Incarnation of Chaos

While OOM's delivery wasn't the best; i don't think their overall point was invalid though. KSP released several years ago, and people are wondering if the same cheapo laptop will be able to run it. OOM was pointing out that essentially at some point you WILL need to upgrade to play newer games. And since you need a computer anyway it's not that bad of an idea. That's what i got from OOM's post, and i don't actually think that's a bad mindset.

It could; hell i'm downright expecting the community to rip it a new set of crew hatches because of the state it'll be in upon release. And that's me being optimistic mind you; my best case is a barely-functional KSP2 that'll take a minimum of 6 months of patches and likely a major DLC before it actually begins to show it's strengths vs KSP1. The only reason i feel like though is that we have seen glimpses of their development; we do have some idea that they have a rough game already built and running. They have engaged the community, and tried to be somewhat open. Could that all just be a smokescreen? Totally, but it's more than what previous flops have done at this point in development. It's also why i don't believe them working on anything but the core game is a good move; deadlines don't mean anything if you spend literal years working on prototypes that get scrapped once management comes around the corner and asks "Where's the game". Once they get it released, and have a decent idea of what the community wants. Then they can decide if pursuing something like this is viable; before that all it'll do is distract from the actual foundational work that needs to be done.

Even the best games run into snags, setbacks and unforeseen complications, and it's rather unlikely Star Theory is in the process of finding additional content to add at the moment. Optimistically they've had about 2 years to work on KSP2; which involves creating the entire game from the ground up on a modern version of unity, completely rewriting the KSP binaries, porting over KSP assets to use in testing. Then once they finished that they likely started working on Planets, Systems and their Physics LOD system. All while implementing a new API for plugins in Lua, consulting with experts and the community for feedback on various topics. This is a marathon run of development, and it likely resembles Bioware during DAI's 18 months of hell. And unlike Bioware at this time; they have far less staff and cash. All of this was done in a mad dash to meet the expected deadline, and the rumored delay likely isn't 2K being generous. It's far more likely that Star Theory took a look at their production schedules and realized very quickly that they would need a few months minimum to finish everything, and went to 2K and asked for the needed time. They got weeks instead of months, and that means that anything we've seen that isn't a key feature or pillar of gameplay either hit the cutting room floor already or is close to finalized. So while i don't doubt that KSP2 will be a fantastic game; i'm not going to mince words here. KSP2 will be the bare minimum product upon release, and will have massive teething issues alongside potentially severe bugs. If KSP2 releases and eventually becomes a fantastic game; it will be BECAUSE of their willingness to pursue deadlines and cut content. Not because they actively sought to add more and more.

Then wait for information around release; because nobody can tell you right now that you have a 100% chance of being able to run KSP2. What I can say is that there's at least a 2-4 month window between now and KSP2 releasing, and RX 580 8GB's are DIRT cheap on ebay. Often going for around 100-120 USD; the difficulty is finding a machine to put one in that won't be much more expensive. That being said it wouldn't hurt to poke around your local craigslist/preferred local selling app; sometimes people are getting rid of decent machines on the cheap. And a decent desktop with a Quad-Core CPU and RX 580 and 8-16GB of RAM would take you pretty far. If you really worked it you could score something like that for 300-400 USD. But I get if you don't have the space or other circumstances that wouldn't let you whip a frankencomputer into existance; in that case it's really just "Wait for info".

The biggest potential for any damage comes with the portions closest to the earth; since upon release they'd be going hypersonic. Though you are correct that the terminal velocity of any tether would be extremely low, but i'm unsure if it would have enough surface area to decelerate enough.

I'll poke around some of my own resources; see if I can find anything. No promises though.

Tbh now you got me wondering if there's any academic studies on this; it would be nice to have some hard numbers on this.

As an alternative to outright removal; wouldn't it be possible to make the next set of "Exploration" contracts not need to have the conditions of Rendevous,Docking and Transfer to appear in Mission Control? This would allow people with experience to only accept contracts that align with their current exploration, but also still allow those who want to practice them to take them for a bit of financial cushion.

Stock Fuel Switching would be amazing; that alone could get me to pick it up xD

This is the best answer; EXCEPT for the part about a sound card. Motherboard sound is decent enough, and if you want more an external DAC is generally preferred over an internal card. Though if you do audio work a PCI sound card with good sample rate is pretty much mandatory due to latency. But the rest is Solid Au +1

But the sun doesn't just emit Infrared, and absorbing those other wavelengths will contribute to heating. Also on the shuttle the ET was painted white until they realized it didn't contribute much but extra mass; since the shuttle was burning the fuel the entire way up and boiloff was negligable. For an SSTO this would be different; unless it's strictly a LEO craft that never fuels while in orbit. It would come down however, to the specific craft. Something that's just taking passengers from the ground to a large station wouldn't likely see any benefits from it; while something that has to drift to Mars/Outer Planets and be able to perform a insertion burn would be a different case.

