of delta v. Should I decouple , and hope for the best, or should I find some weird shenanigans to do to save it legit? Another fail for me :))

Imho we will see the V3 reach 160 meters of total stack: 90 for superheavy and 70 for Starship, with 5000 gross tons for superheavy and 2500-3000 tons for starship ( in normal and tanker configuration respectively), at 10k tons of thrust that's still a respectable 1.3 of TWR at liftoff. Utter insanity, and we are all here for this. In the end SH will have something like 20x350 tons raptor boost and 13x 300 raptor SL that gimble, and the starship will have 6x350 tons raptor vacuum fixed and 3x300 tons SL gimballing raptors, for a total of 11k tons for SH and 3k tons of thrust for starship. This will give a 1.5 TWR for normal starship stack and 1.2 for Starship in particular, and 1.4 and 1 for the tanker version. Let's do some math: So, assumptions: - Isp avg of raptor 2 sea level during ascent: 350 ( it's 330-360 at sea level and vacuum respectively) - Isp of starship during ascent: 370 ( sea level is at 360, raptor vacuum at 380). - starship empty weight 150 tons - superheavy empty weight: 300 tons - remaining props and deltaV for starship to deorbit and land: 950 m/s aka 50 tons prop at 350 Isp, and I'm being very conservative. (100 meters/seconds for deorbit like Shuttle and 800 m/s for landing) - remaning props and deltaV for superheavy for boost back and landing: 400 tons, good for 2900 Ms/s of DV - payload: 200 tons - so total mass that has to reach orbit: 400 tons (150+50+200) - DV needed to reach orbit : 9.2-9.4 km/s of DV ( probably even lower for starship because it has a lot of thrust so way less gravity losses, but it is a good ballpark). - total mass of 2nd stage: 2700 tons (2350 tons of prop, 150 starship, 200 tons payload) - total mass at stage separation: 3400 tons (2700+ 300 SH +400 SH prop for boost back and landing) Total weight of the stack: 7500 tons, 4500 tons are props for the 1st stage, of witch 4100 will be burnt before staging. So: 1st stage gives the 2nd stage 2700 Ms/s of DV ( if you want to calculate with a DV calculator: full mass 7500 tons, dry mass 3400 tons, Isp 350) 2nd stage DV with 400 tons of stuff ( 200+50+150) with 2300 tons of props burnt , 2700 tons full mass and 370 of ISP: 6900 Ms/s of DV Total DV: 9.6 km/s of DV total, way more than needed. I would say that that if they can make the raptor really to 350 tons for the fixed/vacuum ones and 300 tons of thrust of the gimballing ones, we are golden, and 200 tons of payload might be conservative.

Basically, whenever I try to upload a new PFP, the forum says “Error -200” and "Sorry, and unknown server error occurred when uploading this file.

Y5 D35 - Y6 D74 - Sarnus Explorer Now that we've gotten things squared away in the Kerbin system, it's time to turn our attention to the outer system once again. On Day 35 of Year 5 of our program, Sarnus Explorer finally arrives at the outer reaches of the Sarnus system, after a journey of almost four years. Now that we're here, it's a good time to review the mission objectives for the probe: Minimum Objectives: One flyby of Sarnus One flyby of Tekto Primary Objectives: Two flybys of Sarnus Two flybys of each of Sarnus' major moons: Tekto, Slate, and Eeloo. Deploy the probe's atmospheric sub-probes, one on Sarnus and one on Tekto. Secondary Objectives: Perform flybys of Sarnus' minor moons: Ovok and Hale. Perform additional flybys of Sarnus and its major moons. As can be seen from the mission plan, one of our major goals for Sarnus Explorer is to study Tekto, which appears to have a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. So, as luck would have it, Orbital Dynamics informs me that Sarnus Explorer has the opportunity to fly by Tekto immediately upon its entry into the Sarnus system. This is obviously a chance we can't pass up. So, here at the edge of the system, the probe burns to intercept Tekto. See you back here in a couple of months. ---------- Things move slowly in the outer system. Here we are almost two months later, and Sarnus Explorer is rapidly approaching Tekto. This is obviously the closest anyone has ever been to the Sarnus system, and the imagery we're getting back is just stunning. Since