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willitstimothy

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Posts posted by willitstimothy

    A Discussion of Gravity

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by willitstimothy

    ...we're not even going to get more than half of that.

    I know, I said as much, and I do realize that C7 is not responsible for that stuff anyway. Also I realize that we won't get planets for quite a while hence we won't get 'more than half' of what I said. I realize that the release of more planets will be at the time that gas giants can be modeled accurately, but still Mun is very limited in its attractiveness. Currently, beyond building Mun bases (which for some reason the game blows mine up after so many runs) and getting as close as possible to Kerbol without crashing are the only things to do.

    I am sorry to seem like I was pressuring you. It was not intended, and I recognize now that your life does indeed go beyond working on this program, i.e. it isn't your sole job. I was not aware of the extent of the non-standard nature of this project. I apologize.

    By the way, thanks for calling reality, and my ideas silly.

    A Discussion of Gravity

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by willitstimothy

    Man, 3 weeks is not a lot of time! I'm starting to feel the pressure of the looming feature review date... I've been spending a good bit of time working on tools to help me make parts, and to learning / playing catch up with the other devs on the project. I hope everyone will be happy with what manages to make it in this update. I'm doing my best!

    Really? Well I guess you haven't been trying to land on part asteroids due to boredom during the last three weeks. I'm dying for more places to go and rendezvous to make that will let me tack onto something else, and we're not even going to get more than half of that.

    Whatever, do a good job...and it looks like you are.

    A Discussion of Gravity

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by willitstimothy

    If any of you read my actual post, and subsequent comments, you would have found basically all of the answers that you just gave me, and you also would have found my workarounds to those 'problems.'

    @Thiel and C7Studios

    You won't need to consider anymore than one object at a time, unless of course you have to consider a collision of two very large objects, which could easily be made an exception (for the sake of the game's physics engine).

    ...the physics of allowing for these could be treated the same as Mun which orbits Kerbin which in turn orbits Kerbol, where the addon minor planets and part micro-gravities are treated as extensions of their parent body and have micro-sized (size determined by mass) fields of influence. In other words, while orbiting Mun (being affected by Mun's gravity) one is also orbiting (and being affected by) Kerbin because Mun is orbiting Kerbin and in turn one is also orbiting (and being affected by) Kerbol because Mun is orbiting Kerbin which is orbiting Kerbol.

    Which is essentially what you said C7studios.

    The orbits are linked to celestial bodies, and gravity in that regard is purely simulation based.

    @Serratus and sal_vager:

    It seems, to me anyway, that exceptions based upon part mass and part volume (for game stability) would take care of clutter and game overhead due to modeling multiple SOI, as stated in my post.

    If part gravity was based on mass in a semi-realistic way, the fields of influence for large space debris etc.

    (even with the scale of 10 factor that ksp uses), for purposes of the game, would only need to be as much as a few kilometers

    across or less. Furthermore small objects, like most of our rockets would not have the ability, unless modified, to generate

    a field of influence large enough or strong enough to affect anything. But large objects, or ones properly modified by dreaming

    kerbalnauts would have the ability to affect objects that passed within a kilometer or two, or even be orbitable if the

    magnitude of the velocity vectors of the objects were within a couple of meters per second of each other.

    I would then propose at this point that objects with masses such that their practical SOI was less than say 500 (between 100-1000) meters above their 'highest' surface point, or that had a volume less than another cutoff point (if you modified a part like a decoupler, in its configuration file, to have a very large mass, the small SOI would have gravitation approaching the strength of a sigularity at the surface of the part, which could cause the game to crash)*, the object would be considered to have no gravitational field.

    By 'practical SOI,' I mean an SOI such that anywhere within it the body would be able exert an acceleration greater than say 0.1 m/s per .0625 to 10 minutes on an object in its vicinity.

    And one last thing:

    Why do we go into orbit around Mun when Kerbin, which has much stronger gravity is 'nearby?' Or for that matter, why do we orbit Kerbin or Mun when Kerbol is 'nearby?'

    The fact of the matter is is that we are orbiting (and being affected by) Kerbin while orbiting Mun, or Kerbol while orbiting Kerbin or Mun..

    ...just indirectly.

    Hence, orbiting relatively small objects is perfectly possible, as long as the velocity vectors are fairly close in value. Don't get me wrong though, you'd have to get very close to be able to actually be affected by even the largest of mod objects that one could indirectly 'place' into orbit.

    What's the purpose? Well, it's been my experience that even in games that are very open to modding, it becomes far more difficult to create and modify objects with higher complexities, especially for users with less programming experience, than it is to create or modify relatively simpler objects. Hence, it makes sense to add the, already realistic, ability to have sufficiently large parts have their own gravity in this game. You wouldn't be able to have an atmosphere or any number of other special effects, but at least you could make a rock to keep you company on a very long trip to a far away planet without having to know internals of the game as well.

    Sorry for going off topic that much. I intended for people to simply read what I had written already and then give their answers based on that.

    A Discussion of Gravity

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by willitstimothy

    What I mean by part gravity is explained in more detail here http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=10290.0.

    In brief, I am not talking about the individual parts being affected by gravity, as opposed to the entire ship, rather I am asking about whether or not parts themselves would be allowed to exert their own gravitational pull on other objects, the strength, and hence SOI, of which being based on the mass and volume of the object (determined by the scale and mass in the .cfg file). I know that the gravitational pull of even the largest rockets we make would be nearly non existent, but if one orbits a rocket and then replaces one of the parts with a mod part, such as the 500 meter asteroid part, that part will have effectively been placed in orbit. If that part is one of sufficient volume and mass (as the 500 m asteroid should realistically be), then that part should be able to weakly affect objects near it, or, if those objects have very low relative velocities, even allow small parts to orbit it.

    From what I have seen, in game and without, it seems that all of the physics, and related problems, have been dealt with in creating the Kerbin-Mun system, which means that, I believe, all that would need to be done to allow for large parts to have a gravitational pull is add a few parameters and the game's ability to interpret them, at the very least, to the part configuration files.

    A Discussion of Gravity

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    I know this is slightly off topic (I wrote about this in more detail as a suggestion), but as C7 is doing part development, I figured that this would be relevant. [edit] (It got moved so that makes a lot of sense)

    Is it possible, or will it be possible in the future for parts to have their own micro-gravitational field with their on SOI, based upon their own mass and volume of course?

    Where did the persistent.sfs file go?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by willitstimothy

    I am wanting to edit several of the parameters in persistent.sfs, but I cannot find it anywhere in the 'KSP_win_0_14_4' folder. Basically I am just wondering if it was removed or something in .14.4.

    I have about 15-20 flights in progress at the moment, and several additional ones that have left debris behind, but are they themselves landed and ended on Kerbin. I also have one that I started a while ago and that is now about 1.5 trillion meters away in a sun escape trajectory. I have a couple of Mun bases, and have performed a few rendezvous with artificial Kerbin satellites. In any case, I am saying all this because from what I understand of the nature of the persistent.sfs file, if the version is still using it, there must be one present for all of my flight to be saved.

    Additionally, I know I once saw it in the past, but not sure where it was, and now file searches don't reveal anything at all.

    I would appreciate help with this if anyone has constructive suggestions or ideas of mathematically absolute nature.

    My computer, if it is relevant, is a Lenovo ideacentre Windows 7 HP with an Intel i7 processor 3.4 Ghz, 8 GB ram, Radeon 6450HD

    I am pretty sure this has nothing to do with my computer though.

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