Should celestial bodies in KSP 2 have axial tilts?

[dave1904]

I'm not to bothered by the stock system having no tilt but I really don't get the argument that it somehow makes things alot harder. I would argue that its easier to understand axial tilt than it is to get to minmus. Its very easy to visualise compared to transfers. 

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, dave1904 said:

I'm not to bothered by the stock system having no tilt but I really don't get the argument that it somehow makes things alot harder. I would argue that its easier to understand axial tilt than it is to get to minmus. Its very easy to visualise compared to transfers. 

How new are you to the game?

[18Watt]

I like the idea of having axial tilts.  The list @Superfluous J suggested sounds good to me.  Except I like having oxygen at Laythe.

I disagree with the idea that new players will be frustrated with axial tilts.  The idea that only veteran players are smart enough to understand axial tilts and inclined orbits seems preposterous and a little conceited.  To me.  Plus, I don’t really want to play a space simulation game that was developed for the lowest common denominator.  I’d be insulted if someone assumed that since I’m new to the game, I’m not intelligent enough to understand axial tilts and inclined orbits.

[The Aziz]

1 hour ago, 18Watt said:

I’d be insulted if someone assumed that since I’m new to the game, I’m not intelligent enough to understand axial tilts and inclined orbits

So you're saying that the majority of KSP players are not intelligent enough to land on the Mun?

It's not intelligence, it's knowledge, and the sequel aims for people of all ages, even with no prior knowledge of spaceflight and physics behind it, if they're willing to learn. Small steps and all that.

[18Watt]

17 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

So you're saying that the majority of KSP players are not intelligent enough to land on the Mun?

Not at all.  I’m honestly not sure how you came to that conclusion from my post.

But to expand on your point- landing on Mun is difficult.  To avoid discouraging new players with the difficulty of landing on Mun the game could be redesigned to make Mun landings easy.  But that decreases realism and takes away from the fun of learning how to do things.  In my opinion.

What I said (apparently not clearly enough) is that I disagree with the idea that the game needs to be overly simple and easy, to avoid frustrating new players.  I think it would be a mistake to assume that the game will have greater appeal to new players if the physics or physical characteristics were simpler.

KSP allows you to work hands-on with physics problems and orbital maneuvers.  I would be disappointed if the game designers just assumed I needed overly simple solar systems to stay engaged, that the concept of axial tilts or inclined orbits would be so far beyond my ability to comprehend that it wasn’t worth making the attempt to teach those concepts.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

This is supposed to be the way new players are introduced to KSP?

No

20 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Note, I am not suggesting these as changes I think should be in the game. I list them as changes I think I will make, barring the game not allowing the changes to work.

 

[Pthigrivi]

What I like about this thread is that the prescribed solutions are so varied and ill defined that we can vehemently agree and disagree simultaneously without realizing it.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[t_v]

6 hours ago, 18Watt said:

But to expand on your point- landing on Mun is difficult.  To avoid discouraging new players with the difficulty of landing on Mun the game could be redesigned to make Mun landings easy.  But that decreases realism and takes away from the fun of learning how to do things.  In my opinion.

The thing is, the game was designed to make landing on the Mun easy. Lots of things that make landing on the moon hard in real life were removed or simplified to allow more people to get to it. Things like n-body physics,  the problems of radiation and life support, and yes, even axial tilts. It doesn’t matter that these were development holes or technical limitations, the devs still made those simplifications into intentional design choices. 
 

To better explain how adding axial tilt while navigating to the very first new body in the game is not good for learning, I’ll share an anecdote about my experience. I wanted to try out modded KSP and decided to start with realism. Principia, Kerbalism, RSS, but I kept the stock parts because why not. The underpowered parts were ok, I just had to make better rockets, but when trying to get to the Moon, I had to first learn how to deal with engine failure, how to add redundancy to everything, how to get the right inclination for a transfer (that part I already knew but if I was a new player…) how to circularize in the new, larger scale, and then how to deal with oxygen and food problems, which took me a few tries, and then how to navigate with n-body physics…

The point there is that all of those features add realism and most don’t necessarily make the game harder, they just require you to learn more before doing things. I found myself discouraged by the amount of trial and error learning I had to go through to even get to the moon, and I ended up switching mod packs shortly after my first landing. The more things someone has to learn per step they take into the universe, the more likely they will not take that step, and we already know that most people already find the Mun too daunting a step to do a landing. 
 

