Sean Mirrsen

"Stock" is whatever the game, as-shipped, contains. No more, no less. It's not a separate "thing", it's a descriptor in relation to the game itself. Stock game, as made by its developers. You have to clarify. Do you want to know what "Stock KSP" is right now, or what people want it to be? Because what it is right now is easily quantifiable. And can be summed up as "it is what it is".

The only mods I'd have used in KSP 1.0 are either part mods (thus largely undamaged by the version change), or already have similar functionality integrated into 1.0 proper. I'd see no reason for that argument to change my opinion on the matter.

Resource units are arbitrary units of volume. Please don't talk about realism, all that's being asked for is showing the mass of onboard resources instead of their volume. This can easily be done as a toggled option, or indeed simply alongside the arbitrary, easily readable and comparable volume units. I could agree with it in part, if only because it makes sense to. Rocket efficiency is about the fuel mass flow rate, not volume. However I would strongly disagree with removing the volume display entirely. I find readouts in the form of abstract units to be far more descriptive and easy to gauge than any hypothetical mass readout. "2125 LiquidFuel" is an easier number to process than "10.625 tons LiquidFuel", to me.

Well, you could go spelunking through the persistence file. I've no idea where it would be stored, but if you open it in something like Notepad++ and search for the name of the crewmember in question, you should probably find a line that defines their skill level.

Can you cool off the hot object without transfering the heat to a cool object? That example is pretty much what I had in mind when I asked - an entropic cooling system, i.e. for spacecraft with plentiful energy but no capacity to radiate heat (i.e. in low solar orbit). Nevermind practical, would something like it be even possible?

Can you boost entropy instead of reversing it? Or is it unalterable in all regards?

Mars is also a greek god of war, by the way. The "Earth/The Earth" dichotomy is kind of interesting. There are almost no circumstances where just saying "Earth" would not be correct and unambiguous given context. However, it seems that some phrases sound better with the definitive article, because they are established as common phrases in the english language. Being the one solitary home of humanity for so long (it still is, as of this post) made it special enough that it just feels right to emphasize that it is the one, singular Earth that is being mentioned. The article has become embedded in a number of established phrases, like "the face of the earth", which is likely also a big reason why "the Earth" is generally accepted and fairly widespread. I normally just use whichever sounds best. It makes no difference in principle. There is just the one Earth either way.

Um... I don't know about you, but from a purely armchair engineer standpoint, the above qualifies for either one, or both, of the epithets in the first quote. Yes, I know, "that's how the world works". Well, then the world as it is, is stupid and/or corrupt. Being active parts of that world, the thousands of engineers and scientists you mention will also qualify.

Missing launch windows is one thing, and another thing is that you might miss out on good contracts while you're waiting for bad contracts to go away. Monthly upkeep would be great, by the way. Would really put the "space program" side of the game more into focus. Maybe with monthly funding going in to offset the costs, depending on your prestige...

edit: misread the phrase I'd honestly prefer that system, as I've said above. There should be no limit to the amount of available contracts, and rejecting a contract shouldn't cause more contracts to automagically pop up. Instead you should just be able to hide the contracts you don't want to see (that don't pay enough, are boring, or impossible to complete), and only have the contracts disappear from the list when the offer expires, with new contracts appearing at a set pace according to whatever the game decides. In other words, there should be no correlation between the number of contracts you can take, and the amount of contracts on offer. If you reject a contract, or ignore it, should not have an effect on when another contract pops up. Being able to abuse the randomizer to get what you want to have defeats the purpose of the whole contracts system in the game.

I see no reason to add auto-rejection of contracts into stock. It's a slapdash solution to a problem that does not exist. If you want to be realistic, in real life you don't get to be picky about contracts you are offered. And refusing contracts repeatedly doesn't earn you any brownie points with the offering companies. Besides that, the lesser contracts exist for the purpose of allowing you to bring your fund reserve back up in case you manage to fail several expensive missions and can't afford to build the craft required for the long-distance high-paying contracts. If you want to have a filter, then it must be a filter for which contracts are displayed, not offered. You'll just have a lot more offers at once, but you'll have the option to not see the ones you don't need. It's more work than auto-rejection, but it's far better, more in line with realism, and will work similarly.

It's one of those cases where numbers alone, in principle, don't work. The numbers mean that if there were a number of such events happening, then picking one for all of them would statistically result in 33% of people rescued, while picking the other for all of them would statistically result in 50% of people rescued, across all such events. It does not help making a choice for one particular event at all. Though like I said, picking the smaller ship is simply irresponsible. You don't decide to save a few people unless you have at all no chance to save everyone.

I forgot the details of the discussion, and was rather confused for a minute there as to which KSC you're talking about. XD

There's a few threads over in the Space Lounge about the Cannae Drive/EMDrive, but the prevailing opinion so far is "most likely still impossible". Besides that, an electric-only space thruster would either break all interplanetary transfer burns forever, or be too weak to ever be useful (i.e. hour long burns at best) if you take game balance into account. There could, I guess, be stuff like electrodynamic tethers or something, but that would be impossible to properly simulate with the way KSP's physics work. I would, however, like to suggest implementing some variety of ion/plasma engines a-la Nertea's Near Future Propulsion mod. Small thrusters, large thrusters, weak thrusters, strong thrusters! Xenon, Argon, Hydrogen! All the variety you could ever want, with very good stock-styled models and decent balance.

