KerikBalm

It has a definite resemblance to Laythe, and the planets are getting extensive reworks. If the craters are fresh, its fine, they did say that they wanted to portray some young systems

Do you actually want to debate mining mechanics in KSP2, or is this just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism ? If the former: in KSP2, it seems that they will have more diverse types of resources, and based on the shots showing a fusion powered craft in orbit over a gas giant (a good source of He3), it seems the resource extraction system will be a lot more detailed. Also, in KSP, it wasn't "soil", it was generic "ore". If you were mining regolith with ice in it, its simple electrolysis to make LF+Ox. If its carbonaceous chondrite like material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite Then you could extract water, or Carbon and organic compounds. Now, getting all that processing done in a 2.5m wide piece of machinery, that is a stretch, yes. Being able to extract large amounts of material by drilling in one location, rather than stripmining a large portion of the surface, yes, unrealistic. KSP2's more developed colony mechanics hold some promise of being more realistic, and we don't know how it will work, so can't complain about something if I know nothing about it.

I'm glad that you agree, but as a post 17 hours ago shows, not all agree on this Its worht noting that the polls seem to indicate that such a view is far from popular - but of course its far from a random sample, and people may have changed their vote if mH had explicitly been mentioned as an example in one of the categories Well, the public science understanding is just one element to me. As in my "worried about magic tech" thread, I have a worry about the general spirit of the game (although my concerns about Rask and Rusk have been mollified), if it is unrealistic. I want to play a game that is as scientifically accurate as possible, but with concessions made for limited playing time/scope (no, I don't want to deal with Kerbal congress hearings on rocket programs, or boards of investors), limited computing power (can't have real sized planets and detailed planets at the same time), and gameplay. mmH is not needed for any of these. If its just one engine, fine I could overlook it and not use it (similar to how I didn't use the OP wolfhound when it came out), but he concern of my "magic tech" thread was that if half the content of the game is stuff I don't want, its not a game I want. As this page of the thread demonstrates, its not easily dealt with. Its been a year since the debate started, on just one forum (the KSP community is larger than this forum community), and mH misconceptions are still alive and well. Its not easily dealt with due to the difficulty explaining it, the difficulty disseminating the explanation, and the trust that the devs have done their homework well. So if they had a disclaimer in the game, fine. Calling it explodium would effectively serve as a disclaimer too... RO seriously slowed down my game last time I tried it. I'm ok with concessions made due to hardware limitations - its unavoidable (although I do play with a scaled up system). I tried principia, but the UI was not so friendly, but in principle I very much liked the N-body mechanics. I think its the exact opposite. #1) mH would be something manufactured from hydrogen (you aren't going to mine it from a gas giant). There's no reason it couldn't be made on Kerbin. #2) NTRs pose grave dangers if the rocker 'splodes, a good reason to ban launching on Kerbin, but allow launching them on offworld colonies where you can freely spread fallout for hundreds of km across the barren world your colony is on. #3) Fission fuels are pretty common, and all heavier elements are much more easily found in undifferentiated bodies (small bodies like asteroids). Earth's crust is deficient in heavier elements because those mostly sank to our core. The only think a mH rocket gets us that an NTR doesn't, is the absence of radiation (which seems like it will be a thing you need to account for in KSP2). I'd argue its better to have the radiation component, for balance. Otherwise the mH engine just gets you and OP lander/ascent engine, superior to the standard chemical engines in every way, with no drawbacks. and the magnetic confinement vacuum version... just seems like dumb technobabble to me, and the gameplay consideration (overheats/explodes in an atmosphere), just seems dumb and contrived to me, especially when you can just use lH2 for good vacuum performance at the cost of reduced TWR... Anyway, thats at least 2 engines I won't be using, and they haven't given us details on much else. @Nate Simpson has come on this forum, and acknowledged concerns about minor stuff like navball positioning/texture, and not things so core to gameplay as the engines (which I think its safe to say, generated a lot more controversy). So I'm still seeing big alarms, and I will certainly not be purchasing on release.

