Debdeb will be ~4 lightyears away from Kerbol System (Speculation)

[Superfluous J]

We're all talking about the differences between the Kerbin system and real life, but no one's mentioned we don't know the speed of light in their universe.

They can literally make a light year anything they want.

[theJesuit]

1 hour ago, intelliCom said:

Aha, but you see, a "light year" is the amount of time it takes for light to pass after a year... an Earth year.
A Kerbal year is about 426 days, but each of those are 6 hours. That means a Kerbin year is 2,556 hours.

Earth year is 8,766 hours. That means a Kerbal 'light year' is probably 29.2% that of an Earth light year. If this is true, then 4 Kerbal light years is 1.17 Earth light years.

This is the maths that is in my head.  1.17 IRL light years is still a VERY LONG WAY. 

Voyager 1 is something like a light day 1/365 lightyears, a light day, so with this maths, that is the distance light travels in 4 kerbin days or 4/426 kerbin lightyears for the same distance.

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

Again, I paraphrase Nate Simpson. "We want you to feel the distance of a light year."

I think this counts.

Edited October 26, 2022 by theJesuit

[BigStar Aerospace]

Imagine the pain of making this absolutely fantastical mission, going four light years, and only just then realizing you forgot something.... Like it's painful to go to Jool and forget something because it's 51,735,000 Km to 85,811,900 Km away.... but one light year is nine trillion, four hundred and sixty-one billion kilometers away. That's 9,461,000,000,000 kilometers. So four would be 37,844,000,000,000 or thirty-seven trillion, eight hundred and forty-four billion kilometers. THAT'S A 44,101,009.52% INCREASE FROM JOOL'S MAXIMUM DISTANCE!!!! MAXIMUM!!!! AND JOOL IS FARRRRR!!!!! 

My point is that we need to make sure that we come up with a checklist or something as a forum for all the things we need before we go on some interstellar trip. Because I don't want to forget the toothbrushes.

10 hours ago, Just a random person said:

Also, will light years be defined using Earth years or Kerbin years?

A Kerbin year is the same as an Earth year, it just has more days because Kerbin's day is only a quarter of an Earth day. 

[BigStar Aerospace]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

I understand they have to follow all on-rails ships that could change SOIs but if you have none, there is no technical reason you couldn't just time jump 40 years instead of traveling through that time.

Well with the new technologies we'll have it will take some half of the distance to accelerate to say... 60C (60% lightspeed) or maybe 12C, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how powerful these engines will be, nor their individual efficiencies so I am of course speculating. I'm sure that our fastest warp speeds with these engines running will get us at least a half a lightyear every 60 seconds if they want to keep it reasonable (whatever is reasonable depends on how far the furthest system is), but without an engine on I'd suspect that around 50C we should be able to go at least a lightyear every 30 seconds as long as they fix the location jumping we get when we time-warp in the first game. I kind of want the time it takes to go one lightyear to be the same amount of time it take to warp one Kerbin year in the first game. This will vastly improve our perception of a lightyear, and if they made it so it took 10 minutes to go a lightyear then we'd really be in for a trip down semi-reality lane.

[leopardenthusiast]

8 minutes ago, BigStar Aerospace said:

A Kerbin year is the same as an Earth year, it just has more days because Kerbin's day is only a quarter of an Earth day.

This is not true - a Kerbin year is 426 Kerbin days, which is 106.5 Earth days.  That's less than a third of an Earth year.

[GoldForest]

10 minutes ago, BigStar Aerospace said:

Well with the new technologies we'll have it will take some half of the distance to accelerate to say... 60C (60% lightspeed) or maybe 12C, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how powerful these engines will be, nor their individual efficiencies so I am of course speculating. I'm sure that our fastest warp speeds with these engines running will get us at least a half a lightyear every 60 seconds if they want to keep it reasonable (whatever is reasonable depends on how far the furthest system is), but without an engine on I'd suspect that around 50C we should be able to go at least a lightyear every 30 seconds as long as they fix the location jumping we get when we time-warp in the first game. I kind of want the time it takes to go one lightyear to be the same amount of time it take to warp one Kerbin year in the first game. This will vastly improve our perception of a lightyear, and if they made it so it took 10 minutes to go a lightyear then we'd really be in for a trip down semi-reality lane.