I've read that one, but it's very long, and mostly filled with technical and theoretical details. As far as I can remember, it doesn't answer the questions you quoted, besides maybe the weight of the assembly.

Hehe, yeah. Practical science, the fastest kind of science! Also most interesting to follow.It is, really, very disappointing, that such a trivial thing as money gets in the way of proper experimentation. How much does the whole thing weigh? How much would it cost to just punt it into LEO with the next SpaceX launch, then turn it on and see what happens? How much more expensive would that be than all the other experiments that are going to be done on the poor device in the meantime?

I think we just need more experimental data. Can somebody hack the bank accounts of whatever lab runs the tests and dump some money on them?

Yay, another practitioner of the Rule of Exceptions! c:

The purple thing is a standard "transparency" color in DirectX, I think. OpenGL might not recognize it as such, in those specific circumstances.

The problem with that analogy, is that the sheep-counting experiment so far yields a small number of suspiciously yellow, curvy, elongated sheep. Until we find whether it's the work of some idiot with a paint bucket and too much free time - even if it's the logical thing to assume - we can still make assumptions about the bananas' involvement in the results, because the idiot is either not there or very good at hiding, and simply assuming he's there and searching for him without considering the possible signs of a banana revolution may bite us in the ass later on.

I'd just like to point out that I've mentioned the "rule of exceptions" in the other thread, which the "this specific box at this specific frequency" idea applies to. The universe is full of variables we can't see and predict yet - trying to do something usual in a highly specific, unusual, or otherwise unique way may have unexpected results.

I'm not familiar with the god-of-the-gaps fallacy. I'm just saying that people should start providing more theories besides the one that's supposedly obviously wrong, if they don't want the obviously wrong theory to be used. The only caveat is that the new theory has to explain the EMDrive in a way that keeps it an interesting and useful device. I.e., allows it to keep its current and/or theoretical thrust-per-kilowatt, and does not involve expending any part of the thruster itself (as would be with copper ablation). The other theories are in abundance, and the new experiments are going to test for them since most involve just errors in testing that need to be eliminated anyway. I think I heard of the Woodward effect. Something to do with charged capacitors... I think. Maybe misremembering. If it is the Woodward effect, how does it manifest within the device? That's really what I, personally, want to hear. A discussion of how this thing may work. Not a list of explanations of how it's all a mistake somewhere and nothing interesting is going on, but a discussion based in the premise that something interesting is going on, and existing to figure out what. edit: I shall add your hypothesis to the list. Personally I would prefer the pink unicorns. I do not set rules, I just make observations. And I didn't say it must be accepted, indeed I said quite the opposite - that more theories must be provided so that it's not the only one in existence anymore. A silly theory is better than no theory as long as it fits the observations. If no better theory comes along, the silly theory will stay. That's how our ancestors got the flat earth and the geocentric worldview.

Reposting that last paragraph I (thought I quickly enough) edited into my last post: It's the only explanation we (as the public) have that describes how the drive works. We have numerous explanations that describe how the drive doesn't work, but until one of those explanations is true and the drive indeed doesn't work, the virtual particles, as silly as they may be to a qualified scientist, are going to remain the explanation for EMDrive.

The problem is, it's neither and both. I would have maybe chosen "powerless" if it weren't the default mental state with my worldview - so the choice did not change my mental state, and since there's no change from my normal mental state for me, I remain indifferent, neutral. On the other hand, I may also choose "empowered", but for entirely wrong reasons that have nothing to do with the choices and everything to do with the setting of the question - a supposedly all-powerful wizard suddenly takes an interest in my opinion! Regardless of who it is, anyone with great power (magical, military, political - any power) is important and influential almost by default. If anyone with great power asked for your input on a matter - any matter, as long as it means that they follow through with whatever you choose - you would feel as if you have the same power as they do, if only for a brief while - thus, "empowered", but in an entirely different manner, which I think is not in the spirit of the question being asked. I could perhaps advise on how to amend the question to avoid the latter bit, but you probably can't do anything about the former.

That probably has more to do with all testing focusing on finding and eliminating errors in testing, and finding potential conventional explanations. The theory (which I haven't so much as read, by the way) is at least an attempt, however half-assed it may actually be, to find some plausible explanation that at least kinda fits into some part of conventional physics. I honestly haven't heard of any other theories besides those that say that it works on entirely conventional principles (i.e. ablation of copper, Mach Effect whatever that is, interaction with surroundings, etc.). Edit: And yet nobody offered anything better, to my knowledge. That is to say, if anyone did offer something better, they either kept it to themselves or didn't make a plausible enough argument for the theory to propagate and compete with the virtual particles. In other words - it's the only explanation we (as the public) have that describes how the drive works. We have numerous explanations that describe how the drive doesn't work, but until one of those explanations is true and the drive indeed doesn't work, the virtual particles, as silly as they may be to a qualified scientist, are going to remain the explanation for EMDrive.