Seret

That was an optional phrase, you're not under any compulsion to read it.

50m might be a bit iffy, but you can certainly get damn close. For that kind of accuracy the main thing throwing you off would probably how accurately you could place the landing target marker. Tbh on Minmus it costs so little to get airborne that you shouldn't have any trouble with or without Mechjeb. Even if you're several km out you could just do a short hop to your destination.

Tbh, I would probably use these parts of they were in the game. I find 2.5m a bit big and 1.25 a bit small for a lot of the stuff I build. But I do agree with the others that there's no great need for them. I find the 3.75m parts a bit pointless, but most other people seem to love 'em, so I think the amount of us finding 1.875m parts useful would be pretty minimal.

Any engine big enough to maneuver one of the OPs unfeasibly large ships at useful velocities would have insane quantities and velocities of exhaust. Tapping off even a tiny part of it to propel your projectiles would make for a LOT of smash. Why bother with projectiles though? They're just a waste of mass. I'm with KOCOUR, just go for a swarm of engines. Warheads would probably be optional.

They found it "made the game less fun". Without playing what they tested who can say why. Either way, I wouldn't expect to see it return. They're not exactly falling over themselves to implement it. Still, the question was "do you miss resource mining?" and I've explained why I really don't think its absence takes anything away from the game. I'm not really trying to convince anyone of anything, although I would suggest that you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you sit around pining for it.

Well, yes. The core of the game has been finished for quite a while. KSP is a game about building, launching and crashing rockets. Maybe a bit of flying them too. We've been doing that for ages. We're now at the point where they're adding all the extra stuff (such as career mode) on top of that core. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be anything in the game that builds on that core, I'm saying there shouldn't be anything which detracts from it. ISRU potentially means you could reach a point in the game where you never had to launch anything from KSP. I don't think that really matches the devs' vision for the game, from what they've said in the past.

Yup, I suspect FPS games are by far the most popular overall, but you won't get that result if you ask the question here.

Not really. The game may be alpha, but it's not a case of "throw everything to the wall and see what sticks". Features should only be implemented if they're intended to be in the final game. It's also a fact. KSP has a huge mod scene. Mods exist to extend the stock game and change it. Just because you like a mod doesn't mean it should be stock. Sure, but that doesn't in itself mean that every popular mod should be made stock. The most popular mod out there is probably Mechjeb, but you won't ever see that in stock either. I've already given a reason in my original reply, but I'll repeat it if you like. I think the rocket equation and the need to get everything you want in space up from the surface of Kerbin is the main source of difficulty in the game. I know there are mods that allow you to mine resources and build and launch ships from other planets, but the core game is about launching rockets from Kerbin. Anything that moves the game away from that paradigm rightly belongs in modland IMO. The core game should have some focus and not try to implement everything. They've deliberately built the game to be moddable so that if you want to change that focus you can. Note that I'm not arguing against ISRU being in KSP. Just that I don't think there's any need for it to be in stock KSP.

Gas pressures in the barrel are pretty high, it'd be difficult to get a decent seal between the sabot and the muzzle. Also, the exact profile of the crown of the muzzle is critical for accuracy, so having a deformable object stuck there would result in spraying your projectiles all over the place. You want a nice predictable interaction between the projectile and the venting gases as the projectile transitions to free flight.

Indeed, adding content and changing core gameplay is what mods are for. But we're talking about what should and shouldn't be in the stock game. I think the stock game is about launching rockets. If you want to extend the game using mods, go for your life.

The you're probably nearing the "endgame", if a sandbox can be said to have such a thing. What's not likely to keep you any more interested when you're at the top of the learning curve is making the game easier.

My view? You can't miss something you never had. Personally I'm happy that resource mining isn't included in the stock game. The tyranny of the rocket equation is the core challenge in the game. I'm not in any rush to change that. The kethane mod has proved that you can implement an ISRU system through mods, so for those that want to play that way they've got an option open.

All of this. Ravener, just because this forum is called "Sci Fi Theory" doesn't mean you have to confine yourself to the conventions of the softest of soft sci-fi. TV and movie scriptwriters aren't technical people, they often just transpose existing memes that the audience will understand (capital ships duelling with guns, fighters making sweeping turns, etc) into a space setting. That doesn't mean any of it makes any sense. There's not much point in debating soft sci-fi tropes, because they don't really have any solid technical basis. You might as well have that debate about how Superman washes his costume, because of his indestructible Kryptonian pit stains.

I'm a big fan of district heating from CHP, but the companies that own the power plants are often less keen. The problem is that to provide useful hot water for district heating they have to run the cool side of their condensers at a higher temperature than they would like. This reduces the electricity generating efficiency of the plant. Since electricity is a more lucrative commodity than heat this hits their bottom line. To counter that the government would have to intervene in the market and make sure they were getting an inflated price for the heat they provide. The bottom line is you tend to only see large-scale use of district heating schemes in countries that are happy to take that kind of interventionist central planning approach (Scandinavia, former Soviet countries, etc).

Exactly. Exploring other worlds in shirtsleeves FTW.

We do. Or at least we did. Oil-fired power stations were pretty common in the latter half of the 20th century, but they're mostly all in mothballs or being decommissioned now. The price of oil went up to the point where they weren't economical to run, and their emissions are pretty high, which has meant they've been caught by the same legislation shutting down the coal plants. It's one of the dirtiest ways to generate electricity. That's already a fairly common minority fuel for vehicles, it normally goes under the name CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). The two aren't mutually exclusive, hydrogen makes a good energy carrier for electric vehicles. Fuel cells can run on hydrogen, in fact most prototype hydrogen vehicles have used a fuel cell, not a combustion engine.

I don't really count LEO as "exploring", do you?

Is there any particular reason you've chosen that particular cutoff? Other than that it makes the kind of engagement you want to talk about possible?

This. Falling that, you can't beat a sunbomb for cracking unrealistically large space vehicles.

It helps with that, but the main reason for small cross-section penetrators is to maximise the local stresses at the point of impact. Generally speaking KE penetrators defeat the target by plastic deformation of the armour. Stress is force over area, so a smaller diameter penetrator will result in higher stress in the target for a given force. KE penetrators have only evolved because armour on tanks got so thick that explosive rounds were no longer effective. Against anything with less armour than that (which is everything short of a main battle tank) you're still better off using an explosive warhead. Against the kind of construction seen in aerospace vehicles fragmentation warheads like a continuous rod are proven to be extremely effective.

Any projectile (including KE ones) would be unlikely to hit the target if it was intercepted.

You just aren't going to see bulk armour on spacecraft any time when you're working against the rocket equation. You might get some minimal armour to more critical parts but in general your target is going to be made largely of aluminium and have vulnerable things like solar arrays, antennas, and maneuvering thrusters sticking out of it. HEI and proximity fused fragmentation warheads would be much more deadly than penetrators.

Yes, and there's no real need to minimise projectile cross-section either (the main reason to use a sabot). Larger calibre explosive projectiles with smart fuses would be more effective than KE penetrator rounds.

Do aircraft need thick armour to resist autocannons, missiles and lasers? This may be "Sci Fi Theory" but that doesn't mean we have to drop the "sci" and instead think like TV scriptwriters. Minimising weight is a fundamental principle of spacecraft design, you can't ignore it.

I can't imagine a lot of heat transfers to the projectile during the short time the gases are acting on it. Less if they're acting on a sabot instead of the baseplate.