tater

You can simulate technologies that are not yet here. You are assuming "simulation" is binary, 100% accurate, or 0%. No modern simulation is 100%. None. They are none the less simulations. A Hohmann transfer calculated on paper for a theoretical rocket is a simulation, based upon whatever assumptions you are using. Using your metric, there is no such thing as a simulation, there is reality, and games.

Such a system would be a setting. Default careers would use the system we have. This would be exclusively for replay, basically. This thread is about "hard" mode, so think of this as a suggestion for that.

Then play sandbox. Or use the "default" seed. (I'd have a "default" that would be the extant kerbol system) There is ZERO replay in career. If you keep making the same stuff for career because you already know how… what is the point? I think exploring the unknown is FUN. I think exploring wiki is boring, not fun.

Hard has exactly nothing to do with realism/physics simulation. How hard it would be is largely a function of the user interface. "Realism" would have mission control telling the pilot exactly what to do so everything would work as expected. It would actually be boring. Unless you think the player is mission control, then maybe you set the maneuvers, but then you need not actually do the piloting, the pilot would do that. Many games treat "realism" as the player doing things that would in fact be the simultaneous jobs of many people, then claim this is "realism." If you go down that road in defining realism, then really you should pick a single role for the player, and the rest should be AI. Take a satellite contract, and the launch, burns, everything are determined by the game and fed to you, and unless there are system failures possible, the craft does it by itself without any intervention. See, it's possible to contract "realism" that is in fact so easy it is boring. I'd say it's a very light simulation (of some aspects of play) within a game framework.

The central cylinder that says "NERVA" is maybe 1.2 meters diameter. That's full sized, not 2/3 scale kerbal sized. It's about 6.85m tall, BTW.

You'd not need KER, though that would be cool. One, the career could include a launch planning ability (even if it just calculated graphs). Two, you could perhaps allow the "science" data to populate the "info" you can currently click on in map view for the various worlds. Even a crasher probe could get basic atmospheric data. Any probe that enters the SoI could fine tune the mass of the planet (a ballpark figure would be the starting point) based on positional telemetry alone. Biomes via something like scansat… it would be very cool.

Was in Air Warrior ages ago (90s), and had to come up with a name. Used "spud" since I figured I'd fly about as well as one. Was on a lot as my girlfriend (now wife) was in med school. The guys would say "later, tater" when I'd log for the night. Spud was taken in Warbirds, and I started using tater online.

So it just allows arbitrarily more mass with no other penalty. Doesn't matter to me, I don't use clipping for any reason.

Forget "realism." Within the context of KSP as nothing more than a game, it is inconsistent. You might CHOOSE to only clip 20%, but you could certainly clip 100%. If you put 10 tanks inside each other, just as a game, it's an exploit, period. Don't argue realism, this could be Chess for all I care. You are nominally supposed to have 1 piece per square, but if you drag instead of click you can hide your rook inside the queen… exploit. It was indeed a terrible example. It's basically the only component that has actually been massively miniaturized. Our current engines would not surprise Apollo engineers in the least. Nor would fuel tanks. Better? Sure. Marginally lighter or stronger per mass? Sure. Nothing major. My point stands, basically unargued by you. You have not shown which parts, and within what ranges of improvement have been miniaturized enough to justify clipping. I'll admit wings, heck, and struts/gear/fairing parts make sense to clip as they would simply be designed a different size. Clipping 10 tanks into 1, and not making sure that the fuel volume carried is actually the same as 1… is an exploit. If you were playing "vs" other people somehow, that would be "cheating," if it's just yourself… whatever, it does't matter. No, not if you are comparing to others using the same mod. If I post that I did X in a FAR thread, and anyone who can't needs to do something different, and I'm not actually using FAR, then what am I doing there? Are kraken drives a bug? Is the fact that you can make a "rocket" that uses a verbal climbing a ladder for magical propulsion a bug? By your argument they must be just legitimate ways to play.

That more strict definition of simulator would likely require a simulated cockpit, frankly. 'Simulation" is more broadly "modeling." KSP is absolutely a simulation, it's just a pretty weak simulation. Better modded, but none the less low order even then. A simple test is outcomes. If you wish to rendezvous, are the mechanics roughly what you'd expect if you know something about orbital mechanics? Yes. We did enough of that that I knew what to expect, and did what I thought I should in my early play. My real life experience (orbital mechanics problems from years ago) seemed to work. I read stuff here about people playing a long time before meeting milestones like rendezvous, or munar landing… I did the latter over a pint my first evening (because it was close enough to reality that my RL intuition worked). I'd not use it to plan a Mars mission, but it gives the gist pretty well. I can't say anything about flight model in KSP, I only build rockets, the space planes are too woo woo for me. The problem is that game is not the opposite of simulation, they are unrelated to each other, entirely. Might be better to rate the quality of simulation, say 1-10, and it's hard to measure "game" quantitatively, unlike "simulation," which you could actually objectively test if you wanted to. Not saying KSP would get a high simulation ranking, just that the more sim like something is has no bearing on if it is a game or not.

