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Time Dilation in KSP


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Does anyone know if it is possible to simulate high speed or gravitational time dilation in Kerbal Space Program? I think this idea can actually add a bunch of new and interesting game-play elements for players who use life-support mods.

Have a really long interstellar journey planned out but don't have enough food to last that long? No worries, just accelerate to near lightspeed and your kerbals age (and consume life support) slower! You'll never need to freeze your kerbals again!

And the speed of light in KSP can be 1/10th of real life values, to make it easier to achieve.

Any thoughts?

 

Edited by Greatness101
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24 minutes ago, Greatness101 said:

And the speed of light in KSP can be 1/10th of real life values, to make it easier to achieve.

So still mind-bogglingly fast, impossible to achieve without either the debug menu or particularly overpowered mods.

Let's take the highest specific-impulse engine in the Near Future mod, the FI-2154 Jewel-4. It produces 5.6 kN at 19,300 sec of Isp, at the cost of something like 400 electric charge per second. Some would call this engine overpowered.

Now, let's plug in 0.05c into the rocket equation; 1/2 of your scaled-back speed of light.

3E8 m/sec * 0.05 = 15,000,000 m/sec

dV = Isp*Gm*ln(mw/md)

mw/md = e^(dV/Isp*Gm) = e^(15000000/9.8063*19300)

mw/md = e^79.25 power

mw/md = 2.63*10^34

Kerbol, the sun, masses a mere 1.8*10^28 kg.

The real-world sun masses a mere 2*10^30 kg.

Short version: please stop underestimating the speed of light. No, you can't reach it. No, you can't reach a tiny fraction of it. It is simply too fast for humans to easily grasp what it means.

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6 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

So still mind-bogglingly fast, impossible to achieve without either the debug menu or particularly overpowered mods.

Let's take the highest specific-impulse engine in the Near Future mod, the FI-2154 Jewel-4. It produces 5.6 kN at 19,300 sec of Isp, at the cost of something like 400 electric charge per second. Some would call this engine overpowered.

Now, let's plug in 0.05c into the rocket equation; 1/2 of your scaled-back speed of light.

3E8 m/sec * 0.05 = 15,000,000 m/sec

dV = Isp*Gm*ln(mw/md)

mw/md = e^(dV/Isp*Gm) = e^(15000000/9.8063*19300)

mw/md = e^79.25 power

mw/md = 2.63*10^34

Kerbol, the sun, masses a mere 1.8*10^28 kg.

The real-world sun masses a mere 2*10^30 kg.

Short version: please stop underestimating the speed of light. No, you can't reach it. No, you can't reach a tiny fraction of it. It is simply too fast for humans to easily grasp what it means.

Fine. Circumvent this whole issue by changing c to 1/100, or 1/1000 times the real speed of light. As slow as you need to make it achievable.

Now can somebody actually add something constructive to the conversation and tell me if this is possible to simulate in game? (Which, if you haven't noticed, was my question. You missed my point entirely).

Edited by Greatness101
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15 minutes ago, Greatness101 said:

Fine. Circumvent this whole issue by changing c to 1/100, or 1/1000 times the real speed of light. As slow as you need to make it achievable.

Now can somebody actually add something constructive to the conversation and tell me if this is possible to simulate in game? (Which, if you haven't noticed, was my question. You missed my point entirely).

A, you would probably need to have the various mods insert hooks into their code for time dilation, code that might get kinda fragile. You really don't want to mess with the overall game time clock, so they would need separate code to figure out how much relative time had elapsed.

B, in a game about semi-realistic space travel, dealing with relativistic effects becomes a theater of the absurd. For those like me, it wouldn't be an enhancement, it would just throw me for a loop what with the absurdity of it all.

C, you're still badly underestimating how far we need to scale back c. For reference, the velocity attainable via a 1:1000 ratio with the Dawn ion engine is about 284 km/sec, a piddling one-millionth of the speed of light.

EDIT: By the time you scale it back far enough to be attainable, it bears no real resemblance to the speed of light, and while I can't speak for other people, it would just really make me wonder what was going on.

Edited by Starman4308
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13 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

A, you would probably need to have the various mods insert hooks into their code for time dilation, code that might get kinda fragile. You really don't want to mess with the overall game time clock, so they would need separate code to figure out how much relative time had elapsed.

B, in a game about semi-realistic space travel, dealing with relativistic effects becomes a theater of the absurd. For those like me, it wouldn't be an enhancement, it would just throw me for a loop what with the absurdity of it all.

