Northstar1989

This was going to bug me and bug me and bug me if I didn't do it, so.... DATA! I meant to do this with MechJeb's Ascent Guidance feature- but then I remembered (after a couple failed launches) oh yeah, that thing sucks! Actually, I just had a rocket that was too realistic for it- very little torque, so almost all turning had to come from thrust vectoring, and MechJeb just couldn't handle that without my doing at least some of the piloting... (I still mostly used its ASAS function in Surface mode, rather than manual steering, to minimize steering losses) I think it's pretty clear which rocket has more fuel in the end... Note that due to the rocket equation, that 500 or so LiquidFuel (and corresponding Oxidizer) actually only represents a very small amount of Delta-V. Regards, Northstar P.S. I'm aware that running the engine at low power in the upper atmosphere like that seems a little funny, but it's actually the most fuel-efficient way to keep apoapsis up and counteract drag at that altitude while finishing your climb above the atmosphere (at anything much over 32000 meters, terminal velocity is greater than orbital velocity.) Of course, it's also unique to attempting to attain such a low orbit from launch- anything higher usually requires that you don't shut off or throttle down your engines until significantly later...

It might be best if I post something if I get around to it... Like I said, the math works out- but it's been a long time since I actually tested this. It's even possible (though unlikely) something actually changed since my flights to test this... I've just been putting off performing more test flights, because I've a rather lot to do with my Career save besides pulling off test flights of a concept I already tested in the past (I *COULD* go and find the screenshots from my test flights- but they're buried deep in the archived images of my Imgur account...) New post when I've got some screenshots to show of what I mean, I guess... Might be a while, if I remember it at all, and don't get distracted by real life... Regards, Northstar

I'm glad everybody could come to some sort of a consensus... Regards, Northstar

Really? Focusing in on a single typo? (now fixed) You surely must have something more interesting than that to say... Regards, Northstar

I'd just like to clarify what I meant about lifting surfaces breaking this pattern... If lift, rather than thrust, is being used to hold a vessel up, then the TWR necessary to maintain terminal velocity becomes 1. Of course, if any component of thrust is used to hold a plane/rocket up (such as by angling the nose above the horizon to increase the angle of attack), then the TWR necessary to maintain terminal velocity decreases back towards 2. A brief summary: TWR required to maintain terminal velocity for a vessel where 100% of force used to counteract gravity is coming from lift: 1 TWR required to maintain terminal velocity for a vessel where 100% of force used to counteract gravity is coming from thrust: 2 Of course, like with a rocket, terminal velocity is approached asymptotically- meaning a plane will never actually reach terminal velocity (even in perfectly level flight, with TWR = 1, and 100% of force used to counteract gravity coming from lift) unless its TWR >1. And, terminal velocity is *NOT* the most efficient speed for a spaceplane to ascend at anyways- as jet engines decrease in their effectiveness at higher speeds, and a spaceplane's path length through the atmosphere is VERY LONG... (terminal velocity is the ideal ascent speed during a VERTICAL ascent) Regards, Northstar P.S. Wings can be built into a spaceplane at an angle, providing an Angle of Attack for the lifting surfaces even when the nose of the plane is pointed directly at the horizon. That, and angling of the engines themselves downward relative to the nose, while pointing the nose up, can allow a plane to both point 100% of its thrust at the horizon and still produce lift...

