Kegereneku

First, yes it does. A LOT. If it's not aligned with the direction of thrust the rocket will rotate. Know that the camera is focused on the center of mass. And if its engine are gimbaled they can compensate a little, very little. Another solution is to move fuel around the different fuel-tank to move the center of mass Second, this map here is a minimal Dellta-V : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/20993-Request-Delta-V-maps?highlight=delta For maximal DeltaV map you want this launch windows planner and look for the worst time. http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ Worst windows between Kerbin and Jool is 20 000m/s, worst between Moho and Jool is 35 000m/s, you can use gravitational slingshot but i doubt it will be enough. But I have to warn you, if you didn't knew any of it before you won't succeed. I don't think anybody ever visited all planets with one mothership. (For starter because it would weight 900 tons with over 500 parts)

You. Missed. The. Point. Again. I don't care how much you pretend to know about material science, we are not here to prove we are engineers (plus you would need several diploma), we are discussing game mechanic and we've shown you math telling your idea can't be balanced without an absurd amount of simplification ranking up to "Let's there be light" Deus Ex Machina. Technology only matter in that if you want more than 1 tons probes sailing 10 years, you would need technology which allow antimatter thrusters. Oh but he does, I don't want to get into politic but if Zubrin actually directed a National space program he would be making up his own excuses to justify redirecting funds to his project. The guy WANT to play pioneers on Mars and wont stop until he can, even if we end up wasting money to fix "unexpected difficulty" caused by immature technology (again). I don't care what any president say about the feasibility of going on the surface of Mars. We have robot for exploration and colonization ask for more than we can reasonably do now (public support for starter). [/politic] Are you frigging STUPID ? How old are you really ? I'm 25 years, English isn't my native language but I know you can't misinterpret what I said that much. Do you think I need to "accept" The Cold Equation ? I proved I understand it better than you ! Wait ! Finally it's just you being arrogant and full of yourself. Am I supposed to feel reassured just because you say I should ? You answer nothing. By the way, you can't solve the problem by ignoring physic calculation during warp, you need it, the best you can do is a simplified single point and it still won't solve much. I mean impossible as something unfeasible. I know the idea is hard to grasp but not everything engineers claim to be possible is in fact feasible (or practical). They would just love (to be payed) to try. Tricking investor into funding the "Next best thing" is how many company make money. We are unlikely to build 35 000km of 100% perfect carbon nanotube (just to support its own weight, we need better for more), then we are unlikely to build anything close to the "speedy highway to space" we dream of (you imagine the weight of a 35000km long maglev ?), and finally unlikely to protect it from space debris (the probability of an impact is in short 100%). And, yes, you would need launch-service cheaper than a space elevator to build one... and there's more. People love the idea of an elevator to space and fiction often sell it as something 200km high (bad SF usually place it around LEO) but there's dynamic structure like Launch-loop, rotovator or even a god-damned orbital-ring which do look more feasible (and crazier). Since Biglow's inflatable capsules actually work it's one of the thing the Devs are expected to add anyway. On the other hand there's several problem with magnetic field, it only deflect charged particle, magnetic field can be bad for human health, and you would probably need a nuclear-reactor to produce the field you want. I doubt it would make an interesting mechanic for KSP. http://www.islandone.org/Settlements/MagShield.html

Turn KSP into a MMORPG ? are you serious ? If so, please read the "What not to suggest thread" here : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36863-What-not-to-suggest Then refrain from posting anywhere on this particular forum until you understand why it was a very very bad suggestion. I hope some moderator lock this thread and I forget I ever replied to it. Really, just the MMO word give me chills, after going F2P, going MMO would be the surest way to make a game bland, repetitive and shallow. It's worse than multiplayer, supposing it even looked remotely possible in the first place.

