GalaxySpace - A method of interstellar travel.

[daniel l.]

Interstellar travel has been a difficult subject of the community for a while now. But i think i have an idea that could work. The game currently has 3 dimensions to behavior: Scaledspace, Localspace, And Interiorspace. This together makes the Kerbol solar system. But scaledspace has its limits, Especially in extrasolar distances. So my suggestion would be a 4th Dimension added, Called Galaxyspace. Galaxyspace would be similar to scaled in that it consists of small scale objects magnified and used as a background for objects in local. Except Galaxyspace would be the background for scaled, It would replace the skybox, And make it possible to view distant stars.

So how would this make travel easier? 

Ignore the bottom line on that picture for now, Focus on the top, You can see metaphorically that every planet has its own local region in space as any kopernicus coder will tell you, Its called an SOI but its really a separate unity scene that the spacecraft transitions into upon arrival. Then you have the solar system, Or scaledspace as we currently know it, Its a separate unity scene containing small scale models of the planets, Scaled up 6000x and used as a background, But current scaledspace is local to kerbol, Imagine if every separate star had its own scaledspace for its system, This scaledspace would be unloaded from memory until needed.

Another worry is that the game might not be able to do the extreme travel times due to floating point error and time warp levels, You fix this by not bothering to actually have scaled space between systems, Instead you render the distances in galaxyspace, And upon exiting a system, The scaledspace will unload and the ship will remain in a bubble of local space to allow maneuvers along the way.

The next problem would be time, The simple solution to that would be to add a new level of time warp, As well as a new engine, With far higher efficiency than even ion engines, This thruster would have a very small thrust amount but would continue the function even on time warp allowing acceleration for the whole journey. The acceleration would work not by accelerating the ship itself but by speeding the movement of the local bubble within galaxy space

The final worry would be RAM restrictions on universe size, This could be fixed by keep all planets and moons of each system unloaded until arrival into the system.

[RA3236]

Oh... My... Great idea!

[daniel l.]

3 hours ago, RA3236 said:

Oh... My... Great idea!

Thanks

[Nich]

I don't even want to think about plotting maneuvers between star systems.  I have enough trouble with the kerbol system.

[daniel l.]

Not really @Nich, with the distance between stars the individual SOI's should be huge.

Edited March 2, 2016 by daniel l.

[Whirligig Girl]

While your description of how KSP's planet and space systems work is pretty darn inaccurate, I do think it is a pretty good idea that could work. Also: Kopernicus planet makers write config, not code.

[Joco223]

That would be very interesting  Could a modder do that by himself with help of additional mods or is it something that need to be implemented by SQUAD to work?

Edited March 2, 2016 by Joco223

[Nich]

But don't most galaxies revolve around a central mass of stars or a super massive black hole?  Even if the SOI's are huge .001 m/s at kerbin means 1 m/s at kerbins SOI which means 1000 m/s at kerbols SOI which could throw off your approach by billions of km. Not to mention now you can only launch once a year but you also now have to hit the transfer windows from solarsystem to solarsystem.  I am not sure how fast galaxies spin but I would guess transfer windows would be trillions of years apart.  Any engines capable of this will absolutely break travel around the Kerbol system.  Any engine capable of this transfer off window would make anything in the kerbol system equivalent to making it down the runway.

The only way I see galaxies working are worm holes.  The wormhole generator or star gate is 10 parts weighting 400t apiece that need to be assembled in space.  You could even have different classes of wormholes able to transport different masses of ships.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Nich

[Kerbalstar]

Awesome idea.

[KSP Bro AE]

MUST BE IMPLIMENTED!

[daniel l.]

8 hours ago, Nich said:

But don't most galaxies revolve around a central mass of stars or a super massive black hole?  Even if the SOI's are huge .001 m/s at kerbin means 1 m/s at kerbins SOI which means 1000 m/s at kerbols SOI which could throw off your approach by billions of km. Not to mention now you can only launch once a year but you also now have to hit the transfer windows from solarsystem to solarsystem.  I am not sure how fast galaxies spin but I would guess transfer windows would be trillions of years apart.  Any engines capable of this will absolutely break travel around the Kerbol system.  Any engine capable of this transfer off window would make anything in the kerbol system equivalent to making it down the runway.

