chaos_forge

A rover/lander simulator with different settings for gravity/atmo/etc has been suggested many times, and I think it's a good idea. It can be very frustrating to get your spaceplane all the way to Duna just to find out that it can't safely land.

Hello, I took part in one of the very first discussions where a BSG-like system was proposed, and I am still partial to the idea. If you want to get an idea of what the quaternary star system would look like, take a look at this. I think most of y'all have already hit on what the main advantages of such a setup would be (it would also be extremely cool IMO). The main problem with this setup is the whole barycenters deal, however a while ago there was this very detailed discussion in which several of us figured out how to go about implementing barycenters without breaking the game physics or implementing n-body. Now as for what STL drive to use, I recently had the following idea: say you have an Orion drive with pulses that impart a HUGE amount of Dv per pulse. Say, around 10 km/s per pulse for a medium sized ship. However, we add one extra behavior: instead of applying exactly 10km/s every pulse, it randomly applies anywhere from 9-11 km/s of Dv. Thus, if you try to use the drive to get to Jool, you would still have to cancel out about 1 km/s of Dv using normal rockets while hauling around your super heavy Orion drive. If balanced right, this approach could make getting to Jool with the advanced drive take about the same amount of player time as getting there with other methods. So, even though the in-game time would be short, the player time, which is the true measure of balancing, would be the same, and the drive would be balanced. And when using the drive to get to other stars, an error of 1 km/s would be a small price to pay for the ~200 km/s of Dv the drive could provide you with. Thoughts?

agreed. It would be a small, simple quality-of-life change

Stock parts are the only ones guaranteed to be compatible with the latest version of KSP, stock parts let you share your ships with anyone, mods require effort to install and introduce the possibility for bugs . . . there are many reasons to want to go stock-only

I agree. This would also be useful for those of us who want to use FAR but don't want to install parts packs. Wouldn't this post he more fitting in the development subforum, though?

Thank you xD. I've used GIMP a few times to turn white backgrounds transparent, but my fu was not strong enough for this task.

This is a possibility, but moving forward I would like that behavior to be removed. I know that currently I can just start a career save and give myself 999,999 science, but when the money/reputation mechanics hit, giving us more reasons to not want to play career, this problem should be addressed.

Because it's fun. I don't know about you, but I put science parts on my vessels (thermometers, etc) long before they actually had a use. Just because I want to have all the parts unlocked at the beginning doesn't mean I don't want to do science. Edit: wow, double ninja'd

I play almost exclusively in sandbox mode, and lately I've begun to get frustrated with a certain feature: When you activate a science part in sandbox mode, all you get is a message saying something along the lines of "With the R&D facility closed, this is useless." This behavior is frustrating, both because it breaks my feeling of immersion, and because it takes away some of the feeling of accomplishment. After getting all the way to Duna/Laythe/whatever, I'm not allowed to do science on it! Now, what I'm asking for isn't the inclusion of the tech tree in career mode. All I want is to be able to see the same science text the career mode sees when you do an experiment, not that annoying "The R&D facility is closed" message. The way I see it, sandbox shouldn't be a mode with less functionality, but rather one where you have unlimited money/reputation/science. How it should work in sandbox is, the science facility should be open, but every node would cost 0 science/be already unlocked. Currently, this isn't much of a problem because I can just start a career save and give myself 999,999 science, but when the money/reputation mechanics hit, giving us more reasons to not want to play career, this problem should be addressed. Thoughts?

Hello! I got a flag from this thread a loooong time ago and I'm very happy with it, but in preparation for .23.5, I'd like a version without the "wavy" effect, so I can have the the logo on the sides of my rockets. Here is the .png I'm currently using: How feasible/easy is this? And thanks in advance!

although it is not on the already suggested list, it has been suggested multiple times. I for one do not care much for the idea either way.

This topic has come up many, many times. I still maintain that the best way to implement another solar system is to have a binary (or more) star system. A binary star system is where two stars orbit their common barycenter. Since star binary star systems exist with any distance between the two stars (from .01 AU to a light year or more), it would not be unreasonable to tailor-make a binary star system with a distance between the two stars that is far enough to feel big, but close enough to not take too long to get there. Also, having an endgame drive capable of reaching speeds around 100km/s would help. And as long as we're thinking about multi-star systems, a quad-star system (two binary stars orbiting around their common center of mass) would be pretty damn cool. Of course, I don't think this should be a priority, but I would love to have it in the endgame or an expansion (along with colonization, off-world construction, etc)

Still, 1km/s is approx. what you need for a normal orbital Hohmann transfer. So you might as well avoid the problem of having to make your ship stand up to the accelerations of the Orion drive (not to mention the awful TWR you'd get by lugging around a massive Orion Drive) and just go directly with the Hohmann transfer route. The point isn't to make going to other planets *impossible* with an Orion Drive, all we want to do is make getting there with an Orion Drive comparable in effort to getting there the normal way.