My proposition is to just CHEAT visually, don't make a Moonbase Alpha sort of cable, make it physic-less and straight. It's not like strut and fuel-line didn't already disappeared

Be careful, FTL and Space elevator should be considered out of topic here as both are basically impossible, while VASIMR exist, fission/fusion-thruster, SABRE are in the realm of feasibility. There's another big problem with Space Elevator in KSP : It would need to be a "scenery" sort of object as it's too big for the physic engine. The Dragon capsule is totally ok, but I don't know if the Devs are ok with self-propelled capsule (It would reduce part count though) I would also like some new solar pannel if there's a VASIMR equivalent, a truly gigantic square solar-array which track the sun. This is basically what I have in mind : My wish list for christmas : * <1m high thrust engine (for early game and micro-satellite) * <1m long rocket-fuel tank * shock absorber / vibration dampener * omnidirectional wheels * stackable drogue-chute / parachute * a VASIMR equivalent * an even bigger solar array * SABRE equivalent engine * Electric air-propeller * Airship * "RINGS", http://www.gizmag.com/rings-satellite-iss/28712/

I'm talking of technology transfer during development, or the reason Von Braun had no more reason to build a space fleet of manned launcher and station because informatics allowed unmanned satellites. Same apply to any material-science necessary for either the sail or the lasers sat, you can't defend a femto-thick sail resisting to 4000K for 10years and pretend a fusion-boosted-VASIMR-thruster won't gain equivalent 99.99% efficient technology (actually you can, but you'll sound stupid). No I didn't subscribe to God Manley video, suppose you are referring to several Periapsis burn, yes its more efficient if you have the time and don't require constant solar power. I mean overpower the engine so that you can power a VASIMR with a modest solar array and have fun. It's not obvious because VASIMR can give very little thrust. Yes, yes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. VASIMR isn't for now. But what's the point of trying to impede development because it don't suit your own project ? We need space infrastructure and space-dock before we can colonize Mars, and Vasimr is excellent for orbit keeping and more. I'm just saying I wouldn't trust Zubrin just because he got a diploma and media support. Because I'm making point you keep avoiding to address ? You shouldn't be discussing the realism of KSP when everybody else is talking about gameplay. And I never said Warp drive existed, I said it may be necessary for the Ksp GAME. I just wondered if you had read the answer, not really surprised if you didn't wanted to answer. Actually I love the idea and I told you so, I'm all about infrastructure and building a Pusher/braker solars arrays would be my things. But the "solutions I know" you speak of, don't exist. I don't call "solution" a total recoding, unbalancing the gameplay, or forcing ideas into a game they don't fit in (the whole engine is tuned for ballistic transfer, not brachistochrone navigation). Last, I only pick on you with insistence because you are being loudly oblivious to what your idea entail and uphill debate is sort of my thing. I once lost hours discussing with a 17y old Christian fundamentalist about nuclear-thruster vs solar-vasimr and Mars being a new America (first time I was accused of being an atheist). In any case, if you feel I bother you, I'll stop here and wait your eventual "Solar/Beamed Sail Gameplay" thread.