Well, mmH is a substance claimed to exist with certain properties. Or you can say it is a claimed property of mH. Now, many of the claimed properties for Red mercury have roots in reality. Superconducting materials exist... high temperature superconductors exist (how high you consider "high temperature" is up for discussion) - why not call one of them red mercury? Stealh paint exists - why not call one formulation Red mercury? Red mercury has been claimed to be a code name, not actually mercury (but at other times it has been claimed to have a relation to mercury). If going the code-name route, its then just a matter of asking if what it is claimed to be able to do has some basis in reality. Superconductor? has a basis in reality Radar absorber? has a basis in reality Some kind of material that can aid in enrichment? some basis in reality, the chemical properties of different isotopes are slightly different (you would die if you drank too much di-deuterium monoxide instead of di-protium monoxide /dihydrogen monoxide/normal water) Something that man make fusion explosions without a fission trigger? Well fusion reactors do that, some basis in reality... So... we could take some property that has some basis in reality, and then say that it uses red mercury to do it... Red mercury Orion drives: no fallout, can use by your colonies! But basically, Red mercury is something that is 99.9% a hoax, that has been claimed to do pretty much whatever one wants (I think I've seen some bad UFO documentaries -those are infuriating, don't know why I'd even watch 1 minute- claiming reverse engineering of alien antigrav using... red mercury...). It might as well be pixie dust, but it sounds more technical, and is less obviously fake than "unobtanium", and unlike pixie dust, has a technical/technobabble explanation for what it does instead of outright magic ... But in the end, its equivalent

That only works until the last burn at perapsis puts you on an escape trajectory, but not an intercept trajectory. From then on its a long slow burn without your friend Mr. Oberth. But absolutely, splitting the burns up and doing them at periapsis will work initially and give you some savings (at the cost of significant time) I don't accept that argument. Using the same logic, some sort of aether jet could be included. I think I've made my position clear enough - that I think mmH would fall into the categories of either old/disproven science (bad science), or that it fits into the category of an engine that works if a material with certain properties exists, even if it is extremely unlikely to exist. Could we also include a "red mercury" rocket in the game? - if you're not familiar with the term, either google it, or substitue pixie dust/unicorn farts as only slightly less reasonable alternatives. When explaining science, its good to show experiments that have disproven various hypotheses. When a hypothesis is under debate, you do experiments to test it. KSP isn't about doing science, but it does relate to educating people about scientific findings. And you don't do that by presenting bad science as if its a working technology. Well, the beauty of KSP is its modibility. I wouldn't mind if they included the mmH assets, but had them locked by default... or perhaps a setting. You can check "enable impossible technologies" similar to enabling stock vessels, advanced tweakables, etc. Without that box checked, any tech deemed to likely be impossible is hidden from the parts list. I just want to prevent misunderstandings. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but recent events outside of KSP have really made me hate the spread of misinformation. As a society, its gone way too far, and is having serious detrimental effects on society - the climate, disease control, scientific funding, etc. I'm really really sick of it, and I don't want to see it grow within KSP (admitting that KSP already has some unrealistic things that *may* give people the wrong impression about some things)

