KerikBalm

Wide track + ability to load and unload from a mk3 cargobay... fly for long distance travel, drive for short distance: Side docks for a wider track, while still fitting in the mk3 bay This speed is fine on Kerbin, but asking for trouble on Mun:

I would like such a feature... BG gives you some ability to do this with the KAL-1000 controller, but you have to set it up, it would be nice if SAS could do this. I have a similar set up with motor torque for quad copters (which previously I used for pitch, roll, and yaw, but now only for yaw since the 1.9 update with cyclic and collective control settings. You could set it up to adjust fore and rear engine thrust limits to trim your VTOL, or have a cruder mixing that goes along with the control inputs (default wasd), but then its binary. If your don't have breaking ground, you can do what I did, In the case of this VTOL, I would pre-adjust the thrust settings for the VTOL burn, using the VAB/SPH to estimate the right throttle setting... this requires a relatively small amount of CoM shift during the burn though Note the small 2nd engine plume on each side of the pic above, vs the full size plumes below... due to different fuel loads and payload Or what I did here (sorry, no good pics of the sytem: Just below the tri-cluster of Aerospikes, I have a vertically facing aerospike. Since its far from the CG, I would just have that part window open, and adjust the thrust limit slider as needed for trim... now i could just do it with an axis group (this was pre-axis groups). You can easily have your VTOLs balance controlled by just shifting the thrust of 1 engine. Just have 1 "balancing" engine. I liken it to the horizontal tailrotor on this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_XC-142

Antibody-Dependent-enhancement, as mentioned by Dragon 01: *with the caveat that he means reactive antibodies that don't have neutralizing activity... since the neutralizing antibodies that he mentioned are also reactive antibodies. Basically, antibodies that react to a virus, without neutralizing a virus (either they aren't binding and blocking a crucial site on a viral surface protein, which can often happen with antibodies to coronavirus spike proteins, or bind too weakly), have the possibility of being "bad"- now the "enhancement" part is rather vague. It may be the binding causes more of a host reaction that is not beneficial (the "cytokine storm" and inflammation of the lungs in SARS-CoV-2 patients could be an example of such a host reaction, but I am not saying that is due to ADE)... and then there's another mechanism, which also can use the acronym ADE Anti-body Dependent-Entry- this has been demonstrated in vitro for coronaviruses. They have this "spike" protein that in some cases will get cleaved after binding its target, which causes a conformational change, and it will extend one of its domains to "try" and insert into a cell membrane and then fuse the viral membrane with the host cell membrane to gain entry. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, it will normally fuse with cells after binding to ACE-2. If an Antibody binds to the ACE-2 binding site, it may cause the same conformational change as if the spike protein bound ACE-2, and the virus would then be primed to fuse with the next cell it comes into contact with... Since the cell is coated in antibodies, and immune cells will recognize and bind to the Fc portion of those antibodies infecting the virus, the immune cells themselves may get infected. Its been shown in vitro that addition of some antibodies that don't neutralize the fusion domain of Spike protein can cause the virus to stop infecting its normal targets, and start infecting immune cells.... at even higher levels in vitro (which I dont know if its even close to physiological conditions), then infection is again hindered, as all the viral receptors are bound by Ab, and the immune cells are saturated by Ab, and the virus just floats around not infecting anything until its no longer viable. Now, if this is occurring in vivo, its nothing like what HIV does (before you start draing any comparisons). In a study of common coronavirus done back in 85 or 90 (forget which paper it was right now), people (who were intentionally infected for the study) that developed symptoms (as many volunteers had recent exposure anyway, and some level of protection), had up to a 25% drop in their leukocyte count. In severe cases of SARS-CoV-2, they notice large drops of leukocyte counts (around 80% if I recall of the top of my head)... so... I don't know, maybe its going on... BUT! The study Dragon01 mentioned was measuring neutralizing antibodies, and not all recovered patients had them. They could still have had reactive antibodies which enhance their cellular immune response, without having antibodies that cause ADE, as the particular mechanism studied in vitro requires a specific sort of reactivity that mimics the spike protein binding to its ligand. NAbs may be the best defense, but they aren't the only defense, and just because you didn't find neutralizing activity in vitro, doesn't mean the individual is just as vulnerable as before exposure (and will shed just as much virus for just as long if reinfected)

Can they? if they could kill the active infection fast enough in the individual, then they certainly can. The question is... how long does it last? Certainly 1 femtosecond minute after the last virus particle/infected cell is killed... 1 minute./hour/day... pretty safe bet... weeks, months? Its also a false premise to say its somewhat more binary whether a person can infect others or not. When talking about herd immunity, we must look at the average number of individuals that will be infected by an infected individual. If this number falls below 1, the infection will go away in the populatiom. If its >1, then the outbreak grows in size, and if it hovers around 1, you get a pretty stable infection in your population. Of course, its not a fixed number, and it often varies with seasons, and the intensity of the last outbreak. Anyway.... If an individual gets infected, but the duration of viral shedding is shorter, and the viral titers are lower, then its follows that they are less infectious. Its not binary: infectious or not, but a question of: how infectious are they? If they are asymptomatic, this means they are unlikely to be sneezing and spreading the virus much by aerosol, but it also means they are likely to still be going out, meeting people, and taking no precautions, so the net effect is... hard to say. However, an asymptomatic individual with no prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2, vs. an asymptomatic individual with exposure to SARS-CoV-2, is likely to be shedding more virus, and for longer periods of time, making them more of a spreading risk.

