tater

You are time warping anyway. If you spend 2 minutes of real time time warping, it makes zero difference at all if you travel 100,000km in that time or 10,00,000km.There is no reason to not be in favor of arbitrarily large values for time warp, other than computational limitations.

As a few have pointed out in the Principia thread, the ability to deal with forces while in "on the rails" time compression or higher compression "physics warp" is what would actually matter most because things like ion engines would actually work properly (constant acceleration trajectories).

I've seen this now a few times, and cannot get it to reproduce every time. When placing the S1 SRB-KD25k booster with 6 or 8 symmetry (career mode) I will try and place it, it's not lined up the way I like, try again, etc, and after a few tries, my mac will beachball on me and I have to kill the KSP process. I have an i7 mac, OS 10.7, with 12 GB RAM. So far it's the only thing that has ever crashed KSP for me. I'll try and work out a way to reproduce it, or at least document if it happens only after a certain elapsed time of play, etc. Note that I can restart KSP, and go right back to that vehicle, and place the SRBs just fine.

If the Kerbal "universe" is not to share the same physics as our universe, the game should be called Kerbal Ether Program, or something. Where will "lift wood" be in the tech tree, I wonder? Most of us (all I've seen so far, but I've not been here that long) wanting "realism" are not demanding Orbiter, just getting the physics as good as is practicable for the stock game. I have seen anti-realism people on countless game forums over the years somehow equate "realism" with "unfun" and "hard." Realism and fun (for the large majority of players) are not mutually exclusive. Realism and "hard" are not mutually exclusive. Easy vs hard has at least as much (or more) to do with the tools provided (UI, etc) than the physics (a nod to the devs, BTW, that their user interface is actually really good, IMO, and makes things that might be daunting for some players make a lot of sense). Trying to keep the physics in line with the real universe is good because we know that the real universe makes sense. In doing science fiction, it's best to try and keep some grip on reality so unexpected consequences and inconsistencies don't break everything. If you want to track your astronauts through careers, and their stupidity/courage is to matter, for example, then presumably there needs to be a way to actually kill them (deadly reentry, for example), something I've not managed to do yet (playing only a couple weeks now). As it is, the idea of anything making the game too hard seems fanciful to me. The first night after I downloaded the game, I successfully landed on the moon twice in science career (the first managed to leave the surface, but I had wasted so much fuel accidentally over thrusting and having to shoot the landing a few times that I could not make it home and Jeb was stuck in orbit (a terrible, retrograde, inclined munar orbit into the bargain), the 2d was a return trip). A couple nights after that, I rescued Jeb (wanted RCS first). I've not gone everywhere yet, but honestly, I will have run out of unplayed stock game in a couple weeks more of play (all done after the kids go to bed with a glass of wine or beer in one hand). It can likely bear some replay, but I have already DLed the first mods I plan on installing (FAR, life support, deadly reentry, etc).

Sky_walker, I explicitly referred to KSP as maybe being a zeroith order simulation. It depends on where you put the cutoff for "simulation," I'd certainly not use KSP to plan a real spaceflight, even with all the mods possible I know nothing at all about the limitations of Unity, I'll take your word for it. Suffice it to say that I find some old board games (hex board ) to be "simulations" at a very low level to the extent that they seem to result in outcomes consistent with reality (even if entirely abstracted). If you mean "simulation" in the sense of the link you posted above, then yeah, not even close. I'd just like decisions to be made with an eye towards more, rather than less realistic in terms of expected outcomes from a given player input, how we define that semantically ("low-order simulation," or "somewhat more realistic game") doesn't matter to me.

No, you are right, I mean as much as is possible within the engine, and again, for stock, a lower order approximation of reality. The key to the use of term "simulation," however is "approximation of reality." To the extent a game approximates reality, or realistic outcomes, (or even tries) it is a "simulator." You could simulate the exploration of a solar system with no orbital mechanics at all, so long as the associated costs, travel times, etc were somehow done (a turn-based game, for example). It would not be a space flight simulator, but it might be a space program simulator, even if only a zeroith order one

I think the underlying point is that there should be some sensors that are meant for things like probes.

To be fair, I have said stock is (should be) a simulator, but with the explicit caveat that it can be a lower order one.