This is not to say that we shouldn’t have axial tilt in the game or even the Kerbol system. I’d honestly be fine with Duna getting a 30 degree (or less) tilt, it’s not like I depend on getting a perfectly equatorial landing site anyways. And the rest of the planets, tilt away! But between Kerbin and the Mun, there need to be only essential pieces of learning, like how to transfer between two bodies, or how to circularize an orbit. Tilt can be introduced later on, perhaps at Minmus, where you don’t need to learn all the lessons from the Mun because you know them, and you only need to learn about tilt and inclination. It’s like baristochrone trajectories; I want them in the game, just like axial tilt, I just don’t think that they should be introduced when first going to the Mun. Just like tilt, it is not that people can’t understand it, it is that it is a complication that can distract from the more essential lessons being taught by that celestial body. 

[18Watt]

My guess is that when KSP2 is released Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus will look very similar to KSP1, with no axial tilt on Kerbin, and Mun’s orbit having little or no inclination.  Which is fine.

I appreciated the addition of extra launch sites in KSP1 because using the one up around 45N added a challenge similar to what you would deal with if you had axial tilt- every launch is going to have an inclined orbit.  But you can always go back and use the KSC facility if you don’t want to deal with that.

I have been led to believe that KSP2 will include additional solar systems, and maybe the ability to build bases and launch facilities on other CBs?  If that is the case, I think adding some tilt to those extra CBs would add to the game.  I personally sometimes get bored having every launch be nearly identical.  Launch, angle to 90 degrees, repeat.  It sometimes feels repetitive, maybe even grindy.  Maybe I’ve played the game too much.

One advantage with Kerbin’s non-tilted orientation is that you don’t have to wait for launch windows to go to Mun or Minmus.  For Mun you can launch any time you want, and if you’re going to Minmus there are two launch windows per day.  Actually Minmus’s inclination is so small (I think about 7 degrees?) that you can also launch for Minmus pretty much any time, and don’t lose much efficiency.  That does make it easy to continually practice maneuvering to those CBs, without always having to wait for a decent launch window.  It does get repetitive though.

[intelliCom]

16 hours ago, sciencecompliance said:

I get that you're talking about the game's coordinate system and the fact that all the planets' poles point in the same direction, but, if you weren't aware, axial tilt in real astronomy is based on the angle of a body's axis relative to its own orbit around whatever body it's orbiting.  I only say this because if the "axial tilt matches the orbital inclination", then that body actually has zero axial tilt (also known as obliquity) in real astronomical terms.

Gotcha. I meant to say "If the body has no axial tilt". If you make your ship's inclination the same as a celestial body's, such a celestial body would be really easy to land on if there's no axial tilt. In KSP1, Minmus is in a case where if you get your inclination to match, your rotation ends up skewed relative to its axial tilt. What I propose is cutting off Minmus' axial tilt entirely so it's easier to land on in KSP 2.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I think it's easy to forget how hard the game is for the average person.  I'm a space enthusiast, so was highly motivated to learn the game, but I never had anything close to the maths experience throughout college or beyond to just 'get' a lot of the stuff people who are good at KSP seemingly take for granted. 

10 hours ago, t_v said:

But between Kerbin and the Mun, there need to be only essential pieces of learning, like how to transfer between two bodies, or how to circularize an orbit. Tilt can be introduced later on, perhaps at Minmus, where you don’t need to learn all the lessons from the Mun because you know them, and you only need to learn about tilt and inclination

I remember my first Mun landing attempts.  The stress is on the pluralization of 'attempts' because thanks to the save feature I tried and failed repeatedly with my first ship, then built a different one - which again I tried and failed to land repeatedly... Before going to the internet and finding a suggestion that new players should almost skip the Mun and go straight to Minmus to learn how to land b/c it is easier.  This turned out to be true.  Several landings at Minmus later and I finally figured out the Mun landing... And felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. 