If you think I used it that way, provide a quote, because I don't think I did. The pertinent facts, as I see them, with possible interpretations and caveats: #1) We were shown gamplay from ST, with new graphics, new parts, a new KSC, new planets, new ground scatter, and colonies Interpretation: ST had a product that seems to have the essentials of what was promised, but we don't know how buggy it was, how much content remained, and how well/poorly optimized it was #2) The deadline was extended to improve the game. According to the bloomberg article, the extension was to "add new content to the game", according to the article you linked, it was "in order to allow more time to make the experience as terrific as possible" Interpretation: They may have been able to meet the deadline with *something*, but feature creep or a desire for more polish led to a longer timeline. It doesn't mean that ST couldn't deliver something that would meet the terms of the original contract #3) The entire ST team was contacted by linked in with a job offer #4) T2 was engaged in negotiations to buy ST. Interpretation: T2 was either happy with the work of ST's employees and management, hence the interest in buying the company/ hiring them, or T2 was unhappy with the work and/or management, but felt they needed to hire some of them to ensure some continuity and minimize further develpment delays. In the latter case, I doubt they'd be interested in acquiring hte company, or hiring *everyone* from it #5) The linkedIn message went out Friday evening informing ST of the cancellation, prior to ST management informing the employees of the cancellation and doing an "all hands on deck" meeting. ST management claimed ot be shocked and that htey had been negotiatin a sale. The linkedIn message indicated preparations to set up a new studio were already underway. Interpretation: During negotiations, T2 was already planning to gut ST, hence they had the mesages ready to go, and the new studio underway the moment the negotiations failed. This seems to indicate that when T2 has the power, negotiations consist of capitulating or being destroyed. I think that is a misleading phrasing. The bloomberg article says in november the extension was agreed to. So it wasn't so much about extending the deadline, as the terms of a 6 month contract extension. The article mentions that the discussion was mainly about royalties and selling ST. So they weren't re-negotiating for a deadline extension, but because of one. Also, the release date was already delayed in November, and it was early December when the negotiations had definitively ended. I concede this point, the SARS-2 virus merely hurt ST's chance of staying afloat after losing the contract. Although I will note that the end of the contract did happen the same month as news of the outbreak in China was coming out, but yea, its not the cause. This is your inference. We don't know if they were behind schedule, or if feature creep had set in, and T2 wanted to expand the scope. We know the deadline was pushed back. We don't know if they expanded the original scope, or ifhtey needed more time to reach the scope agreed upon from the beginning. I think it indicates that reorganizing the team, while loosing half of it, causes delays. When you're dealing with code and assets made by ST, and about halfthe guys aren't there to explain what they did, then it causes delays for the people that try to pick up where the others left off. It could also be a business decision related to other factors (decisions to release before a certain holiday, a desire not to release during a certain economic situation etc). So it was intially supposed to release before April 2020, and then was pushed back. We never had an exact release date, and we don't know when ST was supposed to be finished vs when the product was supposed to be released (though that delay should be short). The contract was cancelled in Feb, which left only march of the original FY. The extended release date FY 2021 (April 2020-Mar 2021) presumably would have been under the terms of the new contract, which did not materialize. Also, I doubt the contract specified that the product had to be released. ST was hired to make the game, not publish it. So they could have made a game that met the terms of the original contract, and T2 doesn't publish this, but tells them to keep working to add this or that, and then T2 will publish on date X. Its not clear to me that anything other than an expiration of the contract, without renewal, happened. Then one can imagine all sorts of scenarios where T2 cancels the contract. One could imagine that after the dev team started to jump ship to T2 after the messages in Dec, by Feb T2 could declare that ST no longer had the capacity to deliver on the contract, and voided it because half ST's team got poached (by T2 itself). That could still be cheap compared to a lawsuit. I don't know what the salary was... lets say 5k/month for 30 employees, 2 months. That's only 300k, a lawsuit could be several million. Its also possible that there was just a clause where T2 would just pay a fixed fee (and an NDA preventing discussing that), maybe that's where the 2 extra months pay was coming from. We don't know. Well, according to you, they cancelled in Feb, but the notice was Dec. Also, if the original contract (and only, as renegotiation apparently fell apart) ended in Feb or March (since the extension pushed it into the FY that begain in April), I don't see how this would keep ST in business for years. Cool story, back to the topic: T2 existed, and the job offer was credible. The article you link mentions that hte company had been founded before being (publicly?) named. I don't see this as a valid argument. Seems clear that they were terminated Dec 6th, when the linkedIn message went out I see no source for the idea that ST rejected the proposal of acquiring them. It seems that they were open to the idea, and the discussion was over the terms of the acquisition No, Nate wasn't the director of the company, but he was very much involved directing the project, if the job title and content of the interviews is anything to go on. I already mentioned that they may have been unhappy with the company management, but not the product. Also, you again conflate delaying the release with extending the contract, and I see no evidence that the contract was extended, only that the release date/deadline was delayed. Please provide a source with quotes for the assertion that the contract between T2 and ST was extended in november. Those moans, if any were dumb. ST didn't steal anything. Squad sold its IP, and that is that. Again, please provide a source with quotes, I've seen no proof of this assertion. This seems like an inference. Whether an offer is gracious and magnanimous is entirely dependent upon the reasons for such an offer, as those words speak to the state of mind of the one making the offer. I merely stated it as a possibility, don't go "putting words into my mouth". Notice the use of my qualifying words: "apparently", "suggests", and "implies"; and my very explicit qualifying statement: "We have no way of knowing what proportion of those that went to T2 did so enthusiastically, or grudgingly" I do not have comprehensive knowledge of all discussions, so I can't say that this narrative was never presented, but I never heard it, can you provide a link to such a thread? My suspicion of a strawman argument is due to never having heard the argument, and having seen the Bloomberg article thread, where the complaint was over corporate ethics. You mention this thread, but considering that the very first mention of microtransactions comes from T2 in the very first post, this thread cannot serve as evidence against it being a strawman argument. Please show me where I drew a conclusion from that silence? I noted: "It could be they are just cynical of the way public debate goes in the era of "cancel culture" and such..." I believe that you are mischaracterizing my arguments.

