KerikBalm

You are correct in that it is a joking way to speak of the bug. The joke became popular enough that there is an Easter egg to find, However, that Easter egg is not a bug, and generally not what people are talking about when speaking of the Kraken in KSP

If the engines can lift the stack, their thrust vectoring can control the stack... I don't see how scaling up the stack results in a problem, are you sure you aren't just building them in an unstable way?

Unless they have some blood samples, no. If they have blood samples after the symptoms, then yes. Similarly, there is speculation about spread during the 2019 world military games in Wuhan, which occurred in October 2019. I had heard proposals of testing samples that were taken for drug testing purposes, or testing athletes afterwards for signs of exposure. I have never heard of those tests being carried out or any results... which is strange in itself if the entities concerned really did want to pin down when and where it started

Anyone read Andy Weir's newest book, Project Hail Mary? (Same author as the Martian). Getting past the plot contrivance of "astrophage" microbes that can colonize the sun and essentially produce and store antimatter... The physics in it are fine, but the biology in it is atrocious... not just what is needed for the alien microbes, but he gets terrestrial stuff like mitochondria quite wrong...

Let's say you have cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder, and you modify you descendants to not have it? You think that should be a crime? I don't buy that premise. Also, if genetic modification of people is a thing, it's not irrevocably modifying all descendants, just the next generation, which could then choose to undo it for the next. Then there's possible technology such as extracting cells, inducing pluripotency and modifying them genetically, and reinjecting them (though this won't reverse things determined during development... It won't reverse a hunched back for instance). Type 1 diabetes? I have a family friend undergoing heart failure at a relatively early age due to a genetic condition, his son is quite worried about his future health now too. If you could choose to stop this,and you don't, isn't that hostis humani? OTOH, making some furry child that would always stand out, because you think that you are a wolfkin.... Yea, no

I reject the whole premise of the question about ensuring that original humanity must be kept around... But going with the question's premise: Any engineered offshoot species that is smarter, and has a biological need to keep us around, only needs to keep us around long enough to engineer our replacement. Plus, even if they need us, that doesn't mean that they can't enslave us, and breed us like cattle to make us more compliant... Like many works of fiction involving some vampire plot to take over the world and just keep humans as cattle.

Yea, pretty useless, none of the RL limitations of bipropellent are modeled making monoprop engines fairly useless in comparison

Well, in that case, there is a third possible mission architecture: A booster stage with ISRU that can make orbit with basically zero payload. It goes up carrying a 2nd stage as a payload. 2nd stage gets to orbit and meets with the mothership, transferring resources, crew, whatever. First stage falls back down, refuels itself, and then comes up to rendezvous with the mothership nearly empty. This can make sense if SSTO margins are super thin, and using a 2nd stage gets you the payload that you need. You can repeat your 2 stage flights as needed until the mothership's tanks are filled, and at the end, you don't deorbit the 2nd stage to link up with the lifter, instead the lifter comes up on its own, freed of the burden of a payload. Kerosene for 0-mach 4 wouldn't be a SABRE, kerosene wouldn't be suitable for use in a precooler, and making a sabre that can switch fuel types may be impractical given the massive difference in pipe diameter and temperature to deliver suitable H2/kerosene mass/sec Like I said in the part you quoted: "Of course as I do in 3x KSP, an air breathing first stage of a TSTO is going to allow better performance than an air-breathing SSTO" But that ceases to be a Starship vs Skylon comparison, as the first post asked about.

Assuming similar tech/engines. The question here is if the advantages of air breathing on a SSTO can outperform a non-airbreathing chemical TSTO. Of course as I do in 3x KSP, an air breathing first stage of a TSTO is going to allow better performance than an air-breathing SSTO I don't know if you would consider ISRU mining as such, but reusable TSTO is workable in KSP without having to use the recovery function and launch new vessels via the SPH/VAB

