KerikBalm

I'd just like to hear about the custom systems that other people play with (in addition to the common modded systems like JNSQ, OPM, etc). Here's mine: Sigma dimensions rescaling: from 3x to 6.25x (no atmosphere rescaling, 1x atmosphere for Kerbin is proportionately way too thick, and doesn't stop being that way until you get to 7 or 8x rescale); Terrain height: 0.5 rescale for 3x or 4x, 0.35 rescale for 6.25x (net 2.1875x higher mountains) Sun: radius decreased to be proportionately closer to our sun, surface gravity increased (so that it has the same mass) Moho: Surface G increased to 0.38G Eve - gravity: 0.91 G; radius: 570 km radius before rescale (0.95 that of Kerbin), Atmosphere: surface pressure starts at 20 ATM instead of 5 (most rockets have VERY bad ISP at sea level. Finding a tall mountain- which may be 1.5 to 2.2x higher with the rescale, is very important, or using props. The atmosphere is still only 90km high) Kerbin - Science multipliers buffed a bit, geysers, bassalts, volcanic rocks, iceberg surface features added, to partially make up for the loss of Minmus Mun - Moved to where Minmus would normally be, science multipliers buffed to those of stock Minmus Minmus - moved to an orbit similar to that of Dres, science multipliers buffed slightly Duna: shallow seas added, gravity increased to 0.37 G, now orbits "Rald" Rald: New planet, uses Mars' heightmap, has oceans, 0.53 G, O2 atmosphere (0.2 Atms), 450km radius before rescale Ike, put in a distant orbit around Rald-Duna (considering kicking it out entirely, to keep Dres and Minmus company) Dres: radius and surface G decreased to be closer to that of Ceres (I forget how much though) Jool: surface G increased to 2.5G, to be more like Jupiter Jools' moons - scaled down to be proportionately closer to their analogues (I forget how much though, I think Tylo and Layth have hteir surface G reduced to something like 0.3 G, and their radius down to 2/3 or half....) Eeloo: No change I'm somewhat interested in adding OPM on top of this, but honestly, OPM on top of a rescale ensures that I will abandon a save before any mission I launch to an outer planet gets there - except on my single mission sandbox saves.

I just started a 6.25x rescaled career* game, with stock parts**... Every launch requires getting the payload to orbital velocity, which is just shy of 6,000 m/s. Then to go anywhere, the payload needs 2.5x more dV. The payout multiplier is 1x. Without reusability, it would be very hard to make a profit from any contract. * Its a custom career, I edited my file to give me funds and science to unlock/upgrade everything, and then re-edited my funds to have just 25k funds, and 0 science. Then I realized that I forgot to upgrade the mission control center ** Well, stock at the start, I'm using KRnD, so the science I do earn goes into buffing the stats of the stock parts (more fun, IMO, than just using the science to funds "strategy"). Still, I make sure that my launchers work with 100% stock parts (I'm getting >40 tons to orbit with 100% recovery - just fuel and payload fairing costs), and the upgrades are just gravy/save time by allowing me to do in one launch what previously would take 2.

So, I abandoned my 4x rescale game.... to try a 6.25x scale game. I had previously tried a reusable 3x launcher on 6.4x without payload, and found that it worked pretty well - so it was no surprise that my >105 ton launcher for 4x worked well on 6.25x (doing 6.25x rather than 6.4x because its a nice even 2.5x multiplier to orbital periods, and thus its easy to change rotation periods to maintain tidal locking). First attempt got to orbit, but I failed the reentry of the first stage: (apologies for everything at night) Before tryin again, I made a small scal probe launcher for 6.25x: It also didn't survive re-entry... it was squirly, and flew worse than my large plane... I didn't bother to try again (I will later), instead, I went ot have another shot at the heavy launcher: Anyway, the end result was the 2nd stage got to orbit with over 40 tons of spare fuel, and there was a good margin between when the 2nd stage achieved orbit, and when I needed to get back to the first stage, so I think this 100% recoverable system should work for a career game at 6.25x: Heck, that 2nd stage could even do a munar flyby I think... Anyway, I am thinking of doing a career game where I start with all tech unlocked, all buildings unlocked. Then I will install KRND, and use science to upgrade parts... KRND in stock solar system is just ridonculously OPd, but I think at 6.25x, it should be a good balance.

Except that makes no sense, for reasons KSP should have taught you.