we have no assurances that we'll ever get this close to Tekto again, we're going to take this opportunity to deploy the Tekto atmospheric probe. As Sarnus Explorer reaches the release point, about half an hour away from periapsis, it releases the probe. Sarnus Explorer then immediately burns to raise its periapsis above Tekto's atmosphere. Now that Sarnus Explorer is safe, we can turn our attention to the Tekto probe. It strikes the upper atmosphere of Tekto and is immediately enveloped in plasma. Thankfully, the heat shield holds, and soon the probe is free-falling through Tekto's atmosphere and returning data. The probe continues to fall, slowed to ridiculously slow speeds by the dense atmosphere. It appears to be falling towards an area in Tekto's northern hemisphere that is dominated by rugged mountains and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. Five hundred meters above the surface the probe deploys its parachute. In an incredibly lucky break, the probe touches down on an island in the middle of a lake. It continues to transmit data to Sarnus Explorer until it passes out of transmission range. Unbelievable. Sarnus Explorer passes within a hundred kilometers of Tekto, and then continues on to Sarnus. What an incredible start to the mission. Well, despite losing some velocity from its Tekto flyby, Sarnus Explorer is still on an escape trajectory out of the Sarnus system. We should probably do something about that. A gravity assist from Slate would probably allow us to capture without a burn, but unfortunately Orbital Dynamics just can't seem to find an angle for that. However, they do come up with an angle for an Eeloo flyby. Any port in a storm. Sarnus Explorer performs a minor burn just after leaving Tekto to line it up. ---------- Two days later now, and Sarnus Explorer is closing in on its encounter with Eeloo. Although the probe will lose even more velocity with this flyby, it still will not be in orbit around Sarnus when it exits Eeloo's SOI. So, in order to capture around Sarnus, it will have to burn at Eeloo periapsis. So now Sarnus Explorer is officially captured at Sarnus! (And, even though the requirements of the burn reduced our scientific gain, the Eeloo flyby was still scientifically significant, so it meets the requirements for our mission objectives.) Sarnus Explorer swings wide around Sarnus and heads out to its apoapsis. Meanwhile, Orbital Dynamics plots their next move. ---------- Okay, so it has been almost another two months. Sarnus Explorer is approaching its apoapsis, and we're all waiting with baited breath to hear what rabbit Orbital Dynamics has pulled out of their hat. <reads brief handed to him by OD supervisor> Well, it seems that the plan is to burn at apoapsis for a flyby of Slate, then to use the gravity assist at Slate to reduce Sarnus Explorer's periapsis enough to release the Sarnus atmospheric probe. I like it. Sarnus Explorer burns at apoapsis. And now we'll come back here in another couple months to see where that gets us. ---------- Here we are back on Day 191, and now Sarnus Explorer is passing by Slate for the first time. Once it has exited Slate's SOI, we get our data back...and it's not quite there. The periapsis is not quite low enough to release the probe. So we require another burn. <disapproving glare at OD gang> So now, Sarnus Explorer is finally on course to release the Sarnus atmospheric probe. As it descends towards Sarnus, we have more bad news. It appears that the atmospheric probe will be making its descent on the night side of Sarnus. So while this will have no effect on most of its scientific data, we will not be receiving the kind of stunning visual images we received from the Jool atmospheric probe. We could delay the release of the probe until such time that it could be released on the day side, but the visual images just aren't important enough to warrant the risk. In any case, Sarnus Explorer continues its descent. About half an hour away from periapsis, it releases the probe. Sarnus Explorer immediately burns to raise its periapsis so that it doesn't burn up in Sarnus' atmosphere. This consumes a large amount of fuel, and Flight informs me that this brings us below 50% of our initial fuel load. It seems