I also want a tidally locked planet with very different light and dark sides. I thought I read that Puff (the eyeball planet) was suspected tobe a bit like this. What I want to see, is a tidally locked planet that has undergone atmospheric collapse. That is that the cold side is so cold, that components of the atmosphere begin to condense /freeze on the dark side. This thins the atmosphere, the heat transfer to the dark side via convection decreases, the night side temperature drops even more, and the cycle continues until all the atmosphere is frozen on the dark side... Imagine a Kerbin sized world, in the "habitable zone" with no atmosphere, and C02 and nitrogen ice on the dark side, with water ice underneath. * I realize that, as far as getting to and from orbit, this would be essentially like Tylo, but with 25% higher gravity (assuming that its Kerbin sized, at 1G surface)... but Tylo is rather unrealistic and this tidally locked world that suffered atmospheric collapse would be realistic. It would also be a bit more interesting than Tylo because the tidal locking to a star rather than planet results in a side with permenant shadow, and greater potential thermal issues - but landing near the terminator allows for continuus solar power at a reasonable or even pleasant ambient temperature. It would also make for a quite distinct difference in the two halves of the planet (and the resource distribution). I for one think it would be interesting. Well, to be honest, a lot of the suggestions and actual planets in KSP 1 and that have been shown in KSP2 could be dismissed like this. Puff/the eyball planet? a world with one big liquid crater? you see the crater, make a base on its shore... aside from that, is there anything interesting about the planet? Laythe: a near featureless ocean world. Has bulk properties basically just like kerbin, including oxygen. Moho/Mun/Dres/Ike/ barren rocky ball, but the transfer orbits to get to them are different. And a more generic complaint about many of the suggestions here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleBiomePlanet

Worry not, there will be torchship drives. When you have antimatter rockets, grand tours within a solar system will be quite easy I imagine. But if some tech level cap is implemented... then it becomes much harder. I'm still thinking that mmH engines will make an unrefueled SSTO on Ovin not that hard

When I used LS mods (TAC-LS), I found myself always wanting recyclers, adding/modding in greenhouses, tweaking the recycler efficiency, to the point that my large ships and stations were basically self-sufficient, and the only thing the LS did was add mass and partcount. Part count meant worse performance, meant worse gameplay. However, my smaller craft like landers and such did not have recyclers, just a small radially mounted all-in-one LS containers, and waste containers so that the waste could be recycled upon reaching the ground base or orbiting station/mothership. One small container added so much time it became trivial, but just using the LS on a pod did make it a bit exciting. Still just having that "timer ticking" did alter the feel of play. Space felt... colder, more forboding, the orbiting stations and motherships felt more like little homes where I could relax as the timer stops, the surface colonies (one suitable bodies) that produced excess life support resources felt more important. Yet, honestly, I get the same basic experience by just insisting that I carry 1 hitchhiker per 2 kerbals for long missions, and include a rotating centrifugre or two for long missions away from Kerbin. And anyway, there's a sense of forboding on any craft that has a limited dV budget, and reaching an orbiting ful depot or landing next to a mining colony that can refuel it gives a similar experience. I would be fine with just some generic habitat requirements for long journeys, without something like TAC-LS As far as science: I could see it being unlocked by constructing larger and more advanced facilities or accessing/stockpiling more resources (like He3) that aren't really available on Kerbin. You would need to build up the infrastructure to get better tech (like in an RTS such as starcraft where you need to build one building to unlock another to unlock another, and to build/research X, you need buildings A, B and C constructed). Biomes and science experiments would factor into this by being little "boom events" that "get your colonists procreating" or just "motivate them" to work/innovate instead of being lazy and just sitting around - thus allowing you to expand the colony (in addition to needing the physical resources to do so). Anyway, that's how I would do it.

Off topic: Well, it's more of the platform that matters to me. Axial tilts, more optimization, thrusting "on rails", etc + modability are what matters to me. You know that someone is going to make an OPM mode for KSP2. It would be nice if mods only add to good assets, and won't be needed to remove bad assets... but as long as the platform is solid and modable, it should be good. So far, no objections to Glumo, no apparent need mod it.

No, I am not disagreeing with your assessment o what they are doing. I am disagreeing with Nate's decision.

It seems to me adding an outer solar system would not detract from any of that. Adding an outer solar system (includier kuiper belt like objects, even oort cloud like objects) would add a comparatively easy stepping stone towards interstellar travel.

Yea, I assumed they were salt flats... Although that seemed a bit problematic for me... salt flats require relatively large bodies of water to form them... but at least with minmus you don't have to ask where all the water went. You have to ask if it could have accumulated and held on to enough water to start with. My other thought is that its like Pluto: But its too close to the sun for that, so I move it to keep dres company...