I can't count how many times I've hear players say "a rocket launched with a Thrust-Weight Ratio of 2 will ascend at terminal velocity". I've even been guilty of this erroneous statement many times myself. However, reading up on terminal velocity on Wikipedia, I was reminded that "Scientifically, an object approaches its terminal velocity asymptotically." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity In more detail: "This velocity is the asymptotic limiting value of the acceleration process, because the effective forces on the body balance each other more and more closely as the terminal velocity is approached. In this example, a speed of 50% of terminal velocity is reached after only about 3 seconds, while it takes 8 seconds to reach 90%, 15 seconds to reach 99% and so on." Why does this merit a thread in the KSP Forums you might ask? Because, long ago, KSP players proved that the most efficient speed for a rocket to ascend in the KSP physics engine on a planet with an atmosphere (stock, *NOT* running FAR) is at terminal velocity. This led many players to assume that you should launch rockets with a Thrust-Weight Ratio (TWR) of 2 on the launchpad, as that will cause the rocket to increase in speed moving upwards at exactly the same rate as if free-falling downwards, and seek to maintain that TWR = 2 at all times. More advanced players realized that, since a rocket starts out stationary, you need to start out with a TWR greater than 2, in order to "catch up" to terminal velocity, and then drop down to a TWR of 2 in order to maintain it. However, neither of these statements is correct. While it is true, in an infinitely tall atmosphere, a TWR fixed at 2 would lead to a rocket attaining terminal velocity and never leaving it until it ran out of fuel; in a REAL atmosphere such as Kerbin's, atmospheric thickness falls off as you ascend, therefore causing terminal velocity to increase as the rocket ascends, and never be reached. Therefore, as you ascend, terminal velocity is constantly increasing, and you constantly have to "catch up" to it. A TWR = 2 rocket will NEVER keep up with the rate of increase of terminal velocity, however, even if it attains it briefly (before it drops its SRB's, for instance), as velocity will approach terminal velocity asymptotically with a rocket with TWR = 2. What that means is, in a real atmosphere, since it takes exponentially longer for each incremental increase in velocity towards terminal velocity, a rocket's maximum velocity at TWR = 2 when thrusting straight upwards is terminal velocity, and terminal velocity is constantly increasing as the atmosphere thins, a rocket with TWR = 2 will theoretically never reach terminal velocity, so long as it is ascending straight upwards... The obvious answer, then, is that a rocket needs a TWR that is GREATER THAN 2 in order to attain terminal velocity during the vertical portion of its climb... Note, however, that how much greater the TWR needs to theoretically be than 2, in in order to actually attain and keep up with terminal velocity during an ascent, falls off the longer the path-length through the atmosphere- so if that TWR is 2.4 during vertical climb, for instance, it might fall to 2.3 and then 2.2 and then 2.1 as the rocket begins and then deepens into its gravity turn... Of course, all this breaks down if you add lifting parts, or install FAR (which makes every part a lifting part, even a fuel cylinder, by adding the real-world effect of body-lift...) The same effect persists with a scaled-up Kerbin in Real Solar System mod, but the atmosphere becomes taller and falls off more gradually, and thus the path-lengths increase: so ideal TWR during the vertical limb might be 2.04 instead of 2.4, for instance... Regards, Northstar

Moment of inertia is a property of the shape and size of the body. Except for any effects of reaction wheel placement on the overall shape/size of the rocket, it is unaffected by where you place the reaction wheels... I was mistaken in saying that SAS is more effective at the ends of the rocket- I was thinking of RCS, which *IS* more effective the further it is from the Center of Mass- I'd like to see somebody dispute THAT! Regards, Northstar

A little math for those of you curious: T = r * F Notice the term "r"? that is the DISPLACEMENT VECTOR- measuring from the Center of Mass it is essentially the distance and direction from the RCS thruster to the Center of Mass... Regards, Northstar

RCS thrusters generate FORCE, not TORQUE. The difference being, torque depends on location of the rocket. The further from the Center of Mass RCS thrusters are located, the more torque they generate with the same force... SAS, on the other hand, generates torque, not force, which I forgot when I made my last comment... Therefore, RCS DOES benefit from being placed as far from the Center of Mass as possible. SAS DOES NOT benefit from being placed away from the Center of Mass... The following diagram, stolen from an earlier post on this subject by "mhoram", illustrates the forces generated by each type of control system. RCS thrusters *DO* benefit from leverage, unlike SAS. Regards, Northstar

Making me chuckle as always Geschosskopf... How's the Kethane Traveling Circus doing, by the way? Care to plug it to all the readers of this thread of mine? Regards, Northstar

Read what I said- it doesn't work because of their exiting physics loading range. If you manage to get them all to the ground within a 2.3 kilometer radius circle, that's great- but most of the time, such precise simultaneous landings of multiple pieces of debris is impossible... If you're in a high enough orbit, even the force of a decoupler will often force the landing sites of the different engines more than 2.3 km apart... From a realism perspective, it works even less, because jet engines are OP'd in the first place. Try building that launch vehicle with Advanced Jet Engines mod (which is a realism mod that basically converts the stock jet engines to their Apollo Era equivalents- the stock engines being far beyond what can be accomplished even with current technology), and Real Solar Ssytem, and see how it works out... (spoiler: it won't) Regards, Northstar P.S. I'm not a fan of Advanced Jet Engines mod myself- but only because the technology is nerfed back to the Apollo Era, and I prefer playing with modern and near-future technology. It also doesn't include any pre-cooler technology, even though it introduces jet compressor and engine core overheating- making jet engines effectively worthless for spaceplanes...

