mdg583

Yes, that's a good point - that there can still be a finite number of galaxies in an infinite space. I'm not sure about this, because I think the Big Bang theory only goes back to just when the universe was very very dense and very very hot. I think the idea is that it still could have been infinite then, and still could have experienced expansion the same as if the universe were finite.

I wish I had a better idea what that means, but it probably would take a lot more reading. There are also some other strange philosophical questions. If the big bang happened in the entire observable and unobservable universe 13 billion years ago, then there should have been a period of time in the entire unobservable universe where there were no galaxies, and then at some future point in time there were an infinite number of galaxies. And it's hard to imagine a way for there to be a first galaxy among an infinite set of galaxies. But I guess with special relativity sequences of events aren't so hard set, so maybe you can only talk about a first galaxy from any particular perspective in an observable universe. I don't know a lot about this - just some strange questions.

Hi cfds, I'm not very sure what you mean. I'm trying to think of the number of galaxies that exist in the whole universe after a specific amount of time after the big bang. I found some good discussion of this in places like here. It seems like it is accepted that there could be an infinite number of galaxies in the 'unobservable' universe. I guess this may be a bit of a philosophy question. The possibility of an infinite number of galaxies seems a bit strange. A finite universe is much nicer to think about.

I am wondering something about how cosmology doesn't imply an infinite number of galaxies in the universe, and was wondering what input people can give. Here is a description. Consider if we look (using a telescope) into the sky and see a galaxy at 95% of the distance to the cosmological horizon, ie to the edge of the universe. And we say that in some sense there are N galaxies 'between' us and that galaxy. Looking at that galaxy, you are also looking 95% of the way back in time closer to the big bang, so the galaxy you see exists at a point in time much closer to the big bang. Now if we change our point of observation to that galaxy, and go forward in time back to 13.82 billion years after the big bang, I think the universe from the perspective of that galaxy should look much the same as it is from our perspective. So you should be able to look in the opposite direction from the earth and again see another galaxy about 95% of the way to the cosmological horizon, with N galaxies 'between'. And we can repeat this procedure over and over, each time discovering more galaxies. So the idea would be that at 13.82 billion years since the big bang, an infinite number of galaxies must have been flung out into space if we can use all of the points in space as reference points for observation. What do you think?

Thanks very much!

I've been looking for mods to improve gameplay. I thought there must be a mod out there that puts a mark on a planet (in map mode) of where your flight path intersects the planet surface, taking into account the planet's rotation. ie imagine an X in the middle of the circle in the following image (not my image, taken from here) I couldn't find such a mod. It would be nice if there was one. I know some coding, but not in c#. But if someone could give me some pointers, I could try making something like this on my own. It would be fine if it just used a 'sea level' surface altitude, ignoring the planet's surface terrain.

Regarding career mode, it would be nice if there were some more options for custom difficulty when starting a career. The two I would try are: - start with all techs discovered (ie disable science) - start with all buildings upgraded fully (ie disable upgradable buildings) - disable admin building strategies It may also be nice to be able to choose which kinds of contracts become available. Ie, whether or not to have milestones, part tests, space tourists, flybys, etc. I just realized you could do some of this by editing a save file and putting it in the scenarios folder. But it would be nice if there was an easier way.

Even if most of these were just visual effects, they would still add something to the game. (I haven't actually gone to any other planets, so I don't know if there are things like this already.)

Hello, I was just thinking of posting something about this. I agree with you, and I also think the exchange between the 3 KSP commodities (money, rep, science) should be the same in each direction (science->funds, funds->science, etc) I'm not sure exactly how to read the file Strategies.cfg, but it seems to indicate that the starting exchange of science and funds is: Patent licensing: 1 science yields 8 funds outsourced r&d: 36 funds yields 1 science Assuming these are applied with an early-game limit of 25%, then if a contract gives 37,000 funds and 150 science: under the patent licensing, it will give 112.5 (-37.5) science and 37,300 (+300) funds. under the outsourced r&d, it will give 407 (+257) science and 27750 (-9250) funds. Not having these exchange rates the same in each direction stunts the ability to produce funds from science. If an average missions followed about that ratio of 37000 funds to 150 science, then a better exchange is about 247 funds per science, and I don't see why it shouldn't be the same exchange each way. Then for that same mission: under the patent licensing, it will give 112.5 (-37.5) science and 46,262.5 (+9262.5) funds. under the outsourced r&d, it will give 187.4 (+37.4) science and 27,750 (-9250) funds. In reality, I think a lot of missions are even more extreme than that (see this), with something more like a 1:2000 science to funds ratio. Another thing, I think missions shouldn't have such extreme variation in terms of science, reputation, and cash. Like rescuing kerbals gives reputation, satellites gives cash, etc. It is good to have variation, but if there is less, than it will be less likely there is some loophole to allow you to progress quickly. Maybe instead of having hard-coded conversions in the Strategies.cfg file, the game should do a calculation looking at the difficulty settings and contracts config file (and any addons) to determine reasonable exchange rates and starting penalties. That way you can know that the choices you make about these strategies are always 'fair', and only depend on what is useful to you for what commodity you need more or less of.

I've thought about this - the thing is that if you kerbin-relative apogee is just barely at the mun, then when you reach the mun, your vessel velocity (relative to kerbin) will be much lower than the mun, so it will come in behind you, and slow you down even more (relative to kerbin) as it pulls you back. I'm been guessing that it may be better if your kerbin-relative apogee would be higher than the mun orbit (larger delta-v at kerbin) so that you come in to the mun more from the side, allowing your mun-relative velocity to be less when you reach it. But I could easily be wrong here. Or it may not be much different.