SOXBLOX

Ahem.

And you want a photonic rocket why?

Perfect realism is both impossible and unnecessary in KSP 2. There is really no reason for objecting to mH in the game, while ignoring such defects as patched conics, infinite RTG power, the entire aerodynamics model, etc. Additionally, I count one, maybe two or three, people here who object to its inclusion. Many more of us do want it, or are fine tolerating it, the same way we tolerate Kerbol having the size of a red dwarf and the luminosity and spectrum of a G-type star. I am fine with metastable metallic hydrogen being in the game. I do not want it renamed, dropped, or nerfed, and I will strongly object to any tampering with its position in the game. Remember, for the purposes of those who want "realism" or "scientific accuracy" , the engine is a device with a high ISp and thrust, nothing more. You can ignore the flavor text where you want. If you don't want to use the engine, don't. Ignore it. Whining about it doesn't help anyone.

We will assume that the Oort Cloud extends from 2000 to 200 000 A.U. Next, that it is populated by 3 trillion objects capable of wrecking your ship, evenly distributed in the Cloud. Next, your ship is a cylinder with a radius of 15 m, and flies in a straight line. Running the numbers, I found that there are ~0.000 000 000 000 000 536 objects in your path. The chances of a collision are miniscule. You can just calculate the gamma factor for a instantaneous speed relative to an inertial observer. Much easier.

Binoculars, absolutely. It would probably look like a satellite does in the night sky, just a moving star.

So do most critters. I suspect humans do, too, just none of us want to put it to the test.

The Oort cloud is a torus or disc which gradually broadens out into a sphere at its greatest distance. Our models say that the spherical portion is very sparse; it's right on the edge of where the solar gravity has more influence than the galactic tides, so it loses comets frequently. The disc replenishes it over time, but it takes a very long time for these objects to complete even one orbit.

I'd say that to cram any "insert earth animal here" aliens into SF, one has to make so many assumptions that debate over its realism becomes pointless. You obviously have a vision; if you want to do this, just insert them into your world and be done; to heck with the consequences. (Don't give me stuff about you being concerned with the realism of it, please?) Just my thoughts. Cool ideas, though.

Outbound trip is two and a half years with a 1g brachistochrone, ~3 years Earth time. Don't bother with antimatter beams, at torchship speeds, these beams (assuming you fire forwards) have your velocity relative to the target + the rapidity imparted to the beam. In other words, the rest mass of the particles becomes irrelevant.

We have how much information on this? Probably somewhere around ten sentences between the PC Gamer article and the dev updates. Definitely too early to assert that it has been completely replaced. Also, money is a medium of exchange. Typically, you exchange it for resources. If KSP 2 has resources, then it essentially has multiple types of money. I wouldn't worry; the devs know exactly what they're doing.

I wouldn't put it past him.

Exactly.

Bingo! Either this or find an earth-like world sin flora and fauna. Of course, interesting cases arise if the alien viruses have the opposite chirality as earth lifeforms...

These look fantastic! I can't wait to go watch these! Can you share any numbers on how many tutorials you'll put in the finished product? I love the style; it feels perfect, very Kerbal!

Alright. Let's outlaw Star Wars. It's a danger to humanity!!! Joking aside, I am fine with any technology which behaves in a manner consistent with physics, regardless of materials science or whatever. Take, for example, mH. It probably doesn't exist, but we can handwave that and still enjoy using it in the Kerbal universe. Also, heat radiators for the Kerbstein Drive. Those will be a little bit unobtanium, but the principle is still there. Things like that, sure, but nothing that ignores physics.

Hmm. I will totally still use mH engines even if they are, at some point in the future, shown to be physically impossible.

Ship to ship probably won't even occur; war would be lobbing interplanetary torch missiles and waiting.

CLASSIFIED* But seriously, with a liquid fuelled missile, you can just shut down the engine. However, with solids (Minuteman, Peacekeeper, GBSD, etc.) you have to fine tune the trajectory. You could probably do away with any third stage, as well. *** Also, not a hard minimum. The missile would still be an ICBM, because though it has that range, it just isn't used in this scenario.

I agree that it is looking bad for metastasis, but there is still enough wiggle room in the error for it, I think. The only reason I'm arguing here is because some people have said the concept is totally disproven and is now "pseudo-science". It is still under debate. Only when enough data has been collected with rigorous standards can we rule out metastability. Liquid core? Point of contact? Are you thinking closed-cycle? Let me save you some trouble, just do open-cycle, and drat the consequences!

Which is why we'd be using AM catalyzed fusion or something, not a pure matter-antimatter rocket. The small quantities of untouchable material should make the problems easier. Also, I didn't say trivial for us. I was pointing out the fact that if anyone is capable of handling, say, 100 grams of AM, they won't need to worry much about the engineering of such an engine.

The only thing I don't want is to be able to time-warp through the supplies of station X while warping probe Y to Eeloo. That would be...a killer.

Ah. NOT near-c rockets, then. Thx.

If we're getting near-c rockets in KSP 2, the devs will have to implement relativistic equations and time dilation, right? KSP 1 is Newtonian, in that it seems to permit arbitrarily high speeds, though for chemfuel rockets this works fine. Has this been discussed before, and are there any answers on it?

I argued that the data isn't good enough to rule out metastable mH, not that it is impossible to disprove its existence. There is an obvious difference.

Funny.