A little mistake. 60C is not 60% of C. 60C is 60 over C. 0.6C is 60% of C. 

Also, your math is wrong or you misunderstood something. Going a lightyear doesn't mean you go 1 lightyear in a few seconds. Going a light year means you go a lightyear in 1 year. To go 1 lightyear in 30 seconds, you'd have to be going like 10,000C. (10,000 lightyears a year.) *

*this is an exaggerated and thrown out there number. It is not correct. 

[Luriss]

4 hours ago, GoldForest said:

0.4 lightyears is nothing and can be done with chemical rockets.

I think you're really underestimating the true scale of even 0.4 light years.

The orbit of Eeloo has an apoapsis of 113,549,713,200 ((1.1355x10^(11)) metres, let's say this is the rough radius for the Kerbol system.

A light year on the other hand is 9.461x10^(15) meters, 0.1 ly being 9.461x10^(14) meters.

When you put that into perspective, that 0.4 ly distance is 8332 33,328 kerbol systems in a line. I personally think kerbal scale will be more than enough.

 

Edit: Did a dumb, forgot to multiply by 4. The distance is actually even larger.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Luriss

[intelliCom]

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

we've gotten footage of interstellar craft in use

As it is pre-alpha footage, they can set up a scene to demonstrate how they want it to work. Footage of a ship in a void is not evidence of testing interstellar travel properly.

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

We're just not getting the planets at EA launch

But we're only getting interstellar stuff at part 4 of the roadmap. At launch, we will have the Kerbol system and some new parts according to the announcement. That's it.

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

as a lightyear is no longer showing the "true scope of the distance of a lightyear."

As I previously mentioned, the 1/10th scale Kerbol system does a good job of demonstrating the size of a solar system. What's more likely? They're going to forcibly make it 4 light years to stick to the whole "we're gonna show you what a light year looks like", or adjust it to be more reasonable?

Besides, as already mentioned, a 4 KLY distance is in fact 1.17 earth light years, so we will get to experience a full light year in that case.

Edited October 26, 2022 by intelliCom

[intelliCom]

1 hour ago, theJesuit said:

This is the maths that is in my head.  1.17 IRL light years is still a VERY LONG WAY. 

Voyager 1 is something like a light day 1/365 lightyears, a light day, so with this maths, that is 4 light years or 4/426 light years

You're not considering the interstellar speeds made possible by new engines. Going across 1.17 LY at 0.10C takes 10.2 Earth years. AKA 34 Kerbin years. Not too bad to me, considering it can take that long to finish a mission using gravity assist chaining.

50 minutes ago, BigStar Aerospace said:

A Kerbin year is the same as an Earth year, it just has more days because Kerbin's day is only a quarter of an Earth day. 

Uhhh nope.

365 days in an Earth year.

365 * 24 = 8,760 hours in an Earth year.

8,760 / 6 = 1,460 Number of Kerbin days within an Earth year.

1,460 / 426 = 3.43 Kerbin years in an Earth year.

[GoldForest]

43 minutes ago, Luriss said:

I think you're really underestimating the true scale of even 0.4 light years.

The orbit of Eeloo has an apoapsis of 113,549,713,200 ((1.1355x10^(11)) metres, let's say this is the rough radius for the Kerbol system.

A light year on the other hand is 9.461x10^(15) meters, 0.1 ly being 9.461x10^(14) meters.

When you put that into perspective, that 0.4 ly distance is 8332 kerbol systems in a line. I personally think kerbal scale will be more than enough.

Hmm, you may be right.

Just did the math for Daedalus at 25% speed. Daedalus was 0.12C top speed, theoretically. At 25%, iirc that's the irl to ksp conversion for thrust, that's 0.03C. 0.4C / 0.03C = 13.34 years. 

Hmmm. Shortened lightyears is making more sense...

37 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

As it is pre-alpha footage, they can set up a scene to demonstrate how they want it to work. Footage of a ship in a void is not evidence of testing interstellar travel properly.

