Vanilla NO MOD maximum ship speed

[Pryor]

I would like to build a ship to travel to Alfa Centari......

Currently with today's Technologies using an efficient warp drive tech, a ship can safely reach 20% light speed in uncharted space, I know warp can reach much faster speeds, but without knowing what you will face ahead 20%ish is safe, as it appears to be empty space it is most certainly not...... example:

With today's sea faring boats, GPS and depth sensors makes it much safer to chart a course at sea today than it was 15 years ago.

15 years ago using only charts and nav radios was still very hazardous, as to what looks like open waters would have land masses and coral reefs just 2ft below the water line........... hit that and cause serious damage to your boat........ no unable to control or get away, the waves continuously SMASH your boat into the reef again...... Again...... and AGAIN until there is nothing left but debris, even if you somehow were to survive that ordeal, you would not know exactly where it happened to report it so that it can be charted so others don't become as unfortunate as you were......... so even TODAY on the sea there is still much unknown dangers.

Thus with current tech..... 20%ish of light speed can be safely traveled into unknown space, once a safe course has been established, much faster speeds can be reached.

With current warp tech you can almost instantly reach your cruising speed and slow down, as the warp tech produces a falling effect to propel the ship / pulling the ship and all its contents at the same rate thus no SPLAT against the wall when speeding up or slowing down.

The ship will take about 30 years to reach Alfa Centari, time passage onboard the ship will depend upon configuration of the warp procedure but.......... the warp ring on it's most outer edge will have a time passage of 100's of thousands of years, thus it must be constructed using the highest quality materials and engineering techniques to actually last that long without failure or atomic decay, and would have to be inspected, rebuilt and/or replaced once every trip........ until technology in the future allows otherwise.

Molten Salt Reactors can be used to power the warp technology using an epoxy type heat generating fuel such as Plutonium or Ameriecium.

As the passage of time onboard the ship will only be a few months, there is no need for cryogenic or hypersleep will be needed.

If the game and/or mod can support or come close to supporting this, please let me know.... I'm still debating on getting Kernal Space or Space Engineers? 

[Zhetaan]

Welcome to the forum, @Pryor!

Stock KSP doesn't have a speed limit--though in practical terms, the program will crash before you can carry enough rocket fuel to get any appreciable fraction of lightspeed.  You'll have to deal with mods.

To be honest, what you want is something probably best served by a combination of KSP Interstellar and an outlying-stars pack powered by Kopernicus.  KSP doesn't simulate relativity (rockets never normally approach lightspeed) so you're probably out of luck with respect to time dilation.

You may want to play a bit with Real Solar System (also powered by Kopernicus) if you want the authentic go-to-α Cen experience, but I don't know whether any RSS-based planet-and-star packs include it.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Zhetaan

[MaverickSawyer]

Heh. I've never heard of anyone successfully reaching any appreciable fraction of c before... But I have reached NaN speed in early versions of the game, which usually was an eye-poppingly fast speed caused by a physics engine glitch. 

If you really want to go that fast, I second the call for KSPIE. I've never used it myself, but it's a fairly popular mod.

[Gargamel]

If you turn on infinite fuel, and run it for a few (dozen) days, you can hit light speed in stock KSP, although, using the cheat menu does beg the question if it is stock or not.

In this video Scott Manley does just this, and explains a lot of the math.  It is an old version of KSP (really old, the launch tower is still there, and the geography is all weird), but the math and the principles haven't changed.

 

[Duck McFuddle]

You'd have to use a mod for that. If you strap a lander can onto a huge engine you can go pretty fast, but still nowhere near lightspeed. 

[Pryor]

2 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

Welcome to the forum, @Pryor!

Stock KSP doesn't have a speed limit--though in practical terms, the program will crash before you can carry enough rocket fuel to get any appreciable fraction of lightspeed.  You'll have to deal with mods.

To be honest, what you want is something probably best served by a combination of KSP Interstellar and an outlying-stars pack powered by Kopernicus.  KSP doesn't simulate relativity (rockets never normally approach lightspeed) so you're probably out of luck with respect to time dilation.

You may want to play a bit with Real Solar System (also powered by Kopernicus) if you want the authentic go-to-α Cen experience, but I don't know whether any RSS-based planet-and-star packs include it.

Ok good, there is a mod pack for warp Alcubierre system, seen a YouTube Video even has the Molten Salt Reactor, and hopefully I can reach around 60,000 KMps...... thus it will take me 30 years to reach Alfa Centari in the game, since relativity is not incorporated in the game, I'm sure there is a time compression built into the game so I won't have to just let it run for 30 years, I would like to shorten that down........ what is the max time compression in the game?

Also is there another mod pack that will have a solar system and planets and moons for me when I get there ....... something I can have spawn there OR an Avitar mod Pack like in Space Engineers.

