KerikBalm

And when we're talking relatively low masses and the need to radiate into vacuum, that mass becomes considerable. I'm not sure at what point it becomes preferable to a thermocouple like on a standard RTG (after all, there is a reason RTGs use thermocouples) I don't think this is right, and would be oversimplified at any rate. The neutron flux goes up, but at a certain point, the reactor power will be the same per unit mass, as the fuel rods heat to their maximum temperature (any hotter and they melt), and their maximum output is limited by cooling. Now a reactor has to reach a sufficient neutron flux for a chain reaction, but this required flux goes down as enrichment goes up. A tiny reactor of normally enriched uranium won't be able to sustain a chain reaction. Highly enriched uranium can do it. Basically, as you scale the reactor down, the enrichment needs to go up. IIRC, the reactors used in space used very highly enriched uranium. For sure, but I'm not talking about long duration power demands. I'm talking about limited duration atmospheric flights on other worlds. Yea, I know, I should have said nuclear *reactors*. RTGs use spontaneous nuclear reactions/decay, but they aren't a reactor that causes additional nuclear reactions.

For reference, a tesla model S reportedly has a 540 kg battery, already over half a ton. It supplies a 615 kW motor. What is the power output of such a small reactor? The SNAP reactor is even smaller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A "The SNAP-10A reactor was designed for a thermal power output of 30 kW and unshielded weighs 650 lb (290 kg)" - Note, that's Thermal power, not electrical power, which would be much less. It was reported to be designed to produce 500 watts for 1 year, and reached a peak of 590 wats before shutdown. Assuming a linear scaleup, a 1 ton design would get you a 2.34 kW output. Scaling up the Tesla battery to 1 ton gets you 1.14 MW. Nearly 500x higher power output. The point of 1000 kg of ultracapacitors would not be to provide for long term energy duration, but to meet short term power demand. If you need a high electrical power output, for a short duration, then batteries recharged by a small reactor are better than a big reactor that can supply the power continuously. Capacitors are even better... KSP batteries function more like capacitors anyway. Current capacitors have a much lower specific energy (Wh/kg) than Li-Ion batteries, but future ultracapacitors may be able to exceed them. Any electrical pulsed drive (particularly, pulsed fusion drives, such as a dense plasma focus design) would use capacitors to supply the power for the pulses, not a secondary fission reactor. If we were to make an aircraft to explore mars, its would be lighter if it used batteries/ultracapacitors to supply the power during flight, with solar/RTG/nuclear to recharge between flights... Which is incidentally what I'm doing with some craft in KSP, and why I'm asking for bigger batteries. Yea, I know... sort of irrelevant though, no? Nobody was disputing that.

Long post, a bit TL:DR, but I strongly support addition of air augmented rockets to KSP. Basically, you'd have the most efficient rocket for every scenario in terms of Isp, but at the expense of added mass (poor TWR for the engine part, but it should still have a similar thrust to cross section ration)

Well, the batteries are more like ultracapacitors. They can discharge all their stored energy in a fraction of a second... as fast as you can draw from it. A nuclear reactor would be an alternative to solar panels, RTGs, fuel cells, etc, but not the batteries (more like ultracapacitors in KSP). Besides, what does the smallest nuclear reactor weigh? does that compete with 1 ton of batteries (more like ultracapacitors in KSP)? 26x of the larger batteries mass only 5.2 tons. Would you propose having a nuclear reactor that masses only 5.2 tons, and can supply >250 EC/second? I would very much like the larger alternative to RTGs to be a nuclear reactor (and it could use the heat mechanic like the ISRU convertor, and thus need radiators)

Yea, I think the two craft need a different launch ID. With this in mind though, launching 2 vessels can make it easier for the part below: Well, if your are separating your craft, which you should be, then its gets less straightforward. You should be doing orbital rendezvous... no sense in bringing everything down to duna, just to bring it back up again, ditto for Ike. A LKO to Duna intercept costs you 930+130= 1060 m/s... Call it 1100 to have some margin. A duna intercept can allow for aerobraking/aeorcapture, where you can lower your Ap to get an Ike intercept "for free". You may want to split craft here for maximum efficiency, with one craft continuing to aerobrake, while the other circularizes around Ike. Lets say 50m/s for maneuvers for the Duna ship, and 180 (call it 200 to have a margin) for your Ike lander to go into a low circular orbit. The Duna ship so far needs 1150 m/s to get into a low circular Dunar orbit, and the Ike ship needs 1300 to get into a low orbit around Ike. Now your Ike lander needs about 800 m/s to land on Ike and return to an orbit of Ike. From there it needs about 200 m/s to get into a low duna orbit... you may not want to bother with orbital rendezvous around Ike to save 200 m/s, but you could (I'd recommend just leaving a fuel tank with a docking port in orbit, no need to duplicate power, command, and control functions) So, 2300 from LKO for your Ike ship to get to Ike, land on it, and then go to Duna where it can rendezvous with your Duna ship. Meanwhile, your Duna ship needs 1150 to get into LDO. A lander would need... maybe 100 m/s for propulsive breaking, and lets say 1500 for ascent, so 1,600. So, if it was a transfer and lander stage by itself, 2750 m/s to get to the surface of duna, and back to orbit. From LDO, you need about 750 m/s to get back to Kerbin (about 570 m/s to get back from low Ike orbit, but you havea contract to redezvous in Duna orbit). So, to one of your ships, add 750 m/s. Lets say you add it to your Duna craft. Then a Direct Ascent profile for duna (with aerobraking) would need 3,500 m/s. And a direct ascent profile for Ike> Duna rendezvous would need 2300 m/s. I don't know how inclined the orbit you need at Ike is, but lets add 400 m/s for that: 3,500 for the Duna direct ascent, 2,700 for the Ike direct ascent> Duna rendezvous Your duna craft can be lighter if you do an orbital rendezvous, in which case your craft to go to LDO and back needs just 1150+750= 1900 m/s, with the first 1150 done with the Duna lander attached, and the next 750 m/s done without the duna lander. All these numbers are, of course, after reaching LKO

