Anyone ever consider duplicating Elite's Framshift Drive?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Just curious as to if any others considered it.

I have an idea of how to execute it in terms of mechanics and how to set up a  gameplay balance, but haven't touched any code for KSP beyond cfg files.

[Matt77]

Maybe if you say how it should work, since my first thought was why would anybody want that?

I play Elite and if I want to visit beautiful worlds, that's what I load. If I want to build ships and visit ugly worlds in a realistic fashion, I load KSP.  Sorry Squad, it's true. I play KSP a lot more than Elite btw  

Is the Alcubierre warp drive mod not much the same as frameshift?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

33 minutes ago, Matt77 said:

Maybe if you say how it should work, since my first thought was why would anybody want that?

I play Elite and if I want to visit beautiful worlds, that's what I load. If I want to build ships and visit ugly worlds in a realistic fashion, I load KSP.  Sorry Squad, it's true. I play KSP a lot more than Elite btw  

Is the Alcubierre warp drive mod not much the same as frameshift?

 

They would be the same, in principle.

 

But I'm thinking more about how the frameshift actually operates from a player-control perspective...  Including the throttled, elastic speed control.  It's one of the things they did really well with Elite.  The entire flight dynamic and the aesthetics are certainly something else.  I don't want to start writing the long post on how I would consider executing it in KSP though, unless I see at least SOME interest in the idea.

[nli2work]

USI's Alcubierre drive works that way. fully throttle controlled frame shift speed. haven't looked at what it looks like from IVA, but it probably looks something like going through a flashing light tube judging by how the warp bubble mesh is. wont' be as pretty as Elite Dangerous I'm sure. but works the same. the model and FX is just cosmetics.

Edited May 4, 2016 by nli2work

[Matt77]

The speed control is a good point, it helps with Elite's sense of scale even when travelling faster than light.

NLI, I think the op is referring to the way Elite varies your "speed" depending on proximity to masses (planets, stations etc).  It's hard to explain but you feel a "drag", slowing you down when you're in a gravity well.  The light-tube instantaneous travel is different (in Elite, anyway!)

Edited May 4, 2016 by Matt77

[nli2work]

11 minutes ago, Matt77 said:

The speed control is a good point, it helps with Elite's sense of scale even when travelling faster than light.

NLI, I think the op is referring to the way Elite varies your "speed" depending on proximity to masses (planets, stations etc).  It's hard to explain but you feel a "drag", slowing you down when you're in a gravity well.  The light-tube instantaneous travel is different (in Elite, anyway!)

I see. I think that's more of a gameplay mechanic to prevent players from zipping past their intended destination by not paying attention than anything else... like the game saying "you wanna stop here? yes? yes? yes? no? no? okay next station/planet"  I mean Elites Frameshift drive is like sublight engines right? you point in the direction you want to go, and throttle up? Point to Point jump via gates is something else entirely, for moving between different Star systems like in EVEOnline?

In KSP you would experience a shift passing in/out of different SOI. but you'd have to try pretty hard to pass through multiple SOI between your start and destination.

Edited May 4, 2016 by nli2work

[Matt77]

16 minutes ago, nli2work said:

I see. I think that's more of a gameplay mechanic to prevent players from zipping past their intended destination by not paying attention than anything else... like the game saying "you wanna stop here? yes? yes? yes? no? no? okay next station/planet"  I mean Elites Frameshift drive is like sublight engines right? you point in the direction you want to go, and throttle up? Point to Point jump via gates is something else entirely, for moving between different Star systems like in EVEOnline?

Spot on, or close enough anyway!  There are no gates in Elite to my knowledge but you have the concept - local thrusters for docking and combat, sublight for interplanetary (though frameshift is superluminal), and jump drive for interstellar.  Slightly less handholdy than your example but that's by the by.

Hoping the OP will let us know his ideas because I can't see it working in a single star system.

[nli2work]

Do you still have any control besides throttle while using Frameshift drive? or is it in a set direction till you drop out of FTL?

Existing FTL drives from KSPI-E or USI are bulky. A small engine part that's the size of 1.25m rocket engines would be cool, but would kinda throw the game way out of balance.

Edited May 5, 2016 by nli2work

[helaeon]

I've had the thought of making the USI Warp Drive behave like the frame shift drive in that the less gravity acting upon you the faster you go. I would do it mathematically so it would work no matter what system mods you were using and was having issues with hand-overs between spheres of influence. Being that the game uses Kepler mechanics I needed to figure out a way to smooth out when GM changes at the SOI boundary. I'd need some sort of "handshake" to determine your orbital energy at that hand-off. About there is where I decided I was having more fun playing than modding. Maybe if my program gets to warp tech again I might do that. 

The main reason I was thinking of this was for the purpose of making the throttle less touchy when near planetary bodies so adjusting orbits would be easier, may have the side effect of making it much much faster for people wanting to go interstellar with it. Shouldn't be too bad other than that hand-off stuff, it would be a simple multiplier to the allowed warp factor.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Okay, so here's how I would do this.

 

First, gameplay behavior:

 

The FramesKip Drive (Kerbalizing the name there, and making fun of video games at the same time) is essentially a refined, centralized all purpose space engine.  It would be the Alcubierre drive ++ and reflect as such on the tech tree.

 

A:: The FKD is powered by liquid hydrogen, much like the hydrogen skimmed from stars in E.D.  You place your Hydrogen into a cryotank as you would any other engine.