I explicitly said it wasn't proof. In other posts I have mentioned the factors that make me suspecious Correct We don't know this one way or the other. Covid-19 makes this likely, but there have also been suggestions of feature creep/expanding the scope. Did T2 say this? where is the evidence for the assertion? There are reports of negiotiations, not sure about renegotiation. The reports are that the dispute was over the sale of ST, not release date extensions or other contract terms. I don't accept this statement as a fact Its not clear if the existing contract was cancelled, or simply not renewed. See above. Also such lawsuits cost a lot of money, and that's something ST didn't have. We also don't know the clauses of the contract. ST2 may simply have paid a fee to cancel a contract, if they did cancel. We don't know, this is not a fact. This seems to be true, based on the report that was fairly anti T2. The issue here is not about legality, but ethics. The report we have is that the offers were made before the contract was cancelled, andwhile negotiations were ongoing. Thus it seems like trying to poach a team/neuter a company to ensure that they can't deliver, rather than some benevolent act. Furthermore, offering the dev team jobs to me implies that they were happy with the job that the dev team was doing. If they were happy with the work, but not the management of the work, the high level ST employees would be suspect, but they wanted Nate Simpson (director is righ tthere in his job title), which seems to imply that they were happy with the work ST was doing (seems relevant to points 3-5) No, or at least this is highly misleading. All of STs team was informed that the IP was being pulled by T2, that ST would have no source of revenue, and that T2 was offering them jobs. Over half of ST's team was apparently so negative about working for T2, that they turned down the job and stayed with a company that was clearly sinking. This suggests that ST's team held a lot of animosity towards T2. We have no way of knowing what proportion of htose that went to T2 did so enthusiastically, or grudgingly because they had bills to pay/families to support/etc, and they couldn't afford to take a risk. That over half took that risk implies T2 did something that really liquided them off. yep Is the timing well known? was it almost half jumped ship before ST was closing its doors, or by the time ST had closed its doors, almost half had left= I don't even know where that allegation came from, and seems unrelated to the dealings with ST. It seems more like an attempt at making a strawman argument and deflecting attention, which I consider to be a dishonest debate tactic. Well, now you can see some of my thoughts, and its not just: T2 is silent, they must be guilty. Now, on the subject of silence... while it doesn't mean that they are guilty, I think it would be very smart for them to have something said in their defense. Even if a defendent testifying on the stand is uncommon in a court of law, it is nearly unheard of for an attorney representing the defendent not to present a defense of his/her own, and to cross examine witnesses. One could just let the prosecution try to make its case, and be completely silent, and hope the jury sees the flaws in the arguments... but this is a dumb tactic. T2 has never even said, as you said, that "Star Theory was going to miss the release date they contracted to meet." I think it would be a smart move for them to at least say something. Even if it was simply: "It became clear that negotiations had broken down, and we were concerned for the well being of the dev team, so we reached out to them and offered them jobs" - It at least frames the job offer as a compasionate offer, instead of a matter of poaching a team when you couldn't get what you wanted in negotiations... Again, I'm not saying that I think this means that they are guilty, I just think it means that their PR is not being very smart

So I wanted to comment on some recent "studies" that tangentially have links to the tobacco industry. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.10.20127514v1.full.pdf This one suggests that smoking tobacco has a protective effect, by comparing smoking rates in French COVID-19 patients, with smoking rates of the general French population. It is not peer reviewed, but has already been cited by another paper (with an overlap in authors). Anyway, my 2 cents: The comparison to the general French population is not appropriate, as the statistics show considerable variation in smoking rates with age, and the Covid-19 patients do not have the age distribution of the general French population. I checked the statistics for the general french population, and looked at the % of former smokers. In the study, the % of former smokers with Covid-19 was approximately double the % of former smokers in the general french population. So, does this imply that smoking and then stopping doubles your risk of Covid-19, or is it just that the rates of active smoking are higher among young people, and the % of "former smokers" is higher among old people? Seems like bad science to me. Also, I think we need some studies on transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by cigarette smoke: There are numerous studies showing a link between poor air quality, and an increase in COVID-19 deaths. Those studies only showed correlations, and don’t establish causes (they could both be due to high population density, in many locations). Then there is this report from Italy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7260575/ Where they report finding SARS-CoV-2 on airborne particulate matter (PM), by using PM10 filters. There are, of course, numerous other studies reporting potential pathogens being found on airborne PM. So I was wondering how much this airborne PM contributes to transmission of SARS-CoV-2. It seems that in order to transmit SARS-CoV-2, you’d need PM to first come into contact with SARS-CoV-2. It seems the obvious location where this would happen is in infected lungs – still, the concentration of PM in inhaled air should normally be quite low, and likely even lower when exhaled. But this isn’t the case with smokers. One would expect that they’d inhale a high concentration of PM, and there’d be an excellent opportunity for the PM to pick up SARS-CoV-2. Research (again in northern Italy) has shown that pedestrian areas where people smoke have more PM pollution than areas with vehicular traffic (https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/48/3/918), so clearly people smoking generate significant amounts of PM. It seems reasonable to wonder if SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted by PM, not just respiratory droplets, and if so, if smoking a cigarette can increase dispersal of the virus. I can’t find any studies that explore this subject. Most discussion about smoking relates to the increased risk to the smoker, or the increased transmission risk from smoking due to an uncovered mouth and the fact that smokers are bringing their hands close to their faces.