Yes, I've seen both ^^^ in person. That's actually a terrible example. The computers were a small volume of spacecraft. What is going to be made smaller about volumes of propellant, and by how much? (yes, fuels have different densities, etc, but that is more complex than clipping, there are other trade offs, clipping is only positive with aero) Space capsules? Maybe 7 people in the space of 3? Um, no. What tech in KSP can be legitimately made smaller? Probe cores? Yeah, maybe, but the game has several. Remember, also, that almost all tech in KSP dates to the 1960s, yet a modern, 3 man capsule would look little different than Apollo, only with better electronics. Not realistically clip-able stuff using your claim above: Tanks. Capsules. Habitation. Engines (no one would clip these much) What does that leave? Wings make sense, since they have very limited types/sizes. Batteries? Already large, but maybe. I can;t really think of anything, give some examples. - - - Updated - - - With actual aerodynamics, clipping is an exploit. Do what you want, that;s fine, but it's like kraken drives, or those crafts with kerbals climbing stairs that can achieve orbit. Doing something impossible because weaknesses in the game engine allows it doesn't make it any less silly.

Real hard mode: 1. Kerbol system is randomized at career start. Planets in different orbits, masses and atmospheres changed enough that wiki is useless. 2. You only learn the actual values of those worlds (aside from their orbits, and surface details of Mun/Minmus telescopically visible from kerbin) by going there and doing science. No tabbing to Jool, if you want to see what it looks like this game past a XX pixel wide preview, GO THERE with a probe. 3. Life support. Even this is not "hard" per se, but it is a challenge an advanced player would desire. It would make the early career FUN for advanced players, because every game would involve actual discovery.

Only if in real life you could put 20% more stuff inside the exact same space. It requires magic, so someone who wants to cheat will cheat. As for aesthetics… most of the clipped stuff I see posted here looks pretty kludged together, actually, it does nothing for me. YMMV.

If 2 otherwise identical crafts are made, and one has the radial tanks clipped such that the surface as seen by aero is 20% lower, that craft will be better.

Agree completely, hard mode is grind mode.

Once aerodynamics is stock, clipping is clearly "wrong." I can't see any other possible way to see this. You can claim the mass is the same, that;s fine when aero is ridiculously tied to mass. Once the shape/surface area/cross section matters, clipping is, well, cheating.

Straw man, really. I don't think anyone is claiming that KSP is astronaut training (if they have, you are welcome to quote them, and I'll agree with you). It is none the less a simulation of aspects of spacecraft operations at a coarse level of fidelity, to be sure, just as many "flight simulator" are low order simulations. I'd vote it is a simulation game (or some similar choice). Simcity is a sort of simulation, I suppose, at zeroith order (or less ). Il-2 series is a low order simulation of ww2 air combat, Silent Hunter is a low order simulation of submarine ops in ww2, etc. In the case of "flight sims" of ww2, for example, having played them, I have a much better understanding of ww2 air combat in reading historical accounts of pilots than I did before I played them (starting rather a long time ago, lol). I have no illusions that I am somehow now a fighter pilot, but when I read descriptions of real engagements, I visualize them accurately, whereas I frankly did not before that. I can't say more than "I get it" now. I think many can say the same about orbital mechanics playing KSP, they "get" aspects that would not have been clear to them before (say reading about the Gemini missions trying rendezvous/docking operations for the first time).

I never clip anything. Assuming the new aero is no better than FAR at dealing with clipping (which has to be really complicated, because it is certainly cheating as soon as surface area matters, so I doubt it can be any better), then it's an exploit, IMO.

Both, didn't answer because that is not an option. If any activity in any game mimics real life at any level, it is a simulation. It's just a matter of fidelity. Do a better poll and I'll answer.

The other thing is that since you see the position on the map, you learn the relationship that works. Once you do a munar transfer, guessing even without maneuver nodes is actually pretty easy.

I think in general the contract time constraints need to be massively tightened, though. None the less, you are probably right WRT most play, sans LS. Regarding nodes, the point is simply to let players, particularly new players, know how to eyeball likely times for reasonable dv transfers.

Much wrong physics wise (how were they being overtaken by debris? If it was a crossing orbit, the chances of them seeing it again would have been small). The horsing around… golfballs, singing on the moon… unlikely, but certainly not impossible. The lack of proper, cooling undergarments was glaring, but I was fine with that, I preferred the yoga shorts

They should have vast wings… radiators. The trouble with sic-fi ships is that they have these massively powerful drives, and directed energy weapons using gigawatts, and they have no radiators. Every watt needs to be radiated, or ships like those would be glowing white in no time.

Nice list. I also like the fact that many of these might be repaired by engineers, giving them something useful to do.

Awesome. Will keep messing around