The problem is that we can't just "take the best" electric engine, Efficiency is a trade off with Acceleration and to reach higher ISP you'll need to give up thrust. VASIMR is interesting in that it theoretically allow to increase acceleration while staying as efficient than a nuclear engine, allowing shorter mission. This is important because Ionic-thruster can't be scaled up and gain higher acceleration. It's only good for automated probes.... just like solar-sail. And Beam-sail while better, are not practical unless you have a technology level that would also allow 99% efficient lightweight fusion-thruster with hot-supraconductor magnet. But KSP-speaking, VASIMR can and have been added by mods without modifying the gameplay. It's not possible with solar-sail, and even less with beam-sail. Last, I have to say that I consider a real manned mission to Mars unproductive and out of our reach. VASIMR or not. NASA's Reference Design Mission v5 (Picture use nuclear engine and is the most efficient method. (and Robert Zubric is also criticizing it, listening to him we should just shoot canned-man to Mars until it make a colony) Real-world : I don't now for the former, but the big problem with nuclear-engine is that if it fail in orbit, it's a radioactive hazard inside the Van Allen belt. There's also a conflict with the treaty which ban nuclear weapon in space. KSP-speaking we already have a nuclear reactor but the resources used will change. Unlike chemical engine which use combustive+oxidizer to create thrust, electric and nuclear-engine have "Energy" to propel "Reactive Mass". No. It certainly look easier to program than any solar-sail gameplay, but it ask for more than "simplifying physical calculation" you have to "replace how physic calculation are done". I'm no efficient in C# but i guess you would need to have KSP consider the ship as one UNITY-"rigid body" with a simplified sum of all mass, thrust and fuel. This is similar to the wobble-problem and Dock-solidity the devs have. And problem like Higher-timewarp can't be fixed AT ALL because a 32bits engine can't deal with HUUUGE number while staying precise with small number. So YES we know that it can be done video-game speaking, but only the developers can tell us if it's compatible with KSP without a major recoding. Never said it was a problem, just stating how it is different. By "spiral trajectory" I meant low-thrust constant-burn around Kerbin until you reach escape velocity. True KSP could just "overpower" the engine but it may lead to balance problem. He can be angry if he want, but it doesn't mean he's right. VASIMR never mattered, the best Mars Reference Mission used EXISTING NUCLEAR ENGINE anyway. He is just being loud and calling to conspiracy to gain attention. The Apollo program brought up important scientific return because (1) it was possible (2) automated-system were not. Right now a bloody war against a dictatorship look more useful than financing a doomed mission to Mars for a bunch of fan. If you want to develop the technology to LIVE in Space ? Just give more fund to the ISS it will be much more cost-efficient. His documentary is Fiction, biased fiction where he preach the discovery of a new America by (him) pioneers. It's only one of the reasons people call him an escapist. The whole colonization project is even politically dangerous. Put aside that everything you said is based on ridiculous expectation and only number you like, I've still never seen you trying to translate the idea into a workable gameplay. You probably didn't read this reply to you (if you want to answers, do it with PM, let's not discuss interstellar travel here). You have that pretty irritating habit of dodging Gameplay concern. - The mechanic of riding beam or the sun ask for extreme design simplification in KSP. - Devs said that KSP don't calculate solar radiation in a continuous way. - You need constant pseudo-physic calculation on all sails regardless of which ship you are focusing on - maneuvering or "throttling" a sail must be done in timewarp for significant feed-back. - you can't maneuver a sail using KSP's rigid body gameplay, not even the square Sunjammer sort. And beamed-sail is worst - Unless you have a laser-ring around kerbol, the direction of thrust will change with orbit. - You'd need game mechanic allowing the use of several lasers simultaneously. - The energy requirement will follow the square-cube law, you'll need more than a dozen laser satellite between 1 tons and 10 tons payload. All this to say, "Not worth it". I'm not even sure it was worth it to answer you.

I think a variable-thrust VASIMR-like engine for KSP could work, but it may need a new physical-warp made specifically for continuous-burn thruster which is a BIG deal. It would be different from KSP's Ionic-engine in that its ISP would be variable. Another problem is to make maneuver node capable to deal with even a short "spiral trajectory". Skylon's SABRE engine could also work in KSP, I feel like it could end-up overpowered, but then it may be a way to reduce turbojet abuse. I all depend of how the Devs redo the aerodynamic model. Important Edit : There also a lot to say about how KSP deal with ISP right now,follow this link. In short : Rocket engine THRUST is supposed to change with atmospheric pressure, not the ISP. The answer is both, liquid engine are real, but Aerospkie engine and nuclear engine never went past prototype stage. There's a VASIMR about to be tested on ISS. But I have to point out that there's a lot of simplification that have been made compared to real rocket engine. real rocket-engine can't throttle much (10%) and some of them can't even be reignited after cutoff. Because of the gameplay aimed by KSP, they'll necessarily have to use a lot of theoretical engine (up to nuclear fusion thruster), and maybe some more exotic system. I shouldn't be surprised to see you there, but it feel like I'm stalking you because of your sails suggestion. In my opinion Robert Zubrin's criticized the VASIMR technology mostly because it doesn't cope with his MARSNOWREGARDLESSOFTHECOST plan. He sound like an loud escapist for many. Yes VASIMR isn't a key for Mars, but its something better to spend real-money on, and nothing like a Ionic engine since it allow higher thrust. For KSP a Nuclear or Solar-VASIMR could in concept work with an enhanced physical-warp. But solar-sail is too "slow" for anything bigger than a small probe and ask for a for a whole new type of gameplay by itself. The Gameplay-forum would be full of question about getting how to get out of orbit with a solar-sail.

