Barycenter

[Lil guy]

Isn't it will be great if KSP have the barycenter feature ?

Mods with mutiple star systems will be much more realistic and modders can create a binary planets or binary dwarf planets (example : pluto - charon)/

Instead of a star being orbited by another star which has 2/3 of it's mass, Both stars can orbit around each others (through the barycenter).

Sorry for bed England

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Not likely to happen, it'd involve re-writing the entire way the planets and orbits work in KSP, for little noticeable gain to a player.

It might also cause an impact to performance due to extra physics calculations.

Maybe in the sequel?

[Jas0n]

There's probably a way to fake it by creating what is basically a black hole at the barycenter and have everything orbit around that and make the SOI of the two stars basically nonexistent.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

16 minutes ago, Jas0n said:

There's probably a way to fake it by creating what is basically a black hole at the barycenter and have everything orbit around that and make the SOI of the two stars basically nonexistent.

Your giving KSP too much credit.

The planets are literally on rails, they move in a pre-described circle, nothing more, nothing less.

No actual physics are being simulated as far as planetary bodies/moons. It's all smoke and mirrors, pay no attention to the little green man behind the curtain.

[Lil guy]

Nevermind. There's already a mod which can simulate the barycenter

[Jas0n]

4 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Your giving KSP too much credit.

The planets are literally on rails, they move in a pre-described circle, nothing more, nothing less.

No actual physics are being simulated as far as planetary bodies/moons. It's all smoke and mirrors, pay no attention to the little green man behind the curtain.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. 

But the "black hole" would still be needed to serve as a center for spacecraft orbiting the barycenter, right? i don't really know how the orbit calculations work.

[Kerbart]

5 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Your giving KSP too much credit.

The planets are literally on rails, they move in a pre-described circle, nothing more, nothing less.

No actual physics are being simulated as far as planetary bodies/moons. It's all smoke and mirrors, pay no attention to the little green man behind the curtain.

Is there a particular reason those pre-defined rails cannot describe a double star/planet system?

[Rocket In My Pocket]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Is there a particular reason those pre-defined rails cannot describe a double star/planet system?

Apparently, or I assume it'd be done already.

For whatever reason the Dev's decided to go with the current model, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they had a good reason.

Whether it was performance, ease of programming, or to simplify it for the player.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Eric S]

You have to be very careful with barycenters in KSP.  If you don't implement n-body physics, barycenters become insanely good spots for burns.  We're talking even without a burn, floating point errors push you to something somewhere beyond light speed.  This is because gravity approaches infinity as you get close to a point source of gravity, and if the barycenter isn't inside a planet, you can actually pass almost directly through it.

However, someone had an idea for barycenters that overcame that years back, though it never came to fruition, so I suspect there was still something being overlooked.

While I'd like to see this in KSP, I have to agree that it would be a lot of work for little payoff for normal players.