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KSK

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Everything posted by KSK

  1. Oh that's pretty. I have to admit that the test render you posted didn't do much for me - the rockets were nice enough but they looked kind of odd against the backdrop - like a model rocket photographed against a piece of card. But the new render - yeah that works!
  2. Absolutely this. More science instruments would be lovely but having science results tied into a map like that would be golden. It would give a tangible sense of exploration and discovery to the game. And regardless of what Squad have planned (or not) for resources (not going to sidetrack the discussion into that can of worms), science maps would tie in so neatly with existing mods. A gravity map would be a stock way of locating Kethane for example, or a solar wind/magnetic field/whatever map for locating good places to harvest antimatter if you're using the Interstellar mod.
  3. Thanks! Yep - the idea is that maxing all areas would be impossible, so you need to make some choices, and ideally bring a mixed crew along to give you more options. Veteran Kerbonaut should be hard to reach, and even Veterans are nowhere near maxed. The rationale behind the Rover speed boost was that pilots are likely to be better (or at least more reckless) drivers, so will tend to push their Rovers as fast as they can. I see your point, but I figured it would be a fun little bonus that wouldn't really impact on core gameplay that much, since Rovers are pretty much optional at the moment.
  4. Hey folks, First of all, apologies if this is the umpteenth thread on this topic - please do merge it with any ongoing discussion. I couldn't find anything using the forum search but 'kerbal' and 'experience' aren't great keywords either. There was quite a bit of backlash against the originally proposed kerbal experience model, which would have given small bonuses to your spacecraft depending on the skill level(s) of your kerbonauts. With that in mind, I thought this might be an alternative model. It mainly uses bonuses to the three career resources (funds, rep and science), plus a couple of small tweaks to existing stock gameplay and a couple of miscallaneous bonuses. Anyway - comments welcome! General Kerbals acquire Experience from flying missions and use that experience to increase their skills in any of four Traits. Each Trait confers a number of bonuses, which increase with higher levels of skill in that Trait. Kerbals can acquire a maximum of five levels in each trait, each level requiring progressively more Experience to acquire. Kerbals are assigned a Title based on their current skill levels in each Trait. Abstracted model Each kerbal is awarded a number of experience points for successfully completing a flight. Points to be based on distance from Kerbin (suborbital, Kerbin orbit, Mun/Minmus, interplanetary) with a diminishing returns factor for repeated similar missions. The player can then allocate experience to improve Traits as they see fit. Abstracted system representing a combination of technical background before joining the space programme and pre-flight training reinforced by implementing that training in-flight. Task based model Kerbals acquire experience in each trait by performing related tasks in-flight, multiplied by a mission complexity factor based on distance from Kerbin - see above. Players thus define through gameplay the skill levels that their kerbals acquire in each trait. Kerbals assigned to single seat craft automatically gain piloting experience (see below), multiseat craft will need to have pilot seat(s) defined, where the kerbal(s) assigned to those seats gain piloting experience. Traits Payloads Payloads specialists focus on EVA activities and science. They excel at getting the most out of the larger science modules. - Bonus science points from Goo canisters and Science Jrs. Bonus science from EVA recovery of experimental data. Able to refurbish Goo canisters and Science Jrs at lab modules. NB. Requires tweak to core game to implement, in that science recovered during EVA is treated in a similar manner to transmitted science, although perhaps at a reduced penalty. Science Anyone can read an instrument dial and report the results to Mission Control. Scientists bring a combination of intellectual insight and diverse technical backgrounds to the mission, vastly increasing the amount of scientific data garnered from space exploration. - Bonus science points from surface samples, instrument packages, seismometers and gravioli detectors. Bonus science points from safe return of vessel. Improved science points from transmitted data. Engineering Practical, focused and with an aptitude for problem solving, Engineers are peerless at fixing and testing equipment, in high pressure situations. - Bonus to Funds and Science from part testing contracts. Able to repair damaged spacecraft parts. Able to re-pack parachutes. Piloting Rightly or wrongly, Pilots tend to be the public face of a space programme, but their reflexes and rapid decision making skills make them ideal complements to Engineers for equipment testing. - Minimum piloting skill required for LKO, Mun/Minmus and interplanetary missions. Bonus to reputation gains from kerbal rescue contracts, part testing contracts outside of Kerbin's SOI, exploration contracts, Record Keeping Society contracts and the first flag planting mission on each celestial body. Bonus to rover speed. Titles Rookie: All traits at level 0. All