A token opinions : - We are used to Warp-time being cheap, but if we want a credible manned-mission we Have to keep it as limited as possible. (manned-mission and technological research depend on it) - Think that Eeloo is already hard to reach ? Just wait when you'll need a launch window between Jool and gas-giant further away. - The key to avoid unbalanced-engine is to not require it. And this is why I think KSP will require inner-system FTL (yes) to balance the gameplay anyway. An idea I had for the FTL-thingy is a "stargate" that require to land on a small moon, FTL-ify, then relaunch from another moon. ex : you land near the Mun arch, pour energy, press some gameplay button, and reappear ready to launch on another Mun. There's here a lot of room to build a big infrastructure,and it can get very creative if we are given a VAB on the other side.

The last post point out the biggest problem. There would be hundred variation of SpaceX reusable rocket if it wasn't for the impossibility to "pilot" two craft at the same time.

Nobody got the wrong ideas except YOU, and I'm not sure you realize how hard it would be to adapt it in KSP anyway. Next : What the hell did to tried to say with that comparison of the age of sail you attribute to me ? The engineering level needed to build the beam-sail system you pretend to be "practical" require 99.9999% efficient EVERYTHING using fabrication process post-singularity(if you now what it mean). It's like saying "ok we have carbon-nanotube, so why can't we build a space-elevator with maglev-train in the next 40 years and an orbital ring 10 years later ?" To do the same comparison than you, you are from the Apollo Era, talking about a self-sufficient colony on Mars within 50 years. That's was about REALITY, now we have to talk about VIDEO GAME. We told you several times that even if KSP generously overpowered the laser, made the vessel immune to heat and reduced by 1-2 orders of magnitude the distance between different stars, you would still require several year of SLOW and CONTINUOUS acceleration that CANNOT be calculated real-time (and is quite a waste of time). Supposing KSP could deal with it in a very simplified way (one center of thrust for example), the only way to keep this miracle-technology from replacing any other sort of technology is to make travel longer than 10 years What I'm trying to make you understand is that your goals are mutually exclusive. Let's try another approach and show you the MATH of a Beam-Sail for KSP : Imagine another star 94607304725 km away from Kerbol (that's 1 Light-year divided by 10e-2) We will take Kerbol-Jool as a comparison : 68 773 560 km Maximum speed : 0.5 C Sail-size and Laser-power are considered adequate and there's no power-loss from the laser with distance. (Flyby trip) Getting there at 0.5 C take 1,8 years, let's take 10 years of acceleration to reach 0.5 C 150 000 000 m/s -> divided by 10*365 days, then 24h, down to second. It give us a reasonable acceleration of 0.04 m/s² for a ~11 years travel. For comparison the stock-Ion-probe (0.68 Tons) : accelerate at 0.08 m/s². (a full Xenon tank is 1/6 of its mass) Now if you want to propel something BIGGER than this probes, the energy requirement will obey the cube law. The Unforeseen consequence is that to propel 10 tons at 0.04m/s² you gain the ability to propel 1 tons at 10e3 * 0.04 m/s = 40m/s² ...no need to say it allow to send probes anywhere in the Kerbol system. (Transfer trip) Getting there at 0.5 C take 1,8 years, let's take 5 years to accelerate to 0.5 C then 5 years to brake 150 000 000 m/s -> divided by 5*365 days, then 24h, down to second. It give us a strong acceleration of 0.9 m/s² for a ~11 years travel. Following the cube-law, if you want to transfer a 10 tons ship will give you the ability to propel 1 tons at 900m/s². I'll let you crunch the numbers for the power requirement and the sail size. You'll tell us how much satellite you need to propel 1 ton and 10 tons. If you reduce the mass of the spaceship, you allow conventional drive to reach relativistic speed. If you reduce the acceleration, you'll increase travel time to 50 or 150 years. If you augment or reduce the distance of the target, you won't make much difference. If you give more mass to the sail and its support-structure, you'll increase the energy requirement. If you augment the number of satellites needed you reach obscene numbers of launch for later mission. If you require research to increase the sail/lasers efficiency, you'll need magic (sufficiently evolved technology). I see no gameplay mechanism which would allow us to balance a STL beam-sail infrastructure. Except pretending it doesn't work for interplanetary travel. On the other hand I can give you a dozen of FTL gameplay that are moderately challenging and don't break the common game mechanic. The Big problem with procedurally generated content, is that it does NOT increase linearly the interest of the game and you can randomly end up with 10 boring solar system. Procedural Generation is good to fill some void or generate unimportant relief, but you still need some human-creativity to make those void/relief interesting.

