Nuke

if you want to solve the problems of memory related crashes now, instead of when unity fully supports 64 bit, then the game is in dire need of better bitmap management code. bitmaps are the bulk of the data that the game needs to load. they are big and there are a lot of them. we have all seen the effects of compressing all the textures and simply reducing them. there are mods for that. they are good mods. but frankly, its not the job of modders to fix the holes in the game's critical subsystems despite how good they may be at it. also the closer the systems are to the core of the game the higher their performance. id rather them make cool mods than workarounds to make other mods more usable. this brings us to: pre-optimised texture assets. why load a texture that is 6 times bigger and waste time compressing it when you can just load a pre-compressed texture? if the textures have pre-generated mipmaps then no time is wasted in generating them either. you can ship really high resolution compressed textures, and have the game only load the mip levels that are needed/can fit (64-bit linux users with high end hardware would be able to go nuts). still running out of ram: use streaming. you have a texture memory target that the game actively tries to maintain, and you keep track of how frequently textures are used. if the textures use more memory than the target then the game streams out high mip levels of infrequently used textures, and if you are under budget load some more. all textures are loaded at some minimum mip level so that there is always a lower resolution texture to fall back on. this and the memory target can be tweaked in real time based on system capabilities and memory needs. you also arent required to load the whole texture, just the mips levels you need. pre-compressed assets make this more robust by reducing and eliminating load times and compression times, respectively. tldr: precompressed assets+streaming now > 64 bit later

the only thing i haven't seen yet is alternate space centers. but im sure modders will figure it out eventually.

this thread on another board http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77092.0

the problem with super heavy elements at this point is there very short half lives. there is not much use in elements that decay so quickly. then you get the theoretical island of stability which should produce elements with long enough half lives to be of some use. since there is no known natural source of those elements, and the only means to produce them is not cheap, even if we find a use for them then it is unlikely they will be practical. proposed uses are more energetic nuclear fuels (totally impractical because of the energy needed to create the elements, though i suppose you could think of it in terms of energy storage), and more compact nuclear weapons (which might be useful to increase the isp of orion drive by making the warheads smaller without compromising yield). interesting stuff.

i have been making mods for games since '96, and i have never asked for a single donation. ever. its a hobby not a job. im not about to make people pay money for my 3rd rate mods. secondly i wont be downloading mods that cost money no matter how small the transaction is. the potential for being ripped off is too great and i really dont want to promote the free to play model (its just too good a way to make a bad game). thirdly anyone who makes mods so good that people would buy them should probibly try to get a job at a game company. you will make more money.

this is known in mod circles as a "total conversion". usually there is some focus such as to make a game in another scifi universe, or to make a game with a particular theme or gameplay style. there is a lot of potential in ksp for this kinda thing.

we dont really have the materials. we have a few forms of carbon which are theoretically very good. but we are just barely starting to figure out how to manufacture products from those. so this is years down the line. it might get side stepped by fusion rockets while we are waiting for lighter stronger composites.

as i understand it this thing will get up to orbital speed without actually leaving the thin upper atmosphere. id bet its some kind of atmospheric ion propulsion, like what you see on those ionocraft lifters, or one of those air purifiers, so this would eliminate the need to carry propellant (except for the upper stage). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionocraft lifters in particular are very light, its just a thin corona wire in front of a piece of foil called the collector. since graphene is conductive you could probibly have a conductive (graphene) leading edge of the wing with a corona wire (nanotubes/graphene) suspended in front of it on non conductive strakes. but the high voltage power supply is going to be big and require a lot of solar panels (probibly those experimental light flexable ones that you can epoxy into its skin). you could probibly do away with the hvdc power supply with the right solar arrangement (lots of cells in series). so you can build it so that the wing/gasbag is also the engine with the power plant being on top of it in the form of membrane solar panels. one structure to do it all and it should be pretty light for its size. now you have added dangers of having high voltages on a hydrogen blimp in an oxygen atmosphere. helium would solve this at a cost of buoyancy. then im not sure how this is going to hold its form under the drag forces (atmospheric particles hitting it at orbital velocity would probibly shred it). let alone have enough thrust to maintain positive acceleration under said drag (especially using ionocraft propulsion). build it bigger you get more drag, but more buoyancy but probibly more thrust from extra solar panel area. it would take someone with better maths work ethic than me to figure out if its viable or not.

i dont kittens swear! and how do you know it wasnt "kittens"? i even self censored because i respect the fact that there are just some members on this board that cannot handle all the squee.

i figure with nanotube and graphene based materials it might be possible to engineer and build the neccisary structures. hydrogen loss is manageable with regular refillings. it may be possible to replenish lost hydrogen from atmospheric compounds, though the question is if it can keep up with loss rates without being too heavy.

