Orbital Megastructures

[AmericanRocketryRambler]

Do you think it will be possible to make space stations the size of moons,  mabye we will have LARGE peices for stations in the very very late game and we can use those for things like the death star and other things like it. 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by AmericanRocketryRambler

[Kosmix1]

14 hours ago, AmericanRocketryRambler said:

Do you think it will be possible to make space stations the size of moons,  mabye we will have LARGE peices for stations in the very very late game and we can use those for things like the death star and other things like it. 

 

I kinda agree with this, however your idea of moon sized stations is too far fetched in my opinion and there wouldnt be any reason to build a space station that huge. I think maybe 5 kilometer long stations could work but even that is pretty extreme. They could be used to make the giant torchships (not talking about the daedalus engine as seen in the trailer) in the very very late game.

Edited November 5, 2020 by Kosmix1

[AmericanRocketryRambler]

welcome to the forums!

but when i say moon size stations i mean something for the looks, just like in ksp 1 bases we basically useless and were made only to look good.

[Kosmix1]

Perhaps, but ksp2 is about 100 - 500 years into the future in terms of technological advancement so even building a dyson swarm would be easier than making a whole new moon.

Gravity would also be a problem since the whole structure would collapse halfway. And its also hard to mine out large parts of a planet/moon and then sending the materials for construction.

[AmericanRocketryRambler]

true, true, but by then they (probably) made a super duper strong material that is easy to get (either by making it out of atoms in the air, making it as an alloy, or finding a pure material of it on a planet) then that would make sense, but alas, i am not a dev, so i would not know what they will do with it, if they do anything with it.

[Soda Popinski]

3 hours ago, Kosmix1 said:

I kinda agree with this, however your idea of moon sized stations is too far fetched in my opinion and there wouldnt be any reason to build a space station that huge. I think maybe 5 kilometer long stations could work but even that is pretty extreme. They could be used to make the giant torchships (not talking about the daedalus engine as seen in the trailer) in the very very late game.

While I agree it would be outside the scope of the game, I see perfectly legitimate reasons to build moon sized space stations.  For example, you decide to dissolve the Imperial Senate and need to maintain control of the systems with fear.  A moon sized battle station armed with a super laser really fits that bill.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

There should be a vote for "Yes, but the Kraken's not gonna let it happen".

 

[The Aziz]

12 hours ago, Soda Popinski said:

While I agree it would be outside the scope of the game, I see perfectly legitimate reasons to build moon sized space stations.  For example, you decide to dissolve the Imperial Senate and need to maintain control of the systems with fear.  A moon sized battle station armed with a super laser really fits that bill.

But what if you are the Senate?

 

 

Seriously though, we're still constrained by physics (and whatever limits given by the devs), and I don't see "super duper strong metal" as solution. Not in this game.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

46 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

But what if you are the Senate?

 

 

Seriously though, we're still constrained by physics (and whatever limits given by the devs), and I don't see "super duper strong metal" as solution. Not in this game.

You could use active supports, which would require actual power to maintain the rigidity of the structure. But they're plenty possible, and if we're already building the death star then i doubt power would be too much of an issue.

Though it would also require constantly lobbing mass through a loop with significant amounts of kinetic energy, so if it's expected to see combat i seriously doubt that's the best idea. Not only would the destruction of such a construct be dangerous to anything nearby, but unless backups were installed and always powered.. Destruction of a single one would send the entire structure crumpling inward.

[AmericanRocketryRambler]

17 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

There should be a vote for "Yes, but the Kraken's not gonna let it happen".

 

just done.

[kerbiloid]

I want megastructures, but I don't want my CPU melted in attempt to process a thousand of Kerbals to populate them.

[starcaptain]

It's difficult to paramaterize how to involve them at the canon game scale.
I mean, mods sure. But if I'm allowed to build the Death Star and not a Space Elevator, it doesn't make much sense in terms of scale consistency.

Moreover, where's the line drawn for what's too big? O'Niel Cylinders? Niven Ringworlds? Matrioshka Brains?

[K^2]

If I was leading engineering team on KSP2 and creative director walked in (or given current realities, messaged me) with "Megastructures!" I'd just point at the door. This is not just a "No," this is a "Hell, no." It's a tech nightmare.

I can point you to several algorithms that will build procedural megastructures. Some will even let you drop in some custom parts and fill the rest with procedural content. But even there, it's only going to hold within the immediate neighborhood you're exploring. Trying to build something that's self-consistent, moon-sized, customizable, and lets you approach from any direction is next to impossible. It's a huge tech challenge that needs a dedicated engineering team working just on that with a couple of math geniuses to work out the generation algorithm. And then we have rendering, multiplayer, etc that need to work with this. No, just no. Don't even. No. Seriously.