early in the mission to be this low, but apparently this is going to be a very different mission than Jool Explorer was. In any case, the Sarnus probe hurtles towards its doom. However, its heat shield holds, and it descends through Sarnus' atmosphere, transmitting data to Sarnus Explorer as it goes. When it reaches 300 kilometers below the cloud tops, it deploys its parachute. It then continues transmitting until it fails at about 200 kilometers altitude. Although Sarnus Explorer is obviously in transmission blackout on the night side of Sarnus, when it reaches daylight it transmits the data it received from the atmospheric probe, as well as the data it collected from its own close flyby of Sarnus. Two more successful mission milestones! While Sarnus Explorer is climbing back out of the well to its apoapsis and Orbital Dynamics is plotting its next maneuver, we can turn our attention to the upcoming crew rotation, which will take place entirely before Sarnus Explorer returns to the vicinity of Sarnus. ---------- Day 207. Orbital Dynamics has interrupted my very busy morning to inform me that Sarnus Explorer has the opportunity for a double whammy. A burn at the next apoapsis can set up a flyby of Hale, and then on the next orbit, with no burn necessary, it will get a flyby of Ovok. Normally I wouldn't approve of fuel expenditure on secondary objectives before the primary objectives are complete, but this seems like the sort of opportunity that will only happen once on this mission, so it's too good to pass up. So I sign off on the flight plan. Then I get back to herding the cats through the crew rotation. Two days later, Sarnus Explorer burns at apoapsis. I guess we'll see how this works out. ---------- We're here on Day 227 now, and Sarnus Explorer is approaching Hale. It's a captured asteroid. I'm glad you guys are excited. I've pulled bigger rocks out of my garden. Anyway, since its so small, it has no appreciable affect on Sarnus Explorer's velocity. OD tells me that we are still on course to intercept Ovok on the next orbit. ---------- And now it's Day 256, and we're coming up on Ovok. Apparently this worked. Good job, guys. First images are coming back from Ovok...and...it looks rather odd. It's an egg.... Well, now I've seen everything. If any of the images come back with a giant space chicken, let me know. No, actually, on second thought, don't. I have enough to worry about. So, that was a very successful maneuver, killed two...birds...with one stone. So to speak. We've got another couple of weeks now until Sarnus Explorer reaches apoapsis again. ---------- So, SE is back at apoapsis again. OD looked at our objectives and poured over our options. So now we're going to make a minor burn to line up for an Eeloo flyby. And apparently the gravity assist will sling us around for another Eeloo flyby on our next orbit. Sounds good. ---------- Day 286, and Sarnus Explorer is cruising by Sarnus towards its second flyby of the little iceball, Eeloo. And there it goes. And OD informs me that the next Eeloo flyby is lined up perfectly. Good job. You've almost worked off that screw up you made with the Slate gravity assist. <wink> Meanwhile, the next day, our intrepid crew on Duna reach the end of their mission. They stow and secure the hab and rover at Duna Base, and then make their way to Olympus to prepare for their departure. Then, as Draco passes over the horizon: Liftoff! Guided by Captain Krueger's expert hand, Olympus glides into orbit next to Draco. And then he guides her in to dock. Draco's departure window is about 12 days away, so the crew has time to get their gear stowed and bring all of Draco's systems back online. In the meantime, we can get back to Sarnus. ---------- Sarnus Explorer reaches its apoapsis, but it is on course for its next Eeloo flyby and requires no intervention. I guess we'll leave things here and get back to Duna. ---------- Back aboard Draco, the crew is ready for departure. Although their time on Duna has been rewarding, and their names will go down in history, they are all ready to go home. As Draco approaches its burn time, everyone checks and double-checks their systems. When everything is GO, Captain Krueger gives the GO, and Kline ignites the