Which is a shame... KSP, an dI fear KSP2, may be really lacking in showcasing outer solar systems. Give me the kuiper belt objects, give me Eris and Senda analogues, give me the Oort cloud, give me an analogue to a hyopthetical planet IX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine All these things require going a lot father than Jupiter (and by analogy, Jool), and yet not nearly as far as interstellar travel. Its weird if we get interstellar travel, but then within systems, we only travel around what is essentially the inner solar system.

This is sort of an aside, but I really hope that He3 will need to be mined from the upper atmosphere of gas giants. I know people often talk about the moon as an He3 source because of higher concentration there than on Earth, but 100x higher than basically nothing is still close to nothing. One may be able to get enough to power a reactor to run a vasmir/electric thruster using xenon or argon propellent, or H2 as a thermal rocket, but not to fill up tanks for a pure fusion rocket where the exhaust is just fusion products. In the former case, you're probably better off using a fission powerplant anyway, so what is the point?

The new Eve looks awesome. Should be much more tolerable to be stuck on it's surface now It seems to be glowing from within (because only the low areas are glowing), is if it's internal heat (shortly after formation?) But the comment about it being the innermost planet makes me think it is glowing because it is heated by the sun. If that's the case, then shouldn't the entire daylight surface glow red, not just the areas closer to the center? The low areas glowing in the night would be fine. It would be interesting to have some dynamic changes to the glow as it rotates... Light at dusk the lowlands and mountains both glow, at midnight, only the lowlands, and then just before dawn, nothing is glowing, or the lowlands are at their dimmest... Also, if that's the innermost planet of debdeb, and Ovin is >10 kerbin masses and in the Deb Deb system: then Ovin must be significantly farther out, meaning it is less likely to have proximity to it's sun as an explanation for how it is not a gas giant at that mass.... Can you elaborate?

Well then for this non stock body, it seems like you can make it work

I do this all the time in 3x rescales. I also try to switch to the booster and reverse trajectory at Apogee to recover at KSC... But winged boosters with air breathers are preferable for recovering on the runway (100%) recover Never heard of that mod, what is it? There is a limit to the size of the physics bubble, you can't build one big enough to make a space elevator on Kerbin That requires a tower going past geostationary orbit.... not possible within the game engine limitations for any of the stock bodies.

No. The ice at the moons poles is in perpetual shadow, its not reflecting anything. The equilibrium temperature being below zero is not enough. The thin surface layer of the ice would receive enough energy to directly sublimate. To make an analogy that may be easier to understand: the way a puddle of water will evaporate even well below the boiling point of water is the sane way an icy body will sublimate even if it is below the freezing point of water. If the gravity isn't strong enough to hold on to the vapor, it escapes. On Earth, it goes into the atmosphere, but doesn't escape, so it can then rain or snow and come back later. This wouldn't happen on minmus

Not a bad idea, but not just nuclear fuel, lets say many types of metals. Perhaps things we consider "rare eath" elements that could be used in high tech batteries, super conductors, high temperature materials (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_hafnium_carbide ), etc. Similar materials could be on Moho. Smaller bodies wouldn't concentrate that stuff as well in their cores - which results in a deficiency in the crust (but undifferentiated or poorly differentiated bodies do that better). It also should be fairly dense, due to a lack of volatiles. But Dres is much farther out of the gravity well, and even lower gravity... with closer access to the volatiles you'd expect to get from Jool.

I sometimes look, out of curiosity. The most useful instrument is the barometer... but I *think* that temperature and pressure combine to affect atmospheric density - Pressure matters for rocket Isp, but density is what matters for drag and lift - which means a molecular weight readout would also be useful (although that doesn't change within an atmosphere, but does vary between bodies) . I would have this https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Atmospheric_Fluid_Spectro-Variometer display atmospheric MW and density... which are also useful to know. One other thing: make all science experiments available from the start. Using science experiments to unlock science experiments is grindy. It leads to repeating the same missions over again, just carrying a different instrument to get the science that one missed previously.

Its already basically confirmed when they showed a preview of the fuel factories. The mmH factory was huge, the chemical fuel factory was pretty small. Also, mmmH is not a resource you find, its a resource that you make from Hydrogen. Hydrogen is generally very easy to come by.