C, you're still badly underestimating how far we need to scale back c. For reference, the velocity attainable via a 1:1000 ratio with the Dawn ion engine is about 284 km/sec, a piddling one-millionth of the speed of light.

A: I'm not exactly sure how that would work either, which is why I'm asking.

B: As I said: It could be good for people who use life support mods and interstellar planet packs, as time dilation would make your life support last much, much longer.

C: I'm not thinking about a stock game, if you haven't figured that out by now. Some of us play with mods that add new engines so we can actually reach our interstellar destinations without spending hours on max time warp.

Plus, it shouldn't be very easy to achieve anyway, considering how some people (like you) don't normally want to deal with relativistic effects, like you stated in part B.

Edited by Greatness101
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20 minutes ago, Greatness101 said:

A: I'm not exactly sure how that would work either, which is why I'm asking.

Okay, I'll be good. For those who wish to go interstellar at relativistic velocities:

You would probably want to set up a mod as a library into which other plugins could query its API. Presumably, instead of their default behavior, when loading a vessel, the life support mod in question would ask your mod "How much time has elapsed for this vessel?"

Your mod, in turn, would check to see what the vessel's velocity is. Below a certain threshold, you probably would just want to return actual time elapsed. If, however, it's above a threshold, then you could use relativistic equations to determine how much relative time had elapsed for that vessel. While theoretically you'd want to evaluate speed over the entire path to take into account what gravity does to your velocity... gravity isn't doing anything significant to your velocity at relativistic speeds. Jool's enormous gravity well? In and out in a minute. There would be no real need to try to look back into the past.

Edited by Starman4308
Removed a sarcastic comment.
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1 minute ago, Starman4308 said:

Okay, I'll be good. For those who wish to use magical unicorn dust drives to go interstellar at relativistic velocities:

Look. Those "magical unicorn dust drives" are pretty important from a gameplay perspective. I'm using a mod called Kerbol Starsystem, in which the closest star is about 1/3 of a lightyear away.

Let's see... assuming your estimate of 284 km/sec maximum speed is correct, that means I have to wait 30.84 hours on maximum time warp to get to my destination. And that's the closest star, at the maximum attainable velocity possible even with a supposedly overpowered engine (at least according to you, I can't be bothered to check the math).

You see the point of those so-called "magical unicorn dust drives" now?

8 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

You would probably want to set up a mod as a library into which other plugins could query its API. Presumably, instead of their default behavior, when loading a vessel, the life support mod in question would ask your mod "How much time has elapsed for this vessel?"

Your mod, in turn, would check to see what the vessel's velocity is. Below a certain threshold, you probably would just want to return actual time elapsed. If, however, it's above a threshold, then you could use relativistic equations to determine how much relative time had elapsed for that vessel. While theoretically you'd want to evaluate speed over the entire path to take into account what gravity does to your velocity... gravity isn't doing anything significant to your velocity at relativistic speeds. Jool's enormous gravity well? In and out in a minute. There would be no real need to try to look back into the past.

Thanks for the info, anyway. I'm starting to think the effort required may not be worth the limited benefit (it would only be useful if you use life support mods, and even then not that much). The Kerbal equivalent of Einstein will have to think up of some other theory.

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6 minutes ago, Greatness101 said:

Look. Those "magical unicorn dust drives" are pretty important from a gameplay perspective. I'm using a mod called Kerbol Starsystem, in which the closest star is about 1/3 of a lightyear away.

First, I'd like to apologize. It was pretty badly uncalled for, and I was vastly more venomous and unpleasant than was ever called for.

Second, a couple recommendations:

Deep Freeze, which keeps your Kerbals in cryogenic stasis.

Time Control, which lets you increase time warp beyond what stock allows.

There are also probably some ways to set up closed-loop life support; you might try looking at how TAC Life Support handles its recyclers, and configure something to recycle the extra waste into those life support supplies that can't ordinarily be recycled.

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Just now, Starman4308 said:

First, I'd like to apologize. It was pretty badly uncalled for, and I was vastly more venomous and unpleasant than was ever called for.

Second, a couple recommendations:

Deep Freeze, which keeps your Kerbals in cryogenic stasis.

Time Control, which lets you increase time warp beyond what stock allows.

There are also probably some ways to set up closed-loop life support; you might try looking at how TAC Life Support handles its recyclers, and configure something to recycle the extra waste into those life support supplies that can't ordinarily be recycled.

Haha, no problem. I admit my idea may have seemed somewhat unrealistic/unnecessary, and you brought up some very good points.

And thanks for the suggestions. I'll go check them out. :P

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