EatThePath

Because without any sci in your sci-fi you might as well just say they turn into elves. It doesn't have to be real science either, I'm fine with it if there is some reasoned framework that the 'energy beings' follow. There generally isn't.

Beings made of 'pure energy' are, in my experience with sci-fi anyway, a purely fantasy idea with no meaningful grounding in scientific ideas, and thus no meaningful implications. What kind of energy? How is it structured in ways conducive to consciousness and action? What does any of this actually mean?

This is because we just don't have the capability to launch things like that into orbit. The rocket equation is such a harsh mistress that launching anything of moderate size requires a truly titanic rocket. The only concepts we have for viably launching large masses have sat untouched for decades because they're pretty goddamn scary in ways that regular rockets aren't.

I'll... concede the point. I still feel that 'more infinite' is an incorrect and problematic way of thinking about it, but I'm not enough of a mathemagician to be more precision than that. I stand by my core point, though, which is that without more information about the variation allowed at each level it is largely pointless to have more levels.

You can expect a version history to be available, either here, on the blog, or in the files, when there is a version history to recount. There isn't much of one yet. I've been patching up various issues and doing the line rendering changes I mentioned before. A little teaser: That's Jool there with all it's moons. Seems to be a bit unstable! Though admittedly there's still a bit of error in the input of the start state, I've not properly converted the mean anomaly values on the wiki into correct true anomaly, I'm not sure it'll be a big enough change to stabilize that system. Once I do it'll be interesting to do a long run and see if the Jool system settles down into a stable state after a while.

In that sense it easily can be within something else. The KSP universe is finite simply because there are limitations to how coordinates are stored, but even if we ignore that it is still a finite collection of data. No matter how far you travel in the three dimensions available, you will never find more planets. It contains a finite amount of mass/data. You could have alternate KSP universe 'next to' each other along another dimension and it would be very meaningful. The wording in the original post is "infinite collection of matter". Unless something is varying with each layer such as universal constants or some other meaningful aspect of physics, stacking infinite collections of matter/information next to each other doesn't have any useful meaning or implication, except maybe that as your technology learns ways to tap each one your access to energy/mass increases at ever more frightening rates.

Only really useful if each layer is in some way finite. Infinity isn't a number, at least not a traditional one. If you've got an infinite collection of infinite collections, you've still got an infinite collection. Everything that you could find in the second layer, you could also find in the first, because they both by definition have everything.

Argh, since orbit toy is months old and system builder is new, I just assume people are talking about system builder. Sorry, my mistake. Orbit Toy is getting various improvements at present, and inheriting System Builder's line scaling is one of them. No promises on update timetable, though.

The orbit lines should only ever be two pixels wide, give or take a little. If they're obscuring the moons then you are too far away to see the moon's orbit at all,unless I'm misunderstanding the situation. As for Atomic Space Navy, I don't want to talk it up too much at such an early stage, but if it comes to fruition I like to think it's something Nyrath would be interested in. Simply put it's an attempt to see if it's possible to make a space wargame with realistic ranges, speeds, and orbital mechanics and still have it be fun. Kerbal Space Program is one of the things that inspired me to first actually honestly try to make this.

For camera, the top down is more useful for my ends personally, but I can understand the desire for freer camera movement and will take it under advisment. For units, anyone one conversion isn't particularly hard. Supporting all units people might want to use, and working display preferences into the already knotty UI code so that it remembers what units you want to see things in as you switch objects and sessions, is a somewhat larger task.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, actually. The camera 'pivot' gets placed at the body the focus target is orbiting, so it can frame the whole orbit. Or are you suggesting full 3D rotation? I can understand the desire for 3D camera control but it's a complex enough problem that it's pretty low down my list. As for the rest, picking units is also a sticky problem, but it's also fairly high up on my to-do list. Though I do think that scientific notation and fundamental units get the job done fine, myself

Not that self-explanatory. It'd be a lot easier to get into space, I guess?

I agree it's pretty hard on the eyes. I made System Builder in part to get around that problem, since it exists the need for hand editing is lower. I fully expect the file format to change dramatically as the project grows and I learn more about file parsing, but if readability is a priority during that remains to be seen.

