iamaphazael
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Sr. Spacecraft Engineer
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I posted this on askreddit today, but it got buried quickly. I figured I'd see what you folks thought: Despite the fact that we've switched (at least in academia) from the BC/AD designation to the BCE/CE designation in an attempt to make it seem like our calendar is not based on a mythological event, the fact remains that the calendar in use for most of the Western world is based around the central premise of a religion that not all of us subscribe to. Ideally, our calendar would be centered around something that was more universal, or at least something less divisive. However, it would probably be too much effort/confusion/resistance for something with limited tangible benefit. If we were to re-center the calendar, what would a good start date be? I'm a computer science guy, so my choice would be the "Unix epoch": Jan 1, 1970. It is pretty much the standard as far as timekeeping in computing goes (ie, the date in your computer is stored internally as the number of seconds since then), so there's a practical reason for adopting it. Additionally, it roughly marks the beginning of the Space Age, which looking ahead to the distant future seems like a good point to measure from. So, Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight would have happened in year -9, and Apollo 11 in year -1.
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What kind of Hardware do you use to run KSP
iamaphazael replied to acidr4in's topic in KSP1 Discussion
I have a caveman with two pits and an infinite pile of rocks. The game runs very stably, but I get really terrible fps. -
I'd make one suggestion regarding the Apollo parts. I would incorporate the docking rings into the command pods rather than having them be separate parts. When you have the LM mated to a CSM, it's hard to find a spot to mouse over the docking ring part to undock. (Yes, I know they can be action grouped, but we all forget sometimes). It seems to me that there's no benefit to having them as distinct parts
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Damn, that LEM is GORGEOUS!
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SRB Retro-rockets for cars as an emergency braking system?
iamaphazael replied to szputnyik's topic in Science & Spaceflight
Using an SRB would be a bad choice. Consider that once it's lit, it will burn all of its fuel until there's none left, generating thrust the whole time. As the speeds and conditions (eg the weight of occupants/cargo in the car at the time) of emergency situations are highly variable, an SRB charge might either not provide enough impulse, or provide too much and cause the car to end up moving in reverse, which could be bad. If you want a rocket-propelled safety device, a throttleable liquid fuel setup is the way to go. -
An aircraft icon would be a nice touch. However I must point out that telling a programmer that "X would be easy to implement" is an the list of things not to say, right behind asking a woman how far along in her pregnancy she is.
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Bear in mind that "what not to suggest" is not the same as "never going to happen". There are a lot of ideas out there that are really good ideas, and the devs know they are really good ideas, and are probably already thinking about how to make happen, that keep getting suggested over and over again. In fact, looking over the list, there are at least a couple of things that are planned features (or have at least been planned features at some point in the past), as well as some things that have been explicitly stated as "will not happen".
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I just want to jump in and say I support this idea. I expressed some concerns a while ago about the current system, and the response I got was basically "Shhh! Hackers search forums looking for people talking about vulnerabilitoes. Just don't mention it and hopefully no one will try to use KSP as an attack vector", which of course is absolutely stupid. Considering the (well-deserved) attention that KSP is getting these days and will undoubtably continue to get, it's only a matter of time before some malicious actor finds a way around the safeguard that are in place and distributes a plugin that does something nefarious. I think Majir is absolutely right that the time to put a system in place to try to prevent that kind of thing is now, before an attack forces us/Squad to do something about it. I don't have a lot to add to the conversation right now that hasn't been said, but I'm going to continue to watch this thread, although I'm not on the forums much these days, and try to chime in when I have something helpful to add.
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Ski-jump ramp for runway
iamaphazael replied to pheeph's topic in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion
If the problem is that OP's planes don't lift off until they drive off the edge of the runway, why would putting a ramp at the end of the runway make any difference? You'd still have to taxi all the way to the end of the runway before getting airborne. Making the runway longer also isn't the solution (the scaling question being entirely irrelevant). Most craft I've seen get up to their max speed after about 1/4 the length of the current runway. Making it longer won't make it easier to take off, it'll just increase the distance you need to roll before you get to the edge of it and end up in the air. If the OP wants to be able to take off from the middle of the runway instead of the end, all they need to do is move their aft landing gear forward so they're closer to the center of mass of the craft -
The brakes in the elevator have stopped working.
iamaphazael replied to vetrox's topic in Science & Spaceflight
Seret is kind of correct, in that most elevators have a mechanical safety device on them that if the car starts moving too quickly, it applies a brake to the cable, slowing it down. Now, assuming the cable has snapped, all possible safeties have failed, and the elevator is free-falling to the ground, your best bet would be to lie flat against the floor of the car, to maximize the surface area that the impact force will be distributed over, and thus reducing your injuries as much as possible -
Apollo Mission Pack Development (Beta version released!)
iamaphazael replied to iamaphazael's topic in KSP1 Mod Development
Glad you got it working. Also glad to see people are still using it and having fun with it. Happy landings! -
Apollo Mission Pack Development (Beta version released!)
iamaphazael replied to iamaphazael's topic in KSP1 Mod Development
Hi Reddragon. I just loaded up the pack in .22 and the LM Pod is working fine for me in it's "out of the box" state. Is it possible that you clobbered something in the cfg file when you were making changes? If you want to post your work here I'll take a look at it and see if I can identify the problem. Also, Komatozz, those textures look really, really nice. I'm almost inspired to start messing around with the pack again, but I have so little free mental capacity these days. I may drop you a message sometime over the next couple of weeks though if you're still around, and if I find a little time to sit back down with Unity and see if I still remember how to do anything. -
What? Where do you get that? I was under the impression that it was primarily adding to science collection and adding tweakables. Is there something I missed?