But we're only getting interstellar stuff at part 4 of the roadmap. At launch, we will have the Kerbol system and some new parts according to the announcement. That's it.

As I previously mentioned, the 1/10th scale Kerbol system does a good job of demonstrating the size of a solar system. What's more likely? They're going to forcibly make it 4 light years to stick to the whole "we're gonna show you what a light year looks like", or adjust it to be more reasonable?

Besides, as already mentioned, a 4 KLY distance is in fact 1.17 earth light years, so we will get to experience a full light year in that case.

We've seen Z-pinch and Metllatic Hydrogen engines in front of other planets. I understand it's pre-alpha, but they would want to test interstellar early to see the feasibility of it, wouldn't they?

Sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say that. 

This is true, and as mentioned above, I am starting to think it is possible we are getting a shortened lightyear. Though the way Nate spoke kind of tells me that we might be getting real distance lightyears, which if the time warp system adds more timewarp, wouldn't be too bad really.

[Luriss]

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Hmm, you may be right.

Just did the math for Daedalus at 25% speed. Daedalus was 0.12C top speed, theoretically. At 25%, iirc that's the irl to ksp conversion for thrust, that's 0.03C. 0.4C / 0.03C = 13.34 years. 

Hmmm. Shortened lightyears is making more sense

When you say shortened do you mean 1/10 scale or light years based on a Kerbin year? I'd personally argue 1/10 scale is sufficient and more importantly remains consistent with inta-system distances.

 

Also, another option is making the speed of light 1/10 scale as well. In that case a 0.4 ly trip at the 1/10 scale 0.03 c becomes a 133 year trip. In other words, 1/10th the distance but 1/1 time scale.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Luriss

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, Luriss said:

When you say shortened do you mean 1/10 scale or light years based on a Kerbin year? I'd personally argue 1/10 scale is sufficient and more importantly remains consistent with inta-system distances.

 

Also, another option is making the speed of like 1/10 scale as well.

No real specific shortening was in mind. 1/10thing the scale might be an option. By your own math 1/10th of 33,328 systems is 3,332.8. Which is still far. 

You can't really 1/10th the speed of light, just the distance the light travels. C should remain constant, even in a video game I feel. So 9.46 trillion kilometers / 10 = ~946 billion kilometers * 4 LY (Debdeb distance) = ~3.784 trillion Kms.

4 trillion KM journey between Kerbol and Debdeb? Yeah, that sounds good enough. Daedalus at 0.03C would take... dear god... I hope my math is wrong. 3.784 trillion Kms / (946 billion kilometers * 0.03) = 133.34 Years... 

[Luriss]

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

By your own math 1/10th of 33,328 systems is 3,332.8. Which is still far. 

Btw that 33,328 figure is in 1/10th scale already. It's uh... quite large.

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

You can't really 1/10th the speed of light, just the distance the light travels. C should remain constant, even in a video game I feel. So 9.46 trillion kilometers / 10 = ~946 billion kilometers * 4 LY (Debdeb distance) = ~3.784 trillion Kms.

4 trillion KM journey between Kerbol and Debdeb? Yeah, that sounds good enough. Daedalus at 0.03C would take... dear god... I hope my math is wrong. 3.784 trillion Kms / (946 billion kilometers * 0.03) = 133.34 Years..

I'm not sure I follow, 3.784 trillion km (which is 0.4 ly) at 0.03c is about 13.33 years. 4 ly at 0.03c is 133.34 years. You're in luck, I think your math is wrong lol.

The problem with that 0.4 ly figure is that I wouldn't be surprised if ships got up to 0.5c (very realistic possibility) that trip becomes 10ish months. Hence why I argue that the speed of light be 1/10th scale.
The distances remain uniform with the rest of the KSP universe and the time taken to go places also remains 1:1 with reality (8 years at 0.5c rather than 10 months).

Edit: When I say 0.4 ly, I mean 1:1 scale, not 1/10th scale. Although now that I think about it, the speed of light at 1/10 scale also means that saying a distance is 4 ly is technically correct despite being 0.4 in 1:1 scale light years.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Luriss

[GoldForest]

7 minutes ago, Luriss said:

Btw that 33,328 figure is in 1/10th scale already. It's uh... quite large.