That's precisely the problem. While I can definitively state that the mathematics prove that a direct launch to higher orbits should be more efficient than circularizing first at 70km, your own experience may be somewhat different. I can envision two possible explanations for this. Either: (A) Your execution of a two-part launch is significantly more efficient than your execution of a direct launch (that is, it has fewer steering errors and more optimization of the gravity turn) OR ( My two-part launches are highly inefficient, leading to my consuming significantly more Delta-V when carrying them out than in a direct launch- even if it should theoretically be easier to perform a perfect two-part launch than a perfect direct launch. All I can say is this. A rocket with infinite TWR, perfect steering, and no significant aerodynamic perturbations of the ascent (basically, stock aerodynamics without lifting surfaces) would be able to reach a higher altitude for less fuel and Delta-V with a direct launch than with a two-part launch. How theory and practice actually line up most of the time, with most players, I can't say- I can only speak from my own experiences, where I have always found direct launches more efficient. Regards, Northstar

First of all, you're talking about near-future technologies, not cutting-edge. Cutting-edge technologies are, by definition, technologies that have newly been *developed or implemented*, and are so "sharp" and new, and right on the technological edge of progress, we call them "cutting-edge"... Therefore, while most of them ARE classified, they're certainly not future tech- and are not so far beyond what's currently public knowledge as that it should be too difficult to implement in a config... Second, I don't know nearly enough about how to actually write configs to create one of my own. And I don't have the time to test them out, and make sure they work either (I barely manage to keep my current Career save humming along...) Ah yes- the 60's. When HIV was ravaging west Africa (having spent 80 years reaching epidemic levels) and had just reached the USA (and there were no treatments for it), personal computers didn't exist, and women were still treated like second-class citizens in the workplace... http://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/may/22/research.science http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081001-hiv-aids-africa.html Be happy with the present- you don't know nearly how far we've come... Regards, Northstar

But the support for none of those mods is complete. Some that I refuse to give up don't even have any support at all- such as KSP Interstellar... Actually, I was using Specific Impulse in meters/second, which is identical to exhaust velocity, and a common and mathematically valid alternative way to define specific impulse rather than in seconds... Yes, and for precisely that reason a 200 meter tall rocket with a 20 meter diameter has a much higher ballistic coefficient than a 128 meter tall rocket with a 12.8 meter diameter (a 65% scale version of the original). This is precisely why playing with FAR and 1:10 Real Solar System, without a 100% scale mod (such as Realism Overhaul) is a bad idea. Except, I won't play with Realism Overhaul, because it requires Advanced Jet Engines mod- which I absolutely REFUSE to play with as long as it nerfs jet engines back to a 1970's level of technology (I understand that stock engines perform something like 23rd century jet engines plausibly might, but AJE mod goes too far backwards in time...) Advanced Jet Engines mod is a parts mod- it includes ramjets of its own, for instance... (which I might actually appreciate- if it didn't nerf the stock engines back to the Apollo Era) Engines are some of the worst parts to add from a memory perspective, as they have some of the most complex data tied to them, and often include their own unique animations that have to be loaded to memory... (although, the single worst part I've seen so far from a memory perspective is actually the "Solar Blanket" from NearFuture mod- which single-handedly increased my memory usage more than some entire parts packs the moment it was added to NearFuture in a recent update) I'm not talking science fiction. I'd just like solar panels that aren't nerfed back to the Apollo Era, most of all... But, it would also be nice to see solar panels that recognized many of the breakthroughs on the horizon with solar panels, such as this one that would boost light absorption to to 96.21% from nearly any angle- making the need to turn panels to directly face the sun nearly obsolete: http://news.rpi.edu/luwakkey/2507 http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/11/06/solar.coating/index.html?iref=nextin (I spent a year at RPI, before transferring to Cornell University- my little brother spent 3 years there, and both my parents are RPI alumni. So I'm very tied in to advances coming from there, and aren't afraid to plug it a little... RPI *should* be almost as famous as MIT.) The problem is *WHICH* generation things are being scaled to match. I want to see technology scaled to match modern cutting-edge (and possibly unlockable technologies just around the corner- like nano-coatings for solar panels), NOT technology nerfed back to the Apollo Era... I'm not assuming any of you are idiots, and don't mistake my confronting mod-makers about their creations' shortcomings as being a jerk. I *strongly* believe in constructive criticism, and know that we'd be nowhere without it... I know that making good mods, especially realism mods, is HARD. I simply come with my own insights and my own opinions to the subject of "realism"- well aware that most realism mods over-do things because they aren't aware of what's actually possible with modern technology, or just how incredibly un-ambitious we've actually been in many of our government technology projects in the past 40 years... We could have already established a sustainable moon colony, be driving electric cars everywhere, and be relying on 100% renewable energy by this point in history- if we wanted to... (ask me about "Project Better Place" some time if you're curious about the electric cars...) Regards, Northstar