Well, that implies that they think there is nothing they can say that will make them look good. It could be they are just cynical of the way public debate goes in the era of "cancel culture" and such... Its plausible, but as I said, in the relevant setting, I think the standard is which explanation is judged as more plausible, not proving them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I do have doubts that they've done anything wrong. However, I am not convinced that its more likely that they've done nothing wrong, and I'm seeing many signs that they may have. Except they have already said something, and something has been said about them, which would normally release them from the NDA. Now we don't know the specifics of their NDA, so again, its just trying to judge what is most likely.

I had considered this, but it clearly won't work. First, I think its worth noting that the devs have specifically mentioned the atomic rockets website. So I think hte stats given there are probably a good guess for how they intend the engine to work. They probably noted the theoretical 1700s figure... that would melt the engine and had no known design solution... and wanted that 1700s figure. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#id--Chemical--Metastable--Metallic_Hydrogen Its competitor is simply dilution with liquid H2 and an Isp of 1120s. Now, you need to consider that Cs is 133x heavier than H. If you had 133 H atoms per Cs atom, you've doubled the average MW. You've also roughly halved the energy storage per unit mass. The result is you've halved your Isp... 850s... LV-N territory, worse than if you just diluted with hydrogen, and did no magnetic confinement. So, the break even with liquid H2 dilution is about 160-165 H atoms per Cs atom. Now the Cs will ionize, and become a low density plasma, presumably pushed inward, but not even close to forming some sort of nozzle or confining wall. So you'll have a mass of cesium moving sqrt(1/133) as fast as the hydrogen atoms, or 8.67% as fast. This mass of Cs plasma would be going out the back, one could say that it would act as a very very very porous material from which the hydrogen gas would be diffusing out of in all directions. Now the diffusion out of it would be relative to the Cs plasma velocity (which would be very slow), and the dnesity at the end facing the ship would be higher than the end facing away from the ship, so you might get some more diffusion in one direction than another, but the lateral diffusion would be extreme, because the low density Cs would not be forming anything like the walls of a nozzle. Now, I wondered if it would be possible to use the Cs gas to form something resembling a "plasma window" However, such a technology would require a very high energy input, heating the plasma to temperatures higher than mH phase change could release, and seems to only work to generate a "flat plane" (really a cylinder of narrow diameter), not a bell shaped nozzle. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-of-the-plasma-window-reproduced-from-3_fig1_267413096 In the above diagrams, the plasma window is in the small space between the cylindrical copper plates. That's the sort of thing you need to make plasma actually contain a gas, and you just make a cylinder of gas in the center separating the atmosphere from the vacuum.

I can see the validity of a category including all 3 of them, but I also see a value in distinguishing between them: technobabble: doesn't risk having people believe that an invalid concept is actually valid, its just gibberish (as in the example Pseudoscience: never had any scientific backing, and was always outside the realms of science. Quick research can show thi unambiguously Bad science: perhaps I should have labeled this outdated/disproven science - once was a scientifically valid concept, and scientific papers can be found backing it, although from a long time ago. Due to the presence of legitimate scientific papers on the subject, people may believe that it is still a valid concept. I'm really not seeing the slant, unless its slant to say that appealing to outdated science is appealing to bad science/ doing science with disproven theories is doing bad science. Can you elaborate more on what slant you perceive, and what specific phrases/words cause this perceived slant? I object because it risks causing people to think that an invalid concept/ invalid science is in fact a valid concept/valid science - particularly given all the statements by the developers praising the realism of KSP and talking about the experts that they consulted with. Therefore explodium is better than mmH because it runs no risk of promoting bad science. Well, as I've said, there are certain engines that many feel simply cannot be "both fun and scientifically accurate" - so the option is then to discard the engines (not going to happen givne their prominent focus in the released information), or at least to rename them to prevent promoting science. Furthermore, the game already has babble words, what is "Blutonium"? - obviously Plutonium, but they don't call it that https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/PB-NUK_Radioisotope_Thermoelectric_Generator What is Explodium? The word is already in KSP 1 as part of a biome name. Additionally, many people feel that gameplay should trump scientific accuracy (a view I can respect, as long as they are willing to admit certain inaccuracies). I think it would be good game design/gameplay to have what seems to be the best fuel for landers/ascent vehicles be hard to get... by placing it in places like Eve. Since Eve canonically already has "explodium seas", it seems like a good fit.