I think this is the often overlooked power of KSP - and what I hope is most retained by KSP2 - that sense of Jesus Christ this is hard, but Holy$ I DID IT! 

That is something few games ever offer a person. 

So I do appreciate everyone who says 'please don't dumb KSP2 down so much that it's not fun!'. You guys are absolutely right - the game should be hard... And if it isn't, they'll have failed the core audience. 

But on point - Kerbin and moons should be virtually identical in 2 as KSP.  Players like me and the new need a relatively simple playground to figure stuff out (and 'cannon' - big changes would be too noticeable).

Later Kerbol system planets?  I think that statistically so few players ever got out there that cannon isn't really an issue.  Some subtle changes to give veterans a bit more challenge or that comport more with reality would be fine. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Pthigrivi]

@JoeSchmuckatelli Just a question to gauge newish players experience: how difficult do you find it to land precisely? Say within 1km of a target or vessel on the surface? 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

@JoeSchmuckatelli Just a question to gauge newish players experience: how difficult do you find it to land precisely? Say within 1km of a target or vessel on the surface? 

Excellent question - and VERY.

I have (after a LOT of failure) been able to land ships and probes within a very painful 'driving distance' of one another.  There was a time I remember, early on, when you could warp with a wheeled vehicle (which wasn't that bad), and then IIRC they took that away.  So I had to try really hard to get my crafts closer.  My biggest threat to this is fuel, because I rarely get 'good' inserts.  Sometimes I'm smart / intuitive enough to figure out how to wait out a warp so that a highly inclined orbit will allow me to time a landing with a previous mission (thus conserving fuel), and others I change inclination so that I can suicide burn with a lot more margin.  But if its the first - I either hit it or it's a complete waste of effort.

The idea that I could build a platform on Mun and land on it?  Woah, Nelly - that's gonna take some helaciously good video tutorials to accomplish!

Edited July 14, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Pthigrivi]

22 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The idea that I could build a platform on Mun and land on it?  Woah, Nelly - that's gonna take some helaciously good video tutorials to accomplish!

This is kind of why I asked, because though minor axial tilts don't change much they are going to come with a dV cost that players will want to account for, especially if they're, say, trying to land very near a colony they're building far from the equator. 

I suspect there will be some kind of recoverable range for this near an established colony to make things more forgiving for new players, but as you point out even a 5km radius can be a challenge for a lot of folks. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

13 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

come with a dV cost that players will want to account for

One of the reasons I've been agitating for a good, in-game Kerbilopedia (which - I acknowledge - is unlikely to be a feature), is that I make 'stupid' mistakes quite frequently.  This is mainly because I play until I get frustrated - take months (or years) off - pick it back up again... then repeat.

Case in point: In my most recent playthrough, I completely forgot that orbital inclination changes are best done at high altitude.  I was attempting to set up a complicated Science and ISRU site - with a rover that could transport fuel between the miner and landers, plus a bunch of other things like placeable science array, a science hab (can't remember name), etc.  This took several landings - and I repeatedly went this route:

1. Design complicated thing to do/bring what I want at/to the surface

2. Overbuild massive ship to get up to orbit with enough fuel to get 1. to its destination.

3. Burn hard and rough and accept whatever encounter I could tweak an orbit to

4. Get an orbit, dump PE down to the altitude I wanted to start trying to land from

5. SAVE

6. Drop AP down... and

6a. aw heck maybe just go for landing (presumes I think I can hit my spot) - or -

6b. circularize then try to move inclination to where I think I can line up a landing.

7. Keep trying until I get a fairly close landing

 

Notice: I totally failed to try to correct my 500km initial orbit inclination when I had the chance.  Literally never occurred to me - I had forgotten what I'd learned waaaay back when.

Ultimately, however, what drove me to quit was that once I had all my things landed and in place... every time I'd load in to the area - something would be floating or have no gravity so that just my Kerbal bumping it could send it skittering away.  The game had glitched and all that work was for naught.

 

[Pthigrivi]

44 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

One of the reasons I've been agitating for a good, in-game Kerbilopedia (which - I acknowledge - is unlikely to be a feature), is that I make 'stupid' mistakes quite frequently.  This is mainly because I play until I get frustrated - take months (or years) off - pick it back up again... then repeat.