If a mod decreases the performance of an engine or a wing or a plane or whatnot to WORSE than real-life performance, then it's made things harder. Advanced Jet Engines mod, for instance, does precisely that- by nerfing the jet engines down to Apollo-era tech, even though we're currently living in the 21st century... (and cutting-edge jet engines are MUCH more advanced than they were back then, though most of the newer tech is still classified...) Agreed- but if you nerf jet or rocket engines down to the Apollo-era, you're going to make it a LOT harder than it is today... Only because we live on a planet where orbital velocity is Mach 25. If we lived on a planet the size of Kerbin, that by some miracle also had Earth-gravity, then orbital velocity would only be Mach 6.3, and it would be easy enough to do *precisely* that... There are plenty of mods that already handle that in some way- including Deadly Re-Entry and KSP-Interstellar. The latter of which, I must point out, includes intake pre-cooler technology to compensate for and overcome these limitations- technology which exists in real life, but hasn't made any appaearance in Advanced Jet Engines mod... The main reason a turbojet/turbofan engine (it's really not clear which it actually is- it's called a "turbojet", but internals label it a "turbofan") in KSP performs as well as it does is because of its very OP'd TWR. The velocity curve, while a bit dodgy, is not so insane as to allow such performance with realistic TWR ratings... Once again, how much of this do you actually know first-hand? How much of this are you basing off assumptions from Apollo-era technology? I suppose that we've probably worked out quite a few engineering solutions to something as simple as engine re-ignition in the past 40 years... And I play with NONE of the life support mods, because I don't currently consider them to be in a sufficient state of completion. Neither, for instance, has its own integrated greenhouse modules. Or even Sabatier Reactors- which are currently operating on the International Space Station (only installed in the past couple years) to recycle oxygen from exhaled CO2 back into O2 at 100% efficiency (at the expense of Hydrogen, which becomes tied up in Methane- itself a useful resource and potential rocket propellent...) The realism is also skewed as well- once again due to modeling Apollo-era technology. Look at the dev blog and main thread for the Universal Storage thread. Modern O2 tanks can store literally hundreds of days of breathable oxygen in a VERY small volume simply by compressing or liquifying it... (CO2 recycling can extend this supply even further) Players actually objected that this would be "OP'd" if it were implemented realistically- not realizing how far technology has come since the Apollo era... I won't touch a pack of mods requiring that much memory that actually makes things harder than in real life. Simple as that. I play KSP to simulate the future of space exploration, and show what can be done with near-future or underutilized technologies (such as In-Situ Resoruce Utilization, *realistic* NERVA engines using modern reactor technology instead of 1970's tech, or Project Orion from the 1960's...), rather than to recreate the not-so-glorious past... (speaking as a biologist, I may be biased- we didn't even have a tenth the biological knowledge back then that we do today...) Regards, Northstar

I'm aware- and it irks me to no end! I don't want to play with Apollo-era tech, I want to explore what's possible with cutting-edge technology today! Now, it's not much of a problem in the stock game, because stock parts are so good that I can accomplish anything I could with modern tech there anyways, and then some (due to being loosely modeled after real-world jet and rocket stats, but considerably OP'd, and operating in a universe where the star system is only 1/10th the Sol system's scale...) But the Apollo program *barely* reached Luna (Earth's moon). I DO NOT want to play with technology that has been appropriately adjusted to actually reflect 1970's-era technology. May I also point out that the STS-inspired parts introduced is 0.23.5 are all based on modern technology? That's why so many players have been calling them OP'd- because they don't fit the TWR:ISP curves players generated to fit the earlier Apollo-inspired stock parts... I have no intention of updating configs myself. It would take too much research, and require me to repeat the effort every time I update AJE. Would it be so hard for AJE to post multiple (2) separate configs in the release post, like Real Solar System does? One modeling the engines after Apollo-era tech, the other modeling them after modern day cutting-edge (and maybe even slightly near-future) technology... Players like myself, who have no interest in re-creating what's already been done in Apollo, would stick to the modern technology configs, of course... Regards, Northstar

