Why is there a conflict of interest at all between realistic and unrealistic aerodynamics?

[Darnok]

Have to disagree on ions, darnok. More warping would not help, ion engines might operate for periods of time well in excess of warp times in KSP. NASA ran an ion for 48,000+ hours continuously. Ions would require an out of focus treatment of some sort (either physics on, or faked via an on-rails spiral orbit).

Hmm I know about continuously burn... but I've read or seen some document on youtube about satellite powered by ion engine doing it in way I described... just not sure if this satellite burned away from Earth SOI or just went to some high orbit in few burns.

[Hannu]

Because SQUAD made a videogame that made you pick KSP over Orbiter (which was the more obvious choice if you truly wanted realism). So SQUAD had to be doing something correct by balancing realism and un-realistic gameplay.

I am interested to build and plan ships and missions. Orbiter does not give that. KSP is much better, when I get enough mods to make that possible. I can manage dv, life supplies, orbital mechanics, mission time, etc. I would like to add even more technical things to manage. It is interesting thing, bureaucratic or economic restrictions are not.

Solution suggested by SQUAD was because the game engine didn't allow for higher levels of time warp and would likely cause crashes and ruin your game. It's been repeated over and over again, but the realism crowd unrealistically (how ironic) expect the unity engine to work miracles.

I do not believe that it depends on Unity. It is bad coding from Squad and laziness to fix it properly.

It's strange to me that you'd note that mods are made to improve aero, but you can't figure out that if everyone wanted FAR then FAR would have been installed by everybody. It's clear that a significant number of KSP players don't use FAR out of choice and it's not like they've never heard of FAR either because it's impossible to go through the forums or Youtube videos related to KSP without having it mentioned once.

It is not different thing that Squad's choices. Everybody must install boring economics and facility building stuff. But no problem. There are science and sandbox modes to them who do not like that. Realism do not have to be different. You could choose "normal" difficulty and get simplifications.

I agree that there is no realistic hope that SQUAD make this game any more realistic as it is. It is now clear, after their releases, that they do not like realism, and I am sure that commercial pressure pushes also to unrealistic and technically easy direction. But at least I hope, that this discussion keep their eyes open that there are people who want to realism. At least they can program so that they do not prevent adding realism with mods. For example impossibility of axial tilts is completely ridiculous deficiency in this kind of game. And nobody can blame Unity. I am absolutely sure that you can rotate things around arbitrary axis in every 3D engine.

[tater]

If you look at an ion orbit earth centric instead of the solar I posted, it's a very slow spiral away from earth. Earth mars hohmann is about 9 months, with ions it's over 20 months. That's really what is lost in the current KSP work around, time. If life support was a thing it would matter.

[goldenpsp]

I do not believe that it depends on Unity. It is bad coding from Squad and laziness to fix it properly.

Really? You really need to be able to back up a statement like that if you want it to hold any credibility.

[Jouni]

Either way, the ion engine was balanced in such a way that at the end of the burn you would have the exact same delta V as the original, just that the burn times have been reduced to simulate a time warp. I can't understand why the realism people think that's overpowered when the delta V remains the same.

The problem was that the increased thrust made ion engines good lander engines for most planets. The engine became qualitatively different. Right now, the main thing that keeps ion engines more or less balanced is the lack of large xenon containers. We would see a lot more ion-powered landers and interplanetary ships, if ion propulsion for large ships wouldn't require hundreds of parts.

[tater]

I do not believe that it depends on Unity. It is bad coding from Squad and laziness to fix it properly.

It is fundamentally different than all other propulsion in KSP as it requires constant thrust for years. I don't think it is right to characterize it as lazy in the least. It is non-trivial to accomplish.

[Levelord]

It is not different thing that Squad's choices. Everybody must install boring economics and facility building stuff. But no problem. There are science and sandbox modes to them who do not like that. Realism do not have to be different. You could choose "normal" difficulty and get simplifications.