Fog to ease rendering sound interesting. It also look like a good way to mask pixelation from orbit. At launch your rocket is huge with all its parts and you usually don't have the time to watch around anyway (unless Mechjeb), so reducing the stress on the processor sound good. As you gain altitude the rocket become lighter, there's less stress on the processor, and the fog would become less important. But I suppose all this can be considered "Weather", so it's in the "Do not suggest" list

Interesting idea.

I think so too. But I got to say that proponents of FTL gameplay aren't necessarily the same as those who want dozen of other stars system or even this dangerous chimera called "procedurally generated planet" which I think would dilute proportionally the interest of any single planet/moon/dwarf fortr...planet. Easy FTL sound outrageous, and it is, that's not what I would propose. But limited FTL will be necessary if we want to balance the gameplay in a way which doesn't backfire in unintended consequence. Of course FTL can also backfire, but it can be modified at will, unlike other solutions. Last : I've seen people measure cardiac pulsation using the sensor of a Ipad, and more frighteningly sense what someone is writing on a keyboard nearby using its vibration sensor. So give us a need to analyze the atmosphere (pollution ?) and we will certainly make a smartphone capable of analysing your room's atmosphere composition, it will probably come after scandalous thermal and see-through camera.

My biased summary of this thread. Is KSP a space simulator dedicated to respect the actual state if physics ? No Is KSP a video game where you play pretend ? Yes Are the Developers willing to sacrifice fun for realism ? No Have the developers cheated with physics for the sake of making the game fun ? Yes What gameplay have been proposed so far for interstellar/interplanetary travel : # Higher Time Warp Concept : You just get access to another time-warp. Pro : no change in KSP basic gameplay. Con : - If one mission necessitate 10 years of travel, you risk technological obsolescence. - If you screwed up a design, you need another 10 years of travel to fix it. - Some outer orbit object will ask for insane Dv budget (anything further away than Eeloo). - Even if you build ship locally, Launch windows between outer planets can be many years apart. - Reaching another solar system will still take absurd length of time unless you put it so close it will feel like magic or cheat. # Better engine Concept : You get some Fusion-like engine more difficult to use than conventional engine. (example : it can only burn fixed amount of time) Pro : you avoid "magic" and keep using KSP's basic physics equation. It also allow you to build only one super engine and then refuel it. Con : - You have to severly limit those engines or orbital travel will become incredibly easy. - You may end-up with absurd deltaV budget. - Avoiding high-thrust ask for very long burn. - Avoiding high-ISP still ask for unbearably big ship. - If the only "super engine" is 10 years away it may take long to bring it back. # Beamed Sail Concept : You put many solar-powered-lasers around Moho, launch a tiny probe with a sail, then the game-logic sort of push it with laser while you sort of guide it. Pro : you avoid "magic" and can pretend it's realist until you run the number Con : - Require KSP to simplify greatly the sail-based gameplay. (because KSP won't calculate 20 lasers or 10 years of continuous accelerations) - Require KSP to simplify greatly sail-based designing. (because we are talking of 100km wide sails) - It will ask for LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng (pseudo) physical acceleration. - Require to launch hundred of large laser-sat on tricky orbit, or have the game pretend you did. - Decelerating at your destination is tricky and make the mission globally 2 times longer. - Any attempt to reduce travel time under 10 years or increase payload would make beam-sail overpowered and eligible to replace anything for interplanetary travel. # FTL Concept : The developer imagine a gameplay requiring to build fun things in orbit, when you use FTL travel you get an alternate gameplay made specifically to not break what you had before while making the gameplay more accessible and less repetitive. Pro : You have fun, you avoid 150years long time scale, you keep using conventional engine, get a new gameplay and manned mission to "KSP-Pluto". Con : It's like a video game and some players can't boast to have played 168 hours just to put a lousy rover on "KSP-Pluto".