I am well aware of this stuff, I happen to work for the virology department at a university hospital, which is also a WHO diagnostic reference lab. (Some of their papers have been cited in this thread) One point is that immunity is not really a binary condition, its always just varying levels of resistance. Even in individuals with NAbs, if the titer is insufficient, then you get infected. NAb activity is good, for sure - but these individuals had an infection, where viral load was increasing, so it wasn't the innate immune system that shut down the viral replication. The infection was stopped after a while, indicating some sort of adaptive immune response. If NAb isn't detected at any point during the infection, and the infection is defeated, it seems logical to conclude they had, at some point, immunity without NAb activity. This could be a T-cell response... And without the whole response spectrum, including NAbs, its likely not going to last as long, but its jumping the gun to say that they have none Our group is discussing the idea of vaccination of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals in particular, with the idea that they will have some immunity/ protection, but that it needs to be boosted for longer duration. Also, ADE has only been demonstrated in vivo for a few viruses lik dengue as far as I know, all the demonstration of ADE in coronavirus come from in vitro studies, without confirmation in vivo. Its a concern for sure, but lets not make the public think its hopeless. As for the reinfection question, again, had it actually been demonstrated, or could a few simple false negatives or false positives explain the results? Interesting article about T cell immunity https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3

Lift depends on angle of attack, a wings defined area, and velocity squated, except that the coefficient of lift changes with mach number, I don't know the exact formula used

I think you're reading too far into it. #1) As you note, there's no re-infection #2) They may still have cell mediated immunity without detectable levels of NAb in their serum #3) They measure NAb, which is neutralizing antibody, not necessarily reactive antibody. Reactive antibody could still possibly trigger recognition of infected cells, and have them killed before the cell releases virus. So... it does suggest a strong possibility of a lack of immunity, but it still must be regarded as unknown.

Saturn V loaded mass is nearly 3,000 tons. That's not light...

Citation? I've seen reports that mild cases seem to lend to lower antibody responses, but there are still no good studies on the risk of reinfection or duration of immunity, as far as I've seen.

Many have already assumed that the torchship engine the devs have mentioned must be an antimatter engine...

Halfway, assuming constant acceleration. You can get approximately this if craft mass hasn't changed much due to having an obscene Isp (thus consumed propellent is only a small % of starting mass).... you limit acceleration as your craft gets lighter.

Hmm, very interesting. The small hardpoint and structural pylon are very similar in design and appearance (just different sizes), does the small pylon behave like this too?

Yes, it can be a bit more efficient, but not 25% more Isp efficient. If there was still that much to be gained, they'd be using longer nozzles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detonation A detonation is "is a type of combustion involving a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. " The supersonic thing here is the combustion front. In either case, the pressure is generated by expanding gas, and the speed of the gas is related to the temperature and MW of the exhaust. Sure, if you want to be very general... but I can then say an orion drive is the same concept as a propeller, because they push mass backwards to move something forward. As to why I don't see this as the same concept: #1) An orion drive uses a shaped charge explosive, this does not #2) An orion drive has the explosive set off outside and well away from the craft, this has the "explosion" inside the craft Also, please note that the definition of a detonation is a supersonic combustion front, and it doesn't really apply ot the case of a nuclear chain reaction (which is not combustion). So if you use the term "detonation" as a synonym with explosion, then the Orion drive involves a detonation, but then many engines meet this general definition. This specific engine invovles the more technical definition of detonation... a supersoinc combustion front, which does not apply to nuclear explosions. So you compare an internal detonation to an external shaped charge explosion... not all that similar. Its still a chemical reaction, for which the energy of the reaction is well known. The theoretical maximum Isps from such reactions are well known. Given that we known that our engines get much more than 80% of the way towards the maximum possible Isp from such chemical reactions, there isn't room for a 25% improvement. To have such an improvement would be to create a free-energy device/to violate the conservation of energy.

Are you on 1.9?

No, its not the same basic idea. And 25% higher Isp is way too much. It could lose less to atmosphere, but in the end all it achieves is a higher compression ratio, and should not change vacuum Isp with an optimal nozzle. I'd give such qn engine a twr or atm Isp perk, not a flat +25% Isp boost

At best, the evidence is non existent. At worst the evidence disproves it, but not with 100% certainty. There is no evidence in favor of that supposition. No: I think you want us to accept that near future engines are in KSP2... And I do. The problem is that if a metallic hydrogen engine will never work, its not near future and not even distant future.