The only way I see galaxies working are worm holes.  The wormhole generator or star gate is 10 parts weighting 400t apiece that need to be assembled in space.  You could even have different classes of wormholes able to transport different masses of ships.

Actually you would have very little calculation. Because the galaxy is so large that the orbital velocities of the outer stars would be nearly nothing at all. Meaning you only need to point and burn.

[problemecium]

Sounds not too dissimilar from SpaceEngine's loading method. The obstacle is that restructuring KSP's game framework around a fourth spatial scale would be extremely time-consuming - on the scale of an entire version update. While I for one would be fine with an entire development cycle devoted to this, I feel like a lot of forumites would rage about not getting any new parts or bugfixes.

[Clockwork13]

8 hours ago, Nich said:

But don't most galaxies revolve around a central mass of stars or a super massive black hole?  Even if the SOI's are huge .001 m/s at kerbin means 1 m/s at kerbins SOI which means 1000 m/s at kerbols SOI which could throw off your approach by billions of km. Not to mention now you can only launch once a year but you also now have to hit the transfer windows from solarsystem to solarsystem.  I am not sure how fast galaxies spin but I would guess transfer windows would be trillions of years apart.  Any engines capable of this will absolutely break travel around the Kerbol system.  Any engine capable of this transfer off window would make anything in the kerbol system equivalent to making it down the runway.

The only way I see galaxies working are worm holes.  The wormhole generator or star gate is 10 parts weighting 400t apiece that need to be assembled in space.  You could even have different classes of wormholes able to transport different masses of ships.

Sorry but some people would rather have KSP stick close to realism, while wormhole generators would kind of ruin that. Would be cool as a mod though.

[daniel l.]

17 minutes ago, parameciumkid said:

Sounds not too dissimilar from SpaceEngine's loading method. The obstacle is that restructuring KSP's game framework around a fourth spatial scale would be extremely time-consuming - on the scale of an entire version update. While I for one would be fine with an entire development cycle devoted to this, I feel like a lot of forumites would rage about not getting any new parts or bugfixes.

New parts? Doesnt the game have enough parts already? Short of finally adding starship parts. I dont think the game needs anymore, and as for bugfixes, There really arent that many bugs i frequently notice unless im pushing it to the limit with the B9 HX parts and tweakscale. 

So i dont think those are problems but the devs may have other ideas unfortunately.

[omelaw]

There is no way execute interstellar(10^15m) maneuver with unity physics engine with 7 siginigcant figures.

[daniel l.]

27 minutes ago, omelaw said:

There is no way execute interstellar(10^15m) maneuver with unity physics engine with 7 siginigcant figures.

I dont think it would be as far as you think because the ship would be travelling through galaxyspace instead of actual scaledspace, This would mean that the galaxy would be no larger roughly than the kerbol system with travel times slowed.

[Nich]

2 hours ago, daniel l. said:

Actually you would have very little calculation. Because the galaxy is so large that the orbital velocities of the outer stars would be nearly nothing at all. Meaning you only need to point and burn.

hhmmm.. well your right and your wrong.  We are still moving very fast at over 20 km/s but in the grand scheme of things were pretty close to the nearest star.  However this star is pretty boring to go anywhere interesting we have to leave our little pocket of what is considered "close" In that case your looking at 10-15 km/s dv (with a 250 million year transfer) or 100,000 km/s dv which puts you in the realm of relativistic physics.  

2 hours ago, Clockwork13 said:

Sorry but some people would rather have KSP stick close to realism, while wormhole generators would kind of ruin that. Would be cool as a mod though.

Frankly I think wormholes are more realistic then 100,000 km/s of dv.  Revolutions in technology often do not come from following old practices.  First ships to america tooks months.  They learned the trade winds and reduced the trip.  Then came steam and diesel power which reduced the trip even further but it was still a very long trip.  Not until the invention and optimization of the airplane could the trip be made in hours.