Some people will frown and constructively assault me, but we will need some FTL if we want "end-game" manned mission and keep coherent scale, allow interstellar travel, or avoid overpowered engine. No Higher Warp time will suffice, here is why :

At first I thought it was about using Earth magnetic field to move around, but it seem the idea here is to have a cluster of satellites get into specific formations using magnet and reaction wheels to attract and repel each other. I cannot tell if this is harder to program, but KSP can alway simplify things. What worry me more is eventual Exploit where you would put a lot of those magnets everywhere to move things around, even if it's weak and require a lot of power.

There don't seem to be any solution but I can tell you how to avoid doing the same mistake. You have to affine your trajectory the further away from your destination as possible. By that I mean that you should have been going for a <300km away periapsis half-way from Kerbin to Duna. Or even an aerobraking path as you are low on fuel. Now any maneuver will ask for way to much deltaV And I doubt you would be able to land then launch from duna again with this design. ps: you need a lot of parachute for Duna and usually you just land with the engine.

I'm done answering to you AngelLestat, you keep ignoring valid point, you want 6years travel with 0.6C beamed-sail which somehow doesn't apply to interplanetary travel and require 99.999% efficient technology making antimatter-drive look easy. So either you put ridiculous amount of low-efficient laser-sat "for the challenge" (talk about boring) or you increase the travel time to at least 50 years for a lousy probe. The website I linked you to "Projectrho" is a better reference than wikipedia for fictional story/game building so you may want to read it entirely, it will teach you that FTL can be easier to balance than magic-sail, and why your beam-sail project amount to magic inside a game which is rocketpunk to start with. That was constructive. My personal interest with FTL drive in KSP is mostly to answer your 3rd paragraph. At some point in KSP you'll either have to plan mission 30 years ahead and let time-clock remind you of the Kerbonaut you sent to their death +7 years ago because of a missing bolt or to research better-engine to make the timescale workable at the cost of less challenging orbital-maneuver and absurd DeltaV budget. This solution will probably work out very well as long as we don't go further away than Eeloo, but once we go further away from the Kerbal Space Center the model will break even if we build spaceship locally as it won't solve the problem of absurd time scale for launch window between Jool and further away Gaz Giant. This lead us to the idea of FTL. Be it something Kerbal-made, or magical-easter-eggs like the Mun Arch leading somewhere else like a stargate, FTL would serve as a shortcut allowing to explore further planet without breaking the gameplay on interplanetary/orbital scale with ridiculously high thrust/ISP and DeltaV budget. It also answer to the problem of "Times Marches On" and the inevitability that after 150 years of time-warp your scientist may invent FTL and the only solution to this problem is to make sure everything happen in a shorter time scale. The last problem FTL give us a solution for is that KSP's game engine cannot cope with long continuous acceleration I think it was said earlier in the thread that even an Alcubierre-drive tested by Developer led to calculation problems.

