Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 5 - Interstellar Travel

[The Aziz]

5 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

For real? When did they confirm making space telescopes? 

don't know about space telescopes, but

 

[mcwaffles2003]

2 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

don't know about space telescopes, but

 

Ahh I remember this now. Thank you for the reference. 

Still though, hoping we build space telescopes to accomplish this instead of something like just upgrade the tracking station/observatory as was the case in some mods

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

19 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

I noticed that there seems to be another moon orbiting Gurdamma, I read the name a "Gop" but it's hard to say for sure:

In retrospect I kind of see a U instead of an O.

I zoomed in - think its an "o".  If you look at the 'u' in Altitude it has a different shape -assuming the same font.

 

Gop it is...

 

...now, what is it?

[Minmus Taster]

17 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I zoomed in - think its an "o".  If you look at the 'u' in Altitude it has a different shape -assuming the same font.

 

Gop it is...

 

...now, what is it?

It seems to have a large SOI so it's at the very least a moon, probably smaller than Donk.

The idea of Gurdamma and Donk is to give an idea of What Kerbin & Mun looked like after forming, Gop could be a sort of Proto-Minmus.

It may have a larger SOI due to it being father away from Gurdamma.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Minmus Taster

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, Minmus Taster said:

It seems to have a large SOI so it's at the very least a moon, probably smaller than Donk.

The idea of Gurdamma and Donk is to give an idea of What Kerbin & Mun looked like after forming, Gop could be a sort of Proto-Minmus.

 

That is an elegant thought.  Be interesting to see if they give it some form of proto-glass / silicate composition!

[Awfulwaffle]

4 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I'm inclined to believe there will definitely be more than 2 star systems. That said can you reference where you get your claim as I don't recall the devs ever stating anything like that.

I would reference it if I remember, I’ll have to look but I believe it was one of the early interviews or maybe in PC gamers article.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Awfulwaffle

[Bej Kerman]

25 minutes ago, Awfulwaffle said:

4 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I'm inclined to believe there will definitely be more than 2 star systems. That said can you reference where you get your claim as I don't recall the devs ever stating anything like that.

I would reference it if I remember, I’ll have to look but I believe it was one of the early interviews or maybe in PC gamers article.

Having just one destination, just one meaningful interstellar trajectory to travel along, would be extremely underwhelming. I'm betting that interview is either outdated or being misremembered.

[Pthigrivi]

What do all you clever folks know about solar escape strategies? If you’re building a colony ship above Laythe or Duna or Kerbin whats the most efficient gravity assist to get you pointed in a very specific escape to another star? My intuition is your best bet is a series of assists starting from one of Jools moons, using Tylo to drop close to Jool, then off Eve to pass close by Kerbol at the right angle. Id love to see more about the UI for these transfers to see if that kind of complex gravity assist plan is manageable. 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, The Aziz said:

don't know about space telescopes, but

Several mods have space telescopes, I was probably thinking of those.  Some mods I use so regularly that it gets fuzzy what is stock and what isn't for me.  Apologies for any confusion

[mcwaffles2003]

13 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

What do all you clever folks know about solar escape strategies? If you’re building a colony ship above Laythe or Duna or Kerbin whats the most efficient gravity assist to get you pointed in a very specific escape to another star? My intuition is your best bet is a series of assists starting from one of Jools moons, using Tylo to drop close to Jool, then off Eve to pass close by Kerbol at the right angle. Id love to see more about the UI for these transfers to see if that kind of complex gravity assist plan is manageable. 

If I had to guess, worrying about several hundred m/s of dV won't really matter when realistically for interstellar travel we'll be dealing with total travels capabilities of 100's of km/s dV. But I would assume if you are looking for MAX efficiency you'd do something akin to the voyager missions

Edited April 9, 2022 by mcwaffles2003

[Bej Kerman]

18 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

100's of km/s

Not hundreds - it's thousands or even tens of thousands.

[Pthigrivi]

33 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Not hundreds - it's thousands or even tens of thousands.

I guess it depends what our top speeds are going to be? Say we’re shooting for 10-15% C, thats still +30,000 km/s. Id have to play around with it, and inclination to target probably still matters, but I feel like Id want a savings of 3000 km/s to be really worth it and I don’t think Im getting that from any gravity assist. Escape velocity is only 13 km/s. And I guess Oberth doesn’t even matter because the burns are so long? 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

What do all you clever folks know about solar escape strategies? If you’re building a colony ship above Laythe or Duna or Kerbin whats the most efficient gravity assist to get you pointed in a very specific escape to another star? My intuition is your best bet is a series of assists starting from one of Jools moons, using Tylo to drop close to Jool, then off Eve to pass close by Kerbol at the right angle. Id love to see more about the UI for these transfers to see if that kind of complex gravity assist plan is manageable. 

Any gains in delta V would be offset by any addtional heat shielding cost and risk you will want to avoid, besides it would be insignificant if your serious about again any significant interstellar speed that won't require thousants of years travel time making it more likely to fail

A far better statagy would be to bring some magneticly breaking equipment that could technically almost double you deltaV budget and plan a route which maximises magnetic breaking in the target system

Edited April 9, 2022 by FreeThinker

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

A far better statagy would be to bring some magneticly breaking equipment that could technically almost double you deltaV budget and plan a route which maximises magnetic breaking in the target system

You mean like a solar sail?

Edited April 9, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[pss88]

My guess, there will be 5 solar systems:
1. Kerbal one.
2. Small star, only with a couple of planets, but quite near Kerbal system, for interstellar flight training.
3. Binary star system (DebDeb?)
4. Normal single star system, like Kerbal, but far away.
5. Something exotic, like a neutron star or even a black hole.