B:: The FKD has four modes of operation.

1 - OFF -  In this mode, the FKD is completely shut down, burns no fuel, and produces no heat.

2 - STANDBY - In this mode, the FKD is online and burns a miniscule amount of fuel to preheat the 'reaction chamber' (or whatever they use).  It also produces heat and EC in this mode.  So it can be used as an inefficient reactor.

3 - CHARGING - When an action group assigned button is pressed, the FKD enters charging mode, same as with ED.  In this mode, heat output climbs sharply.  At this point, if you don't have a radiator, you built your craft wrong.  The FKS can and will explode violently if it overheats, taking your craft with it.

4 - SUPERCRUISE (or 'Superkruz') - Once the charging sequence completes  (10 seconds), you get a transition moment like the ED 4 second countdown (You are not required to throttle like you are in ED).  At this point the FSK code shuts off engines, RCS, and reactions wheels, packs the ship up, and puts it on rails.  Once on rails, the ship travels in a straight line at a minimum of 10 km/s (throttleable based on gravity well proximity) up to a whatever reasonable max velocity works with the game engine.  (And scaled down...  Everything's scaled down for KSP.)  While in superkruz, the player may turn the ship without the use of reaction wheels, changing the direction of the on-the-rails travel.  Behavior is completely isolated from normal game physics for the duration with the exception of an increased fuel consumption.  (Rate based on engine tech level and vessel mass.)

Pressing the action group that activates the FKD and charges it will shut it off any time in the charging period, and once in Superkruz, will immediately drop you out.  No warnings and double-taps.

C:: FKD 'Superkruz' dropout::  In terms of matching the dropout behaviors of ED, the FKD can only be manually dropped 'safely' if throttled down below a threshold velocity.  Like ED, if you drop out above said threshold level (100 km/sec in this scaled down case), you're kicked out violently, and with a bunch of heat dumped into your vessel.  Unlike ED however, you can one-hop-kill your vessel this way.  Watch your speed.  Also, unlike ED, to keep things spicy, try not to collide with any bodies.  The FKD was designed by kerbals, proximity forced drop isn't a thing.  If you hit a planet, your ship mass scatters.  If you hit the atmosphere, your ship drops FKD AND retains momentum...  You're probably fried.  When performing controlled drops, the FKD obeys specific rules.  The FKD automatically 'bleeds' energy into  momentum to safely place the craft in a circular orbit around the object whose SoI it resides in.  The craft will also be given an inclination based on the latitude above said planet/moon/star.  An exception is if the FKD drops within 10 km of an atmosphere (should the planet have one), or 10 km of the surface (if it doesn't).  In this case, the craft is dropped with all momentum zeroed out.

D:: FKD leaving celestial bodies::  Since there is no forced drop for proximity, you are safe to Superkruz the moment you're off the ground. (And programmers don't have to program it to identify the collision direction).  Just be careful...   With atmospheric planets, however, the vessel must clear the boundary level first.  Otherwise it immediately drops after one gameplay frame with whatever resulting friction heating damage and velocity it acquires.  (Probably lethal...)

 

 

Now, gameplay balance.

I already consider it the end of the tech tree to use the FKD, but I believe that even then, it will suffer from development cycles.  I envision that the FKD would have four or five tech nodes to work with.  Each tech node reducing the size, and improving the fuel efficiency of the FKD.  Starting with a modified inline alcubiere ring, and shrinking down until the drive is a radial attachment the size of a mystery goo pod.

Along side the second, third, and so-on tech nodes, is a tech node for fuel scoops.  Fly close to kerbol in Superkruz, get fuel in your tank.  Just remember, there's no safety drop.  The higher the tech node, the better the scoop (Smaller, more efficient).  Also, in the last fuel scooping node, would be a passive scoop that can be used to collect fuel while idle in space.  Slower than Siberian Molasses, but allowing you to refuel in orbit.

Tech nodes for advanced cooling may or may not be on the list as well.  Depends on if specialized radiator systems would be needed or welcome.

 

 

 

Overall, I can see most of the functionality easily prototyped with hyperedit functionality. 

 

 

 

Additional Thoughts:

- Heat Spike from dropping while traveling too fast:  In order to calculate the heat dump, sum up the heat that would have been produced during the time it would have taken to decelerate normally to the threshold velocity, then dump it all on the FKD at once at the moment physics go active.

 

- SoI handoffs:  It might take some coding, but instead of bothering with bounding from SoI to SoI when using the FramsKip Drive, either create an all-covering 'override' SoI, or even override the SoI to Kerbol for the duration.  It would be much the same as how ED treats the supercruise environment as an independent instance for the system.

 

- Hyperspace Jumps: Aren't really relevant in a game with only 'ONE' star system.  But one way to integrate them in is to simply apply beacons.  Jump anywhere you want instantly, provided you place a beacon there first.  Might also be useful for those who use the Kopernicus (spelling is wrong, I'm sure of it) packs that create star clusters and faux galaxies.

Edited May 5, 2016 by AdmiralTigerclaw
Typos bug me.

[Adelaar]

That sounds awesome as f*! I would so want to see your plan come to life!

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

I just need someone who'd like to code this. 

 

I can DO audio work, and I have a good idea in my mind how I would set up all the audio immersion to both sound like ED, and yet, Kerbalize it.  I just don't have any background knowledge in how to code in unity or with the APIs for KSP.