Discussing with you is a challenge because you see your fictional ideas as more potent than other's equally fictional ideas. To cut short about avatar : James Camerons care for scientific verisimilitude don't make anything in Avatar -starting by Unobtainum- any less fake. Avatar is a movie and KSP is a game, none of them try to be accurate for the sake of being accurate, but for the sake of being entertaining. We are trying to make you understand that not only the idea of beamed-sail is for all practical purpose impossible (in a reasonable pre-singularity timeframe), but also that there is more to a megascale project than theoretical numbers ignoring any difficulty. Else we would be terraforming Mars right now inside rocketpunk fusion-starship. Interstellar Ramjet were also supposed to be theoretically possible until someone else did the math. You should know yourself that you can survive a 1km fall... on a near 0 gravity moon as long as you consider other point of view. You are taking for granted that KSP will have ONLY beam-sail related 99.99999% efficient technology and won't break other technology with antimatter drive. I am taking for granted that KSP will need short-cut and avoid 150 years time warp. So let's come to FTL now. Put aside that our latest model of physic is 60 years old and break depending of the scale... ...it's time you realize that we are talking of game-design. KSP is not a simulation, it does make a lot of effort to stay technologically credible, but as repeated multiple time it's ultimately geared toward entertainment. Nice jobs depreciating any FTL-related challenge as "push-button and jump", for all we know implementing your beamed-sail idea also amount to "push-button and set sail". The very reason FTL is on the "Do not suggest List" is that there's a thousand way to implement it. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php#1.0 Last : Thank you for the graphic for beam-sail deceleration, since you never talked about it before, I think you can amuse yourself recalculating everything to take account for BIGGER impossible sail which also serve as focusing mirror and for a grant finale you'll explain the developer how they are supposed to make it work with KSP design&fly model.

I will suppose you are not an idiot and won't list "floating mountain" or "number of limbs", the first fictional liberty was in fact the absurd megascale beamed-sail system needed to accelerate "350 tons" up to 0.7C even assuming absurdly high efficiency. And yes the second one was to be the quantity of antimatter needed for at least one deceleration and accelerating again. Oh and there's several ship like that doing the trip. We are speaking of the Hollywood-logic which inverted (accidentally?) the original name of Pellegrino's design (the Valkyrie) and the SSTO shuttle (X-33 Venture Star). Then there's the unexpected low tech-level (barely justified by unobtainum), and it end with details (unjammed brain-link) motivated by Artistic License for which nobody complain because normal people understand Avatar is a FICTIONAL MOVIE (and Pocahontas IN SPACE). Which bring be to tell you again that KSP is a FICTIONAL GAME. Remember when I said "avoid absurd part which would break the gameplay" ? Magic beamed-sail tech would fit the bill just like antimatter drive. So what is the point of avoiding one "magic" FTL solution if you spread several "magic" part around ? By the way, you still haven't told me how to decelerate at your destination with no laser there. (or please link me where you will talk about it, I can't know which message you edited) Hard to understand what the hell you misunderstood in my post, you are not being sarcastic you are being evasive. The "Black Box" is a metaphor for your lack of understanding of the unrealism of your solution in KSP. You are basically expecting it to be so well implemented that it make it no different than if the developer really made a FTL drive called "problem-nullifying-beamed-sail-system". I don't mind keeping KSP's verisimilitude, but if you need a constrained FTL drive to keep the gameplay interesting. Then "Let there be FTL". It would be very realist if the developer made us build a 1tons beamed-sail-probe for a 50y flyby (or 150y transfer) then have research discover FTL right as it arrive.