ME, compiling? I absolutely suck at programming. Yeah, you're asking too much.... Like I suggested, look at the rate of progress over an arbitrary period of time from the past (I suggested from 1977 to 1987), and extrapolate. It's the closest you're going to come to cutting-edge jet technology without the FBI hunting you down for espionage... Regards, Northstar

The Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC for others following along- once again, please avoid using an acronym without defining it first) is correct for the engines you have adjusted the stats to match. The problem, once again, is that Advanced Jet Engines has adjusted the stats to match the WRONG VERSIONS of those engines- that is, versions built with materials science more than 30 years old... With the newer retrofits of those engines (I use this term rather loosely- I know that sometimes an engine is renamed entirely when retrofitted like this, while still maintaining more or less the same appearance and overall major design elements- in which cases, you aren't even matching to the right engine names/models either...) you WILL see superior performance, and either better Specific Fuel Consumption, or Thrust Weight Ratio. The reasons for the better performance are usually due to use of newer materials and cooling systems that allow higher core and compressor operating temperatures in the newest engine retrofits. By upgrading the compressors and cores to work at these higher temperatures (through altering some of the internal design a bit), the newer retrofit engines have been made to provide superior performance to the older designs. Sometimes, the upgrades are also simply use of newer lighter-weight materials with the same strength and heat resistance, or improvement of the heat management so as to save on weight instead of improve SFC or thrust... AJE models 30 year old engines. As I said, you have to use modern retrofits and space-grade materials for a standard of comparison. The stock turbofan is based on a 30-year old base design, the F100, yes, but the newest retrofits of the F100 drastically outperformed the original design... This is where AJE goes completely wrong- they should utilize stats that are BETTER THAN the latest retrofits, not 30-year old technology. Mass and size are scaled for *some* things in the stock game, so I didn't know if i was the case with the jet engines. If mass isn't being scaled, though, then the fuselages are going to be much denser than their real-life versions (assuming AJE doesn't fix that), and are going to cause planes to perform better than they should... Regards, Northstar

I'm sorry, but "AB"? Keep in mind that, even if I am familiar with the acronym you are using, it require context for me to know which "AB" you are talking about at the time... The parameters themselves are what's inaccurate. The ones you are using are for the 1970's/1980's version of those engines, rather than the newer retrofits. You also have to realize, the *newest* retrofits for military jet engines are going to still be classified- so you won't be able to obtain accurate data on the current cutting-edge-technology. Actually, no, just no. Did you not read anything I said about the relevant orbital velocities? On Kerbin, orbital velocity is only about Mach 6.3. On Earth, it's over Mach 25. The difference is due to the difference in the curvature of the planets (larger planets have more gradual curvature). That means that on Kerbin, you will be moving at a MUCH higher fraction of orbital velocity during atmospheric flight- which high velocity can for all effects be modeled as reducing the force of gravity on your plane... (ESPECIALLY when flying East) Regards, Northstar

The engine stats are taken off the 30-year old versions of those engines. You have to understand that, with newer materials and more advanced engineering, retrofitted versions of those engines have been created that drastically outperform their 30-year old versions, One player pointed this out earlier on this thread on like the 3rd or 4th page, and he was completely ignored. I wouldn't want to use AJE without up-to-date retrofit stats being used for the 30-year old engines. Regards, Northstar

No, that's NOT what AJE does, that's precisely the problem. It fixes the IntakeAir bug, but doesn't upgrade the ISP values to match their real-world counterparts, and doesn't adjust the thrust values appropriately... First of all, the thrust values are being adjusted to match outdated specs that haven't been accurate for over 30 years in some cases- newer turbofans have higher thrust values than the ones being matched to. Second, there may be some issues related to the 64% scaling. Either the mass values are also scaled down (as I initially thought), or the stock game is using real-world mass values with a 64% volume scale- leading to rocket/plane parts, like the planet Kerbin itself, being excessively dense (the oceans are denser that Neutronium!) If the mass values are scaled-down, then the thrust values need to be as well. If not, then they still need to match to the newest available values for thrust (and perhaps exceed them by a bit- the performance capabilities of cutting-edge military and space-grade hardware are often kept secret, or understated...) Regards, Northstar

