Kerbart

When you do the math, thrust = exhaust velocity x fuel flow is exactly that, and it only takes a bit of high school algebra to translate that into the rocket equation. You’re absolutely right. The OP seems to be thinking that the volume of the fuel determines power, unaware that it’s really the mass that literally drives everything.

Why would a unit of fuel be 1 L? Everyone seems to agree it’s equivalent to 5 kg, which makes your 200 units perfectly equal to 1250 L of aviation fuel (assuming a density of .8 kg/L). What you seem to want is that a unit would no longer be 5 kg, so that the same tank would show “1250 L” instead of “200 units,” everything else being the same. Is that really it? Does it matter?

The thrust of a rocket engine is calculated by the average exhaust speed (its Isp) times the mass flow of the propellant. Reducing the mass of your fuel reduces thrust because you’re reducing the mass flow. Your rocket or airplane would likely not get off the ground with thrust cut by 80%, reducing DV/range to 0.

By who? But that would accomplish... nothing? So now the same tank that holds, say, 720 units of fuel, would burn through it five times as fast as it only has 1/5th of its original content (measured in the way that matters: mass). You’d need five tanks to carry the same propellant mass. Five times the weight of those tanks. That will decrease your dv or range.

How can you talk about reducing the weight of the fuel but “not changing the amount?” The two are literally intertwined as fuel amounts are measured by mass. Please, please explain the rocket equation to me. I can guarantee that fuel that “weighs less” will increase DV. For the same mass of fuel (required for the same DV) you will now need a bigger tank. Bigger tanks weigh more.

Does it matter? It works fine for me. Something else may work fine for someone else. What doesn't work is someone telling me what I should be using according to them.

A rocket engine works by expelling propellant at a certain velocity. Newton's second law of motion dictates that this results in an opposite force which is what pushes your rocket - thrust. Basically (and I'm taking some shortcuts here), F = exhaust velocity (m/s) × mass flow (kg/s). The velocity is also referred to as specific impulse or Isp and is often divided by gravitational constant g to express it in seconds (otherwise you'll be stuck with either m/s or some archaic non-metric units like poundstones per teabreak or whatever they come up with. Seconds are the same everywhere). So, to determine thrust: Isp × g x fuel flow. Plug in the numbers for the Terrier and you get: 348 × 9.81 × (3.55 × 5) (one fuel unit is 5kg) = 60 kN - right on spot. Note that in this formula, fuel flow is measured in mass per second; it doesn't matter if that 17.75 kg/s is 1 gallon or 100 gallons per second. It's the mass that's counted. So, if we redefine the fuel unit as 1kg per unit, then yes, our engijne only consumes 3.55 kg per second instead of 17.75. Our engine also produces only 12 kN instead of 60. And the rocket equation which tells us how much dV we get, is also slashed: DV = Isp×g×ln(mass with fuel / mass without fuel). Remove weight anywhere else and your DV will increase. But remove fuel and your DV will decrease. I think you're mistaking fuel volume for fuel amount. But volume can change with temperature and pressure; mass doesn't and it's what makes the engine work. Hence, it's mass that's the preferred measurement.

The rocket equation is all about the mass of the propellant. The volume has nothing to do with it. In fact, denser fuels have the advantage of requiring smaller tanks. This is why H2/LOX is popular for upper stages; it performs very good and you don't need a massive tank anymore. It's not a secret that a fuel unit supposedly is equal to roughly 5L. That's why they're called units and not "liters" or "gallons." And it doesn't really matter; what matters is the mass of the fuel. Even for jets (as opposed to rockets), fuel is measured in mass units, not volume units. By calling them "units" there's no preference over gallons or liters, so the game is serving metric and non-metric players equally, and it also makes the fuel more abstract so there's less discussion on what the liquid fuel and oxidizer really are.