Well, I don't think thats a very good analogy. Here the options are confess and be considered guilty, or stay quiete and be considered guilty. I think the case is actually: you have been accused of a crime, your choices are to present a defense, or remain quiet (take the 5th in the US). Taking the 5th is largely seen as suspicious. Tyrant? these are customers. When a cop wants to search your property, and then says if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, that is wrong. However, when the cop has probable cause (in the US and most jurisdictions), the cop can conduct the search without consent. There are a number of factors that seem suspicious, and accusations have been made. I'd say that gives the customers probable cause to demand an explanation, or refuse to buy the game. There are a lot of reasons to keep something private/secret withhold information. However, they did issue a public statement, before the story broke. So can you really blame us when we look at the available evidence, and consider which scenario seems more plausible? This isn't a court of law requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt, all that is required is a preponderance of hte evidence (ie, for the customer to think one scenario is more likely than another). I think their PR is making a mistake here.

Well, consider that the alpha centauri system (the binary stars, ignore proxima) has 2x the mass of our sun, Its SOI must be as large as ours, and should in fact be significantly larger AC is currently 4.4 LY away... And some estimates of the Oort cloud give it an outer radius of 3.2 LY... that would be in the SOI of AC if the 3.2 figure refers to a sphere (if referring to a disk, then it depends on the orientation of the disk relative to AC) So, just taking the mass and proximity of AC, I really have to doubt that the oort cloud extends that far. *** Whelp, I looked at the graphic, and AC seems to be something other than Alpha centauri, but it doesn't get around the objection that the oort cloud would seem to be extending into alpha-Cen's SOI.

[snip] [snip] I thought it would make for good gameplay, since Eve's seas are explodium, and you'd have to get it there. Want the super fuel for ascent vehicles (not interstellar travel)? conquor the hardest ascent in KSP1 to get it.

I have advocated for a simple rename as a compromise, so I'd agree with this I think the poll is worded quite well. I think examples help illustrate what I'm talking about (differentiating technobabble from psuedoscience, from outdated science). I regret the "pixie dust" wording, and think unobtanium is pretty good, but I'd really like to go back and use Red Mercury as a better example. As to the objection you are quoting, I think it is without merit. @SOXBLOX ""Bad science" is a shortcut around debate; it implies that anyone voting for "bad science" in a game is unscientific IRL" No, it implies anyone voting for bad science, wants bad science in the game. I'm not implying that anyone who plays eve online, or Elite dangerous are unscientific IRL. First we can establish if the majority of people want KSP2 free of bad science or not, and if they want it bad science free, we can debate what does and does not constitue bad science. Its not a shortcut around debate at all.

Well, if its something like a reasonable fusion drive, then taking a brachistochrone trajectory doesn't mean point at target, fire engines... you need very high thrust for that. On one end of the scale, would be solar powered ion engine, thrusting on rails, but with a very low thrust. You don't just point at the target. The supposed end game "torch ship" will likely be "point at target, engage". Orions would be impulse trajectories, but very high velocity ones, htat may allow for "point at target, fire engines for a bit, arrive at target, fire engines to break". My hope is that aside from the end-game torchship, and the purple space magic engines, that the remaining engines are realistic. Orion drives would absolutely work. Fusion drives clearly can work (we were getting net energy from fusion devices in the 1950's... the Russian Tsar bomba had 93% of its yield from Fusion). So an interstellar ICF drive seems fine to me. It could also be useful in-system for getting to outer planets quickly (like if there is a KSP 2 OPMN mod, and you want to go to Plock). Orion drives are ridiculous, but yet perfectly feasible. I'm looking forward to them. If its OP'd, but realistic, I'm ok with it. mmH and Cs-doped magnetically confined mmH in particular, seem to not be realistic at all. As to the other interstellar engines, I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, and witholding judgement due to a lack of details. Well, the thrust on rails thing used for the fusion drives is a great addition, because it should also mean that we can get thrust on rails ion drives, and the ion drive thrust can be nerfed to a reasonable level (no more ion powered mun and minmus landers), since burns could be done at higher than 4x physics warp.

[snip] as I have mentioned numerous times, going back to the "worried about magic tech" thread, and page 4 of this thread. How does confinement of Cs allow for confinement of 6000k hydrogen? Cesium won't be bound to hydrogen at that temperature, the hydrogen will not be confined even if the Cs is. If the Cs (MW: 132) was somehow linked to the hydrogen (MW:1), then it would get terrible Isp, worse than the H2O+mmH rocket. If we're relying on Cs ot readily give up its electron to make H-, then we still have the problem of a 1:1 ratio of Cs:H, getting absolutely horrendous Isp. If they wanted a high Isp variant of mmH (pruple space magic), all they had to do was dilute the exhaust with lH2, but they throw in magnetic confinement through Cs doping of the fuel, which makes no sense as far as I can tell, and seems to be pure technobabble.