I'm not sure I follow, 3.784 trillion km (which is 0.4 ly) at 0.03c is about 13.33 years. 4 ly at 0.03c is 133.34 years. You're in luck, I think your math is wrong lol.

The problem with that 0.4 ly figure is that I wouldn't be surprised if ships got up to 0.5c (very realistic possibility) that trip becomes 10ish months. Hence why I argue that the speed of light be 1/10th scale.
The distances remain uniform with the rest of the KSP universe and the time taken to go places also remains 1:1 with reality (8 years at 0.5c rather than 10 months).

Edit: When I say 0.4 ly, I mean 1:1 scale, not 1/10th scale. Although now that I think about it, the speed of light at 1/10 scale also means that saying at distance is 4 ly is technically correct despite being 0.4 in 1:1 scale light years.

Ah... well okay then.

I don't know where I went wrong.

1/10th the distance of a lightyear = 9.46 trillion kilometers / 10 = ~946 billion kilometers

Times four for distance of Debdeb (Speculated) =  4 LY (Debdeb distance) = ~3.784 trillion Kms

3.784 trillion Kms / (946 billion kilometers * 0.03) 

....

....

Ah, I see my problem. I used the DISTANCE of a lightyear and not the SPEED of light.

Whoops. 

But I'll just take your word for it that it is 13.33 years and not 133.34 because I'm getting tired of doing the math and messing up lol. 

Well, IRL Daedalus' top speed would have been 0.12C, though that's because it would have to save fuel and turn around for a decel burn. Realistically, with enough fuel, Daedalus could go to 0.99C. In KSP 2, I imagine that KSP Daedalus will only reach 0.3C (25%) before having to turn around and slow down. I imagine it's the same with other engines like Bussard, Epstein, Orion, etc. We won't be able to exceed a percentage of C due to time. 

[Luriss]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

Ah... well okay then.

I don't know where I went wrong.

1/10th the distance of a lightyear = 9.46 trillion kilometers / 10 = ~946 billion kilometers

Times four for distance of Debdeb (Speculated) =  4 LY (Debdeb distance) = ~3.784 trillion Kms

3.784 trillion Kms / (946 billion kilometers * 0.03) 

....

....

Ah, I see my problem. I used the DISTANCE of a lightyear and not the SPEED of light.

Whoops. 

But I'll just take your word for it that it is 13.33 years and not 133.34 because I'm getting tired of doing the math and messing up lol. 

Well, IRL Daedalus' top speed would have been 0.12C, though that's because it would have to save fuel and turn around for a decel burn. Realistically, with enough fuel, Daedalus could go to 0.99C. In KSP 2, I imagine that KSP Daedalus will only reach 0.3C (25%) before having to turn around and slow down. I imagine it's the same with other engines like Bussard, Epstein, Orion, etc. We won't be able to exceed a percentage of C due to time. 

Maths when you're tired is always leads to fun results lol.

Being a video game, I guarantee there will be meta ships that go to 0.99999... c. I also expect that a lot of normal ships will hit those higher velocities (+0.5c ish), especially on longer voyages.
And even those lower velocities like 0.12c and 0.3c will cross a 0.4 ly distance in 3.33 and 1.33 years respectively.

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, Luriss said:

Maths when you're tired is always leads to fun results lol.

Being a video game, I guarantee there will be meta ships that go to 0.99999... c. I also expect that a lot of normal ships will hit those higher velocities (+0.5c ish), especially on longer voyages.
And even those lower velocities like 0.12c and 0.3c will cross a 0.4 ly distance in 3.33 and 1.33 years respectively.

Whoops, typo. Forgot a 0. KSP Daedalus should be 0.03, not 0.3 lol. 

We'll have to wait and see. Realistically the only limiting factor to speed is time and fuel. If you have enough of both, then yeah, reaching just under C is theoretically possible. Then again, Daedalus would take 4 to 5 years to reach 0.12C, so reaching 0.99 will take around half a century. 