In that loose definition, an Orion drive is nuclear thermal as well. It's mainly about how you define the term. I don't think that the way you use it is the way it is commonly understood/used. I would define it as using a fuel in a nuclear reactor (fission or fusion) to heat a separate propellant. If there is no added propellant, then it's just a direct fission/fusion drive -still even that criteria has Orion drives in, as the shaped charges have added reaction mass, they aren't just pure cores of fissionable material with practically 100% fission efficiency. But it does seem hard to make a definition that includes a nuclear salt water rocket, but excludes an Orion drive

At 3-4x scale, with much bigger rockets/spaceplanes needed to get to orbit, and bigger payloads needed once in orbit, the Rhino finds a lot of use with me. Even at 1x, its useful for ejection stages for large spacecraft (reusable ejection stages that refeul from ISRU too) Well, in a niche case, combined with Pilot kerbals, it can serve as a control point allowing multiple hops, as opposed to direct connections. So it sometimes finds it way onto my space stations/motherships/ground bases on/around other planets.

Based on my 3x rescale 2 stage recoverable planes: I have made 4x rescale, 1x atmosphere, 2 stage to orbit reusable planes, 105 tons to orbit Payload goes on top now, but I will make a smaller fully reusable version with a mk3 cargobay, where the 1st and snd stages can dock on the ground, and be refueled by ISRU... in case I want to run an "alien space program" at 4x, and I need a self sufficient shuttle for Kerbin that doesn't rely on decouplers or payload fairings or the VAB/SPH to be able to have stage 1 and 2 joined: old 3x version of what I'm talking about: This one barely got off the ground at the end of the runway, so more wings were called for. ^Just before lighting the 2nd stage motor, and switching the rapiers into closed cycle mode^ It can get faster in level flight, but I need to to get high enough, long enough for the 2nd stage to get to orbit, so losing a couple hundred m/s horizontal velocity on stage 1 is worth it for a higher apoapsis. Launched a Keosynchronous relay in the meantime, to give constant coverage over the ocean east of KSC, so the next launch was at night: LF to Ox ratio needs some adjusting, last time I arrived back over KSC with over 5k LF left, and plenty of speed and altitude to go much farther even with engines off. That would help to get the Ap higher, as in the end, it was getting close. I didn't have much time to spare between when my 2nd stage got to orbit, and when the 1st stage was reentering and about to be deleted by the game: thankfully, the mod also redoes heating, otherwise... reentering at 4,700 m/s? forget about it The much slower 1st stage got hot, but it worked out: Note that the first stage is reentering at what would be orbital velocity at 1x. This 2 stage spaceplane would easily SSTO in stock. I forget what the mass of the 2nd stage rocket is, but the final payload is over 100 tons, so this is essentially a 1x SSTO with a few hundred ton payload capacity In this 4x game, I am going to try to avoid using robotics because of the robotic drift bug, with some exceptions: Craft for going around kerbin, that can recover and relaunch from the VAB/SPH. Craft that use robotics just once to unfold, and then lock their robotics in place. Craft that can be rebuilt exactly as before using an engineer, and node attachments (meaning small craft/robotic sections due to restraints on the size of the parts that engineers can build with) Craft with relatively low part counts, that aren't too inconvenient to keep a file for each of them, so I can text edit away the drift if it becomes a problem

No, it doesn't get you any better, not really. Both fission and fusion thermal drives would be limited by how hot you can make that hydrogen passing by the reactor and out of a nozzle, without melting the nozzle/engine. Solid core NTR is way outperformed by open cycle gas core, not because one fission reaction is more energetic than another, but because one way can reach higher propellant temperature without melting. For a thermal rocket, Fusion or fission can provide plenty of energy, the mass of the nuclear fuel won't be relevant, just the method of heating the propellant. In that case, fission actually had many benefits How so? Then it's not really what people would call a thermal rocket. It's not heating a propellant with energy from a separate fuel