Yes... but such a thing is also a planet killer. Do you want cheap planet killers? Also, the magnetic scoop is largely non physical, the magnetic field stretches very wide, less so the actual material structure. If its a bussard scramjet, you don't need much in the way of radiators, because the fusion need not takeplace within the vessel. Note that I talk about a Bussard SCRAMjet, not a RAMjet. The ramjets have a maximum speed equal to the exhaust velocity of the reaction products. They scoop up the hydrogen, accelerating it to the same speed as the vessel, then shoot it out the back - although it has been suggested that the process of accelerating the hydrogen up to the speed of the ramjet would generate a massive electrical current, that you might be able to use to accelerate the reaction products further than just their velocity from the fusion reaction... A scramjet would just direct particles laterally inward, without collecting the particles in the ship/accelerating them to the velocity of the ship, where they would hit each other and fuse, and then the reaction is contained by magnetic fields. With superconducting magnets (getting literally no resistance, which would generate heat if there was resistance), you would have very little heating from the fusion reaction. You'd still be able to decelerate the incoming H+ stream a little to generate power, but again with superconductors, this should generate almost no heat. Then you'd need to run your ionizing laser, so you basically just need radiators sufficient to deal with your laser's waste heat. Anyway, this is all just to get a tech that you already stipulated: a drive capable of accelerative at 1g to high fractions of c. You seem to be arguing against a tech that you wanted yourself... None of this relates to the fact that traversing the Oort with a very high degree of success with a sort of technology that you specified, is trivial.

Typo, was supposed to be 99.99% As I said, I can accept super high efficiency before I can accept FTL Only if you don't count the energy of the rest mass of discarded propellent in other drives. Sure it does. The local bubble around the sun is lower density than normal, but that just requires a bigger scoop

[snip] The point is that it seems like they just slung some buzzwords together, and I have yet to see any explanation as to how "cesium doping" is supposed to allow for magnetic confinement of ~6000k hydrogen. It seems to me to make as much sense as saying they use a flux capacitor that modifies the phase variance to contain the exhaust. If someone can explain how cesium doping is supposed to work, or provide the science behind it, I will withdraw my complaint. Right now it seems to be prima facie techno-babble

Not behind the engine exhaust, obviously. Shield<radiator<reactor<exhaust Yes, but you want a 1g thruster, you need a high isp. The radiator mass is directly linked to how efficient the drive is. I can accept 99 oo% efficiency before FTL. Thrust vectoring, and days to rotate is fine for a voyage lasting years A bussard scramjet could be very fast, and have very low radiator requirements. Its a bit wooly, but if you want fast interstellar travel with the hardest science you can, bussard scramjets are what you want if 5%c fusion rocket is not enough

Well, we just talked about shielding... You don't really need it because of how unlikely it is. Also, the radiator can be long and thin, behind a relatively small shield, all incoming particles will be coming nearly parallel. Besides, you mentioned the 1g drive.... I'd go with some kind of fusion rocket getting 0.1g or less, or a bussard scramjet

There was a thread on that... No sense discussing that here. I already have, I am tired of just making the same arguments over and over. So do you have an explanation for how it works or no?

Really hard way? Its trivial once you have your awesome propulsion system. If its a photon rocket, the energy needed to operate a LIDAR and dodge the bigger pieces is trivial. If its a Bussard ramjet, the design basically has a built in forward looking LIDAR with "energy deflector shields" (well ionizing laser and magnets, this is still hard-sci fi tech) that will work against the small particles, so you just avoid the larger ones. A bussard ramjet would be one of the ways you might get your constant thrust drive anyway. So solve the propulsion problem, and your "really hard way" becomes : steer a little bit to avoid little objects that you might hit once in every 10,000 trips And keep in mind, I was using a pretty generous size distribution to estimate a lot of small particles, with the mass of particles/objects under 1 km completely dwarfing the mass of those over 1km, with the mass of particles around 1mm in size being 1 million times more massive than the mass of objects 1km or greater. (1 cm class objects being 100,000x more massive, and 1/10th the mass of the 1mm class objects). This is so far from the case with the asteroids, where 4 asteroids are more massive than everything else combined. So, I'm being really really really generous here. Its not a problem.