I agree that there is no realistic hope that SQUAD make this game any more realistic as it is. It is now clear, after their releases, that they do not like realism, and I am sure that commercial pressure pushes also to unrealistic and technically easy direction. But at least I hope, that this discussion keep their eyes open that there are people who want to realism. At least they can program so that they do not prevent adding realism with mods. For example impossibility of axial tilts is completely ridiculous deficiency in this kind of game. And nobody can blame Unity. I am absolutely sure that you can rotate things around arbitrary axis in every 3D engine.

I suggested having option toggles for that a while back in a different and older thread. But I've come to realize that this might essentially be putting multiple versions of KSP into one, which I don't really know would be possible. The problem here is to not have binary thinking. This is not a 1 or 0 game where they either like or hate realism.

There isn't a group of people who 'do not like realism' as you'd put it, there's a spectrum of people ranging from those who want hyper realism, then people who like FAR, then you have people who think FAR is too much and opt for the sister mod NEAR, then you have a sizable chunk who play stock and want to see where SQUAD will take the aero model next. The idea here is how can we cast the net wide enough to cover these people.

As for axial tilts, there has already been a suggestion made in the suggestion forums, but we've not heard an answer from SQUAD yet so nobody knows if it's an eventual planned feature. Would be nice to have though.

[Hannu]

Really? You really need to be able to back up a statement like that if you want it to hold any credibility.

Of course I have not source codes and can not show it clearly. But I have programmed simulator type games and physical programs as a hobby so much that I know how to solve motion equations with continuous thrust. I agree that it is not very trivial thing in KSP, because they assume constant elliptic orbit and do not solve motion equations at all. But I know also, that it would not be very difficult or laborious to program that kind of small continuous thrust (compared to other things they do in every update). Physical and mathematical simulations are much simpler (in game level, true simulations are another story) than for example 3D modeling.

In my opinion current ion engines are quite pointless. Finite length thrust is ion engine's interesting thing in celestial mechanics point of view. Now they are just easy way to get huge dv and small thrust for small crafts. But I do not see why you need such a dv in KSP, where you can get to anywhere and back with couple of kms per sec. They do not make anything possible which is not possible with other engines, unlike in real space exploration.

[tater]

It's important to reiterate that it is easy to have certain realism features a difficulty toggle if coded in. In addition, I think many would prefer stock to have more realistic options because stock will likely always be more optimized. If we don't need as many physics mods, we can use that overhead on eye candy and parts.

[Motokid600]

You cannot have a difficulty toggle for every major feature. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

[goldenpsp]

You cannot have a difficulty toggle for every major feature. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

Says who? Especially in a single player game.

[cantab]

The ion engines are an interesting example I feel. The original ion engine was already massively unrealistic, delivering 500 Newtons of thrust off a modest solar array or a bunch of RTGs. It was also generally regarded as un-fun because burns were too long. Squad had a few options:

A) Make the ions realistic, and make the game handle them in a fun way. This would require some sort of thrust-on-rails system, revision to the map mode to project the trajectories, and so on.

Ignore realism and make them fun within the game's then-current state. This required simply boosting the thrust.

(I suppose there was C) Do Nothing, and D) Remove the ions outright, too.)

In the case of the ions, a single relatively rarely used engine, taking option B was obvious, even though option A, in giving a qualitatively different way to fly, may be more fun - certainly more interesting.

In the case of aerodynamics, the situation isn't exactly analogous. But I would say option A is adding a realistic aerodynamic model and the tools to make designing and flying in that model fun. Option B is fudging the aerodynamic model so it's fun in the game as it otherwise stands.

Since aerodynamics, unlike ion engines, are something that every single craft in the game has to deal with, I think option A is justified.

[tater]

You cannot have a difficulty toggle for every major feature. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

Why not?

For aero, I see no reason to, though you could certainly have a toggle of RUD events as a result of aero, I suppose.