Need to upload pics, but I've decided to move on from a 3x rescaled system (1.25x atmosphere thickness) ... to 4x rescaled system. ~4800 m/s in low orbit is no joke... My old 3x 2 stage reusable launcher ceased working, because I needed the first stage to get to a proportionately higher velocity (in order to have enough "hang time" for the 2nd stage to get to orbit), and hte arliner wings just couldn't take the heat (they barely could at 3x). So the airliner wings had to be replaced with shuttle wings... and I ended up doing a complere redesign (2nd stage stayed pretty much the same). Got a 105 ton payload into orbit, and safely got my plane down. A few issues were noticed: * lack of an antenna + lack of a proper relay network+plasma blackout+ occlusion settings often resulted in no control signal- antenna added, and a relay network needs to be launched * Thrust imbalance during late stages of 1st stage burn due to the COM shifting, due to the payload being mounted a bit on top of the carrier plane, to be solved by an action group shutting down some engines. As it was, I needed to cycle the carrier planes engines while the 2nd stage's engines were firing (crossfeed design) to keep it somewhat on track * Excess oxidizer carried by the carrier planefor what was needed to get to orbit. Of course, it probably could have supported a launch of a heavier payload, but then even more LF would be needed. As it was I was already using one of these: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mk3_Liquid_Fuel_Fuselage_Long I really don't want to have to add one of these: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mk3_Liquid_Fuel_Fuselage Normally I wouldn't want to use either, but the switch from airliner wings to shuttle wings has made part count an issue if I want to just add more "wet wings" to achieve the desired fuel capacity.

Technically, thermonuclear Orion drives are mostly fusion drives, they can certainly lift you off the surface

https://firefly.fandom.com/wiki/G-23_Paxilon_Hydrochlorate Its bad stuff... I hope KSP2 doesn't give people exposed to the Pax a way to travel not only from world to world, but from star to star... that would be very very bad... Oh wait, that's a different Pax...

But for gameplay purposes, what you see above is not identical for L4 and L5, unless you match SMAs exactly down to every digit of precision. That limited dynamic stability does make a difference. Also, the need to get close to the points makes them distinct, in the current situation, you don't have L3, L4, and L5 points, you have an "L-Ring". I don't think that's the same as far as gameplay, even if it is the same at the precise points, the lack of differentiation of those points from the rest of the ring is something different, and that difference means there is no longer any gameplay significance to those 3 points. How will this work exactly? putting in attractors will result in naked singularities inviting all sorts of crazy oberth maneuvers, even if you make them "weak", because they are still singularities, with infinite gravity as one gets close to the source. One thing I do in KSP for L4 and L5, is to put actual bodies there, preventing naked singularities, even if the body is smaller than Gilly. But this doesn't even work for L1 and L2, as the bodies (and associated gravity wells) are on rails according to patched conics, and the patched conics system won't have them stay in the same position relative to their body. I can put a Trojan asteroid at Jools L3, L4 or L5 points, I can't put a similar asteroid at Jool's L1 or L2 points, because that asteroid won't stay at the L1 or L2 point. And of course, having a small asteroid at every lagrange point is going to look silly (even if you manage to fix the system so that the asteroids can orbit to stay in quasi L1/L2, by having them each on a different gravity "layer"/ having them pulled stronger/weaker by the primary body), which brings you to the naked singularity... which I suppose you could maybe try to have an SOI of zero gravity inside an SOI of some gravity, so instead of hitting a body's surface or continuing to a singularity, you change SOIs to a zero grav zone... but this would require changing the SOI system specially in these cases so that yu transition to an SOI whose gravity should not be dominant... These solutions are all very messy, and not so simple to implement. However, I think that the choice is not just full N-body physics, or patched conics. Surely we can ignore the mass of the spacecraft. In this case, for a system like Rask and Rusk, its just a standard 2 body problem for the massive bodies: patched conics works fine. For something like the Kerbolar system, I fully expect everything to remain on rails, treated as a series of 2 body problems. This doesn't mean that our spacecraft, whose gravitational effects can be safely ignored, has to use patched conics of N-body all the time: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/three-body-problem I haven't read up on this subject in detail recently, but its my understanding that with this simplication, a general solution can be found. Its not N-body physics, but its not going ot be just conic sections either.

