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How do you think stars will move with respect to each other?


mcwaffles2003

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1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

So far, in KSP 1, Kerbol is the only thing that doesn't move. Do you think stars are going to be stationary or rotating about a barycenter at a fixed origin? Or can games have constantly changing origins? 

Probably 2 stationary points, it will be easier to make.

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I see no reason to make them orbit each other or a "galactic center" or anything like that. Over the course of a game they'd barely move relative to each other to the point where it'd be a lot of extra code (and player brain taxing) for no real gain (in enjoyment).

As an outsider with no more information than anybody else who's likely to reply to you, all I can say for sure is we don't actually know. But you asked for opinions, and mine is they won't and don't need to.

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I'm on the fence with this, on one hand it adds little to the game just like 5th says but on the other it would probably be a little bit of an eyesore not to include because it's likely many of us actually will see playtime in the thousands of years.

On that note I'd like to pose a related question: KSP1 can orbit a vessel around a moon that orbits a planet that orbits a star, but what if we must go deeper? (I'll skip the meme necromancy for today though.) Having one of the star systems provide a colossal star for all other systems to orbit around would vastly reduce the brain strain for both players and devs IF the game permits additional "layers" of orbits. Now I can't wait to put Jeb in orbit around a 20km asteroid that orbits a moon that orbits a planetlike moon that orbits a gas giant that orbits a small star that orbits a giant star.

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22 minutes ago, Rejected Spawn said:

Now I can't wait to put Jeb in orbit around a 20km asteroid that orbits a moon that orbits a planetlike moon that orbits a gas giant that orbits a small star that orbits a giant star.

Now I can't wait to put Jeb in orbit around a 25km asteroid that orbits a moon that orbits an earthlike moon that orbits a gas giant moon that orbits a GIANT uranus sized gas giant that orbits a star that orbits a black hole.

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Wormhole...  loads a new singular solar system. 

I'd be pleasantly surprised if they manage a binary star system.  If I were to venture a guess, it's multiple to unlimited solar systems (perhaps even editable or random gen per career instance) and something like a wormhole that initiates a loading sequence between systems, maybe dropping you into a solar orbit?

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Quote

"RMC 136a1, usually abbreviated as R136a1, lies about 163,000 light-years from Earth in the Tarantula Nebula. This massive star lies outside our galaxy; it's part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies [...] R136a1 has an estimated mass of 315 solar masses, where a solar mass is equal to the mass of the sun.  [...] If R136a1 swapped places with the sun, it would outshine our closest star as much as the sun currently outshines the moon"

Source: https://www.space.com/41313-most-massive-star.html

 

Our sun has an apparent magnitude of -26.74 vs our moons -12.74 (more negative is brighter) which ends up as about 400,000 times brighter. Essentially what I'm getting at is if theres is a giant star all the stars orbit around in KSP 2 there will be something new in the sky most likely akin to what appears like a 2nd sun in the sky from lightyears away. Star theory has an actual JWST astrophysicist working with them so I doubt this detail wouldn't be overlooked. This would mess with the Kerbalverse essentially putting us in a new world for the sky to change so drastically So IDK about all stars orbiting a singular central star, but a black hole could get around this issue while making many new ones. If neither this massive star nor a black hole lies at the center the stars could orbit a barycenter of the local group of stars that exists in the game. Orrrrrr they could be static....

The possibilities to the expanse of the game seems insane, will the universe be 10s of lightyears across holding several systems?(most likely in my mind) Maybe only like 5 ly with only 1 other system to travel to (maximum disappointment) or maybe will it truly be on the scale of 10,000s of ly across, consistent with the 1/10th scale system of the kerbinverse, with an actual galaxy. Or maybe if we've all been really good boys and girls (do any girls play this game?) it could even have outer bounds beyond that allowing multiple galaxies if people wish to make them.

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13 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Why use a giant star when we already have a great candidate for "massive object at center of everything" that wouldn't blind us.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*

3.7 to 4.7 million solar masses in a 44km sphere; imagine the gravity assists! 

Its schwarzschild radius is  ~22 million Km, none the less still a good grav assist

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3 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Its schwarzschild radius is  ~22 million Km, none the less still a good grav assist

And stable orbits are about 2x that if i recall; technically 1.5x is stable but we're not photons so 2x it is. So for a safe approach that we can still escape from it would be limited to 44 million kilometers.