[jaf]

On 11/4/2020 at 7:07 PM, AmericanRocketryRambler said:

Do you think it will be possible to make space stations the size of moons,  mabye we will have LARGE peices for stations in the very very late game and we can use those for things like the death star and other things like it. 

 

The size of moons? no.

but maybe large scale rotating stations/"habitats"

[SciMan]

Few kilometers, yes. That counts as "mega" when we're talking about the size of things we've built in space currently.
The ISS also counts as a megastructure by that measurement.

The size of a moon? Absolutely not. Way out of scope for what the game wants to do. If you want orbital megastructures, you should probably go play Dyson Sphere Program.

[kerbiloid]

With the Kerbal walking speed, we first need a scooter.

[Davi SDF]

I'd say at most the size of Gilly, and that is still HUGE, should have enough space inside for anything your Kerbals need.

Otherwise, if there isn't a limit, anything that your PC can handle can be built.

[Pthigrivi]

Probably not moon size, not even Gilly, but it will be fun to see just how big and crazy players can build. One of the interesting bits will be centrifuges and what kind of max scale and customization are possible. 

[t_v]

3 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Probably not moon size, not even Gilly, but it will be fun to see just how big and crazy players can build. One of the interesting bits will be centrifuges and what kind of max scale and customization are possible. 

so, Gilly has an equatorial radius of 13 km (from the wiki). We have seen a massive interstellar ship with size estimates ranging up to a kilometer or more, and an even bigger orbital base. Conceivably, a base could be 26 km long, though probably not in a 26 km wide spherical shape. And definitely without having any gravity, that would be a nightmare to program. 

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, t_v said:

26 km long,

Even at that you're talking about 2600 10m parts long, and what could even be the point of that. This is sort of why Id prefer that habitation mechanics become important. I'd rather see players build perfectly engineered and balanced stations and bases with  a few hundred modules, each of which has an integral function either providing space or food or fuel than thousands of modules arrayed for the sole purpose of obsessive aesthetics. 

[t_v]

37 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Even at that you're talking about 2600 10m parts long, and what could even be the point of that. This is sort of why Id prefer that habitation mechanics become important. I'd rather see players build perfectly engineered and balanced stations and bases with  a few hundred modules, each of which has an integral function either providing space or food or fuel than thousands of modules arrayed for the sole purpose of obsessive aesthetics. 

More like 260 100m long parts (plus everything that goes on it) and what’s wrong with bases with lots of functionality and a nice wrapper of obsessive aesthetics?

[Pthigrivi]

Im just guessing based on the previous shots we've seen that we're closer to 10m long than 100m. And like Im sure some people will just add thousands of modules that they can't even fill or make use of for purely aesthetic reasons, but once you're doing that when does it stop being interesting? Is 5000 modules more interesting than 1000? Is 50,000 more interesting than 5000? At some point it's an exercise in tedium. People can do whatever they want but the game itself shouldn't be designed around just endless repetitive expansion with no practical purpose. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[t_v]

I was thinking more along the lines of large solar panel or radiator banks. Having long poles for the sake of having long poles is kind of boring, but putting lots of solar panels or housing radioactive material storage on the end of them suddenly gives the length a purpose. Bigger poles are not necessarily more interesting, I was just defending the idea that some really big bases could be made. Also, I really hope the longest structural part is longer than 10 meters, given that some colony fuel tanks are probably 10m radius, it would be tedious just to make a backbone for all the useful things, Never mind the extra heat dissipation next to the reactors and processors

Essentially, there's a reason interstellar ships are usually arrayed in a line, because it is both aesthetically pleasing and functional and keeps parts that need to be far apart distant from each other. Colonies have the potential to be both useful and really interesting looking by having long poles, and the 26km length is just an example size. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by t_v

[Pthigrivi]

Hmm yeah structural parts, thats a good point. I guess Im not arguing against players doing whatever they want, everyone has their own idea about whats fun. Just that strictly speaking there might be strategic, practical engineering reasons why doing so might not be needed or a good use of resources. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[shdwlrd]

I'd rather have the 100m beams. It would make the interstellar ships quicker to design and piece together. If Intercept keeps with the scale of parts shown in the trailer, the small spherical tanks are ~40m in diameter, the large ones are ~120m in diameter. Basically think FFT sized parts as stock. (I've said it before, a lot of the super sized parts shown in the trailer looks to be from an older version of Roverdude's FFT mod.) Longer parts will be necessary.

Which, in my opinion, would be awesome to have. No more tedious duplication if short parts if you want a ship larger than 100m yet alone 1km ship. A huge savings of processing power because you don't have to use 2000 parts to make a 1km ship, you only need a few hundred parts total.