You might be in luck. I think there's a good chance this is some kind of flight planner that will help players come up with dV estimates rather than relying on dV maps and guesswork. 



The rest is a sad story. I actually went all the way back to a save in KSP 1.3 recently because that build seems pretty stable. Without getting too OT the best thing is to basically always do a correction burn or two, one when you're half-way to the moon and another just after you enter its SOI. When you do the mid-way correction focus the camera on the moon and then make small adjustments to the maneuver so that your trajectory arcs over the moon's surface at roughly your target latitude with a PE of 50km or so. Tweak again when you hit SOI and then make a circularization burn at the PE. That should get you a really cheap approximation of the inclination you need. Remember the moon is rotating underneath you, so you can just wait until your target aligns with your orbit. When it gets close set it as your target and burn at the An or Dn and push your inclination until the dotted line is right over the target. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

15 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Without getting too OT the best thing to do is basically always do a correction burn or two, one when you're half-way to the moon and another just after you enter its SOI. When you do the mid-way correction focus the camera on the moon and then make small adjustments to the maneuver so that your trajectory arcs over the moon's surface at roughly your target latitude with a PE of 50km or so. Tweak again when you hit SOI and then make a circularization burn at the PE. That should get you a really cheap approximation of the inclination you need. Remember the moon is rotating underneath you, so you can just wait until your target aligns with your orbit. 

It's this kind of thing that us new/dense players often miss.  At Kerbin, I set up my encounter by tweaking maneuver nodes, then do the burn - and as long as I still have an encounter, warp to just before entering the SOI of target moon.  Never dawned on me to do anything mid-flight!

Well - except see if I could get points for a spacewalk, crew report or science...

 

EDIT - to STAY OT... I just remembered something from my first attempt (oh so long ago) at getting a probe around another planet (don't remember which one).  There was someone who recommended I try to correct my insertion from half-way there.  I recall doing that, and was kind of amazed at how 'tweaky' it was.  Little movements sent me all over the system (I'm pretty sure it had multiple moons).  At the time, I did not know how to do anything without 'pulling' the nodes - so trying for fine corrections required a bunch of times of me deleting the planned node and starting over.  Eventually I got a good encounter.  This was back when I refused to look at the planets or any videos about them - because I wanted the surprise of discovery.  Totally worth it, btw.  I was super excited to see another planet up close.

The question is; when KSP2 comes out, if there are not only inclined planetary orbits - but the planets have an inclination themselves - meaning that their moonar systems have an inclination that differs from their orbital planes... do you get an equatorial orbit between planets - or only after you capture?

Edited July 14, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

15 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Without getting too OT

please see edit above

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The question is; when KSP2 comes out, if there are not only inclined planetary orbits - but the planets have an inclination themselves - meaning that their moonar systems have an inclination that differs from their orbital planes... do you get an equatorial orbit between planets - or only after you capture?

It'll depend on what your target landing point/flight plan is. Say everything is tilted--axial tilt on planet and moon and the moon has an inclined orbit. If you' want to land on the moon first you can ignore the planet's tilt and align as best you can with the orbital inclination of the moon as you enter the system. Now, depending on which way the moon is tilted there are going to be two points along its orbit that will be easiest to deal with--its equinoxes--when the moon's tilt is parallel to its orbital path rather than perpendicular. Make a maneuver at Pe lowish over the parent planet so that you encounter the moon near one of those equinoxes, and then during that mid-course correction make sure you're coming in over the moon's equator if thats where you're trying to land, or at the target latitude as above^.

Then! Say you want to leave that moon and land on the planet. At this point the planet's inclination around its star doesn't really matter--all that matters is the difference between the moon's orbit and the planet's equator. Wait to leave until the moon lines up with the planet's equator and take off so that your moonar orbit is as parallel to the planet's equator as possible. It's okay if its not perfect. When you're dropping back down to planetary orbit you can get much closer to an equatorial orbit, or an orbit matching your target latitude if you're landing somewhere north or south. 

Thats my intuition anyway....

Edited July 14, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Two paragraphs and suddenly so much more makes sense!

