JoeSchmuckatelli

Why are you running Win 11 on a box with only 4gb of RAM? 2gb is the minimum requirement for Win 10 64 just to run the OS. Any other programs you use, including some non - OS background apps are going to eat up RAM before you even get to the game. RAM is cheap - suggest you upgrade. Your CPU is an entry level laptop cpu from a few generations ago - but KSP is quite old, so maybe. The other problem is the weak onboard GPU. Again, KSP is old, so with lowered graphics settings - probably. But all together, it will run slow. Don't expect to enjoy KSP2, (pure speculation) with a notebook. ('gaming laptop,' maybe - but generally speaking notebooks can't run modern games) Hint: there is a reason gamers buy gaming hardware!

Well... As to efficiency, unless it was a useful or desirable trait, it's likely to atrophy quickly regardless of the efficiency. Some bioluminescent animals only have a few lines or places they illuminate, where others have significant percentage of their bodies dedicated to the effort. So what purpose (other than cosmetic) would the human have for this ability? Does it increase the likelihood of successful mating? Does it mean that they use less energy acquiring food? Are they better able to communicate and thus increase the survivability of the offspring? I think you need to figure out these things (to know what percentage of the skin needs this adaptation) and then you can use the math to figure out how much energy they need to fuel the purpose. Also - what is the cost or tradeoff? Why do they need to be luminous? What can they give up to get this ability? (this should be driven by the environment) I suggest that current humans are fabulous generalists adapted to all environments on this planet - so those humans need a totally different, limited environment that they cannot leave for multiple generations for this to be even remotely beneficial

Quoth the resident 'nuclear war guy'

Like you, I'd appreciate something more concrete about release plans - but these tidbits they share do communicate both the direction they're going and the challenges they face. Nate's admissions on the first and second pages of this thread tell me that they are still tweaking and developing stuff... Rather than imminently publishing

Oh - and back at @K^2-I appreciate the reminder that 'metallicity' =/= metals (easy to forget for non astronomers). I'm speculating, however, that if you take a star and system like Sol's as a baseline and find a higher metallicity star that it's whole birth and formation environment likely averaged more of the heavier chemical elements. Is that a fair assumption? I know we are sparse on direct observation of rocky exoplanets - I'm just wondering if the theory suggests that rocky planets in such a place would be denser, or if that's one assumption too far?

I think I remember reading speculation by a researcher that light first generation 'failed stars' (gas giants) could have been present... But they're anticipated not found. The gas giants around nowadays are expected to have dense cores - but it took early stars exploding to seed the heavier elements. https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/422/1/215/1020516 (not exactly on point, but quite interesting) I wonder if / whether any of those early planets survived (recently discovered 'rogue stars' being ejected from galaxies could support a population of rogue first generation gas planet wandering around between galaxies idea) One of the things I remember reading about 18 Sco was that it was dusty, making observations difficult. It's expected to be a higher metallicity star than Sol, so that coincides with what @K^2writes (my memory is 'rocky' not 'gassy' w/r/t the dust mentioned.

I'm waffling on whether I like the series or not. It's like Disney refuses to write a good anti hero. Mind you - I'm a "the first movie is called 'Star Wars' guy" not one of the Jonny come lately's that say 'New Hope'. But Boba's strength as a character was being both enigmatic and a BadS (to cop a recent term). Perhaps they did 'enigmatic' with Mando - but Boba looks kind of hapless in anything but the flashbacks. The recent Mando themed episode with the DarkSaber duel was well executed - but I'm getting an 'able administrator' vibe out of Boba Fett - not a KickS crime boss capable of being a Daimyo. Choosing that word alone puts an onus on the Disney team to rise to the genre meaning of Daimyo. And thus far? Boba is not that. ... Also - the low-speed scooter chase of the EmoClan had my kids in stitches (and not in a good way). When 11 and 14 year olds are mocking Star Wars - there is a problem.

Well.. I for one am highly likely to read most of your work, then. While we have lots of guys with the maths and physics backgrounds that enables them to 'just get it' I'm still a 'gist' guy when it comes to the technical stuff. So I'm actually looking forward to your work and the tutorials!

Congrats! I hope someone does an interview, then, so we can read both about the KSP2 story and how you get there!

My daughter asked me to help her with her science project for school. Did I win?

As well you should be. His atmospheric scattering really gives both a sense of scale, and if you will forgive, a bit of emotive content to the scene. It's not merely hard terrain and odd clouds thrown in... it looks like a real place. (WRT the poor Kerbal falling into the planet... yeah, we've all done that. Revert). The thing I admire about your artist's work, and your team's attention to detail is how true you want everything to be. I loved KSP (still do) but I am really excited to share the new game with my Intrepid Daughter who shares my love of space: this kind of true but fantastic scene is bound to capture the imaginations of a new generation! (Thanks)

Yep. For such a quirky little game - its pretty awesome. Love the original story about a little studio out of Mexico City who found a hit on their hands. The Story Of Kerbal Space Program - Game Informer What an incredible challenge it must be to follow up on something that was unexpectedly a hit. There is a risk: they could put out something like (all) the follow-on games to Medieval Total War, where the drive to provide great visuals came at the cost of core game design and a loss of understanding of what made the previous two games great... and still see success, despite the lingering disappointment of true fans. Or they could, maybe, make something that is a worthy successor - presuming they stay true to the things that made KSP great. I don't envy Nate his challenges... but I honestly think he's fairly perfect to be the guy shepherding this towards completion.