No more than that are actually needed, I think. Well, more could be added by mods later.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

My opinion: KSP 2 releases with only 2 visitable systems.  Kerbol, which we already know and love - and DebDeb (?) which contains Gurdurama and the others we are excited about (DONK!).

Any other star-systems will appear via DLC or a patch in later years.

 

 

 

 

 

(which, from a 'lifetime of the project' or 'insured future income' sense is, quite literally, brilliant; they develop a system with KSP 2 and the two currently known/planned star-systems - and later, after assessing interest and return on investment, add the ability to visit a 3d (or more) system for the truly die-hard KSP2 fan who has 'Grand Toured' both systems and wants more.  If the Kerbol / DebDeb system works... adding additional 'visitable' places should be relatively easy.)

Edited April 10, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[mcwaffles2003]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

and plan a route which maximises magnetic breaking in the target system

What do you mean by magnetic breaking? Genuine question.

[darthgently]

29 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

What do you mean by magnetic breaking? Genuine question.

Braking?  That is how I read it.  Not that I know exactly what magnetic braking would mean, but possibly somehow using the target star's magnetic field to decelerate?  Or maybe an orbital construct placed in advance that works kind of like a rail gun in reverse and captures the incoming ship?  But given the velocities involved between stars I have to think that deceleration would be happening starting closer to the flipover/halfway point, and waiting until in the target system would be too late

Edited April 10, 2022 by darthgently

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

orbital construct placed in advance that works kind of like a rail gun in reverse and captures the incoming ship

If it's in orbit it would have to position itself exactly right for the incoming ship. It would be incredibly long. If you can make one in reverse, that means you can make a regular one to launch the ship.

I'm not against particle accelerators, they are just impractically long if they are liniar or need huge confinement fields if they are curved.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Vl3d

[The Aziz]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

My opinion: KSP 2 releases with only 2 visitable systems.  Kerbol, which we already know and love - and DebDeb (?) which contains Gurdurama and the others we are excited about (DONK!).

Any other star-systems will appear via DLC or a patch in later years.

(which, from a 'lifetime of the project' or 'insured future income' sense is, quite literally, brilliant; they develop a system with KSP 2 and the two currently known/planned star-systems - and later, after assessing interest and return on investment, add the ability to visit a 3d (or more) system for the truly die-hard KSP2 fan who has 'Grand Toured' both systems and wants more.  If the Kerbol / DebDeb system works... adding additional 'visitable' places should be relatively easy.)

Absolutely terrible idea. Imagine the reviews. "They've worked on this for 5 years, improved few things but added only a bunch of parts and planets. EA does similar things with their sports games but they release every year"

We already know 8 new bodies, there's no way all of them would appear in the same star system. Also, when interstellar travel is so significant it received a feature video on its own, with only one additional system you'd only have to build and use your mothership once, and leave it forever once you arrive.  Not a good incentive to spend $60.

[t_v]

6 hours ago, darthgently said:

Braking?  That is how I read it.  Not that I know exactly what magnetic braking would mean, but possibly somehow using the target star's magnetic field to decelerate?  Or maybe an orbital construct placed in advance that works kind of like a rail gun in reverse and captures the incoming ship?  But given the velocities involved between stars I have to think that deceleration would be happening starting closer to the flipover/halfway point, and waiting until in the target system would be too late

From what I can remember about magnetics, as you move through a changing magnetic field, you can create resistance to that field which will slow you down. The example that I remember is having two metal bars connecting at one end and another bar (magnetic?) sliding up or down those two. As the bar  moves, the magnetic flux on the inside of the closed loop changes which creates a force slowing the moving bar down.  Similarly, as you approach a star the magnetic flux will increase drastically and you should be able to capture that energy with some wires and magnets, slowing yourself down while producing a lot of power. Correct me if I’m wrong. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

you'd only have to build and use your mothership once, and leave it forever once you arrive.  Not a good incentive to spend $60.

That is something I never considered.  And having done so, now agree. 

Dunno how I got it stuck in my head that all the planets we've seen would be in a single system... But while they could...

Everything we are seeing is terrestrial.

Our surveys show (and our own system holds) that gas giants should be present, too... And they are showing us terrestrial worlds - So there are likely many gas giants we have not seen - with all their complementary moons... 

The game just got bigger for me. 

5 hours ago, The Aziz said:

interstellar travel is so significant it received a feature video on its own

Yeah - there cannot only be one 

[Pthigrivi]

There could be as few as 2 new systems I think. Remember also all the bodies in the Kerbol system are getting a big overhaul with a lot more going on too. Its quality over quantity for me. And honestly it should probably take players over 100 hours building up tech and colonies before they even begin interstellar journeys. Thats the part of the game Im most excited about. 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[The Aziz]

They said multiple. So at least two, at most ∞-1. Realistically though, I say below 10, probably with more to come at later time in update or dlc.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, t_v said:

From what I can remember about magnetics, as you move through a changing magnetic field, you can create resistance to that field which will slow you down. The example that I remember is having two metal bars connecting at one end and another bar (magnetic?) sliding up or down those two. As the bar  moves, the magnetic flux on the inside of the closed loop changes which creates a force slowing the moving bar down.  Similarly, as you approach a star the magnetic flux will increase drastically and you should be able to capture that energy with some wires and magnets, slowing yourself down while producing a lot of power. Correct me if I’m wrong. 

Yes, true, but given the brachistochrone trajectories in KSP2 for interstellar (accelerate for a long time, coast (maybe), flip, decelerate for a long time) I'm thinking if you want to get there in less than centuries you will be decelerating long before you get near the target star's magnetic flux of any usable density.  At least if you want reasonable deceleration g forces.  For unkerbaled craft I suppose it might be possible to compress years of deceleration into a few days or something without it exploding.  If it isn't obvious, I have not done the math, nor do I intend to do so, lol