[Pthigrivi]

NP! And agreed this stuff is not immediately intuitive, it takes a long time before you get a kind if instinctual feel for what to do when things get weird (I still might be wrong above^). Something like the mid-course correction; its not physics that dictates that, in fact I think its almost always cheapest to burn as early as possible or get it perfect on your transfer burn, but mid-way is a nice balance between really cheap adjustments that aren't super twitchy to manipulate. Most of the time it's just tapping the rcs. 

[The Aziz]

I highly recommend getting Universe Sandbox and playing with orbital parameters there. Set up a planet, moon, change inclination and tilt for both and look how they behave. Or better yet, although tricky, place a small object on a trajectory from the moon to parent body (or vice versa) and see where it goes.

[mattinoz]

On 7/13/2022 at 1:30 PM, Superfluous J said:

I found the list I had made years ago regarding KSP2 tilt changes I'm going to make.

Note, I am not suggesting these as changes I think should be in the game. I list them as changes I think I will make, barring the game not allowing the changes to work.

Moho: Axis tilt to match its orbit. Rotation so it rotates 3 times per 2 orbits, like Mercury.
Eve: Axis flipped so it rotates backwards, like Venus.
    Gilly: Axis tilted to match its orbit around Eve. Rotation so it rotates in some fraction of its orbit, like Moho.
Kerbin: Axis tilted 23 degrees, like Earth.
    Mun: Axis and orbit tilted 6 degrees from Sun, like Minmus is now. No real reason, just wanted it not in Kerbin or Sun's line.
    Minmus: Axis tilted 23 degrees from Kerbin, or 0 degrees from Sun. To make interplanetary from Minmus easier (Hey it doesn't have to be ALL harder)
Duna: Axis tilted 25 degrees, like Mars. Rotation still locked to Ike.
    Ike: Orbit and tilt to match Duna's axial tilt. Rotation still locked to its orbit.
    Duna/Ike Alternate: Make Ike a bit bigger and make Duna/Ike a true dual world, depending on how (and if) KSP2 handles that.
Dres: Axis tilt to match its orbit. Maybe add a thin ring if it's easy.
Jool: No change.
    Laythe: Remove oxygen from the atmosphere (sorry but it makes no sense even in this silly universe)
    Vall: See Eeloo.
    Tylo: No change.
    Pol: Orbits Tylo in some way. I've always wanted a moon to have a moon.
    Bop: Axial tilt to match its orbit.
Eeloo: Axial tilt to match its orbit.
    Vall: Orbits Eeloo. Eeloo needs a Charon!

 

A long time ago in a forum far ....

There was a workshopped plan if axial tilt was a game improvement and this is pretty close to recall as to how it looked.

Only exception was Kerbin and the Mun were matched so in terms of player progression you still had a straight shot from equatorial orbit to an body. That makes minus the first body you need to learn plane changes for. Having Mimus on the solar plane make a great incentive to build a colony there, Fuelbase or shipyard. Then you can go further afield by diving back to Kerbin. 

Axial tilt could slow the game progression down a bit as it would be worth waiting for ideal launch times. No more first rocket at sunrise launch for Mun by sunset.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 7/15/2022 at 5:23 AM, The Aziz said:

I highly recommend getting Universe Sandbox and playing with orbital parameters there. Set up a planet, moon, change inclination and tilt for both and look how they behave. Or better yet, although tricky, place a small object on a trajectory from the moon to parent body (or vice versa) and see where it goes.

Okay - I've been doing this for a day now.  Thanks for the suggestion! 

Thing I'm learning is how bloody difficult it is to get planets to merge!  Seriously, watching how stuff behaves in this game is fascinating.  Sometimes it does what you intuitively figured it would - and sometimes does something crazy (and then when you figure it out... Makes sense) 

 

[KerikBalm]

On 7/10/2022 at 10:11 PM, Bej Kerman said:

I just don't think us vets should be speaking for new players when we've forgotten what it's like to be new.

That's like saying that we shouldn't say that making the atmosphere of Duna thinner won't affect new players getting to low kerbin orbit.

The atmospheric thickness of Duna literally has no effect on getting to LKO from the surface of Kerbin.

Atmospheric tilt literally has no effect on getting to LKO from the surface of Kerbin.

Player experience does not change this