For Life Support (the single biggest realism change which unambiguously impacts difficulty, IMHO), it could be a toggle, or possibly have levels of difficulty (hard tracks it, deaths, etc, medium could track it and merely impact rep, like Snacks (you can edit Snacks to kill as well), and easy with it off entirely.

Reentry? DRE has diff levels already.

Since aerodynamics, unlike ion engines, are something that every single craft in the game has to deal with, I think option A is justified.

I agree completely.

[Motokid600]

Says who? Especially in a single player game.

Says... Common sense I suppose. If there's any more difficulty toggles then there already are it'll just become a mess to manage and confusing. Not to mention it'd be a fiasco on the forums. "Oh well what settings are YOU using?" "Oh, well these are the settings IM using."

It makes troubleshooting more of an effort. And then on top of all that the game would suffer an identity crisis. And all this realism vs gameplay stuff would get worse. So much worse. With every feature as a difficulty toggle you risk splitting the community into factions.

No, the major features such as aero need to be set in stone. (malleable stone) As should all the major fundamentals.

To add: I don't know what to think about life support. It's fun to plan for, but once you go interplanetary it becomes a bit of a hassle. TAC is by far the most difficult feature you can add to your game. It really is..

Edited January 20, 2015 by Motokid600

[tater]

I think IFLS or Snacks (with death) makes more sense for any base game implementation. A certain percentage in any system is recovered, and there must always be additional consumables added to that to maintain life. Lumping them into one consumable is a perfectly good abstraction. On topic (closer, anyway ) realism does not require even minute detail be simulated in real time, some things are fine to abstract as long as the outcomes make sense. Aero is not one of those things, or, rather, it will of course be abstracted, but as the player interaction with it is on very short time scales, it needs to be more accurate.

I don't think that the community is even an issue, huge numbers are modded, and since there are no "supermods" where people are all on the same page, there are nearly as many installs as people. A common game simply is not a thing.

Honestly, the current "difficulty" sliders are more grind sliders, IMO. None change gameplay, they just add odd speed bumps that bear little to no bearing on reality.

[goldenpsp]

Says... Common sense I suppose. If there's any more difficulty toggles then there already are it'll just become a mess to manage and confusing. Not to mention it'd be a fiasco on the forums. "Oh well what settings are YOU using?" "Oh, well these are the settings IM using."

Not to mention it makes troubleshooting more of an effort. And then on top of all that the game would suffer an identity crisis. And all this realism vs gameplay stuff would get worse. So much worse. With every feature as a difficulty toggle you risk splitting the community into factions.

No, the major features such as aero need to be set in stone. (malleable stone) As should all the major fundamentals.

To add: I don't know what to think about life support. It's fun to plan for, but once you go interplanetary it becomes a bit of a hassle. TAC is by far the most difficult feature you can add to your game. It really is..

Wow, do you actually believe the stuff you are shoveling? I could point to a number of games that allow for incredible levels of configuration for just about every aspect of gameplay. They suffer from none of the issues you claim would befall KSP.

[Motokid600]

No need to get hostile. Yes thats what I believe. Because you cannot have an option for every feature of the game. Thats just ridiculous. Especially how intimidating it'd be to a new player. "Oh, well make it optional." ... Cannot be the answer for everything. Not to mention how much of a pain it'd be for Squad to have an easier alternate version of every feature the player can switch too.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Motokid600

[tater]

Easy, normal, hard. Basically sets of prechecked boxes.

[KerikBalm]

So there's no real purpose to have the game force that design via aerodynamics to give you a 'reason' to do so. For the same reason why we don't actually need contracts to give us a 'reason' to go to space, we'd just do it anyway while contracts are an optional feature to provide flavor. (At least other players have the option to ignore contracts, they don't have the option to ignore aerodynamics).

...

You KNOW that your aero suggestions will force other players to design planes to your personal aesthetic standards but you don't want to say it directly to avoid being quoted on it.

Having high aspect ratio wings behave differently than low aspect ratio wings doesn't force anyone to design something any particular way.