Greetings! I'm something of a space enthusiast who has recently produced a pair of tools that I think the people around here might find interesting. Orbit Toy is a gravitational simulation that can take editable system definitions and simulate them out for hundreds or thousands of years. I've tested it against NASA data on the solar system over a century, and while I'm not sure I'd trust it for planning actual missions it does appear stable and to closely resemble reality if not exactly match it. There are a number of command line options that can be used to get interesting data out of long runs, as well. System Builder is a tool I just released today that makes designing new systems for use in Orbit Toy far easier, with a GUI that does the hard math for you rather than hand editing position and velocity values. It comes with system files for Sol and five exoplanet systems. Though these were both produced as stepping stones to a larger goal(a rather ambitious space wargame project) they do function as they are. I know someone who is already planning to use them to vet a fictional star system, and I've found it quite fascinating to enter in the data for discovered extra-solar planets and view those systems. If you do get use out of them, or have problems with them, or have suggestions, let me know! Both tools are pretty rough in places, and I do have plans to improve the further, so all feedback is useful. As a treat for these forums, I've put together a system file for based on the KSP system, with values taken from the fan wiki. Download here Version history ATOMIC SPACE TOOLS: Combined orbit toy and system builder into one project. Corrected improper camera positioning in both programs. Numerous changes to level files. Lots of under the hood cleanup and reorganizing. Added a visible scale reference to all current tools. Adjusted line width and look to something a bit nicer. Changed player settings to run in background. ORBIT TOY: Motion plots now scale to consistent screen sizes as the camera moves. Added an indication of what system is currently being simulated. Camera zoom is now adjusted to fit systems on load. Level listings now scroll if there are enough levels to require it. SYSTEM BUILDER: Corrected handling of phase angle(true anomaly). Twice. Paths and labels are now hidden when the visual size of the orbit is very small to avoid clutter. Duplicate body names will no longer be accepted. Added the ability to update all edited values of a body in one click. Added the ability to revert all unapplied changes to a body. The camera now auto-focuses on the furthest-orbiting planet at load. The tree view is automatic sorted by semi major axis whenever that is updated. Tool now starts properly even if Sol system is absent.

Austupaio: I don't see a problem in that, provided credit is given where due. General: I'm making a new thread in the other forum more suited for this. It has a pack with all the rotations I mentioned.

Moderator Notice: The original poster has become inactive and will probably not notice bumps to this topic. If you want to get in contact with EatthePath, PLEASE private message him first so this topic doesn't get bumped unnecessarily. An alternative to the tricoupler, this lets you run a side-by-side triple stack without fiddling with radial decouplers. Comes with variants at different angles to allow some extra design freedom. Updated with a full range of angles at 15 degree increments. Saddly compatibility was broken with old saved ships to make the parts sort usefully in the panel. Sorry about that, I don't intend to break compatibility again. Mirror File: http://www./download.php?c7rbdvbu73yn7y4 ^Download link courtesy of dishycourier

Or the completely hypothetical as far as I know, completely bonkers, completely awesome, nuclear salt-water rocket. Now thats a beautiful idea.

Hopefully by the time I get to it (the list is long and many faceted!) part rotation will be a feature of the VAB, but otherwise yes.

I hadn't considered a 1+1 before. Not a terrible idea. I'll add it to my list.

Off the cuff I'd point to my Goldberg2, it even has a The first stage is three liquids fueled by two tanks each, and with two solid rocket boosters each. All of these fire at the same time, but the staging is set so you can eject the solids once they're empty while still firing the liquids. You want to do this whenever possible. Then a stage of three single-tank liquid rockets, and finally a stage of one single-tank liquid rocket. Pepper in SAS modules as necessary.

Real world orbital rockets generally are multi-stage, have strapped-on boosters, or both. The Delta rockets for example. Single stage to orbit is generally a bad idea, and generally solids go on the bottom, not on the top.

When I do it. Maybe tomorrow. It could easily be later.

no, the -60 degree part would be the 120 degree. My to-do list for next pack is 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 135, 150 and 165 degree versions. It'll clutter the build panel up and be tedious to configure for me, but it should open up some build freedom.

Indeed, this game has already eaten my last three days and probably isn't going to let up that much. Great stuff.

I just uploaded a new version. The previous version would work fine, but would not reload rockets properly after starting KSP again. This problem should be fixed.