If you only carry 100 kg of fuel instead of 500 kg I'm pretty sure that your dV is going to be reduced. I'm not so sure about getting more dV in reality. Isp of most engines seems pretty balanced. H2/LOX will get you better numbers, but then again we have the NERV to compensate for that.

A rocket engine works on the principle of expelling mass. Reducing the weight would lower either thrust, or delta-v, and probably both.

Are you saying that it takes the same time to transmit a megabyte of data by smoke signals as by fibre optic cable?

I assume reduce costs is an issue with career. Don’t reduce cost; enhance income. Take tourists on those science missions. Test parts while refueling stations, and so on.

It’s a very natural incentive to promote kerballed missions over probes, adding fun challenges for those who like probes. I’d love to see something akin to RT implemented in the game, even if it’s optional in the settings.

Fifteen years ago it would have truly upset me but by know I've grown a pretty thick skin and don't take critique personal. So, ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Bad is the opposite of good. What defines good for KSP2? Of course I worry that it will disappoint. Without doubts there will be many, many complaints. Keep in mind, it can't be exactly KSP or it wouldn't be a "version 2" With those changes in mind we can be sure that: If it's made more accessible, it will cater to noobs and the star wars crowd If it's made harder, it's elitist and needlessly complex If it focuses on science and exploration , it's boring and soulless But if it puts more emphasis on the Kerbals, it will be too cutesy, going for cheap points There will be too much science fiction (engines), and not enough The game will be too much micromanaging or too much empire building And regardless of if it gets implemented, everyone will complain about how multiplayer is implemented

Contemporary? Give The Expanse a shot. While not perfect it tries to stick to real world physics as much as possible.

No. Not really. Women passed those test just the same. Jerrie Cobb was a test pilot, by the way. So, Test pilots. Why not women? Yes, allowed but not necessitated. And that was not the initial intention, but the astronauts objected to being merely a passenger. What was the point of their piloting skills, they argued? Piloting skills the women had as well, by the way — but the criteria were set up in such a way that jet-fighter experience was a requirement which kept women out of the program without saying "women need not apply"

Care to elaborate on “obvious?” NASA's intention was to run the craft completely automated, so you'd be able to launch an ape into space and it would work (which they actually did). No particular pilot skills needed.

Fair use covers some non-profit use (for instance in textbooks or classrooms, under certain conditions) but that doesn't mean that most non-profit use is covered; far from that. As @Gargamelpointed out: stick to royalty free music, and consult a copyright lawyer if you want to know more about it (they tend to be expensive though).

And yet it will rain complaints if there are no new features in an update.

They're not smurfs, after all.

The old ones were sometimes hard to decipher. I like these because they're a lot more expressive.

There was a similar game where they tried that, with very mixed results. Some of the issues: The channel through which the pre-releases were released was not the preferred channel of some of the gamers. This led to claims of discrimination, forced vendorship, etc As the game was under development, new features would be introduced before some of the bugs were fixed. This led to a constant barrage of complaints "why not fix the bugs instead" if someone didn't like a particular feature Gamers would actually confuse features with bugs and report "still no MP" (let's just pick a random pair of letters instead of "X") as if missing that feature was a bug, instead of a missing feature Providing a game for free while it's under development turned out a really bad business model. Even when at one point the pre-release was actually sold, there was a certain entitlement and expectation that any future completely new versions of the game would be free as well, or at least free for those who'd paid for the pre-release at a vast discount While any of these sticky points can be explained away with "if they don't like it then don't buy it" but it would increase the risk of disenfranchising the community Of course comparing other games to KSP2 is like comparing apples to oranges but I can see why they're not going that route.

It does? Because a bicycle is perfectly capable of moving in a straight line and remaining stable without a rider. One of my classmates in high school had this trick where he'd jump off his bike while riding it, run alongside with it for any amount of time (well, within reason of being able to keep up with it) and jump back on. Funny as hell but the bike would roll along just fine without him.

Just to be clear, that circle is made out of rails, right?