HenryBlatbugIII

Which version of windows are you on? In Windows 10 settings/accessibility/keyboard there's a checkbox to turn of the "Shift five times" shortcut. On Windows 7 or 8 you might have to click on the "set up sticky keys" link in order to turn off the "shift five times" shortcut. (I have no experience with Windows 11.)

My point is that we have just as much evidence for that conversion factor as we do for the factor of 1U=150 kJ. You need to compare this calculation to other measurements (maybe the energy storage per volume in a battery, or the output of a solar panel, or the power requirements of an ion engine or even a lamp) before you can claim there's any kind of physics or chemistry mistake. (But you're right that you didn't make the kW=kJ mistake. I misread your first sentence as "electric charge unit" since "electric power unit" isn't displayed anywhere in-game.)

Isn't your entire argument here based on your assumption that "I think [1 unit of EC] is approx. 1 kW kJ"? Leaving aside the fact that a kW is a unit of energy per second and not a unit of total stored energy (I think you meant kJ?), you haven't presented any evidence for that conversion rate. You could estimate the conversion rate of EC to Joules by looking at the ion engines (or the solar panels, but I think that requires more assumptions). (Of course, you might still find that all the numbers are tuned for gameplay purposes rather than for physical realism.)

Yeah, it looks like that's what's intended, but from looking at the image in the OP, it's clearly wrong. 2A and 2B (Dres' position at closest approaches) are shown just behind Dres' current position, but with the orbits shown on the screen they should be near 1A and 1B. It looks to me like the points of closest approach are being calculated on a different orbit than we expect. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that 2A and 2B are pretty close to where Dres will be when the ship is at 1A and 1B on its second orbit.

Here's a recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Oc0y60B1g The life support question is at 46:48, and the answer really is "We made a determination that, at least in the short term, the addition of life support won't enhance gameplay all that much for most players. Obviously a lot of people have a lot of fun with life support mods in KSP1, once again we're hoping that once moddability is easier, that segment of the player base can be served in that way.". Edit: There's also a transcript here, but many of the answers in the transcript are summarized rather than verbatim.

I haven't bought it yet, and I don't plan to until it looks like a game I'd want to play. I'm keeping up with the news to see when the game reaches that point, and I'm hopeful that it will happen after the Science, Colonies, or Resources updates.

It's not a cheat, it's a Space Elevator! (Assuming you can set it to a keostationary orbit height of 2.8 Mm.)

KSP 2.0: Clear and understandable, exactly two versions. KSP2 1.0: The clear winner, since twenty-one versions is over ten times as good as the other one. (My day job is programming a simulation using GEANT4 10.7)

Yeah, life support will definitely be modded in at some point. However, I'm definitely disappointed that they aren't going to be including it in the base game, especially after it was explicitly mentioned in the Early Access release announcement (~10:45 in this video). I'd prefer a well-integrated and balanced system rather than sorting through dozens of mods looking for one with good quality and the "right" complexity level. Just a Snacks resource would be enough for stock, letting people mod in air, radiation, sanity, etc. if they want them. I only want a reason (other than roleplaying) to bring more than a 1-seat pod on a long mission.

1. "Bulky" only matters if you're in an atmosphere. If you're launching from Kerbin maybe a nuclear engine is a bad idea, but in a vacuum you only need to care about the mass rather than the volume. 2. The nuclear engine has a higher mass but also a higher Isp. Therefore, the nuclear rocket will be heavier if you're building for a small amount of dV but lighter if you're building for a large amount of dV. (I don't have the stats in front of me right now to calculate the changeover point.) 3. This is speculation, but once resource harvesting is added I wouldn't be surprised if Hydrogen is easier to harvest than Methalox. It's definitely not a strict upgrade from the Terrier, but it does have its uses.

Simple: Their spacesuit helmets aren't made of metal and hard plastic; they're more balloon-like. The small hatch proves that this is canon and no one can convince me otherwise. Do you have "maximum debris count" set to zero? Kerbals count as debris in this build. (See bug report below.)

Unfortunately, that won't work. The entire point of patched conics is that, as long as you're only affected by one body at a time, the orbits are conic sections. Therefore, they're easily calculable (by both the simulation and the players) and long-term stable. As soon as you add another gravitational body, you've given up both of those benefits (and gained others, like the Lagrange points you mentioned). In terms of computational load and ease of gameplay, that three-body approach is much closer to a full n-body approach than to the patched conics system. Edit: oops, ninja'd

What makes you so confident that the isotopic ratio on Kerbin is the same as the ratio on Earth, despite the fact that it's different by up to a factor of 100 between Earth and Luna?