I think repeating the yell, "it's a game, not a simulator" is wrong-headed. This is the excuse used in many games to head into fantasy land (magic dead windward sailing (of square riggers) in games supposedly about sailing, for example). It IS a simulator, but the Kerbol system is not the Sol system. That's the way it should be looked at. Simple issues of scaling can make it better, and even make it more fun, as such scaling can mean more things to do (because in a game, people only do what is incentivized in my experience).

It is certainly supposed to be realistic, it's only a matter of what order approximation. If not, there would be no point to it at all. My kid had "Rocket Math" where he built rockets with no relationship to reality (one was a firetruck with Atlas rockets as boosters). To the extent it becomes divorced from reality it becomes unpredictable, and frankly useless. I'm fine with little alien guys, and until I get bored and mod up, I'm fine with a "stock" game. That said, the default work on the game should in fact be as realistic as possible, then if they need to simplify, do so afterwards. Why? Because reality is a known entity they can compare with. Cause and effect work. Once you start messing with reality, you get unintended consequences. Example: you want people to want to build orbital stations as part of fun gameplay. If your unrealistic choices make stations pointless (you can launch and return pretty much anything into orbit with no concerns as to aerodynamics, etc), then stations are bypassed in gameplay. You can build one for fun, but they have zero utility. There are countless other examples possible. Other games have done this in different genres, always dumbing it down (how'd that work for PotBS?). Not to say the game should be RSS/RO/etc as stock, but that the basic paradigm should be one of realism.

Dead on. Hopefully someone will pay attention.

Yeah, this is a great idea, I agree completely. It provides a reason to do things, which is what "gameplay" is in a career game, reasons to do things. It is also a reason for probes (much of the science of real early space probes was photographic in nature). So you have only gross ideas about planets that are far away, though the Mun and Minmus would be pretty well mapped telescopically. Biomes might be put in two, broad categories. Those that can be mapped via remote sensing, and those that require surface data/collection. The first might suggest areas for further study, that can only be determined to be a unique biome via landing.

If they want to encourage manned flight data, add some new sensors. Add a new right click to the habitable modules for "physiology report log," for example. This could allow things like hitchhikers to generate some useful "on orbit" science. Have it only do a small amount, but it can be repeated a lot (or turn the log on, and the longer it runs, the more science you get up to some value). Regardless, I think it's important to remember that the tech tree moves way too fast, anyway, so if you were to play in a more "realistic" way (assume the US and CCCP programs as examples) and send unmanned craft first, the "science" build up is at a much slower (realistic) speed. It might be best to think of the transmitted data as the baseline, and the manned stuff as being in fact too good. I'd think somewhere in between would be better. Instead of making all the branches cost more and more per level, make them cost less, but require prerequisites, and scale back most all the returned science values. Some still might cost 160, 300, etc, but most would not, though they might require a couple prerequisites. I'm new, and played a few tutorial missions to get the hang of controls, then did a science career, and I'm now doing a regular career. I landed on the Mun very quickly in the science career (my first night playing) after only a handful of flights or two (many collecting Kermin science to get some parts). I started the regular career last week at some point, and I'm already through most of the 160 science tree (a couple Mun landings, and a Minmus landing blew me through all the 90s in the space of a couple beers one night. It really does go too fast, the tree needs to have some tech much easier to get fast, and some longer delays I think.

Often? Is it even possible to kill anyone right now? I've not managed it, and I've hit the atmosphere at speeds that should result in some sort of Tunguska event on Kermin.

Yep. This is why you can't take anything seriously that involves, well, any specialty at all, in the news. Reporters cannot manage to even write well (they require copy editors), much less actually understanding what they are writing about. I have heard the following attributed to Murray Gell-Mann, but that may be apocryphal (paraphrased by me, might be BS, all disclaimers apply): He was supposedly interviewed about physics, unsurprisingly, and went to read the article in the paper (a highly thought of paper). They not only got the gist of what he said wrong, but pretty much exactly wrong, the opposite of his explanation. He said that he was annoyed, then went on to read the paper, and believed what he read on other pages since he was not in expert in those subject areas. Obviously upon further thought, he realized he should not take any of it as any more accurate than his own story was.

I can imagine multiplayer as a business priority, but I cannot imagine how that works in any game that necessarily requires time compression. On topic, I too am hoping for a more realistic atmosphere to go with these awesome new spaceplane parts.