Well, if they put Rask and rusk on rails orbiting the barycenter, it's not true n-body physics. I don't know if a precise solution for craft orbits is possible in this case, where the 2 other bodies are unaffected by the changing positions, and have perfectly predictable orbits. At least if not, it will simplify the calculations

The dV margins are indeed higher, that's a good thing, did you mean the dV requirements? The distance is insignificant compared to interplanetary and interstellar travel. Use reaction whhels, and why would I be driving much at the colony, particularly with automated supply runs? I think the grav is too low in either case you matter - duna grav is my threshold. Plus it's not that hard to make centrifuges in KSP2 My main reason: because I will move Minus to have an orbit similar to that of Dres, and I will put Mun where Minmus was. My first colony won't be farther away than Duna, for sure

I was all prepared to be very negative about this post, but those proposals are fine by me, but they all look like they are from the lapatian analogie of the tetrapod clade... You still have a lot of niches to flesh out.... Including their aquatic precursors. I would look to the seals, mudskippers, and icythostega for inspiration for an alternative transition mode. Two for limbs for pulling the body, and then moving up the rear of the body, kind of like an inchworm.

Faulty reasoning above, for example, Phobos only has about 50 million years left. ^this Given how close they seem to be (perspective can be deceptive), they would need to rotate quite fast. I suspect that they may be mutually tidally locked (as with Duna-Ike), in which case, there should be no tendency to recede or get closer. If only one is tidally locked(as in the Earth-moon system, but I suspect that they would get closer, not farther) Isuspect that they are doomed.

Relevant to the topic I think: https://www.yahoo.com/news/student-accidentally-became-millionaire-cult-151446719.html

This really points out the absurdity of crypto currency.... I get the point, currency that is secure and can't be counterfeit... But it has no intrinsic value... it's absurd like paper money is relative to gold... but paper money has government backing, crypto has... nothing except reputation and fads... Dogecoin... Gimme a break

Oh yes, I support this. He said accelerating toward, not moving toward. An object in orbit is always accelerating toward the body it orbits. It's better to discuss convexity/concavity. All other moons have concavities in their orbit with respect to the sun, our moon doesn't. However, if you put earth-moon where Pluto is, you would observe a concavity, so I am not sure this is so relevant

There is a specific parameter that can be computed, the Stern-Levinson parameter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood Its actually a measure of how much it gravitationally dominates the orbit/"clearing" power. Trojans at L4 and L5 don't matter (Jupiter). Having another body in an orbital resonance doesn't matter (Neptune, Pluto is in an orbital resonance with it).

Just pointing it out: technically speaking, monopropellant, TNT, nitroglycerin, etc do no combust, they just very energetically decompose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_counterpressure_suit You'd need more than a face mask, human flesh swelling to 2x volume doesn't sound great... (bodybuilder rather than overfilled balloon though...) Evaporation would be much higher, doesn't seem like going out for a stroll on Mars wearing just one of these would be a good idea... but short excursions when neccessary, fine.

I think the inventory system in KSP 1 is enough, allowing kerbals to equip parachutes, extra tanks for RCS, etc

