SRV Ron

Such rockets were tested long ago career And some extremely inexpensive SSTO ones. Including a KSP version of Minotaur V

I am going to disagree using the following argument. The Space Engine pictures are generated with no user input other then moving the camera position around to get the composure in lighting and scene. This is what a photographer would do with either a film or digital camera. The computer is imitating real world from fictional created ones The following example below is pure digital art using a fractal math program. In this case, a range set has to be entered along with filter settings before the program creates the picture using various complex calculations based upon fractals. The picture below from the combination of those settings at a specific range of value. Generating of such pictures can take hours.

You have to make those changes in tiny amounts once you have a visual. Gradually close that distance since quicker maneuvers will just use more fuel. Note, both ships were launched separately, then one was used to sync orbits with the other. This without the benefit of translation thrusters on either ship.

You have just described the singularity used to power the Romulan star ships.

As opposed to actual painting, one can do the computer generated stuff. By doing so, it becomes the art of photography - composing the shot is everything. The examples below are from many hours of playing around with Space Engine to find that right composition;

Nova Punch works nicely on the tech tree. It gives you several choices of mid size engines and fuel tanks early on in the tech tree. You even get a probe right away but will quickly learn how useless it can be without extra batteries or solar panels. KW rocketry also works well. Either way, use just one mod at a time for career. If you install the mod after starting a career game, each mod part will have to be researched individually to activate them. Not to worry, it won't cost any additional science points.

Check out this asteroid; No examples at this time Something like this; However, a gas giant of that type doesn't have a large enough rocky core for such a terrain. Something like a ringed Duna would be interesting; Let the DEVS get the bios of the existing worlds done before adding the new planets.

The shrouds of the LV-N are different. They break into two separate parts that fly sideways. Therefore, if you cluster them in a stage, you will have a catastrophic failure every time you stage them.

Flying to another solar system, if ever implemented, should involve a bunch of research by the Kerbals. They would need to; 1. Use their telescopes to locate a star system that is close to the Kerbal System. The definition of close would be a 10 to 50 year journey in Kerbal Time. 2. Require the Kerbals to get the technology needed for interstellar travel. There is one mod out there that has a ship using nuclear explosive propulsion. (Not LV-N chemical rockets.) 3. Require carefully planned maneuvers since even other star systems, like planets, are moving as well. 4. Missions would have to be self sustaining and involve colonization to be successful. Of course, long range probes could be used for the first exploration before sending manned missions. 5. Programming wise, the ship would need to go beyond the orbit of Eeloo and Kerbal's SOI before an additional time warp acceleration could be applied. Still, this is a long ways off where the current game needs to be finished before adding the interstellar capability.

It is just as easy to save the basic command module as is under a name describing it as such rather then trying to do so as a sub assembly. I do that a lot when working on a design that is expanded upon for longer flight missions.

You want Black Holes, get Space Engine and pilot one of their hyper drive star ships. With the limited technology of the KSP Space Program, interstellar travel will not be possible which is what is needed to travel to here;

Still testing and tweaking the three probe design. I fly with the SRBs attached until just before burnout of the smaller one, then stage them. This gives enough boost to get the third stage to orbit with some fuel left in the second. The placement of the single separatron is critical to keep that other booster from crashing into the top of the mothership. It has to be at the center of mass of that booster probe at the time of staging. Did a small redesign by replacing the LV-45 with a LV-N. That should extend the delta V for Duna and Eve missions. Have to relaunch as the staging got screwed up when I replaced the LV-45.

Which is exactly why they failed to achieve orbit where the two FL-T100 design did so easily. With the equivalent amount of fuel, they were just too heavy.

Aerobraking to land on Laythe and the booster comes flying by.

A design I used that got this probe ship in orbit with fuel to spare for the LV-N. Note, I staged the two engines after achieving orbit on this deep space probe.

The 2.5M SRB require struts to keep them from flying off. Not a lot, just place them to brace against the stress of flight.

I have yet to crash either the three year old PC or the newer laptop. Do expect short freezes as SE generates terrain on various worlds. A binary star system with a bloated yellow giant orbiting a companion black hole.

It is compression failure between the reaction wheel and the tapered adapter. It happens due to the increased forces as the fuel tank gets emptied. Get your struts attached to the reaction wheel instead of the base of the adapter. That should resolve the problem.

However, when done with the same seeded random number, the results will always be the same type and number of planets forming.

Try entering the name into the search database.

Space Engine uses real world data for the known universe and random seeded number to fill in the gaps of the unknown universe. As such, the unknown planetary systems will also be random seeded as well as their surface features. By using the number seed, all star systems visited will always be the same for every player. AS far as KSP, it is a simulator where you learn the construction and designing of space ships for flying to other worlds using known technology. Space Engine is strictly a universe exploration program where everything is reached using warp speed, more often then now, you click on the object and get sent there directly, no flying skills needed, no limited speed, no rocket designing, no time factor. Space Engine uses a database of known and random seed generated data points. The only calculations take place when you enter a solar system at which point, all of the planets, moons, and other objects are traveling on rails in real or accelerated time. The slowdown will occur when that sim has to generate planetary details which also happens in KSP. That takes a lot of graphic processing for display. KSP has to generate the physics for every object in your ship which takes a lot of CPU processing time. Possibly one thing that can be incorporated in KSP from Space Engine would be the cloud cover on the worlds which is animated. Liquids are also animated as well. A cold desert planet with atmosphere as viewed from the surface of a small asteroid; A very rocket dwarf moon and asteroid orbiting a dead planet;

Some shots from the Globular Cluster near the Milky Way. On another planet surface; Left click on a star or object to get the info, then select Go To Object from the right click menu.

I find it runs better on my high end laptop then my three year old semi gaming computer. The lag is going to take place when it renders details on the planets surfaces. Have discovered that with free camera mode if you left click on a spot and get the info to show, then right click, you can select Go To Object. It is a quick way to travel. There are some impossible systems where some scorched planets cannot possibly exist due to the extreme heat of the bloated massive red star. Then, the atmosphere of that planet is so dirty as to hide everything in near darkness. A planet in a globular star system with a hot blue star. Just the shear number of stars in the globular can slow things down. And, there it is, the distortion of a massive Black Hole with the event horizon marked.

With some testing and tweaking the thrust on the small SRB to 85%, got a good stable flight with the Heinz 57 part three probe design. The two SRBs have their own only used once SAS, no duplicating on the other one, their own probe control, own battery, own comms, and enough useless parts to make up the number. A single separatron helps pushes away the larger SRB from the mothership. And, as you can tell, the SRBS, when staged, continue on a vertical trajectory just clearing the mothership with room to spare. That meets my goal of the SRBs of doing something useful during flight. Unfortunately, the two SRB probes will vanish as soon as they exceed 2.5 meters from the mothership even though they have control pods keeping them stabilized for vertical flight. The sepratron kicks the slower probe to the right in the photo as it spins it in the process of pushing that probe away from the mothership.

And, the clouds are animated, moving, as well. They even move across the planet when you speed up time. (Blue Gas Giant.) Scorched tiny planet orbiting one of the binary stars. (The other star, much brighter, is lighting the surface not facing the star pictured.) BTY, every star you see in the background is individually tracked in 3-D and can be flown to. Many have planetary systems. You can even fly to the galaxies, clusters, etc... and visit their individual stars and planetary systems. All the known cataloged stars are tracked, the unknown ones, and the unknown galaxies and their stars, are generated using a seeded random number generator. That way, they are always in the same location no matter when you or someone else runs this sim. Planet, moon, asteroid, surfaces work the same way.