aandred

On the other thread I mentioned Roger Bacon, who anticipated existence of airplanes more than 700 years ago. This reminded me of a conclusion I came to some time ago and I thought I might share. In my opinion people througout the ages had little difficulty predicting actual technological advances. However, the psychological and social effects of applying said advances in everyday life, almost universally escaped them. A perfect example: last year I read a 1960s futurology book by some Romanian scientist (can't recall the name unfortunately). While the guy was able to more or less correctly predict existence and properties of the internet (among other things), he thought that global computer network, giving instant access to the sum knowledge and culture of mankind will somehow elevate its users... He fantasized we will all learn higher math and listen to classical music (and, of course, communism will universally prevail ). Not a word about torrents, porn, forum trolling or "this weird part of youtube again"... So, the bottom line is: we can predict fusion drives, nanotechnology, organic computers and whatnot, but that still does not give us a slightest hint about how will the future look like. Any thoughts on the matter? Pros? Cons?

There is a difference between a fantasy and a theoretical possibility. 150 years ago powered flight was the latter. Actually, Roger Bacon predicted powered flight around 1250 (!) in his Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae. As a side note - it has been probably mentioned on this forum multiple times, but I heartily recommend both Rocketpunk Manifesto blog and Project Rho Atomic Rockets website. Both contain great deal of "what ifs" about future of space exploration, feasibility of various theoretical concepts, etc, all supported by some solid research. A must read for those who belive Imperial Star Destroyers would be even remotely practical.

Now I get it. Thanks

Ahh, pity. That's something I was really looking to - as opposed to torchships, planetary rings and multiplayer But... What is the meaning of the following line from readme file then? "- Added a FlagDecal part module. Allows any part to have a part of its model textured with the selected flag."

Ok, I'm officially clueless, time to register to the forum... Hi! Both official announcements and a readme file state that I should be able to use flag decals on my crafts. How do I do that? I keep searching in the editor, asking uncle google... Still no idea. Am I just blind? There's a "flag =" parameter under each spacecraft part in persisten.sfs, but adding name of the flag there seems to yield no result whatsoever.