Odd, I was looking at the KSP eclipse thread, and somehow posted in this one (thinking it was the eclipse thread, moved). My bad.

Odd, I'dve assumed "science labs " was for real science, not something exclusive to KSP (which this is). Cool, though. <EDIT> thought a different thread was moved, clearly my Stupidity rating is on the high side. I have reasonable Courage going for me as a counterbalance

Yeah, switching from whatever dot-version to 1.0 is the norm. None the less, we are still where they are talking in terms of sub-1.0 version releases, and everything I have read on here suggests that the atmosphere is a placeholder---or am I wrong, and the soup is it, and aerodynamics for spacecraft will never matter on Kerbin? Cosmic and solar radiation are in fact a principal reason for mines to be useful, should anyone ever want to see stock use of resources. Shielding is expensive to lift from planet side, but less expensive to lift from the moon (erm, Mun) or Minmus. What you'd really want from those worlds in terms of mining would be fuel, and regolith for shielding. The O'Neil colony ideas all have a few meters of regolith shielding, as do modern ideas for lunar bases (both from the radiation and micrometeorite standpoints). Some people like to "decorate" things to look cool/ralistic, I'd simply prefer them to need to be that way <shrug>. It's like taking hitchhiker modules to make the craft more realistic. Others like their ships to be a tardis, I guess. Yes, mods will take care of all this, but as I have just started playing, and version changes break mods/saves/careers in many cases, I'm sticking to vanilla for a while (though I'll be modding mine within a month, I imagine, as I get bored).

Doing the same stuff over and over is tedious. Building a station "just because" is fun, but you can do that in sandbox. Other than a contract, there is no reason to build a station in a career game. No reason to assemble anything in orbit. A more realistic reentry is likely a given, we are at version 0.24 out of a nominal 1.0, and the atmosphere is explicitly a placeholder, right? Once that is fixed, even a little, many ships that work now won't.

You're right, it doesn't. They could have those as difficulty settings, I suppose. Turn it on in a career, and make it easy for just messing around. Again, I'm not for this in particular, just the choice of lightweight crew compartments for some uses, and significantly heavier ones for longer duration journeys. Really long duration flights would likely be assembled in orbit.

That's why I suggest just the normal background of cosmic rays and solar protons. Bringing more mass IS interesting. It means that you would have to construct ships in space. Launching insane, un-aerodynamic glop from the ground to the distant solar system is not nearly as interesting as having to construct a serious interplanetary craft in orbit. Mass, more mass, for missions creates the need for LKO stations, and complex systems of spacefaring other than make a ship half a klick wide with girders and stuff all over to get your sky crane lander to the other side of the system. Meh. So it's interesting, and creates reasons to do stuff. It's like satellites, they should be useful. Ditto stations. For a career game, you want challenges and problems to solve. If people don't want that, they can play sandbox.

Cosmic radiation can be "random" and still be essentially isotropic and is a legitimate factor. Solar radiation is not isotropic, and the game already tracks the sun location, so it would be easy to abstract once some, even simple life support is in. Different mission regimes would require heavier habitation modules (either built-in shielding, or a "storm cellar"). It could be another way to force manned flight to be heavier for longer missions (life support in general would do this). I get the point about them not wanting "random" stuff, even if I think they miss good gameplay options as a result. Note that in the case of things like flares, nominal craft can be assumed to be survivable vs that in low orbit, certainly, and any later requirements for life support can simply subsume any costs (mass) for shielding.

A flare is not a nova, but it's a good idea. Actually, cosmic radiation need not be random. It could simply be continuous, and vary a little based on location. Below Van Allen belts, it's minor. Above them, you'd want more shielding. In a KSP with life support, this would simply be a requirement for missions of duration above X days, or in unprotected regions. It would make acceptable habitats more massive, is all. No need for anything random, just scale the nominal shielding masses to reflect some worst case of a flare (habitat thick enough for normal operations, with an X% mass increase for the "storm shelter" included).

They talked about a big project that touches everything. Sticking on the "graphics" notion, I wonder if they are adding in the ability to "record" and playback (like Il-2, for example). It would record the entire game state during the recording period for later playback with camera changes, etc.