ship's engine and burns for Kerbin. Several days later, Draco exits Duna's SOI. The crew spins up the habitat and settles in. Their course correction burn is more than a couple months away, and home is three times as far as that. So they might as well kick their feet up. ---------- Back at Sarnus, SE arrives at its third Eeloo flyby. While I appreciate everything that OD does for us, I think I speak for everyone when I say: We've had enough of Eeloo. However, this flyby will give us a gravity assist and push the probe's orbit further out, which should give us more opportunities for flybys with other moons on our next orbit. ---------- As Sarnus Explorer approaches apoapsis again, our fortunes have improved. OD's new flight plan involves a small burn which places us on a course back to Tekto. Excellent, more study of Tekto will improve our mission success. ---------- Okay, we're here on Day 366 for our second Tekto flyby of the mission. Well, that was a little anticlimactic. But Science is telling me they did get good data. And OD says if we had flown any closer it may have gravity-assisted us right out of the Sarnus system. Okay, I guess. Better luck next orbit. ---------- Day 397, back at apoapsis. OD has us burning for Slate this time. I guess we'll see everyone back here next year. ---------- Okay everyone, it's Year 6, Day 3 now. Happy New Year. Sarnus Explorer is cruising on down to its encounter with Slate. There now! That's a flyby! However, OD tells me that the gravity assist has seriously reduced SE's orbit. However, with a slight burn at the next apoapsis, which is now in just two days, we can plot another Slate encounter that will gravity assist the orbit back up to a reasonable distance. SE burns at apoapsis to raise its periapsis and intercept Slate. ---------- And now, two weeks later, Sarnus Explorer has another close encounter with Sarnus. And when it pulls out of that, it swings by Slate again. And, OD informs me, with a burn now, just outside of Slates SOI, we can plot another flyby of Tekto. Excellent work, everyone, excellent. However, Flight informs me that Sarnus Explorer has, as of the end of this burn, dropped below the threshold of 25% of its initial fuel load. Since we have officially met all of our primary and secondary objectives, that means we need to begin to look at our end-of-mission options. ---------- Four days later, Day 25, and Draco has reached its course correction burn. Time flies when you're having fun, right guys? The next day, Sarnus Explorer reaches its third flyby of Tekto. Orbital Dynamics has a final flight plan for me. Two days out from the Tekto flyby, SE executes a burn, which plots a course for another Tekto flyby. That flyby brings it around to a course to intercept Slate. Then the gravity assist from Slate will bring the probe's orbit down such that its periapsis intersects with Sarnus' atmosphere, which will result in the disposal of the probe and the end of the mission. So, two days out from Tekto, SE burns again. It begins its descent towards Sarnus. ---------- Day 54 now, and Sarnus Explorer is approaching its fourth and final Tekto flyby. It's another distant flyby, but it is certainly worth the effort from a scientific standpoint. As it exits Tekto's SOI, OD informs me that we will require another small course correction to finalize our trajectory to Slate. This brings the probe below 20% of its fuel load. Good thing we're ending this now. ---------- Day 72 now. Sarnus Explorer is in its last few days now. It completes its final flyby of Slate. And once it has exited the SOI, OD informs me that everything is lined up perfectly. Two days later, the probe is rapidly approaching the cloud tops of Sarnus. Slate, Eeloo, and Ovok showed up to see Sarnus Explorer off. And as the probe enters the atmosphere... ...end of transmission. Another excellent mission. Couple of hiccups in there, but we still vastly exceeded the mission objectives. Once again, good job everyone! Next up on the agenda is the homecoming of Draco and her crew. Beyond that, we will be planning our next mission to Duna, as well as possibly commissioning another vessel in the Draco class for additional missions in the inner Kerbol system. So many possibilities await!