Speaking of interstellar, I recently had an idea about how to make an Orion Drive that works for interstellar travel, but not interplanetary (in sandbox). Say we introduce an Orion drive with a HUGE Dv per pulse, say 10km/s. However, it has some "error": when you fire a pulse, doesn't apply exactly 10km/s of Dv, but rather it randomly applies a Dv of 10±1 km/s in the direction you're facing. Thus, if you try to get to a planet with an Orion Drive, even after doing a retroburn, you would still have to face (on average) a Dv of about 1,000 m/s and sure, you could make multiple passes, turning the engine first one way and then another, but since the engine is so clunky turning would be slow, and most players would get bored of it. After all, what makes an engine OP or not is the player time it takes to get somewhere, not the in-game time. With this method, Orion Drive would be pretty ineffective (in player time) in getting us to other planets. In going to another star, however, a difference of a "mere" 1,000 m/s would be a small price to pay for the 100km/s or more you needed to actually get to the other star. Another possibility is to have a small error in the direction the force is applied instead of or addition to the error in Dv. Thoughts?

RuBisCO, even if you're right and Venus is the worst option of every single body in the solar system, it doesn't matter, because this thread is about HOW to colonize Venus, not whether or not we SHOULD colonize Venus. If you look back to the first post you'll see that OP is well aware that there are many problems surrounding Venus colonization, but he wants to know, given the fact that we wish to colonize Venus, what would be the best way to go about it? At this point, all you're doing is propagating a flame war and stopping us from talking about the actual topic of the thread. Given that we've brought up talk of orbital colonies, it seems like it would be pretty desirable to have orbital colonies/manufacturing around Venus, because they would have access to significantly more energy (what with the inverse square law and whatnot)

You seem to be overestimating how good air-augmented rockets are. 1) According to wikipedia, the ISP for an air-augmented rocket is at best 1000 seconds, which is good, but is nothing compared to the SABRE's 3600 2) An air-augmented rocket would have to carry oxidizer, which is significantly heavier than liquid fuel 3) An air-augmented rocket still requires a rocket engine, which is as unreliable and expensive to maintain (or more) as a jet engine

Did you even look at my example? If you know a way to figure out the flight characteristics of a plane in Duna's atmosphere using MechJeb/Kerbal Engineer/any method other than physically being on Duna, please let me know. Otherwise, please refrain from using strawman arguments. Also, this is a single player game, so it doesn't matter whether YOU think we've accomplished something, it matters whether WE think we've accomplished something.

Venus has lots of CO2 which could be used as a greenhouse gas, and I feel like that would cost less Dv than taking it ll the way from Titan. Also, we would be reducing Venus's atmosphere somewhat. Kill two birds with one stone, eh?

I think this is the best approach. For example, if I want to test how a plane flies on Duna, my only option is to haul a plane all the way to Duna only to have it fail. The problem with using hyperedit is that it detracts from the sense of achievement. What's the point of landing on Duna "for real this time" when you've already seen that red surface so many times already? EDIT: also I wonder how difficult this would be to do, given we already have scenarios separate from the game instances. All KSP would have to do would be create a temporary scenario specific to the parameters you gave it. Unless I'm missing something.

Even if you melt the entirety of Mars's ice caps, would that be enough to give it 1 atm of atmospheric pressure? I feel like it wouldn't be . . .

so if i'm getting this right, precooled jet engines would be useful for planes, but not for missiles or drones (which already use ramjets anyways)

Guys, let's try to get back on track. The OP (correct me if I'm wrong) started this discussion to talk about HOW to colonize Venus, not WHY. This is a thought experiment in terraforming, not interplanetary economics. I propose that we leave the Venus vs Mars debate for another thread, and talk about what would be the best way to terraform Venus. I for one am all for the floating cities idea.

Okay, so I've been reading wikipedia pages on air/spacecraft propulsion, and I noticed that both ramjets and SABRE engines in atmospheric mode have a top speed of around mach 5. Also, Reaction Engines seems to be developing a air-breathing only version of the engine called Scimitar. Furthermore, SABRE/Scimitar engines, unlike ramjets, can propel an aircraft from a standstill. So, my question is, is there any reason to use ramjets instead of SABRE variants, or will be face a revolution in aircraft propulsion once the technology is perfected? Relevant pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_(rocket_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Scimitar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precooled_jet_engine

My main gripe with the current tech tree is that it's too short. I think the current tech tree is more-or-less a good early-game starting point (although I agree that probes should be unlocked from the beginning as well). However, the tech tree is missing a mid-game and late-game progression. I think it should work something like this: Early game: All of the structural/aero parts and "normal" (liquid fuel, solid fuel, or jet) engines are able to be unlocked using the science you can collect in the Kerbin system. (same as it is now) Then you enter the mid-game stage. More and more of the research nodes start being upgrades instead of part unlocks. Upgrades could be things such as improved ISP for engines, lighter parts, and more durable landing legs, or maybe even tweakables. Maybe you would have to unlock steerable landing gear? Also, interspersed with these upgrades would be unlocks for a few of the more speculative parts that KSP has, such as the LV-Ns or RAPIER engines. By the time you reach the late game, your weights, ISP, etc for parts would have reached real-world levels. The research nodes would start coming slower now, and you would start unlocking technology similar to KSP Interstellar mod: reactors, heat sinks, plasma (VASIMR) engines, maybe even Orion drives at the very end of the tree. The very last node would be some kind of STL interstellar engine (now that FTL is confirmed as not happening): something along the lines of a pulsed nuclear fusion rocket, or maybe a Bussard Ramjet

I've been playing on-off since v0.8, but I've had entire weekends whiz by while playing . . . if I had to guess, probably 1000 hours or so