What I would like to do is build a long Cargo Ship with warp, bring everything I need to rebuild the warp system for a return home trip along with data for a safe course allowing At least double the speed depending upon inspection of the rate of decay on the used warp components being in operation for several hundred thousand years. Also bring everything I need to start mining operations to build a habitat and Ship Yard to construct more of the same cargo ships, sending them also home with valuable refined materials Alfa Centari has to offer.

I'm am thinking off the top of my head that it will take about 10 Kg of Plutonium or Ameriecium to fuel a trip each way going 4.5 Light Years, as most of the heat needed will come from Zero Point Energy generated by the warp Spacetime reaction, as I don't know the exact calculations of total Zero Point Energy heat BTU's being generated over the course of several hundred thousand years, but I do know at about somewhere around 60,000 KMps in a Spacetime warp reaction will sustain itself without the use or need for radiators to expell excess heat from the fuel and Zero Point heat...... I just don't know if traveling faster will compromise it's safe operation in theory, basically once 60,000 KMps is reached, speed would have to be adjusted to hit the sweet spot for self sustaining heat generation.

To bad we can't get some guys from MIT to create a mod like this, but for now it looks fun.

[Gargamel]

@Pryor, have you even played the game at all?  Most of the stuff you are talking about in your posts is not even a thing in KSP.  I would suggest you do buy the game, most people here would agree it is hands down one of their favorite titles, and learn what the game is actually about.  Then, we would be more than happy to help you out in your game play.

And not to burst your bubble, but there is only one star modeled in the game, the Sun, often referred to as Kerbol.  Alpha Centauri is not in stock KSP. 

[Pryor]

8 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

@Pryor, have you even played the game at all?  Most of the stuff you are talking about in your posts is not even a thing in KSP.  I would suggest you do buy the game, most people here would agree it is hands down one of their favorite titles, and learn what the game is actually about.  Then, we would be more than happy to help you out in your game play.

And not to burst your bubble, but there is only one star modeled in the game, the Sun, often referred to as Kerbol.  Alpha Centauri is not in stock KSP. 

Thanks buddy, KSP just already seems so complicated I assumed it would have something like this in play....... from YouTube and reading it's about 75% there as Space Engineers is only 50% or even less due to its game engine speed limitations.

I guess I will wind up buying both games then move to the one that I like best.

[Gargamel]

Well, let the members of the forum inform you on the glories of KSP! 

Stock KSP is about using 'real' science and physics to enjoy spaceflight and exploration.  While having tons of fun crashing and then succeeding, you end up learning a lot about orbital mechanics and the like.  It's got a semi steep learning curve, but even in failure, it is still spectacular. 

There are a lot of mods (Check out our mod release sub-forum!) that add a lot of the stuff you are interested in: Warp Drives, Other star systems, more types of fuel, and many many others. 

Check it out, it's been the best game I've ever spent money on. 

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

Stock KSP doesn't have a speed limit--though in practical terms, the program will crash before you can carry enough rocket fuel to get any appreciable fraction of lightspeed.

Crashing is something I have a interest on!  

This was already tried before? 

[bewing]

2 hours ago, Pryor said:

what is the max time compression in the game?

One hundred thousand times.

[Pryor]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

Well, let the members of the forum inform you on the glories of KSP! 

Stock KSP is about using 'real' science and physics to enjoy spaceflight and exploration.  While having tons of fun crashing and then succeeding, you end up learning a lot about orbital mechanics and the like.  It's got a semi steep learning curve, but even in failure, it is still spectacular. 

There are a lot of mods (Check out our mod release sub-forum!) that add a lot of the stuff you are interested in: Warp Drives, Other star systems, more types of fuel, and many many others. 

Check it out, it's been the best game I've ever spent money on. 

I also talking about real science, I know it may sound like a bunch of crap [snip], but if you don't believe me, take a cast iron skillet, get a block of salt lick at your local feed store, break off a few pieces with a hammer, and melt them in the cast iron skillet, get 2 wind up clocks and synconize them down to the second, place 1 clock near the cast iron skillet with the molten salt, place the other clock in your bed room for 1 hour.

After 1 hour bring both clocks right next to each other and report your results here.

The concept of Spacetime warp is simple, using it to propel an object through space is complicated, as you not moving the object, you moving the Space the object is occupying. 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Gargamel
Edited by Moderator

[moogoob]

10 hours ago, Pryor said:

I also talking about real science, I know it may sound like a bunch of crap [snip], but if you don't believe me, take a cast iron skillet, get a block of salt lick at your local feed store, break off a few pieces with a hammer, and melt them in the cast iron skillet, get 2 wind up clocks and synconize them down to the second, place 1 clock near the cast iron skillet with the molten salt, place the other clock in your bed room for 1 hour.

After 1 hour bring both clocks right next to each other and report your results here.

The concept of Spacetime warp is simple, using it to propel an object through space is complicated, as you not moving the object, you moving the Space the object is occupying. 

...are you suggesting that simply melting salt produces a time dilating effect?