Well, we have plenty of relativisitic collisions from subatomic particles that have no problem interacting... I don't see how some events not being simultaneous from certain reference frames would allow it to pass through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle

BOTE? The ladder paradox isn't really relevant here. In the ladder paradox, the only relevant length contraction is along the direction of motion, so if that was the case, we'd still have a very very thin, but 5m wide disk hitting the earth... or a 0.2nm thick disk-Earth hitting the sphere

Isn't the lenght contraction only along the axis of motion? So you'd have a 5m diameter very flat disk (very flat = proton thickness)... and likewise the Earth would appear to still be the sam idameter, but 0.8 nm thick, no? That should still register as a collision, I would think

@MechBFP yea, but I don't understand why people think anything would have changed. Nate was and still is the creative director or whatever his title is. If T2 wasn't making him put in microtransactions before, why would they now? If anything, they have set themselves back and gutted the team to half of what it was, and are more vulnerable to someone refusing to go along with their bad ideas. To add new microtransaction bs would just prolong the development further. Besides, KSP isn't a game that lends itself to that, other than stupid cosmetic skins, which I would find annoying but irrelevant. And his statement doesn't rule out a bunch of small overpriced DLCs like one finds on the sims or City skylines

I think its meant to be used with the turbofans, and thus isn't intended for high speed designs. The high speed alternatives are the ram air intakes and the shock cone intakes.

I get the feeling that @Nate Simpson's post was an attempt at damage control due to the bloomberg article, but given that he just made one post, and hasn't responded with any follow up, I don't think its been particularly effective. I suspect those that are satisfied with what he said already weren't concerned by the bloomberg article, and no minds have been changed.

Wait, so KSP does computer wingspan, and it does matter for aerodynamic drag or L/D? Higher wingspan = better in KSP?

Its not that hard... I count 26 hitchhikers (13 on one side) , 2 cockpits, and 1 crew cabin. 26x4+2x1+1x3= 109 Kerbals

Why the interest in 1.2.2 specifically though?

Working more on my Rald world with an unoffical kopernicus recompile... for some reason the recompile doesn't work in combination with sigma dimensions: 1x, the ground is where the ground appears 3x, the ground is not where it appears, and often does not properly update the level of detail, making water the only safe landing place: But once kopernicus is officially out, I think things will be looking pretty nice: But I'm not super happy with the "sand dunes" texture appearing so high up, especially at 3x, one doesn't really get the appropriate sense of scale.

Well, As warned, I was using a recompile, and it seemed to work at 1x, but it does not work with Sigma's Dimension rescale mod... So just a warning to those that think a simple recompile is all that's needed. works at 1x: Not 3x:

Well, later in career, with the tech tree maxed, I go full Science->funds conversion, and start doing what I want and not what contracts say. I may set it as my own mission I suppose, it would take a bit more electrical power that way, and at the moment I'm not sure if I cover more distance climbing at 10-15 degrees (varies with altitude) to 11km, or at 60 degrees to Apoapsis (I suppose I could od the math, but while the initial ascent is at 60, it does decrease as I get higher, and curvature starts to become significant). The margins are enough that I think I could replace the 26 batteries (each 0,2 tons) for 14-16 fuel cells (0.24 tons each, + fuel) -at max consumption, 1 fuel cell can't feel 1 heavy rotor... but I should still have some batteries to meet peak demand, and to allow for moderate lenght flights without using fuel. Well, I didn't look closely at astrobonds service bay trick... are the blades entirely within the bay, or just enoughto get shielded? In the latter case, I'd compare it more to a folding prop. For your form fitting rationalization, I would also go with that. If you see my motor units, they are clipped in fairings. I offset the motors, build the fairing at 1.25 meter diameter, then move the motors (with blades) back down in line. The result is the motor is shielded, the blades are not. I just feather the blades to 90 degrees for the rocket portion. I rationalize this similarly. Its not like the contra rotating props on a Tu-95 have 2 motors with blunt ends seperate from the nacelles. This image (already posted) should illustrate what I did: On the 1st design (the single kerbal shuttle), this makes a lot of aerodynamic surfaces up front, and it becomes difficult to handle... basically impossible without thrust vectoring. It does help get the carrier to high AoA on reentry, and get it to slow down without burning up (I put deployment to 0, not 90, for reentry, maximum drag). The 2nd design I have the rotors farther back (dry CoM moved forward by not having the orbiter attached + by having some engines at hte front the the craft), so that it is much more aerodynamically stable when the blades are set to 90, an dits under rocket power It also affects heating, if I'm not mistaken. It also affects lever arms, and can make craft sturdier by having forces torque attachments less. It also makes craft more compact to avoid breaking things on landing. There was also this one: Which he says he uses part clipping in fairings: "As drag is a major issue with getting up to Eve orbit, several measures have been taken to minimize drag: ... many fuel tanks have been clipped inside a fairing."