Which makes them easy to detect and avoid. If you spot something 1 AU out, that's 8 light minutes, you've got a 1g acceleration drive, easy peasy. But we can make good predictions. First, we need to define what we are talking about. Sometimes its said that the Oort cloud "is divided into two regions: a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud (or Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud." or "The Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 au (0.03 and 0.08 ly)[7] to as far as 50,000 au (0.79 ly)[3] from the Sun. Some estimates place the outer boundary at between 100,000 and 200,000 au (1.58 and 3.16 ly).[7] The region can be subdivided into a spherical outer Oort cloud of 20,000–50,000 au (0.32–0.79 ly), and a torus-shaped inner Oort cloud of 2,000–20,000 au (0.0–0.3 ly)." The torus/ disk shaped region is easily avoided by just avoiding the ecliptic. So its only the spherical outer oort that needs to be considered. Sometimes they speak of the oort and the hills cloud as separate things. Note, 1 light year = 63,000 AU, and the hills cloud goes out to 1500 AU. Now, with a 1 G drive, you are going to be well below lightspeed when around the hills cloud (assuming you are arriving and decelerating, or leaving and accelerating, not just whizzing by), and that cloud is easy to avoid anyway. Now, the size estimates vary by a lot, but, conservatively, lets assume it is a 2-d shell, at 0.32 ly (larger estimates make it easier, not harder), that is roughly 3e12 km from the sun. Now the area of a sphere is 4*pi*r2, so the area of a sphere 3e12km from the sun is roughly 1.1e26 square kilometers. Now, if we assume there are 1 trillion objects with a 1 km2 cross section, they would occupy 1e12 square kilometers. That means a ship passing through would have a probability to hit one of of 8.84e-15. You could pass through 10 trillion times, and the odds are still less tha 1 in 10 that you'd hit them. Now... the oort cloud doesn't have just large objects, just as the asteroid belt doesn't. In the case of the asteroid belt, roughly half the mass is taken up by 4 asteroids. But lets say we have 10,000x more obejcts in the oort roughly 100mx100m, or 0.1 mk2, then their cros sectional area on this 2d sphere is 100x that of the 1km asteroids. Probability to hit now goes to 8.84e-13. And then lets say for every 100m class object, you have 10,000 10m class objects, this increases the probability to hit something by another 10x... you've got a change to get hit just going blindly through of 8.84e-11. Ok, lets say 1m objects too, and 10,000x more abundants again: change to hit: 8.84e-9 Ok, 10,000 more 10cm objects, chance to get hit: 8.84e-7. Ok, 1cm objects, 10,000cm more, chance to get hit: 8.84e-5. 1mm objects: chance to get hit: 8.84e-3... At this point, it looks risky, but the odds are still in your favor. Also in this calculation, I'm assuming the total mass of objects 1/10th the diameter of the next class of objects, have a total mass 10x greater than the larger objects... this isn't the case at all in the asteroid belt, but we don't know the distribution of the Oort clouds mass. Anyway, this is assuming everything is in a 2-d sphere... make it 3-d, and the chances of a collision drop considerably. So, blind luck should get you through the oort 99% of the time without even hitting something 1mm in size. However, you need not blindly blunder through the cloud This thread demonstrates no such thing. You don't need to make stuff up, if by that you mean FTL and magic tech. How about you just slow down to 0.9 or 0.8c when going through the Oort, odds are you would be doing that anyway, given how much distance it takes to accelerate to that speed at 1 g even under newtonian physics Its pretty easy to get past. Stick a powerful LIDAR on your ship to spot the objects, you only need to scan a very narrow cone in front of you - evade or deflect objects with a laser. Lets assume you've got a bussard ramjet, these must ionize the gas infront of them, often with a powerful UV laser, to ionize gas for magnetic collection. You've just given yourself Active lidar, and a shield against the 1mm and below particles, now you can go through the system with a 0.0001 chance (using the distribution assumes above), without even maneuvering to avoid anything. have a laser to deflect the 1cm particles, and its a 0.000001 chance that you get hit, do some maneuvering for the 10c and above, and you're through no problems. Stick on a 10m thick ice shield (what's left cna be used for water at your destination, but I've also seen proposals to use it to breed various useful isotopes by collisions with hydrogen atoms and such - if not using a bussard ramjet that ionizes and collects those) A baseball may be like an H bomb at .9c (haven't run the numbers, going with the claim), but that drops a lot at 0.8c, and a baseball is fairly big. The oort is likely going to be mostly light volatiles, which won't be very dense. Now, if you are decelerating in system, your engine exhaust should deflect small objects, and if its a 1 g constant thrust drive, its going to be something like a photon rocket, or its exaust will be relativistic particles, which will make a great "illumination source" for detecting larger objects. So in summary: You won't be going .99c through the oort with your tech/acceleration anyway avoid the ecliptic and avoid most of the problem, and its just the spherical outer oort - trivially easy with your tech level Blindly going through the oort with no precautions will work more than 99 out of 100 times Installing focused forward looking lidar will allow you to spot any threatening objects - trivially easy with your tech level Small particles can be absorbed with a shield or deflected, deflection will happen anyway if using bussard ramjet tech It seems to me that you're just trying to make an excuse to say: "Oh well, there's no choice but yet another contrived form of FTL"