Sadness. Just found another thing that was broke in 1.0

[Red Iron Crown]

Says who? Show me the design spec.

It's right in the game's description, written by the people making the game:

"Fully-fledged, Physics-based Flight Simulation ensures everything will fly (and crash) as it should."

inb4 appeal to authority discussion

[Foxster]

It's right in the game's description, written by the people making the game:

"Fully-fledged, Physics-based Flight Simulation ensures everything will fly (and crash) as it should."

inb4 appeal to authority discussion

No mention of reality or whose physics.

[KSK]

No mention of reality or whose physics.

No but the words 'as it should' are a big clue that the physics are supposed to approximate to our reality, given that that's the only point of reference we have to work with.

I'm hearing the crunching sound of straws being clutched and squashed here.

[Red Iron Crown]

Eh, if you just want to play word games to deliberately misinterpret what is fairly clearly written I'll just bow out.

[Orbital Vagabond]

I fill like a possible solution to producing low thrust in an atmosphere would be to provide a stock electric propeller. You still get to use electricity to produce a small amount of thrust. You just need to provide a second means of propulsion to make it into orbit in the vacuum.

[tater]

Give ions a thrust curve as a function of gravity such that at some local value of gravitational acceleration, the thrust is realistic (meaning too low to be useful for anything but constant thrust trajectories). So when GM/r^2>0.05 or something, the ions thrust is what it should be realistically.

It is arbitrary, so can be tweaked.

[Foxster]

Eh, if you just want to play word games to deliberately misinterpret what is fairly clearly written I'll just bow out.

Oh come on, it's just getting interesting. We have the lone nut job who's been drinking Rochefort 10 taking on the NASA nerds. Gotta be worth at least a look in now and again.

[LittleBlueGaming]

Come on, Squad isn't going to turn KSP into a dry, ultra-realistic, tedious simulator. As I understand it, Orbiter fulfills that niche. We don't need arguments trying to remind them to keep it fun, this game is amazing.

If you want 150% unrealistic engines, then mod them. They don't belong in the stock game. Just like any other sandbox game, you can completely ruin the theme by what you include in the stock experience. Minecraft shouldn't come packaged with anti-monster turrets and a shop where you can buy any weapon imaginable. 7 Days to Die shouldn't come packaged with the ability to fly. The best approach is to make a game that is self-consistent with its own theme, and then allow the people to customize things as they see fit through modding.

It's been said in this thread, better than I can put it, that the game is meant to represent real space exploration at a basic level. They've stuck an amazing balance between realism and fun, keeping it as close to realism as possible without ruining the fun. No unobtainium rocket parts, no infinite fuel, no magic engines, no superpowers.

No 'One Engine to rule them all, One Engine to find them, One Engine to bring them all and in the darkness bind them'.

[Zucal]

Oh come on, it's just getting interesting. We have the lone nut job who's been drinking Rochefort 10 taking on the NASA nerds. Gotta be worth at least a look in now and again.

You seem to be convinced that you're a lone hero, battling to defend the game from the hordes of realism zombies. In actuality, most people simply think a feature is unrealistic and would like it nerfed. It's that simple, and I don't get why you want to make it a one-sided discussion about whether which side of the fun/realism line KSP should tread most heavily.

[Foxster]

You seem to be convinced that you're a lone hero, battling to defend the game from the hordes of realism zombies. In actuality, most people simply think a feature is unrealistic and would like it nerfed. It's that simple, and I don't get why you want to make it a one-sided discussion about whether which side of the fun/realism line KSP should tread most heavily.

Boredom?

Oh, OK. I'll play nice and go fly a rocket.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Foxster

[clivman]

Boredom?

Oh, OK. I'll play nice and go fly a rocket.

You should just edit the config file for the Ion if you want it to have enough thrust to make a rocket. Some of us here actually like realism.

[The-MathMog]

Boredom?

Oh, OK. I'll play nice and go fly a rocket.

Is your rocket propelled by leprechauns and space-farts in your fantasy?