newly recruited kerbals start as Rookies. Kerbonaut: At least one trait at level 1 or above. Senior Kerbonaut: At least one trait at level 2 remaining traits at level 1. Commander: At least one trait at level 3. Remaining traits at level 2. Veteran Kerbonaut: At least one trait at level 4, two of remaining traits at level 3. Pilot: Piloting at least two levels higher than any other trait. Payload Specialist: Payloads at least two levels higher than any other trait. Engineer: Engineering at least two levels higher than any other trait. Scientist: Science at least two levels higher than any other trait. Spacewalker: Piloting and Payloads both two levels higher than remaining traits. Test Pilot: Piloting and Engineering both at least two levels higher than remaining traits. Pilot-Scientist: Piloting and Science both at least two levels higher than remaining traits. Mission Specialist: Science and Engineering both at least two levels higher than remaining traits. Research Specialist: Science and Payloads both at least two levels higher than remaining traits. Chief Engineer: Engineering and Payloads both at least two levels higher than remaining traits. Examples Bill flies two missions and improves his skill in Piloting and Science. Neither trait is high enough to trigger a title award. On his third mission he improves his Piloting skill and his Payloads skill. His Piloting skill is now high enough to trigger the Pilot title. On subsequent missions he decides to continue developing his skills as a pilot and payloads specialist, eventually earning the Spacewalker title for his accomplishments in piloting and EVA. However Bill's lack of engineering ability prevented him from earning Senior Kerbonaut or command ranks. Bob flies six missions, remaining a generalist, with a slight bias towards engineering. He is regarded as a highly skilled all-rounder, and acquires the Senior Kerbonaut title as a result. Bob flies many more missions in his career, retiring with honour as a Commander.
  5. Sounds like an excellent plan. I'd totally be up for a SE England gathering though.
  6. Uh - what Pecan said (again). *blushes*. In my defense, I did add a nice comment to the original thread, but yes - congrats on the official mentions!
  7. I'm guessing that Elite: Average got chucked out by the marketing department pretty quickly.
  8. A bit of history might help it make more sense. Elite - named after the original 1984 game, and Dangerous because the Elite universe always has been a dangerous one and (probably) as a nod to the 'Dangerous' combat ranking that you could earn in the original game.
  9. This. I do follow the written fanworks fairly closely, and I agree - there's probably not enough there for a weekly slot. But it would be nice if they were mixed in with the other Fanworks Friday material occasionally. For example - and speaking of Mun landings - tell me these words don't stir something in you... They might not of course, but hopefully you'd agree that they're the kind of interestingly different take on a typical KSP flight that it would be nice to see highlighted every so often.
  10. Maltesh, I stand corrected - thank you. And apologies to LLlAMnYP and WestAir who pointed out the same thing. From a quick look on the internet, I'm not completely sure about the last part (universe having zero thickness to a photon) but I'll not drag that into this thread, since at this point I'd be moving from 'quoting chunks of text with a vague understanding of what it's talking about' to 'quoting chunks of text with no real understanding of what it's talking about'! Which makes for a flimsy argument at best.
  11. A very low one. (http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/collisions.htm). On the other hand, the beam dump is still only 7 metres long (http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/components/beam-dump.htm) So even with an LHC grade particle beam, all the particles are stopped in a comparatively short distance.
  12. Quick fix for the EVA bug - always make sure you point your spacecraft normal to it's direction of flight before going on EVA. That way if your kerbal does get shot out into the void, at least the hatch is lined up so that you can get back in with the minimum of fuss. But yeah - hard mode. I can't see myself experimenting too much with spaceplanes, at least until I have a very large budget and the the appropriate remote control tech. Gonna get through far too many kerbals otherwise.
  13. I can't pretend to be neutral here, since my own fanworks are written, but yeah - it's been a while since the Daily Kerbal or the Thread of the Month featured any fan-fic. Which is a shame in my opinion since there's a lot of good written work on the Fan Works forum - including stuff that I would rate much more highly than mine, so please don't take this as a shameless plug! Short stories, longer pieces, poems, spoof lyrics, after-action reports with varying numbers of screenshots - there's something there for most tastes.
  14. Hmm, having read it, every scenario in that piece ends in a kaboom of greater or lesser extent. None of them end up with the diamond passing through the earth. For the most violent impact: Emphasis added.The only part that I could find where xkcd seems to disagree is: And with the greatest possible respect, at that sort of energy I think you'll have plasma rather than atoms. It would be more accurate to say 'clouds of stripped off electrons and disembodied atomic nuclei that used to be atoms', are literally passing through each other.