There was space in the fairings, and I wouldn't need to keep reserve fuel for the flight back. The single kerbal shuttle did use solar panels, and the cargo shuttles did use a pair of fuel cells to extend flight time

I support procedural wings I don't have problems with some amount of procedural parts. We already have part variants like the structural tube which has variable mass and size. Payload fairings didn't wreck the game either. Thanks, strictly speaking, I play 3x, not 3.2... but I avoid mod parts to maintain a point of reference with what I see in other designs, and to avoid a problem that I think mods can cause. I set myself a challenge, and try to solve it with the tools available. So I will mod the kerbol system to change the challenge, but I don't want to veat the challenge by just downloading a potentially imbalanced mod part. These sort of balance questions are why I would want new parts from squad, as a standard of what is or isn't too heavy. I can always manually rescale wings, and change values to whatever I want, but then I risk beating the challenges by just modding the parts to be better... So, I would like to stay stock for the craft, and mod the planets and such.

There are no fallacies in my post, but your reply has quite a few. #1) yes, there is no dedicated ballast parts, but that has been that way from the beginning, I don't know why you bring it up, it does nothing to support the assertion that squad did things "to keep players from engaging in this activity" #2) I don't follow Manley so closely, what does an "air valve ramjet" have to do with submarines? #3) don't you mean that it couldn't be stored, not drained? The primary reason for that, if I had to guess, was to stop people from storing intake air, and using jets in space. (you used to be able to get into a stable orbit using only jets by doing this). #4) iirc, it wasn't a crush depth, so much as a kraken attack depth, which is a different thing #5) you have not addressed the fact that they give you an option to turn off pressure limits, so they intentionally still allow it.

It is very likely that you will be protected against reinfection for around a year, possibly 2-3. After that, you should have a couple years of protection against severe reinfection, but admittedly, this is extrapolation without experimental confirmation. Severity of symptoms seems to correlate with the level of neutralizing antibodies after infection, so if it has hit you bad, you are probably going to have a pretty good immunity for a while. Its those asymptomatic individuals that may be fertile breeding ground for the virus again in only a matter of several months... or so we think based on preliminary studies and studies of the previous common coronaviruses.lockquote widget

My concern is not for the game, but for the actions of the company that I would be giving money if I bought the game. Do you have any second thoughts about (from what I've seen) the stronger criticism of the metallichydrogen engines? Will there be techs of comparable performance based on sound science, such as pebble bed/liquid core/gas core NTRs? Do you still think Minmus is made of Ice? These are the things that raised red flags for me about the game. This latest news raises red flags about the company. Combine the two, and I may just keep playing KSP1 instead.

An NDA normally applies to employees, so I don't expect Nate in the "Hi Everyone" thread to be able to give details. That sort of NDA would not prevent TTI from releasing their own statement approved by management. There could also be an NDA between the companies of TTI and Star Theory... but if so Star Theory has already violated it- their employees spoke about it for the bloomberg piece. Also if ST is now defunct, it may also be void. I'm not buying it. Even if there was an NDA, given that the allegation has been made, they could at least issue a vague denial without giving specifics ("We do not feel that the story reported in Bloomber news accurately portrays the facts, but cannot comment on it further") - but they (so far) haven't. Its highly suspicious.

Who needs a KSP2? There was this game Operation Flashpoint that was an unexpected hit from a small devloper, which was partnered with the Publisher codemasters. Things between the two went south, Codemasters had the rights to the name "Operation Flashpoint" they made a sequel, but the franchise is dead... I don't care. The small developer made a "spiritual successor", named Armed Assault (Aka, Arma), and the Arma franchise continues to this day. If TTI is unethical, and if there is a boycott that works, all that happens is the name KSP dies out. The market for such a game does not die out. The Simple Rockets devs could fill the void. Former Squad and Star theory (the non-poached ones) employees, prominent modders, could collaborate on a new spiritual successor, taking... I don't know a mod name as the new franchise name: "Beyond Home" or something. The message it would send is that there is a market for space similation games, but that particular customer base cares more about ethics than sports franchise fans... or whatever. A boycott only fails to achieve results if the customers collectively make it fail. That said, I'm still open to hearing TTI's side of this, and I'd rather not wait for a "spiritual successor".

Yea, my feeling is that if they had a defense, they would present it. "Pleading the 5th", as Americans say, is often not a very good look when addressing the public. The only time I really accept it is when there's a nosy police officer asking questions that aren't any of his business.