What do you imagine the best KSP(-like) game?

[Nazalassa]

What if some people coded a game similar to KSP?

What do you want, or not, to be inside?

What do you suggest?

What are you thoughts?

 

Well, you can answer here. What would the best KSP be?

 

 

I think the ultimate KSP would have to store each vesel twice: one version that is the one that flies, and another, which does not move and is fixed, and updates (removing or adding parts) when the version that flies does (but NOT moving or rotating the parts!). This way, the parts' coordinates are stored twice: once at their exact positions relative to the origin of the ship (like it is in the VAB/SPH), and once in the "flying vessel" where they are stored as they are in-game, rotated and moved if the ship moved turned, etc. Plus, the ship's current rotation (relative to the one it has in the fixed version) is stored somewhere and updates every time the ship rotates. At every reload of the ship, a copy of the fixed version is rotated so that it has the same rotation as the ship, and the positions and rotations of all the parts of the "flying" version are updated to those that are stored in the rotated copy of the fixed version. That way we don't have gaps between the parts or random rotations of the parts (due to floating-point rounding) with ships that made 57 times the journey from Jool to Kerbin (or the ones that have flown a lot of time).

Maybe I'm not clear, don't worry (that's normal), if you need some explanations simply reply

[cubinator]

The best KSP-like is the one where I get on a rocket and go to space in real life.

[Geonovast]

Moved to The Lounge

[razark]

It would have all the stuff I like and add in the stuff I wish it had, but wouldn't have the stuff I don't.

 

Also, it would be so perfect that I wouldn't have to describe what those things are.

[Superfluous J]

Procedural fuel tanks, wings, engines, and anything else that it's reasonable to make procedural. Things that aren't procedural should be able to be hot-swapped. Don't like your Mk2 capsule? Change it to an Onion on the fly.

The above with a slick interface that makes utilizing the procedural parts easy.

A full universe with hand-crafted planets in the home system and maybe a dozen systems around it, and procedural worlds beyond.

A progression system that doesn't involve a tech tree. I don't care what, just no tech tree. We've been doing those for decades can we try ANYTHING else please?

Pretty much everything else should be like KSP is now.

[Nazalassa]

Is the problem of KSP floating-point numbers?

If yes, I suggest replacing them with integers which represent a distance in (tens / hundreds of) nanometers or so.

 

Also, there's one problem with physics: it's not very accurate, and it can mess up your Minmus encounter by still applying physics during time warp.

To fix that, I suggest that the craft's orbit is saved as a set of orbital parameters (LAN, eccentricity, arg pe, SMA, etc.) and, every second or so, the craft's position is recalculated using these orbital parameters (like if it was on-rails) so that it follows its orbit without the weird physics.

Of course, the set of values are updated only if a significant force is applied to the craft.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Nazalassa

[kerbiloid]

Solid planets.

To dig tunnels instead of that empty, silly space.

[not giving a name]

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Solid planets.

To dig tunnels instead of that empty, silly space.

So, extraterrestrial hydroneer? 

[kerbiloid]

56 minutes ago, not giving a name said:

So, extraterrestrial hydroneer? 

Extrakerbestrial.

Maybe even no planets. Giant caves instead. Kerbal crawlers as crafts.

Because there is anyway nothing useful in space, while in rocks they can mine.

[Admiral Fluffy]

KSP 2, of course!

Space Flight Simulator is a pretty good Kerbal like game.

[wumpus]

Engineering games?  I.e. anything by Zachtronics (seen in various Scott Manley videos.  I'm partial to TIS-100, the assembly language programming game, although I didn't play it all that long).  Various bridge building games.

Construct a vehicle and operate it?  Simple planes is KSP in the air.  BeamNG appears to be KSP in cars (buy Automation for a career mode).

6 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

Is the problem of KSP floating-point numbers?

If yes, I suggest replacing them with integers which represent a distance in (tens / hundreds of) nanometers or so.

 

Also, there's one problem with physics: it's not very accurate, and it can mess up your Minmus encounter by still applying physics during time warp.

To fix that, I suggest that the craft's orbit is saved as a set of orbital parameters (LAN, eccentricity, arg pe, SMA, etc.) and, every second or so, the craft's position is recalculated using these orbital parameters (like if it was on-rails) so that it follows its orbit without the weird physics.

Of course, the set of values are updated only if a significant force is applied to the craft.

The floating point issues  are that Unity uses single precision numbers for all calculations.  Few things on Earth need more (which becomes a problem for KSP).  "Floats" (not "doubles") give 32 bit values.  This gives you values from 10^-38 to 10³⁸ which isn't a problem.  Unfortunately, it also only gives you 7 decimal places or so of precision.  And while you might have learned that was more than enough "significant" digits for hand calculation, repeating hammering keeps adding random error from the rounding.  And as those errors get more and more significant, they creep into the the values.  Try doing FFTs on audio (<16 bits, more if you are using samples outside of the "loudness war" era) with 23 bits of significance  with 32k points or more to see what I mean.

Using "doubles", which have entirely replaced floats for nearly all scientific use outside of strictly DSP work, should easily be enough.  Granted, sometimes in astronomy you might need even higher exponents (but not precision), but that is more for extra-galactic calculations.  I'd also assume that replacing the Unity physics engine would mean switching to Unreal graphics engine, and I'm not sure extremely accurately modeled kerbals would work as well.

[Nazalassa]

I imagine it withourt all these issues with the ground anchor and the ever-sliding rovers...