Now consider the fact that this isn't even the most massive supermassive black hole....

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13 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

And stable orbits are about 2x that if i recall; technically 1.5x is stable but we're not photons so 2x it is. So for a safe approach that we can still escape from it would be limited to 44 million kilometers.

Now consider the fact that this isn't even the most massive supermassive black hole....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innermost_stable_circular_orbit

says here its at about 3x the schwarzchild radius so 66 Gm, but this is for a circular orbit. Assuming we are on an escape trajectory a ship should be able to have a periapsis below ISCO so long as the overall energy of its orbit is well above that necessary for ISCO. IDK how close an escape trajectory orbit can pass by an event horizon, but I assume the more energy in the orbit the closer to it one can pass.

Also, in the chance there are black holes in KSP 2... I really hope the rocket doesnt just explode on contact with the event horizon but instead gets swallowed up by it.

Also, we know ring systems will be in the game, so does this maybe mean accretion disks as well if black holes are included? :D

even though some stars can form accretion disks too...

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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How would you distinguish between a ring of stars/systems orbiting a common center of mass and a static ring of stars/systems that do not move?

How would you distinguish between a cluster of stars orbiting slowly on the outer edge of the galactic rim of a huge galaxy and a static cluster of stars?  How long would it take before there was a significant distinction?

If it would take a billion years to have a 0.1% change in relative position, then I would rather go with a static system and use the saved resources for something else.

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27 minutes ago, Terwin said:

How would you distinguish between a ring of stars/systems orbiting a common center of mass and a static ring of stars/systems that do not move?

How would you distinguish between a cluster of stars orbiting slowly on the outer edge of the galactic rim of a huge galaxy and a static cluster of stars?  How long would it take before there was a significant distinction?

If it would take a billion years to have a 0.1% change in relative position, then I would rather go with a static system and use the saved resources for something else.

An orbit about the galactic center for our star is about 250 million years if I recall, but stars rotate about one another as they rotate about the galaxy. Stars, as seen in the sky, can move significantly over the course of 10,000s of years, and if this game is to be played over interstellar travel time periods I think its plausible to assume we may be playing along those timescales

Play in slow motion, yes, I know many of the stars will appear essentially stationary but the ones in the local neighborhoods will move significantly

At just past 4 minutes he goes over motion of closer stars and their motion can be detected over the course of just 1 year

 

Will the devs see this significance worth adding into the game? IDK, perhaps the stars will be stationary, but I think it would be a nice touch and give room for modder expansion, which is what I care about most in the release.

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innermost_stable_circular_orbit

says here its at about 3x the schwarzchild radius so 66 Gm, but this is for a circular orbit. Assuming we are on an escape trajectory a ship should be able to have a periapsis below ISCO so long as the overall energy of its orbit is well above that necessary for ISCO. IDK how close an escape trajectory orbit can pass by an event horizon, but I assume the more energy in the orbit the closer to it one can pass.

Also, in the chance there are black holes in KSP 2... I really hope the rocket doesnt just explode on contact with the event horizon but instead gets swallowed up by it.

Also, we know ring systems will be in the game, so does this maybe mean accretion disks as well if black holes are included? :D

even though some stars can form accretion disks too...

I'd imagine the manuever nodes and flight planning should help tremendously with this; though it wouldn't be a bad thing if approching a black hole required some planning. It would get across the fact that these are incredibly dangerous objects with unique considerations.

I think the real benchmark is going to be where escape velocities become a signifigant fraction of C; we know below the schwarzchild radius they >C. But an escape velocity of even 20%-40% C could actually doom even the most advanced ships in KSP2 to drift endlessly around these objects. Which would also make gravity assists even more interesting; since you can't just go "The closer the better" as your rule of thumb. You have to balance the performance of your ship with the escape velocity at a given distance.

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12 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I'd imagine the manuever nodes and flight planning should help tremendously with this; though it wouldn't be a bad thing if approching a black hole required some planning. It would get across the fact that these are incredibly dangerous objects with unique considerations.

I think the real benchmark is going to be where escape velocities become a signifigant fraction of C; we know below the schwarzchild radius they >C. But an escape velocity of even 20%-40% C could actually doom even the most advanced ships in KSP2 to drift endlessly around these objects. Which would also make gravity assists even more interesting; since you can't just go "The closer the better" as your rule of thumb. You have to balance the performance of your ship with the escape velocity at a given distance.