What genre? And how did you decide to go full-time, if you don't mind my asking?

Funny thing: Knight was better, IMO, than Wizard - but he revisits themes he wrote about in On Blues Waters... and yes, the 'clueless young man stumbling around women but ultimately ignoring them because he wants to do something else' is a theme in Knight but there's some good writing, too. Knight and Wizard were 'light Wolfe' IMO. There's a couple of standouts: Soldier in the Mist and Pirate Freedom. I really enjoyed those. I even liked An Evil Guest - but it has its detractors. Severian. I keep meaning to go back to those and see if I still like them. I read them as a young man. (Many, many books that I really liked when young, I just cannot get past the second chapter any more) ... Zelazny, no argument there, and I've read quite a bit of Le Guin, Andre Norton and the old classics. I'm a Cook fan as well - but Describes an odd and late entry into the Black Company series. The first two Dread Empire (collections) and Instrumentalities of the Night are worth a look, but one of my faves is Tower of Fear (good, stand alone novel). Lately, Mark Lawrence, Steven Erikson and Ian Esslemont for the unbelievably good world-building. Miles Cameron, as well, if you like technically correct sword fighting and interesting worlds. ... ... Now you've got me thinking: Oddly - I have thought at length about why it is so much easier to write about adolescents and young adults than older adults. Largely it has to do with the Heroes Journey. Young people are still writing their stories. For an older person to follow the same path, ignorance and inexperience don't work as a starting place... in fact, the older person almost has to be self-destructive to go on a journey of self exploration. You need your characters to make mistakes, and I think as readers we are willing to forgive mistakes from the young much more so than we are willing to with older people. ... On literature: I've read a translated Dante (the whole trilogy) several times, as well as Name of the Rose (twice) plus others of Eco. Eco has some fantastic characters. I usually don't like 'literature for literature's sake' - just because reading should be fun, not a chore.

The whole thing was well done - but I particularly liked what he did with the parachute. That was unexpectedly executed (I thought it would be simple)

Would a terrestrial planet of the same diameter as the earth in orbit around a higher metallicity sun-like star than the sun be likely to be more massive? (i.e. Is that how metallicity works - if the star is similar but has higher metallicity, would we expect a higher percentage of heavier elements in the planets - such that a similar volume =higher mass?)

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/ So - this is concerning news. A bit over a decade ago I read something from Margaret Turnbull about Webb being able to take detailed looks at dim, sunlike stars for possible exoplanets in the respective habitable zones. She specifically mentioned 18 Sco - which is about 42ly from here. (18 Sco is a really cool system-a younger, higher metallicity solar twin that was a leading candidate for study some time ago... It's one of the things I've been looking forward to) If dim stars within our galaxy are too bright for Webb - that almost seems like an unfortunate limitation of the utility of the whole observatory. Yes, distant galaxies and things to dim for Hubble will be fantastic science - but c'mon. ... Also of interest to KSP-ers is the mention of the DSN:

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/metals-and-mining/our-insights/tackling-the-challenge-of-decarbonizing-steelmaking An interesting article about industry tackling carbon

Of course!

Funny thing is, I'm looking at the short story format as more of a 'personal lesson in discipline' - to teach myself how to craft an effective story in the short format rather than something I'm naturally attuned to. My past writing efforts, even those I'd consider 'short' are actually novellas. The 'first draft' of the novel I wrote was over 600 pages (going from memory). When I started looking at it critically, I did not so much edit it as attempt a total rewrite - which I eventually gave up on, even though some of the rewritten stuff is pretty good; transforming the whole word-barf original into something with proper structure is a sisyphean task. The other 'stories that live in my head' are all complex, multi chapter works with dozens of characters. So... partly I'm waiting for a 'killer idea' to pop into my skull that would work as a short story. Every now and then, I get an inkling of something... but none (thus far) strong enough to make me give up my other forms of entertainment and delve in.

Revisiting the NASA award: how much 'substantial progress' can we realistically expect when they're still prototyping a return-to-earth SS that does not include a working cargo-bay? I'd look at SX's ability to land something with cargo on the moon a bit more favorably if we knew they had a craft that functioned in orbit as a cargo vessel. But - my banana peel snark above, aside - does SX not have a problem in that the ring-section steel tube-sections are structural and part of their whole "low-weight low-cost" solution? Further, to build a ship with a hatch system and cargo area and deployment system will necessitate a redesign, not just to add doors that open, but also the structural supports to take up the job that the homogenous ring used to do - and the added weight and torque of the required mechanicals? (I get that these are 'engineering challenges') So - am I wrong to see the current SS builds as nothing more than 'proof of concept' and 'command and control software and systems' prototypes, but that actual, usable, StarShips will have to be significantly different from the cheap 'lets learn how to do this' stuff?

Bu-bu-but it has a propeller at the back - CLEARLY a submarine!

Okay - to be fair, it took me a moment. I started to read it, thought he wrote 'anti-gravitational confinement' rolled my eyes, then went back to read it again and saw it was auto-gravitational and my spidey-sense finally kicked in. I did have to work out what that would look like, in space, and the light finally came on! It's like the first time I started complaining to my kids about them being exposed to dihydrogenmonoxide in their school. I told both of them to ask the science teacher for a safety sheet. (They did not really appreciate it at the time, but we laugh now) So @monophonic gets two points for teaching me a new one!

You and me both.

IKR? But the researcher said 'maybe decades' which forced me to choose the minimum plurality