It does; since it still has to fall back down. If there's several thousand KM between it and anything resembling civilization then those downstream could potentially be evacuated given preperations and planning already in place. Also while that is very true (I'm a big fan of launch loops myself); this thread is specifically about space elevators in KSP2. So i didn't really think that was worth mentioning. Also i do like the thought of building the tether on a rather tall mountain just because of how awesome it'd look xD

Well i wasn't thinking the tanks wouldn't be insulated; rather the white paint would increase the effectiveness of the insulation that's there. And tbh it's really only a factor for the LH2, as you point out LOX isn't as hard to deal with.

And that's why it becomes especially important to limit the potential damage; should it ever happen to come undocked.

Iv'e always wondered about using small-ish sacrificial anodes for corrosion resistance on vehicles like Cars,Buses,Trains and Planes; they're rather common on ships so iv'e always wondered especially why on planes they aren't used (The mass of paint can easily affect performance!). Though i figure it has something to do with air being a crap conductor, but you could always just run current thru the hull to form the circuit. But for an SSTO specifically even if you did decide to go with anodes there's another reason you'd likely want paint; anything that has a reasonable chance of SSTO'ng from earth is using Hydrogen/Oxygen fuel. Keeping that from boiling off is not going to happen on the thin mass margins you'd have, so the best alternative would be a nice coat of white paint. As a bonus; one of the more common pigments for white is Titanium Dioxide which is incredibly heat resistant. So you'd still need a TPS of some sort, but a properly applied paintjob wouldn't likely wear too much from reentry.

While the physics LOD system is rather encourging; it still has yet to be shown that anything on the scale of a space elevator will be any more possible in KSP2 than it is in KSP1. If it were to be added; it should be an endgame tech and require immense amounts of material and effort to build. What people often neglect to think about is the tether earth-side, and how it would have to constantly be maintained at it's exact position or risk becoming a hypersonic whip. Because of these two things; i personally think any Space Elevator would end up having it's ground side actually in the ocean. This allows us to be perfectly equartoral, and have nothing but open ocean for hundreds of kilometers should it fail. You could also have a massive barge the size of a city; redundant hydro-jet thrusters with automated stationkeeping, redundant power and desalination equipment. After you build it and all of this is in place; this facility should essentially become the new KSC. With the previous one decommissioned until you can afford to reopen it (Which by this point may be a laughable idea anyway)

It's not really that hard; "Fictional" is to me just anything that doesn't align with current physics. So since General Relativity predicts Wormholes, and we have actually created Antimatter none of those are actually fictional to me. Even something like the Alcubierre drive isn't in direct violation of physics, and is perfectly fine. The primary issue for me is how these interact with the KSP universe more than how dubious each one is; the distances and scales in the game make these technologies essentially gamebreaking. But if you had mods that implemented a more realistic galaxy; with more realistic sizes and distances they'd be almost required to reach most of the other stars. This is why for me there isn't just one line; it's a superposition of multiple lines that all exist at the same time. Which one you're on depends on how you play KSP and what mods you have; or if you're stock. But i'd say they come down to two primary lines; Stock and Modded. In Stock it's likely that all star systems will be easily reachable by Orion; with things like fusion drives and the like mainly just decreasing transit times instead of actually opening up more systems. While with mods it can range from all star systems are essentially unreachable until you get fusion tech; to everything between. Now the thing is Star Theory can't really anticipate what mods will do, so they can't balance around them. They can anticipate what things like warp drives, wormholes and etc. would do to their game, and decide that they're not needed. This is why i don't think we're going to have anything past Fusion ICF drives in stock KSP2; because they completely destroy any idea of balance and ruin progression. But when mods start adding larger distances, systems and more; then these will become nearly mandatory.

Oopie; i should've actually posted this in the modeling and texturing sub section instead of here. Can a mod move this over to the Add-on Development section pls

Seriously; i got 7.5M first stages and landers that even with SpaceY's biggest leg tweakscaled to 200% don't do the job (Or look the part) So how easy/hard would it be to roll my own assuming some blender experience but basically 0 animation/UV/Texturing experience.

The actual answer is that we don't know and won't until they actually release. But a decent mid range PC with a quad core and 1050 ti is a safe bet. I'm sure you'll be able to lower settings to make it somewhat playable though.

Or suppose a Brown Dwarf got captured on the edge of your systems Oort cloud, and when you finally manage to explore it further you find the ruins of an alien civilization on one of the moons which grants you additional technologies or rare materials. There's quite a number of gameplay ideas just from having the possibility present.

It would be interesting if we could have procedural "Rogue Stars" that get flung out by the SMBH because of a close encounter, but I doubt they'd implement that because i'd imagine that's hard to make compatible with the "On Rails" system for planets and orbits.

Have you tested stock wings? Improper installation of FAR will result in all wings generating NO lift.

Because they still have plenty of work to do in regards to modeling, texturing, coding and only a few months before they hit their deadline. This isn't me saying that it's impossible; i just don't want people to get excited for things that in all likelyhood won't happen.

I agree; Star Theory should focus on building the foundation. Leave the rest for the modding community to pick up in time.