#1) We don't know what their "existing collection of germs" is because they took their database down shortly before the recognized start of the outbreak, and have kept it down since. Infecting the hACE2 receptor could be from splicing, if you have one such receptor to splice in. They were explicitly testing S protein modifications for their ability to infect mice expressing hACE2... so this could come from those deliberate modifications, or serial passage (ie evolution in a lab). Absolutely correct, that idea was nonsense Wuhan is a city, it hosts several research facilities doing research on coronaviruses. It has the largest collection of specimens, and is (was?) the world leader on CoV research This is absolutely false, it is located far away from any zoonotic reservoir of SARSr coronaviruses. If you aren't restricting your statement to SARSr-CoVs, then its absolutely false that its the "only" facility, because CoVs are everywhere, in the rodents of every city. Its hard to say what is the simplest explanation. Here's a few simple explanations: 1) The WIV was engaged in studies specifically meant to experimentally see if newly discovered/modified SARSr-CoVs could spillover into humans, using live virus... one of them could, and infected them too. 2) WIV researchers went looking for new potential pandemic pathogens to bring back to the WIV. They succeeded, and infected themself in the process. 3) The only known Sarbecovirus with a furin cleavage site, which broke out far from any natural reservoir in the same city as a lab which had earlier proposed systematically collecting Sarbeoviruses and adding furin cleavage sites to them, in fact came from that lab and not a distant reservoir. There are many flaws with this line of reasoning. It equally applies to the natural origin hypothesis. You can provide evidence for a mutually exclusive hypothesis. To date, there is no data specifically supporting a natural origin. You also have a flawed idea of what traces one would or would not be able to find if it was made in a lab. One cannot distinguish between natural recombination, and unnatural "splicing". One cannot distinguish between a natural virus, and a synthetic virus produced from the consensus sequence of multiple natural viruses (as the WIV proposed doing in a rejected 2018 grant - note rejected by one funding source does not mean that they didn't do it) There's also many intermediates between "engineered in a lab" and "completely natural". At one end of the scale, you have the scenario 2) above - where WIV researchers go looking for a natural virus, and get infected with it. The lab activity resulted in the spillover (bringing a novel virus to a dense population), but did not create the virus. Then you have possibilities like studies that we know were funded, where they were taking new SARSr-CoVs, and testing their hypothesis that S-gene divergence predicts spillover potential... by modifying S genes and seeing if they spilled over into cell culture or animal models. In this case, its a natural virus with just a few changes meant to anticipate what might naturally happen. If the goal of the research was to assess possible natural scenarios in the lab, then naturally the lab scenario looks like a natural scenario. Early on, thanks to leaked e-mails, we do know that multiple " of the many, many smart people examining it" found the furin cleavage site to be suspicious (but would not state so publicly). It is not found in any sarbecovirus (thus unlikely to arise by recombination, and requires insertion of 12 nucleotides, thus very unlikely to evolve in a single step). We know the WIV proposed systematically adding furin cleavage sites (same 2018 rejected grant application), and they have a publication history of adding furin cleavage sites to coronavirus spike proteins. But the SARS-CoV-2 site is sub-optimal you say? well so are the ones added in their previous publications, because they were aimed at assessing the minimal changes required for the natural virus to acquire the cleavage site. The facts we have: 1) The WIV has an extensive collection of un-discolosed SARSr-CoVs. 2) They have disclosed the 2nd closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 (96.14 % collected by the WIV in 2013 vs 96.85% collected elsewhere in 2021), in 2013, took an interest in that clade, and began repeatedly sampling that location over the following years 3) In 2018 they reported at least 2 novel bat SARSr-CoVs capable of infecting mice expressing hACE2, sequences undisclosed 4) In 2016, according to a grant report, they had 15 Bat SARSr-CoV isolates fully sequenced, with an undisclosed number not fully sequenced. 5) In 2018, they proposed systematically adding furin cleavage sites to SARSr-CoVs, and have a publication history of adding furin cleavage sites to CoV spike proteins 6) SARS-CoV-2 is the only known SARSr-CoV with a furin cleavage site, despite extensive study of SARSr-CoVs dating back to 2002 7) The closest known viruses in nature come from 1,500 km away from wuhan or more 8) No known natural virus is closer than 96.85% to SARS-CoV-2, so no animal reservoir has been identified 9) The WIV planned to synthesize consensus viruses from viral sequences with 95% or greater sequence similarity 10) The WIV had sequences with 95% or greater sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2 11) The wet-market was not the site of the initial outbreak (hundreds of animal samples tested negative, all sequences were from the B lineage, which split from the A lineage, so the A lineage or A-B precursor was spreading in wuhan before reaching the wetmarket)

Aside from opening/closing bay, you can just have your craft use rotors from BG, and RTGs for power. Anyway, recently I reformatted my computer and reinstalled windows, after a partial backup... lost some of my later KSP saves, particularly craft files. So I'm now redesigning recoverable 2 stage cargo spaceplanes for 3x kerbin (1.25x atmosphere). I'm trying to fix various flaws in my old design concept (I had invested a lot of tweaking into it to make it work well, but changing certain features would require a complete rebuild. It no longer has an underslung 2nd stage, as that required anhedral in the inner wing section, making it roll stable difficult. The upper stage is above, but that makes it difficult to have thrust balance while still having wide enough landing gear track. Getting thrust to balance as fuel is burned, and centered with the 2nd stage which is below the root of the craft (previously above), is a bit of a challenge. Another flaw was that I used the big airliner wings to keep part count down, but it limited the speed I could hit with the 1st stage, and that's suboptimal, so I'm using the "shuttle" wings as a leading edge to take the heat (while the rear wings are still the airliner). I use 12, which allows for removal of 6 airliner wings... net increase of 6 parts... allowable. And I made an even larger first stage carrier... boasting 61 rapiers instead of 41... and carrying a lot more fuel - part count still under 180 though... Looking to get 150 tons to orbit in 3x... previous designs had a 100 ton goal (but exceeded the goal, test payload was 102 tons of ore tanks, and had good margins)