As far I know we are already making our own KSP-universe to play with, "the technological singularity already happened and we missed it". You don't grasp the scale of your own megascale laser-pumped-sail project. (Avatar is 50% bull**** and it used antimatter drive to slowdown) If you want to convince me, start describing it as part with stats, the typical deployment and use, then tell me how does those exponentially scaling-up sail will slowdown at their destination. And better do it before accusing me of not reading you, because I don't think you can balance a gameplay so that "only" 10 launch of an unknown weight with an unknown efficiency to Moho (note : Lagrange point don't work in KSP) will "easily" propel a solar sail of unknown design with a barely-known acceleration without breaking half of the game with super-tech worst than FTL. In short your notion of "fun" is odd. People do have fun designing and putting together a space station. for starter because nearly-nobody complain seriously about "unrealistic thruster", "100% throttlable rocket", "magnet dock"...etc. I know no definition of fun which cope with endless repetition, hair-tearing precision requirement, near meaningless payload. And I'm trying myself to make it work : it would be "mission driven", you wouldn't have to do all 100 launch, wouldn't need to aim the lasers, you'd have auto-scaled sails, a laser-proof shield part, little guidance to do, no equation to solve yourselves, no 180-degree turn difficulty and no throttling problem. Basically it would one huge black-box which teleport you from the home system to your destination. Note : the same argument goes for relativist Torchships. Personal assumption here : some are against the idea of FTL because they like pretending to do "real" rocket science but as said numerous time, the gameplay would need to simplify it so much that the developer may as well be creating a balanced, constrained, thus interesting FTL gameplay. At least the technology do exist. But remember than most flying car in fiction had magical propulsion in the first place. 2001 : Space Odyssey did portrayed correctly Smartphone and videogame.

Some people here need to be reminded that KSP is a game thus everything must be though as a game mechanic, built around the Unity engine with its limitation. I don't care what the so called "purist" think, FTL can be FUN and I don't think those purist would actually like to play a video-game with realistic inventory, KSP with realistic budget-cut, FPS without ammo counter and realistic health/stamina. NOBODY, want to have to build and launch hundred of "20 tons" laser-mirror, just to send out a 2 tons probes incapable of decelerating once in the new solar system. Supposing this is a guided mission and they don't need to do the math themselves. And as the Developer said, KSP isn't supposed to be/become a game where reaching the Mun is a feat restricted to god-like engineer. People are supposed to not only reach Jool and gaz giant further away, they have to be able to explore them with manned mission. Why manned mission ? Because KSP is a game, the developers said they don't want Mechjeb-like computer but that Kerbonaut would be given task. Not everybody have fun planning 7 years ahead, 30y for infrastructures, and warp another 7 year to correct a mistake. This is what FTL is needed for : End-game shortcut, new gameplay challenge, and finally : be able to do things that can just be ruled as impossible in reality like interstellar travel. I don't care what AngelLestat think, not everybody have the time, the determination or the computer needed to propel a 10 to 2000 tons ship for 1 week of time-accelerated 0.2G of acceleration, just to send a micro-probes. Yet, KSP is making things easy. And about that whole feasibly of FTL in the real world, our ancestors have been using fire to melt metal looong before we started believing the universe may make sense. Where I'm going with that is that we may discovers a freakingly easy FTL technology long before we understand why it make "sense". So I would welcome a WARP system and hope it add a new fun gameplay by itself (nobody said FTL had to be easy*). That's all. *The actual game "FTL" is frigging hard in fact.

A lot ? That's ALL OF THEM ! What I find king of silly is the idea that one solar system isn't enough. Going in a new solar system for resources would be ridiculous even if you created some Unobtainum MacGuffinite a la Avatar. And I don't want to see KSP turn into anywhere close of a resource-managing game. Gathering Fuel is one thing, building resource something else. Then for FTL. I know you want it to be gradual but allowing multiple FTL system is dangerous because it has the potential of ruining a gameplay with unforeseen consequences unless you put a so much restriction than twisting space-time into a non-Euclidean causeless Möbius strip will become a new game. Everything must be centered around the gameplay and it's not like you won't need some "shortcut" from -say- the Mun-Arch to Tylo so you don't need to wait for a launch window because you forgot to bring a part. At most, have only 2 or 3 others stars system with specific purpose (I truly HATE procedural-galaxy proponent). To something that is baseless speculation, pure-dream and certainly not as easy/fun than you believe ? Remember that KSP's engine is Unity. A developer would have to start from Unity-scratch anyway. I would still love a new Elite game.

Consider my answer to be this list : http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php#id--The_Canonical_List_of_StarDrives Let the developer chose the most interesting idea. Myself I don't want ANY other star system, just let the developer make the current planet better with more things to do. Why ? Because I see no interest in landing on copycat planet and doing nothing else after that.