[Moon Goddess]

How many times do people need to be reminded that KSP is supposed to have some semblance of realism! That is one of the main selling points! There are thousands of space opera shooters, but only a handful of pseudo-realistic space sims (KSP and Orbiter AFAIK). Anti-realists say 'go play Orbiter!', it is time the realist's say 'Go play some space opera shooter!'. /rant

My god thank you, there are so many space opera games out there, only 2 that I know of that use physics, I don't understand why the fact the kerbals are green makes people want to turn 1 of the 2 physics based games into another silly space opera.

[regex]

My god thank you, there are so many space opera games out there, only 2 that I know of that use physics, I don't understand why the fact the kerbals are green makes people want to turn 1 of the 2 physics based games into another silly space opera.

There's apparently a glut on Lucky Charms and that leprechaun is coming for KSP with a bottle of Rochefort in hand.

[Falconer]

Just in case most people don't realize.. the ISP of an engine... is directly proportional to the square of the energy used to power it. So the better the ISP of your ion the power problem increases as the square of that. Also the further you go out the worse solar gets as an option.... at some point your only good option is a nuclear power plant... (and not necessarily a NERV).

Just found a new level of ion wrongness and brokenness...

"Ohh, and heres my entry, although its not exactly 100 legit in my opinion as i clipped 300 massless batteries, 21 xenon fuel tanks, 15 ion engines, 3RTGs, and a probe core into a 1.25m service bay. yes it TECHNICALLY works, but i cant really call this legit given the sheer amount of crap i threw into such a small space."

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117415-SSTO-to-laythe-and-beyond

Start with a severely broken engine... then use all the other exploits to make it even worse....

[SAI Peregrinus]

There's apparently a glut on Lucky Charms and that leprechaun is coming for KSP with a bottle of Rochefort in hand.

If it's a Leprechaun it should be a bottle of Bushmills. Or possibly Guinness or Magner's.

[Red Iron Crown]

Can't find the post you're quoting, Falconer, and massless parts aren't a thing anymore.

[Falconer]

Odd I just cut and paste the link to the forum and the thread comes right up i's halfway down the first post....

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117415-SSTO-to-laythe-and-beyond

repaste and cut with the link markers...

Just pointing out the silliness of ions propelling a manned craft from atmospheric high gravity Kerbin ground all the way to orbit... granted putting all that stuff into a single 1.25 bay for the clipping and drag exploits is also silly. The parts may no longer be massless... but I simply quoted what the gentlemen posted without comment.

[Beowolf]

My main issue is that I don't want KSP to descend completely into a human world simulation with the life sucked out of it i.e. just something for a dozen NASA nerds.

Yeah you WISH there were only a dozen of us! Dream on, Foxster.

[Albert VDS]

Why the need for ion engine lander in the first place?

There are enough efficient engines to choose from to use on a lander.

The only reason I can think of is that it gives you tons of delta-V.

In real life an ion engine is an efficient orbital transfer engine, it can't be used to land on anything.

Why change that characteristic? It's like asking for the rover wheels to be able to drive over water.

[KerikBalm]

Can't find the post you're quoting, Falconer, and massless parts aren't a thing anymore.

I read (haven't tried) that they still are if you do it right.

The way it was explained:

Essentially, a part with physics significance set to 1 adds its mass to the part it is attached to.

If you attach a formerly massless part to another formerly massless part, the mass isn't counted.

Ie: 200 formerly massless batteries stuck on to a cubic octagonal strut... will only weigh as much as the cubic octagonal strut.

I have yet to confirm this... but I never liked clipping or massless part abuse.

[Red Iron Crown]

I don't think that's the case anymore, KerikBalm, IIRC it was like that in 1.0.0 but it got fixed in 1.0.2. Though I haven't tested to confirm either.

[Foxster]

Yea, that's about it. It did seem to work like that but it doesn't now. I've tried sticking a pile of physical-less parts on a little ship and the weight just goes up no matter what they are attached to.

[Jouni]

This still works in 1.0.2:

[Red Iron Crown]

This still works in 1.0.2:

http://jltsiren.kapsi.fi/ksp/1.0/physicsless_test.jpg

LOL, looks legit. Thanks for testing.