That you persist in this hyperbole only serves to make it obvious that one can't have a rational discussion with you.

I won't say it because I don't mean it. You are trying to put "words into my mouth" and intentions into my posts.

[Motokid600]

Easy, normal, hard. Basically sets of prechecked boxes.

So you want three different versions of aero ( and whatever major gameplay feature is added in the future ) for easy, medium and Hard. Sounds like a pain. A pain for Squad to have to code and troubleshoot. And it sounds like a pain for modders such as Ferram to have to deal with all that.

It's all so unnecessary. One feature, one system. Thats all Squad should have to do. A system that can be accepted easily enough for the realism fanatics and the pancake fanatics. Easy, medium, Hard you say?

I'd bet money that there will be a "stock aero" mod in the first few weeks after the patch. So there's your "easy" level of difficulty. The "medium" level would be the new aero coming out. And then there's FAR for your "hard" level.

Make one system that can be modded up or down. And move on.

[tater]

I never said that. I said one aero, and disassembly and reentry destruction being toggles to ignore (a functionality both FAR and DRE already have). Easy no reentry or disassembly effects. Normal yes to reentry, no to aerodynamic failures. Hard is yes to both.

FAR is not hard, just different. I think that is OP's point.

[Motokid600]

I can't see the new aero having disassembly effects. That may remain exclusive to FAR. But we'll see. But for heat it's hard to say.

Yes you can have an option to toggle heat related destruction. But then why have the feature in the stock game at all at that point? Maybe shield attrition instead? Think about it. If heat is as easy to deal with as just slapping an appropriately sized shield on the end your craft then what's the problem? Because even with DRE thats all it really is. Even before I tried DRE I always played as if heat was a factor. Even if your not with some lolcraft do you just let it tumble wildly or fly into an atmosphere prograde? Just slap a shield on the end of it and your good. Come screaming in at whatever speed or angle you want.

So no I guess. If Squad does one day incorporate heat effects I'd say force the player to atleast deal with that very basic, easy portion of it.

[goldenpsp]

No need to get hostile. Yes thats what I believe. Because you cannot have an option for every feature of the game. Thats just ridiculous. Especially how intimidating it'd be to a new player. "Oh, well make it optional." ... Cannot be the answer for everything. Not to mention how much of a pain it'd be for Squad to have an easier alternate version of every feature the player can switch too.

Sorry but you started it. Saying its what "you believe" and is "common sense" are two very different things. One is your opinion, the other is a slap to anyone who doesn't hold your opinion.

This whole thread is academic IMO anyhow. There is no real benefit for squad to implement any realistic aero into the stock game anytime soon.

[Levelord]

Having high aspect ratio wings behave differently than low aspect ratio wings doesn't force anyone to design something any particular way.

That you persist in this hyperbole only serves to make it obvious that one can't have a rational discussion with you.

I won't say it because I don't mean it. You are trying to put "words into my mouth" and intentions into my posts.

You yourself said that you needed a 'reason' to have delta shaped wings. The stock aero already provides lift based on wing size.

You provide a flimsy and weak argument that you need a 'reason' to force a plane design when the point has already been made that there are no obstacles to do that yourself in the current aero. So with that in mind, the only possible reason why you would need the game to force you to do a certain task that is otherwise unrestricted is either because you lack the willpower to do it yourself (which is easily solved with modding) or because you want others to follow suit so that you'll feel comfortable doing it too.

That was my thought process and it's not something I decided to pick out of thin air. I was hoping you'd actually counter the individual points I made instead of going 'strawman' or 'hyperbole' or 'not rational' or other various means of insincerity when you can't explain your current position on why it's so inconsistent.

[NathanKell]

Levelord, I *utterly* fail to see why this argument does not apply to Isp. Please, please elucidate.

Oh, also, completely-impossible-in-Unity mod does completely-impossible-in-Unity on-rails thrust... >.>