  15. No - atoms in a solid touch. They form bonds, the distribution of electrons around the nuclei changes when they do so. Try a quick Wikipedia search for molecular orbital theory. Consider the very simplest case of two hydrogen atoms. Radius of a hydrogen atom is 53 pm (Google for 'hydrogen atom radius). Bond length of the H2 molecule is 74 pm (or 0.74 A) - in other words, considerably less than the sum of the two atomic radii. You can't think of a hydrogen molecule as two discrete hydrogen atoms that are almost but not quite touching. The same goes for atoms in a solid. Treating a solid as a set of close packed spheres is a nice picture, and a helpful one for visualizing solid structure, but a picture is all it is. Back to the question. Apparently, the Planck time, is the smallest possible unit of time, in that, for events occurring less than one Planck Time apart, no change can be measured or detected. So if you could hurl yourself at a planet fast enough to pass through it in one Planck Time, you would theoretically pass through it unaltered. Unfortunately, the Planck Time is also defined as the length of time it takes a photon to travel one Planck length - and a Planck Length is a massive 1.6x10 -35 m. So for that to work, you would need to be travelling at around 10 to the power of 42 times the speed of light. So yeah, if you completely ignore relativity it might work. In the real world - not a hope. Incidentally - quantum tunneling is also a *very* distance dependent effect. The chance of tunneling more than a few nanometres is vanishingly small.
  16. That's great! Wish I'd thought of it first - but I wouldn't have done such a good job with the pictures. Have some rep. Edit. Maybe I just get different junk ads, but 'weird piloting tip', rather than 'sneaky', would fit better for me.
  17. Uh, the atoms in solids do touch - or at least their electrons interact - otherwise you wouldn't have a solid. The nuclei of those atoms don't come into contact though, unless they happen to be found in the core of a star or a fusion reactor. So the nuclei in the atoms in your body might get quite a long way through the planet, but even then most of them would scatter and be stopped before they got out the other side. The nearest real-world version of what you're proposing that I can think of, would be neutrinos. Those interact with matter via the weak force (the name says it all), rather than the electromagnetic force, so they do pass through very large amounts of matter (including planets) without stopping.
  18. You're welcome! No idea how legit it is, but the authors do at least seem to have considered some of the problems - and I liked the opening statement in section 2.1 that: "Extraction of purified feedstocks from the lunar regolith cannot be done using the industrial production processes currently in use on Earth."
  19. I don't know the official reason but there must be a good one, simply because perchlorates are Not Nice and aluminium chloride isn't a great thing to be spewing into the air in great quantities either. I suspect (with absolutely nothing to back this up) that it's used precisely because it is a pretty oxygen dense oxidiser. I'm sure someone will have a neat counterexample but off the top of my head I'm struggling to think of a better one that is also a solid.
  20. Click on the little 6-pointed star icon next to the 'Blog this Post' button on the post you want to add rep to. You get a dialog box asking you to add a message - it's friendly (but not obligatory) to do that too.
  21. Interesting paper here on regolith refining. It proposes fluorine processing (transported as potassium fluoride) of the regolith, distillation to separate out the metal fluorides and then reduction with potassium to regenerate the potassium fluoride and release your metals (iron, titanium, aluminium). The method was primarily designed for silicon processing for solar cell manufacture.
  22. You could use a more reactive metal (as your reducing agent, as per Kryten's post). For example, thermite (or a thermite at any rate) is a mixture of iron oxide and aluminium. It needs energy to get started but once it has started, it's extremely exothermic. Lugging enough magnesium to wherever you're colonising is a different matter of course. So lets think. Direct iron reduction looks promising. Take some synthesis gas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) heat it up with iron oxide and you get iron, CO2 and water. Synthesis gas is most commonly produced by steam reforming methane (natural gas) which you could make in-situ using the Sabatier reaction: CO2 + 4 H2 → CH4 + 2 H2O + energy Mars has CO2 and you could obtain hydrogen from water hydrolysis. Alternatively (and probably more usefully), you could use the reverse water-gas-shift reaction to make your carbon monoxide directly without bothering to make methane first. Hydrogen from electrolysis again. CO2 + H2 <====> CO + H2O. (to any chemists reading this - apologies for the dodgy arrows) So yeah, making iron in-situ is quite feasible on paper. I'm not sure how much energy it would take though, and building a nice reliable set of reactors to make it work would be the real trick. Not to mention getting those reactors to Mars.
  23. Nice! The cutting between KSP and real life worked really well, and I liked the slightly haunting music too - good choice!
  24. Nothing like a spot of ACcurate Renaming Of NewlY acquired Machinery and spare partS. And, Patupi - they actually use the Bimodal Antiproton Deceleration And Scanning System. Well not really - but they should. On a different note, I just read the 0.9 announcement thread, and I have to admit that a couple of the comments made me smile: Yes. Yes they do.
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