Im really wondering if/how will special relativity be taken into account as the speed ships will be travelling at will be significant fractions of the speed of light

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35 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Im really wondering if/how will special relativity be taken into account as the speed ships will be travelling at will be significant fractions of the speed of light

Dilation doesn't occur until well into 40%-80%

KSP2 stock looks to be capable of 5%-10%

The developers know that, so it's unlikely they're going to waste developer time on a feature that won't be needed.

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2 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Play in slow motion, yes, I know many of the stars will appear essentially stationary but the ones in the local neighborhoods will move significantly

Looks like satellites moving across the galactic belt on a clear night. Seriously, never realized how much the stars moved around.

For gameplay, I don't think the stars need to move. In the game maybe hundreds or couple thousand years will go by in a career. The movement in most cases is relatively small. No real need to model it.

But again, star theory may surprise us.

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2 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Looks like satellites moving across the galactic belt on a clear night. Seriously, never realized how much the stars moved around.

For gameplay, I don't think the stars need to move. In the game maybe hundreds or couple thousand years will go by in a career. The movement in most cases is relatively small. No real need to model it.

But again, star theory may surprise us.

I agree; Star Theory should focus on building the foundation. Leave the rest for the modding community to pick up in time.

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47 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I agree; Star Theory should focus on building the foundation. Leave the rest for the modding community to pick up in time.

What if one of the foundations they have designed in already is to decouple orbital physics from craft physics?

Then why not show it off with and do things KSP1 couldn't handle due to initial design. That is the thing we have on idea about as yet what file breaking and compatibility breaking design changes are in KSP2 or what functional advantages they might allow. 

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23 minutes ago, mattinoz said:

What if one of the foundations they have designed in already is to decouple orbital physics from craft physics?

Then why not show it off with and do things KSP1 couldn't handle due to initial design. That is the thing we have on idea about as yet what file breaking and compatibility breaking design changes are in KSP2 or what functional advantages they might allow. 

Because they still have plenty of work to do in regards to modeling, texturing, coding and only a few months before they hit their deadline. This isn't me saying that it's impossible; i just don't want people to get excited for things that in all likelyhood won't happen.

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Another consideration when we're talking about mods is the added complexity of not having stars pass too close to each other yet also never get too far apart. If they move at all you have to be concerned about one or both of those things. If they don't, you don't.

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On 12/13/2019 at 4:34 PM, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I agree; Star Theory should focus on building the foundation. Leave the rest for the modding community to pick up in time.

This is why I bring this up, if the stars end up as stationary points will that limit the capabilities of the modder when trying to make dynamic star systems?

On 12/13/2019 at 5:32 PM, mattinoz said:

That is the thing we have on idea about as yet what file breaking and compatibility breaking design changes are in KSP2 or what functional advantages they might allow. 

This

On 12/13/2019 at 5:58 PM, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Because they still have plenty of work to do in regards to modeling, texturing, coding and only a few months before they hit their deadline. This isn't me saying that it's impossible; i just don't want people to get excited for things that in all likelyhood won't happen.

Well this thread isn't for us to build up expectations, that'd be dumb as we have no evidence of that which is being discussed... but the intention of this thread is to discuss speculation openly with educated guesses and narrowing reasonable possibilities. I'm hoping people from Star Theory come across this thread and others in this forum to fish out ideas and consensus from a lively and thought provoking community. As far as the modeling and texturing, I don't believe the people working on that will be drawn away as I dont believe they are coders anyway, and the base platform to the functioning universe itself is something that has to be done right before release or else we might have a new axial tilt type limitation.

On 12/13/2019 at 6:13 PM, 5thHorseman said:

Another consideration when we're talking about mods is the added complexity of not having stars pass too close to each other yet also never get too far apart. If they move at all you have to be concerned about one or both of those things. If they don't, you don't.

Spoiler

Let the modding chaos begin

On 12/13/2019 at 11:59 PM, kerbiloid said:

How can the stars move, when they are attached to the crystal sky?
Do you believe they have sky rails to roll? This is unscientific. Only planets can, because they are round.

That's some tasty 14th century religious dogma there. ALL HAIL THE CRYSTAL SPHERES!!

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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