Also: Raptor 3 thrust: SL 280 tons Vacuum: 306 tons Raptor boost: 330tons Compared to raptor 2: SL 230 Vacuum 258 Raptor 1 SL 185 Vacuum 200

I originally posted the following in the April Fool's Day thread about converting to imperial units. However, to avoid turning that thread into another one like this, I'm moving the post here so, in the event people want to discuss it, they can do so in this thread, where it belongs. A lot has been made of the development teams (coders, artists, etc.) not having anything to do with communicating with the community, and I'll say up front that I agree with that statement. No, I do not want the developers to sit around and talk on the forums or Discord all day long; they have a game to write, for pete's sake. I'd rather they spend their time on the clock coding, or drawing, or whatever it is they need to do to get the game done. Go. Please. With that said, it is the job of the Community Managers to interact and engage with the community. As far as EA goes, it should be their job to engage with us and let us know exactly what is happening with the development of the game. Yes, this involves interviewing the developers, and compiling lists of bugs, and all the other stuff that goes along with that. But it is their literal job to interact with the community, and the issue here is that instead of the CM's doing this, they are worrying about things that the community quite frankly as a whole doesn't care about. This leads me to believe that one of the following 2 situations is true: The CM's are understaffed and overworked to the point where they simply cannot interact in meaningful ways. Dakota is on his own right now as Mike is off on paternity leave (and coming back this month, I think?), and the organization either hired but has not trained the new person they posted for months ago OR they simply decided not to do it. And this is on top of all of the vacation and time off that was taken over the holidays. If this is the case, if it is a situation where Dakota simply does not have the time to effectively do his job and interact with the community in thoughtful and meaningful ways, then I have to ask why he has the time to come up with weekly challenges and joke threads. I get that those things may be part of his job, but we have begged for more meaningful communication and have not gotten it. Does he not have time to ask the developers where they are at? Do the CM's not have the ability or authority to ask the artists what they have drawn up lately? Has Nate decided that he doesn't need to give interviews to the CM's or host AMA's any longer? And if this is all the case, why hasn't the company hired more CM's to help alleviate the strain on Dakota? It's either this, or... The developers honestly have nothing to show or discuss at this point. And if this is the case, there's a whole box of Lego's that need to be unpacked with this. Because, quite frankly, how can you be 6 years into development, and 1 year+ into early access, and have nothing to discuss? We have bugs that have been persistent since launch, promises made both before and during launch that haven't been met, and yet they have nothing to divulge? Bug reports that aren't discussed but end up in the archive with no explanation, and no talking about them? The company hired 2 of the best and brightest minds from the KSP1 mod community to help write this game, and you've got nothing to show at this point? For Science! dropped almost 4 months ago, and since then we've seen like 1 or 2 images of what might be in colonies, but you have no words to go with that? Where are we at on the road map as far as colonies goes? I know you can't give any dates, but are we even close? And those images of gigantic parts in space - are they going to be in the game, and if so, how do we get them up into space? Where are we at with all those bugs for months you just keep saying "Researching"? On those bugs you are looking for additional feedback on - what do you need from us to help you? What information are you looking for that we haven't already provided? And what do you say to those people - like myself - who have mid-range equipment and are supposed to see performance increases but aren't? (Side note - anything greater than 200 parts on my rig drops my FPS to 10. In orbit. 32 GB RAM, 2060 Super, Ryzen 9 3900 12 core. Tell me again how performance has gotten better.) It's no secret that I have been very vocal about where I think the game is at, and where it is headed. I've complained enough, so I'm trying not to do more of the same here (even though I'm sure this will all still be seen as complaining). But I want this game to succeed. I want this game to outplay, outperform, and outlast the original. I do not want to have to see the community come together and have the modders create KSP3. Nobody wants that. We shouldn't even have to float that idea, to be honest. But enough. Enough of the joke threads. Enough of the weekly challenges. Enough of the silence. We have held up our end of the bargain here in EA by not only shelling out the cost of the full release game, but we've been up front and honest with you about bugs, feedback, and telling you what it is we want. We are simply asking for the company to hold up their end. Too much damage has been done over this, but we are still willing to overlook that and give you back our trust if you would simply communicate with us and let us know where this whole thing stands. No corp-speak, no double meanings, no half-truths. Just be honest. We will understand. Heck, we've been understanding for the better part of a decade now; honesty will only help to repair the relationship.

So, my wife and kids talked me into starting a Stardew Valley co-op game with them. Against my better judgement. But I learned that playing Stardew Valley with the Starcraft soundtrack loudly playing in the background makes Stardew Valley 200% better.