Extraordinary claim MUST have some extraordinary evidence.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Neither KSP or Space Engineers is going to allow you to do what you are describing.

KSP models one solar system, Space Engineers models like a few randomly generated planets and some asteroids. Neither game models anything past what you immediately see upon starting them.

If you actually want to travel to Alpha Centauri in person the only game I know of where you can actually do that is Elite Dangerous, whose game world is basically a 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Starman4308]

 

18 hours ago, Pryor said:

Currently with today's Technologies using an efficient warp drive tech, a ship can safely reach 20% light speed in uncharted space, I know warp can reach much faster speeds, but without knowing what you will face ahead 20%ish is safe, as it appears to be empty space it is most certainly not...... example:

Breakthrough Starshot uses speculative, untested technology to claim they can hit 0.2c. Nothing based on well-developed technology is going to get us to 0.01c.

18 hours ago, Pryor said:

15 years ago using only charts and nav radios was still very hazardous, as to what looks like open waters would have land masses and coral reefs just 2ft below the water line........... hit that and cause serious damage to your boat........ no unable to control or get away, the waves continuously SMASH your boat into the reef again...... Again...... and AGAIN until there is nothing left but debris, even if you somehow were to survive that ordeal, you would not know exactly where it happened to report it so that it can be charted so others don't become as unfortunate as you were......... so even TODAY on the sea there is still much unknown dangers.

It's not charting a course that's hard. Space is rather empty and positions are well-known. It's getting to the staggering velocities required that is the issue.

18 hours ago, Pryor said:

If the game and/or mod can support or come close to supporting this, please let me know.... I'm still debating on getting Kernal Space or Space Engineers? 

While there are mods that present players with what are functionally warp drives, the stock game restricts itself to chemical, nuclear-thermal, and ion propulsion.

The Dawn engine has a specific impulse of 4200s. To send a 1 kg probe to velocity of 0.01c with that specific impulse, you would need about 4*10³¹ kg of xenon propellant as a hard lower bound. That is 20 solar masses.

The highest specific impulse ion thrusters yet built top out around 20000s. That would require a mere 4,400,000 kilograms of propellant... which is more mass than the entire Saturn V rocket, nevermind the question of how you get 4,400 tonnes to orbit (since ion engines have far too little thrust to launch themselves to orbit).

[KerikBalm]

19 hours ago, Pryor said:

Currently with today's Technologies using an efficient warp drive tech, a ship can safely reach 20% light speed in uncharted space

Warp drive technology does not exist today... only a vague concept and some math about how they could work if you had certain things which we don't have (such as large quantities of negative mass/energy)

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Thus with current tech..... 20%ish of light speed can be safely traveled into unknown space, once a safe course has been established, much faster speeds can be reached.

Space is not an ocean, and your "thus" statement is a non-sequitur because you're using a bad analogy. Also if you were using warp technology, your ship would be stationary within the local bubble. Collision danger would be miniscule. For just moving at 0.2c (no warp shenanigans, just ridiculously powerful fusion engine or anti-matter), there'd be dust collisions that are a threat, but it would be so dispered that it would be unlikely to be a threat anywhere, and even after 1000 journeys ("establishing a safe course") you could still suffer a catastrophic collision... because space is big, and stuff in inter stellar space is sparse.

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With current warp tech you can almost instantly reach your cruising speed and slow down, as the warp tech produces a falling effect to propel the ship / pulling the ship and all its contents at the same rate thus no SPLAT against the wall when speeding up or slowing down.

Current warp tech is non-existent. Your explanation of how it would propel the ship is wrong, but the conclusion (no splat against the wall) is right.

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The ship will take about 30 years to reach Alfa Centari, time passage onboard the ship will depend upon configuration of the warp procedure but.......... the warp ring on it's most outer edge will have a time passage of 100's of thousands of years, thus it must be constructed using the highest quality materials and engineering techniques to actually last that long without failure or atomic decay, and would have to be inspected, rebuilt and/or replaced once every trip........ until technology in the future allows otherwise.

Ummm, no.

#1) Alpha centauri is 4.37 light years away, at 0.2c, that takes 21.85 years to get there.

#2) The warp "ring" (concept art shows a ring, no reason afaik it actually needs such a structure, since no actual tech exists yet) would have to be inside the bubble, and would experience the same relative time

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As the passage of time onboard the ship will only be a few months, there is no need for cryogenic or hypersleep will be needed.

Warp travel, if it works, would not involve relativistic effects, even though its effectively covering distance at relativistic speeds. The passage of time on board the ship at a warp equivalent to moving at 0.2c would be the same as for an observer on Earth, and it would take 21.85 years to reach A Cent.

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If the game and/or mod can support or come close to supporting this, please let me know.... I'm still debating on getting Kernal Space or Space Engineers? 

Support what?

The games are completely different.

As far as I know, Space engineers doesn't have orbital mechanics in it as a core gameplay element. KSP does.