[Luriss]

4 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Whoops, typo. Forgot a 0. KSP Daedalus should be 0.03, not 0.3 lol. 

We'll have to wait and see. Realistically the only limiting factor to speed is time and fuel. If you have enough of both, then yeah, reaching just under C is theoretically possible. Then again, Daedalus would take 4 to 5 years to reach 0.12C, so reaching 0.99 will take around half a century. 

Mm, we will have to wait and see.

And who said anything about only having one Daedalus engine?

[GoldForest]

4 minutes ago, Luriss said:

Mm, we will have to wait and see.

And who said anything about only having one Daedalus engine?

Ah yes, I would like even more spicy air please. 

But seriously, that'd probably be diminishing returns, since that would mean you need a bigger rad shield to protect crew and equipment.  One engine is enough. Maybe two. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by GoldForest

[jastrone]

tbh i dont want it to go a few seconds of waiting to go to another solar system i want to do something while going.  maybe i can bring a telescope or a scanner and either tace pictures of other stars (maybe even kerbol) or maybe the system where im going to see where im going to land and maybe get to plan only when im close enough. or maybe something breaks down and you have to fix it. this has been suggested before and the problem is it could f up your trip. but if you are in interstellar space you have lots of time to fix it. maybe only some complicated modules break. we could also have to tace care of the ship lice its a colony and make food for kerbals

[magnemoe]

14 hours ago, GoldForest said:

They have most certainly tested it, seeing as we've gotten footage of interstellar craft in use, as well as seeing other planets. We're just not getting the planets at EA launch.

Either kerbalizing option isnt very appealing if you ask me. 0.4 lightyears is nothing and can be done with chemical rockets. Making it 4 kerbal lightyears might be what they're going to do, but then Nate's comment goes out the door, as a lightyear is no longer showing the "true scope of the distance of a lightyear."

We don't know if interstellar engines following the reduced irl thrust rule. Daedalus might still get up to 12% of C at the same rate its IRL counterpart would have. 

Even with Kerbal light years interstellar distances is still larger than solar system distances in real life. 
More of an reason to use Kerbin light years. if you send something to an star 4 lightyear away at 0.1c you expect it to take around 40 years not 133

7 hours ago, Luriss said:

Mm, we will have to wait and see.

And who said anything about only having one Daedalus engine?

Yes, Daedalus was suposed to reach 12% if c, but not slowing down. But 1+8 asparagus is an old KSP tricks. 

[GoldForest]

15 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Even with Kerbal light years interstellar distances is still larger than solar system distances in real life. 
More of an reason to use Kerbin light years. if you send something to an star 4 lightyear away at 0.1c you expect it to take around 40 years not 133

Yes, Daedalus was suposed to reach 12% if c, but not slowing down. But 1+8 asparagus is an old KSP tricks. 

Yeah, if you read my other posts, I realize I made a mistake with my math. I used distance of a lightyear and not the speed of light.

[magnemoe]

6 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Yeah, if you read my other posts, I realize I made a mistake with my math. I used distance of a lightyear and not the speed of light.

Who raises another question, there is no lightspeed delay in the KSP universe. No its not automatic controlling probes as you loose control if you loose connection. Also contract and science works without delay. 
Yes this is obviously for game play reasons. 

[GoldForest]

6 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Who raises another question, there is no lightspeed delay in the KSP universe. No its not automatic controlling probes as you loose control if you loose connection. Also contract and science works without delay. 
Yes this is obviously for game play reasons. 

Most if not all the interplanetary craft and interstellar craft shown had comm dishes. This could be aesthetic reasons, or communication is needed more than ever. Regular dishes will take a while at lightyear distance, but thankfully Daedalus can serve as a comm dish, a laser powered on iirc.

But that's kind of off topic for this thread, so a new thread will be needed to discuss comm links further. 

[darthgently]

Adjusting the game light year is really a big game balancing knob.  I'm guessing it may get tweaked by the devs over time.  And of course mods will do with it what they will do probably

[Rutabaga22]

15 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

his could be aesthetic reasons, or communication is needed more than ever.

I think comms will work like they did in KSP1, you just need a better antenna and relays the farther you go.