I specifically addressed that "issue with the code" several times... Stop accusing me of not reading things- I've probably spent more time reading through this thread today than you have. As I stated, the most relevant term is "Effective Exhaust Velocity", not ISP. And airflow *DOES* count for that. However, I missed in my conversions that Specific Impulse in-game was given in units of time (seconds), whereas I was treating it as being in terms of units of velocity (meters/second). Both units are equally valid measures of ISP, and indeed both are often used (and interconverted as necessary), but I made the mistaken of not noticing which was being used in the game, hence statements like: "a turbofan engine produces thrust consuming fuel at the same rate as a rocket engine with an ISP of 29,000 would in vacuum" That statement is 100% true, if ISP is given in terms of units of velocity (m/s). However it is not true if comparing Effective Exhaust Velocity (in meters/second) and ISP given in terms of units of time (seconds) as I was... It looks like the use of IntakeAir in the code was a problem after all, since the numbers really don't work out... I acknowledge that- though I must point out you guys may have over-nerfed the engines by cutting out the airflow factor from fuel flow calculations entirely... Their Effective Exhaust Velocity was 13.52 times what it should be, not 16 (when comparing the value for the stock turbofan to the value listed on Wikipedia...) Regards, Northstar

Forget everything I just wrote. MAJOR math fail on my part. I forgot to factor in G0 in my calculations (this is why you should always double-check your math folks!) The stock turbojet/turbofan engine actually has an Effective Exhaust Velocity of 392,000 m/s- far beyond the realm of what's possible with real turbofan engines... A 16:1 downgrade to fuel-efficiency (by fixing the IntakeAir "bug") would still be inappropriate though. An appropriate downgrade would only be 13:1 or 14:1, otherwise you significantly under-perform real-world turbofan engines... Regards, Northstar

You may just have a point- but I'd rather see an (accurate) nerf to the thrust values than an (inaccurate) nerf to the ISP values... Or rather, to the "Effective Exhaust Velocity". Though this term is never used in-game, when you start including the IntakeAir as propellant like the stock EngineModule does, you are effectively (and reasonably accurately) re-creating this essentially important real-world mathematical quirk of jet engines that makes them so effective... Once again: Real-world (example) turbofan Specific Impulse: 3000 s Real-world (example) Effective Exhaust Velocity: 29,000 m/s KSP turbofan Specific Impulse: 2500 s KSP Effective Exhaust Velocity: 40,000 m/s Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse#Examples The Effective Exhaust Velocity is the value that actually determines fuel-efficiency, and can be increased by increasing the bypass ratio (at the expense of increased drag) of a turbofan engine in real-life; and as a consequence, a value of 40,000 m/s is well within the range of what can actually be achieved... Regards, Northstar

I'm glad you've given a lot of mods a try. I'm always open to hearing a mod-by-mod breakdown of which mods you liked, which ones you didn't, which you felt were most realistic, and why (the last one especially- many players hungering for realism actually end up making their games harder than real-life, or in forcing players to exactly re-create real-world patterns that could have happened differently/better. I've discovered this on many occasions, going back to the "realism" mods for Civilization IV and the original Rome Total War...) I'm aiming for the highest % possible, so long as it doesn't lag my game any worse than it already is, or interfere with my other mods (two big demands in themselves). I also refuse to install any "realism" mod as a matter of principle that I feel in some way makes things harder than they actually are in real life (this can be *proved* with the Advanced Jet Engines mod's nerfs to jet engine ISP, for instance), or forces players to re-create real-world patterns that could have happened differently (as with certain tech tree re-do mods...) I'm sorry. I am simply OVERFLOWING with that of lately. It has to do with not getting the respect I deserve in real-life (where I'm a *very* nice person), and so venting much of that anger and frustration on the internet. Of course, such is also the story of every Internet Troll... Ahh, but it's FUN to rain self-doubt and loathing down on others! Seriously, though, half of this is just my penchant for academic debate and discussion. The other half is a (un)healthy dose of anger and frustration, from my experiences in real-life (particularly, trying to find my own success with women...) Always good advice. Regards, Northstar P.S. You may notice that, for all my irritation and cynicism, I end every post with "Regards". That is intentional. It is indeed meant as a signal of respect and goodwill towards the reader- whatever they may think of everything else I have to say.