Kerbin Calendar

[Jack Mcslay]

Something I find inconvenient is the way dates and time intervals are presented. I think the game should have weeks and/or months  to make it easier to visualize time;

And the way they set up the original game makes for a convenient system:

•  A full Mün orbit is ~6 kerbin days. That fits perfectly with kerbin having a 426 day year, giving a year with 71 6-day weeks
• A full Minmus orbit is ~50 days. If you divide that by the year that's a bit rough, resulting in 8½ months, but if you round it down to 48 days that results in 8 6-week months and a final 5-week month

So you have a system that's convenient and makes perfect sense that kerbals would use, such that '1y 285d' could be expressed by '1Y 5M 7W 3D', '1Y 5M 45D', or '1Y 47W 3D'

[The Aziz]

Months were based on lunar cycle, doesn't mean they should. Currently, months and weeks are artificial. The only thing that is certain is a year. And I'm not sure why would I need to know which month it is. Missions last either days or years, saying that my probe is in flight for 6 months, 2 weeks and 4 days would make it even more confusing. It's not needed in space. Heck, martian rovers count their time in Sols, because the time between two sunrises is different than on Earth. What would they base their month on? Phobos? Deimos? Then, a mission that is going for 217 days? Ah, yes, that I know what means.

 

While I'm at it, shouldn't we have different clocks based on which solar system a missions launches from? Like, for example, that system time would be based on first colonized planet? I must tag @Nate Simpson because this sounds like an interesting concept. Having Kerbin time with no Kerbin within few lightyears would be strange.

[kerbiloid]

The lunar months are based on the lunar phases which are easily distinguishable and allow to have a visual tip, to synhronize the time counting of distant people.
The week more or less follows the visible quarters of the monthly phase cycle.

Just had a look in KSP-1.

The Mun crosses the Sun disk every 6.5 days.
The Mun passes near the group of five stars next to the Milky Way every 5.25 days.
Every new moon there is a solar eclipse. Because of no equatorial and orbital tilt.
The mentioned group of five stars doesn't significantly change its position.
The Minmus phases are hardly recognizable if visible at all.

So, in KSP-1 the Kerbals would have
a "solar week" (about 6.5 days) between the Mun appearance before and after the Sun, so the Mun phases
and a 5.25 day long "stellar week" between the Mun passing  by some group of motionless stars on the skybox.

Also there is a longer period between the eclipses when Mun is touching the Sun and then crossing it on sunset and when on sunset it stops touching it and drifts away.

Probably, they could have a month as a combination of the solar week and the stellar week, 35..40 days long or so.

The "year" hardly makes sense for them because of no seasons, but probably they can count the Sun passes by some group of the stars.

Edited November 10, 2021 by kerbiloid

[The Aziz]

Year makes as much sense as day. Based on position of the planet in space. But weeks and months? For interplanetary, and soon, interstellar species, with no 5-day work schedule or harvesting season? What's the benefit? It just adds confusion. And again, how important it is to know which day of the week it is on Eeloo? Take a look how different civilizations had different calendars. Some had shorter or longer weeks, some based their year on the Moon. What we have now, works for us, yet it's still not perfect (most months have 31 days, not 30, one has 28 OR 29. Not exactly aligned with how our Moon goes around the planet). That would be weird for any alien visitor coming to Earth.

Why would Kerbals need it? What for? There's no point in creating a complex time system in a game about flying frogs to space.