Switch the orbits and science multipliers of mun and minmus. That arrangement would be better for the progression of new players. Maybe do more than swap the science multipliers, and give mun an additional buff and minmus an additional nerf. But in my 1.8 system with kopernicus, I put mun where minmus normally is, and put minmus out in an orbit similar to that of dres

@Stevex Your links do not support your earlier statements. Your last link doesn't even relate to measuring gravity at all. You said: Your link says: Now, sure, if that is wrong, that would be interesting, but nowhere in there do they suppose or predict that antimatter would be repulsed by normal matter. You even post a link with this: So the preliminary results seem to suggest that antimatter and normal matter behave the same/very similar... although this one also is not measuring gravity either. The closest your links come is saying: This still doesn't get to the supposition that antimatter and normal matter repel each other. So, 2 out of 4 of your links don't relate to gravity, one is just a lay article describing the experiment in the other link. That link has the assumption that gravity will affect matter and antimatter equally (although it would still be nice to say). One of the linked papers in your links cites this: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2787 And the first line of the introduction is quite nice: Yea, that's a lot of citations already... Anyway, you have failed to justify your earlier statements

Deformable terrain would be cool, even if its just dynamically changing the heightmap rather than being a true voxel system

Well, yea, I think the discussion with @Northstar1989 is rather unproductive, we play at different scales, with different part mods, in different atmosphere models. We agree that larger jet engines can reduce part count. Larger or procedural wings would also decrease part count, and I would love them as well.

@Nightside As far as I know, you can only define latitude, longitude, and altitude ranges... not biomes... I know, it dissappoints me too. However, for the surface features added by breaking ground, you define those by biome

Stopped doing just recoverable 2 stage to orbit cargo spaceplanes for 3x kerbin, started to do 100% reusable 2 stage cargo space planes Now I need kopernicus to update so I can actually test it on 3x instead of 1x with stats that indicate it should probably work on 3x.

Well, I think its because they have the ocean at a certain depth, and then they paint the ice caps on in the height map, and the result is a sharp change in height. Heightmaps are composed of pixels. Sometimes its not that bad, and you can do procedural noise overlays to hife the pixellation a bit... Like I don't think this looks too pixelated: but earlier versions with no noise overlap you could definitely notice pixelation: Now if the area doesn't have noise, of the transition is very sharp that the noise can't mask it, you get noticable pixellation. They did a very sharp heighmap transition for the poles, I'm guessing 1 pixel of the heightmap... so, yea, that's what you get.

I can get to orbit in stock with 3.2 km/s... 3.5 to 4 .... Especially 4, is a large overestimate Also, you said: " with gravity-losses being 2.5x as much (sqrt 6.4 is 2.5)"... but that's 2.5 as much as 1x, you had previously said: "roughly 2x the Delta-V requirements of 3.2x" Now, aero losses will go up more because of the V^2 relationship of drag. take a 4x system, your orbital velocity increases by 2x. If your rocket is designed to have the same drag at the same speed for a given air density (and Isp and TWR increase proportionately), then the force of drag goes up by 2^2. So my intution is that 3x has roughly 3x the aero losses, 6.4x has roughly 6.4x the aero losses (but going to FAR will change that relative to stock). Orbital velocity increases by root(3) or root(6.4)... thus the total change in velocity needed (which is dV, after all) goes up by that much, but you have more losses. On top of that, if you aren't playing with some mods that increase part performance (most stock KSP parts are underpowered), you will probably end up packing on more fuel, and having a lower TWR (more gravity losses)... and if you try to get around that, due to limited thrust to cross section ratios (although vectors are by far the best), your cross section and thus drag goes up. Anyway, its complicated, and it depends a lot on your flight profile. Its even worse for spaceplanes when considering the *closed cycle* dV needed. In 1x, suppose you get to 1,800 m/s orbital on airbreathers... you're now about 550 m/s away from orbital. In 3x, you'll have a bit more ground speed, (but also a heavier plane that won't get as high), lets be generous and say that you reach 2,000 m/s orbital... thats still 2100 m/s shy of orbit... a roughly 4x increase in closed-cycle dV. And that dV is a lot harder to come by at 305-340 Isp, than from airbreathers at 3200-4000 Isp. Being so much farther below orbital velocity, you now also need much more lift to maintain altitude, and much more lift for all that extra closed cycle fuel you need to carry, this means a lot more drag at the same speed, and then you'll need to accelerate faster to get up higher. That's why I switched to high TWR airbreathers that do a 30 degree or so zoom-climb/parabolic trajectory after hitting their power band... climb up and out of the soup, go closed cycle and keep pushing, get the Ap up, and then release the 2nd stage. 2nd stage gets into a stable orbit, and one can switch back to the 1st stage before it falls back into the atmosphere. Fully reusable with a better payload fraction than an SSTO, much faster time to orbit, and much higher TWR - no LV-Ns. Of course, the disadvantage is that you need to recover not one, but 2 spaceplanes... and the 1st stage spaceplane needs to do a 180 back in the atmosphere, and fly back to base (with its much lower wing loading at this point, and its already high TWR, it cruises back at over 1700 m/s surface