A lot has been made of the development teams (coders, artists, etc.) not having anything to do with communicating with the community, and I'll say up front that I agree with that statement. No, I do not want the developers to sit around and talk on the forums or Discord all day long; they have a game to write, for pete's sake. I'd rather they spend their time on the clock coding, or drawing, or whatever it is they need to do to get the game done. Go. Please. With that said, it is the job of the Community Managers to interact and engage with the community. As far as EA goes, it should be their job to engage with us and let us know exactly what is happening with the development of the game. Yes, this involves interviewing the developers, and compiling lists of bugs, and all the other stuff that goes along with that. But it is their literal job to interact with the community, and the issue here is that instead of the CM's doing this, they are worrying about things that the community quite frankly as a whole doesn't care about. This leads me to believe that one of the following 2 situations is true: The CM's are understaffed and overworked to the point where they simply cannot interact in meaningful ways. Dakota is on his own right now as Mike is off on paternity leave (and coming back this month, I think?), and the organization either hired but has not trained the new person they posted for months ago OR they simply decided not to do it. And this is on top of all of the vacation and time off that was taken over the holidays. If this is the case, if it is a situation where Dakota simply does not have the time to effectively do his job and interact with the community in thoughtful and meaningful ways, then I have to ask why he has the time to come up with weekly challenges and joke threads. I get that those things may be part of his job, but we have begged for more meaningful communication and have not gotten it. Does he not have time to ask the developers where they are at? Do the CM's not have the ability or authority to ask the artists what they have drawn up lately? Has Nate decided that he doesn't need to give interviews to the CM's or host AMA's any longer? And if this is all the case, why hasn't the company hired more CM's to help alleviate the strain on Dakota? It's either this, or... The developers honestly have nothing to show or discuss at this point. And if this is the case, there's a whole box of Lego's that need to be unpacked with this. Because, quite frankly, how can you be 6 years into development, and 1 year+ into early access, and have nothing to discuss? We have bugs that have been persistent since launch, promises made both before and during launch that haven't been met, and yet they have nothing to divulge? Bug reports that aren't discussed but end up in the archive with no explanation, and no talking about them? The company hired 2 of the best and brightest minds from the KSP1 mod community to help write this game, and you've got nothing to show at this point? For Science! dropped almost 4 months ago, and since then we've seen like 1 or 2 images of what might be in colonies, but you have no words to go with that? Where are we at on the road map as far as colonies goes? I know you can't give any dates, but are we even close? And those images of gigantic parts in space - are they going to be in the game, and if so, how do we get them up into space? Where are we at with all those bugs for months you just keep saying "Researching"? On those bugs you are looking for additional feedback on - what do you need from us to help you? What information are you looking for that we haven't already provided? And what do you say to those people - like myself - who have mid-range equipment and are supposed to see performance increases but aren't? (Side note - anything greater than 200 parts on my rig drops my FPS to 10. In orbit. 32 GB RAM, 2060 Super, Ryzen 9 3900 12 core. Tell me again how performance has gotten better.) It's no secret that I have been very vocal about where I think the game is at, and where it is headed. I've complained enough, so I'm trying not to do more of the same here (even though I'm sure this will all still be seen as complaining). But I want this game to succeed. I want this game to outplay, outperform, and outlast the original. I do not want to have to see the community come together and have the modders create KSP3. Nobody wants that. We shouldn't even have to float that idea, to be honest. But enough. Enough of the joke threads. Enough of the weekly challenges. Enough of the silence. We have held up our end of the bargain here in EA by not only shelling out the cost of the full release game, but we've been up front and honest with you about bugs, feedback, and telling you what it is we want. We are simply asking for the company to hold up their end. Too much damage has been done over this, but we are still willing to overlook that and give you back our trust if you would simply communicate with us and let us know where this whole thing stands. No corp-speak, no double meanings, no half-truths. Just be honest. We will understand. Heck, we've been understanding for the better part of a decade now; honesty will only help to repair the relationship.

Multiple sources give a 3,400 ton propellant load for the booster and 1,200 tons for the ship, for 4,600 ton max propellant load. The 4,500 ton total given in the SpaceX tweet is only 2% off this value. That could be just round off error or it could be you don’t want literally the tanks to be filled to the very top to allow for boiloff of the cryogenic propellant. Bob Clark