i like to say kethane is one of those high quality mods that has a reasonably consistent asthetic, is incredibly useful, and it doesnt really feel like cheating because all the mapping you need to do to, and the precision landings you need to pull off. infernal robitics is a pretty good improvement over damned robtics, it looks nicer and the animation is less wonky. i personally dont like the gui. id love to see it use action groups instead of keystrokes or gui clicks. you cant really get any precision out of it, and you cant program it to do exotic things like inverse kinematics. but for what it does it does it fine. it doesnt have the winch, that would be the kerbal attachment system. i find the kas to be one of those buggy mods that usually causes more problems than it solves. but its kind of essential equipment for ground bases. you can of course live without it if all you are doing is collecting fuel. i should point out that i use all these mods.

i need to reiterate that im not talking about having random failures. im talking more about having newly unlocked parts in a weakened, unrefined state. you might even have a little gauge or even a bit of comical text to discrive the state of a part. say you get a new engine. this engine might have twice the heat production and half the structural integrity of the refined version. the part info window will display the strength and heat ratings. you may have a trl gauge to indicate level of refinement. you might also have some engineer's notes. first time you fly it: "brand new part with brand new bugs!" upon having an overheat (and returning data): "we fixed the overheating problem, but it still looks a little weak" overheat problem fixed! +50 science! upon having a structural failure (and returning data): "this part is as good as it can be" structural problem fixed! +50 science! at this point the part is reliable. every part would have 2 or 3 "bugs" which you can "fix" for science and a better part. the engineer notes will provide hints about what the problems the part may be. a smart player would conduct test flights to exploit these problems for science. it also makes abort procedures important so that data can be returned to the engineers.

how many test pilots hate their job?

^ you got a source for that, it sounds interesting. emcc website is back up and claims they are working on wb8, which is phase 2 of a 3 phase plan where phase 3 results in a breakeven reactor. i believe they are funded through phase 2. the problem with polywell is that the us navy is footing the bill, and they want a little bit of secrecy. as a result they dont want any papers to be published on polywells. bussard had this problem when he was still alive. but so long as the science is being funded i dont mind it being a little secret. several other science teams are testing polywells, but i dont think they are as far along as emcc (at the very least they are confirming some of bussard's findings).

i figure once you have a base, some small scale agriculture (underground hydroponic farms), a mining operation (metals, gravel, water), a foundry, a water purification and electrolysis facility, and a nuclear reactor to power it all. you could build an entire self sustaining lunar city around just that. going to mars is just a publicity stunt, when the get back we still wont have anyone living beyond leo and we still wont have any infrastructure for going elsewhere. at least till we get polywell+mpd.

the cpu was an 80C86, which is only a 16 bit processor which ran at 10 mhz. it came with 1mb/2mb ram. storage was with battery backed ram in 256kb/512kb cards. screen was a monochrome 640x400 cga display. you could probibly play elite on it. i still want one. its probibly a collectors item at this point there isnt even one on ebay.

i knew the enterprise had ejector seats. this was just a shuttle for atmospheric test flights and was not capable of making orbit or re-entering. but it did allow for glide testing.

awesome, where can i get one?

its not a random failure if you launch a space mission with an untested part! it failed because you launched with an untested part. therefore its not random at all. of course once jeb has destroyed it a couple times (and earned some science in the process), it becomes reliable. this would actually be a good way to reward conducting test flights with science. this is up there with levelable parts and trl modeling. i see "random failures" being the game engine decided to throw a monkey wrench into your mission because of a dice roll. but im all for failures caused by stupidity. so you might unlock a part and it would have the same rating except maybe it overheats, or it is too weak structurally, or the power requirements are ludicrous, or the efficiency is not there. all this stuff would be in the parts information tab, so you can see that something is not right with it. you might build an unmanned test flight (or have a really good abort system) and test the parts. science would be rewarded each time you identify a problem with a part (this would require you fly, have the part fail, and recover it), also the part will be improved. this is part of running a real space program and would be a welcome addition to the game in my book.

i like to launch ships that are over 1000 metric tons, multi kiloton boosters with 500+ ton payloads.

what i would like to see is some more/better sound content. i mostly play on mute because its mind numbingly bland.

i dont think pv cells are as sensitive. i can understand where you have dopped traces a couple atoms wide that could really be damaged by a lattice shift. but the structure of a photovoltaic cell is very simple in comparison. you might get some localized degradation manifested as a slight drop in power output. you probibly get more damage from space dust and solar wind than you do from radiation.

i could live with a hundred less isp if it means i dont have to carry liquid fluorine around.

depends on the gauge and how good you are on driving it. you might need a dac to drive one of those galvanometric gauges. you can fake it with a servo, which is rather easy and doesn't need a driver circuit (though an isolated power supply for the servos is nice). want something more robust? maybe try a stepper motor or a regular old dc motor with a rotory encoder or perhaps a hall sensor. motor driver ics are pretty cheap. there are led displays, 7 segment displays and bar graph displays and drivers ics for them. of course there are a lot of lcd modules, character, graphic, color, etc. basically go nuts.

i really dont see the difference, you are going to get an arm device that is locked down and totally useless for anything but the most mundane of applications. its not like a pc where you can purge the system and install a new one without voiding the warranty and being unable to find drivers, then write code for the machine on the machine.