I'm looking forward to playing with the colonies, specifically building rockets off-world. If I can launch from a planet without an atmosphere (or construct ships in orbit) I can make creatively (read: stupidly)-shaped rockets without worrying about aerodynamics.

I have no interest in a sandbox mode with missing features, so definitely not day 1. On the other hand, I also have no interest in multiplayer, so I'll probably get it after the important features are finished but before 1.0. I just hope I can keep up with reviews and feedback while avoiding spoilers for things I'd rather discover for myself.

Congratulations to the team on having a version that's ready for public testing! But with tech tree progression, colonies, and life support all mentioned as "not yet, but soon", I guess I'll be buying it "not yet, but soon".

I don't think there's any point at this stage in listing the exact requirements we want from a life support system. I'm certainly interested in seeing what the team has made, and I'm willing to make suggestions for mods after seeing the framework that they'll be building on, but the presence or absence of those requirements you listed isn't as important as the feel of how they're implemented. Personally, my major requirement is that I want a reason (other than roleplaying) to give my kerbals more than a 1-man pod for a long mission and to build my Mun base differently from my Laythe base and my Eve base. That might involve many of the requirements you listed in the poll, but I think it could be done with very few of them.

I believe it's Thursday, approximately 34:53 UTC.

It's definitely a set of localization strings. Since some of the strings are things like "Extreme Violence" and "Drug Use" (presumably for age ratings), I don't think we can assume that all the strings are for KSP2. However, some of them look like they've been specifically written for KSP2 (e.g. "Houston, we have a problem" or "Lost in space" error codes), and I think "Launching Countdown" rather than "Release Countdown" falls into that category. Therefore, I agree with the prediction that there will be a countdown on that page at some point.

Parts of it would be extremely difficult (hence the scouting probes so I lose money instead of Kerbals with that trial-and-error). Finding the optimal flight path through an atmosphere to orbit requires a detailed description of KSP's drag model, calculating transfers between planets with different inclinations requires solving Lambert's Problem, etc. However, if you're outside of an atmosphere and the planets' and moons' orbits are close to circular with approximately the same inclination, you can do a lot of it with AP-level physics* (or since you said "maths", maybe A-level physics). Find an advanced high-school-level or introductory university-level textbook, read the chapters on the rocket equation and on orbital mechanics, and get your algebra on. The intuition that you might have from playing KSP1 (e.g. burning prograde does this, a planetary transfer looks like that, etc.) will be extremely helpful in setting up the equations. *Disclaimer: as a professional physicist, I see a large difference between "AP-level physics" and "extremely difficult". YMMV.

First, I plan to avoid looking at any wikis, delta-V maps, etc. I'll see how much I can explore based only on in-game information, my own calculations, and scouting probes. (I'm taking bets on how long I can actually hold off on looking, especially when I'm at work and have access to a web browser but not KSP2.) I also plan on exploring the colonization system, which I don't think we have much information about yet. Can I build a Mun colony early and do most of my rocket assembly there, so I can launch stupid fantastically shaped rockets without caring about aerodynamics? Can I build an Eve colony that can actually do something useful while they wait for me to discover enough engine tech to get them home? Can I successfully bootstrap an entire Joolian colony network from a single ship (which might be good practice for a later interstellar mission)? I just hope the replacement for Career Mode is interesting enough to do all this. I've spent less than 0.1% of my KSP1 time in Science and Sandbox modes combined.

In Developer Insights #3 they mention building "mining colonies on stalactites". That seems to be a confirmation that caves will exist (unless they mistyped 'stalactite' when they meant 'stalagmite' and actually meant 'cave-unrelated rock formation that looks like a stalagmite').

You're right if we're just talking about instantaneous locations and velocities, but it's more complicated when we're talking about continuous orbits. In the normal SOI reference frame, an orbit is always an ellipse (or other conic section). However, in a surface-fixed or rendezvous target reference frame, it's unlikely that your current orbit is even a closed shape (unless your current orbital period is an integer multiple (or divisor) of the planet's rotational period or your target's orbital period). Note that the "rendezvous frame" orbit that Chocolat Oreos posted above isn't a simple ellipse; it's an elliptical spiral that almost, but not quite, repeats (and is only drawn for ~4 orbits). If you aren't already close to a stationary orbit or a rendezvous, your orbit could look like a many-petaled flower in these frames. The orbits are still calculable, but it's complex enough that I would be surprised if the devs decide that this functionality is worth including in the stock game. (Don't get me wrong; I think this is a great idea. I just think it's more likely to be done as a mod.)

I'm pretty sure it's an AutoIncorrect: "a fine" should be "engine".

I hope that's not a typo, because that means that some planets are going to be significantly more interesting than I expected. (Spikes on the ground are stalagmites. Spikes hanging from the ceiling of a cave are stalactites.)