Moistmike12 Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 I have always been fascinated by the idea of using solar sails and would love to see them in the game. What do you guys think about the idea of having them in game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakenred65 Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 (edited) Solar sales and solar powered ion engines have the same problem. Th e. y. a. r. e. s. l. o. w ahem to accelerate and the further out you get the slower they get shesh just doing that little bit took to long for me. Edited August 22, 2019 by [email protected] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 (edited) Solar and laser ones. Edited August 22, 2019 by kerbiloid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBenz Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 There would need to be some way to keep them "thrusting" even while the craft is out of focus. I don't want to run physics warp for literal real world hours just to raise my orbit from LKO to KEO. Such a system would also be useful for ion engines and interstellar travel, so I'm not at all opposed to it. But I won't be using solar sails otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceception Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 Maybe. It'd interesting for inner system travel, but yeah, it would be slow. Maybe instead Solar-thermal drives? It'd be cool to be able to build those as tugs and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loskene Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 Solar sails are so bad... so incredibly bad, oh wow. I don't know why you'd want to torture yourself with them but I can understand the morbid curiosity. As others mentioned it needs an on-rails thrust mechanic in the game or else it won't work when unfocused, but there are mods designed for realistic ion engine burns which manage this, so it's already possible, just need to add something to control the sail orientation. Laser sails though... now we're shipping bags of sugar interstellar in a reasonable timeframe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psycho_zs Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 (edited) More generally and importantly, persistent thrust, propulsion during analytical timewarp - that would be a killer feature. And judging by burn-flip-burn kind of travel mentioned in one of the interviews, there is a good chance of it being implemented. Edited August 22, 2019 by Psycho_zs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 1 hour ago, Spaceception said: Maybe. It'd interesting for inner system travel, but yeah, it would be slow. Maybe instead Solar-thermal drives? It'd be cool to be able to build those as tugs and such. A solar-powered ion thruster is analogous.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 (edited) 13 hours ago, TBenz said: There would need to be some way to keep them "thrusting" even while the craft is out of focus. I don't want to run physics warp for literal real world hours just to raise my orbit from LKO to KEO. Such a system would also be useful for ion engines and interstellar travel, so I'm not at all opposed to it. But I won't be using solar sails otherwise. Given that the game is going to have interstellar travel and we know it has at least Orion and inertial confinement fusion drives (which both are meant to be able to accelerate for days, weeks, months or even years), it seems very likely an accelerating during time warp and/or in the background mechanic will be part of the stock game. No one is going to sit running a burn for six months real time. Edited August 23, 2019 by Citizen247 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaerbanogue Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 3 minutes ago, Citizen247 said: Given that the game is going to have interstellar travel and we know it has at least Orion and inertial confinement fusion drives (which both are meant to be able to accelerate for days, weeks, months or even years), it seems very likely an accelerating during time warp and/or in the background mechanic will be part of the stock game. No one is going to sit running a burn for six months real time. Nice deduction! Solar sails would be good for probes and maybe try mixed propulsions ion/ solar sails... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 And laser based sails. Boost the solar sail from a mun base super laser. 39 minutes ago, Citizen247 said: Given that the game is going to have interstellar travel and we know it has at least Orion and inertial confinement fusion drives (which both are meant to be able to accelerate for days, weeks, months or even years), it seems very likely an accelerating during time warp and/or in the background mechanic will be part of the stock game. No one is going to sit running a burn for six months real time. I expect we may see a "skip to next system" jump. As in, not even timewarp. Just a test and build, test and run, system of interplanetary design. Build enough fuel+ systems, + possibly test it (so it doesn't fall apart/engines hit structures etc), then if it passes, you just skip to the next system. Then the game takes off fuel/resources, and puts you on a predicted trajectory, ready in orbit. Basically, space is "empty", and even long burns are benign. So you can "sim" that bit out to spreadsheets and keep to the fun parts (inter system flight). No idea if they will do it that way, but that's how I'd do it. Abstractify the boring stuff away (such as they seem to be doing with base building and orbital construction. Once you *have* launched an orbital, and *have* designed a resource/part delivery rocket, it just uses resources to top up the construction facility/bases/colonies, instead of having to do every one of the 100s of launches yourself). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alguien Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 With the rewritting the engine maybe we can actually have ships accelerating when out of focus, so solar sails won't be that bad of a idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psycho_zs Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 (edited) Persistent thrust confirmed: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/interviews/an-in-depth-conversation-with-the-creator-of-ksp2/ We’ve had to overhaul the map view and map system to allow you to plan a continuous acceleration trajectory, and of course we’ve had to add a couple more levels of time zoom because many of these voyages take years and we don’t want you to have to literally sit at your computer for years. Edited August 23, 2019 by Psycho_zs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 4 hours ago, Technical Ben said: And laser based sails. Boost the solar sail from a mun base super laser. I expect we may see a "skip to next system" jump. As in, not even timewarp. Just a test and build, test and run, system of interplanetary design. Build enough fuel+ systems, + possibly test it (so it doesn't fall apart/engines hit structures etc), then if it passes, you just skip to the next system. Then the game takes off fuel/resources, and puts you on a predicted trajectory, ready in orbit. Basically, space is "empty", and even long burns are benign. So you can "sim" that bit out to spreadsheets and keep to the fun parts (inter system flight). No idea if they will do it that way, but that's how I'd do it. Abstractify the boring stuff away (such as they seem to be doing with base building and orbital construction. Once you *have* launched an orbital, and *have* designed a resource/part delivery rocket, it just uses resources to top up the construction facility/bases/colonies, instead of having to do every one of the 100s of launches yourself). Personally I'd have it more like the current SOI paradigm. Once you leave a system SOI you're in "interplanetary space" where the ship doesn't actually "move", it just sits in blank space until it should reach the new system. Combining that with thrust while unloaded/warping would appear to the player like a smooth transition instead of a cheap teleport and also allow those new drives to be useful in system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loskene Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 28 minutes ago, Citizen247 said: Once you leave a system SOI you're in "interplanetary space" where the ship doesn't actually "move", it just sits in blank space until it should reach the new system. What? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purpleivan Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 For all those with a burning desire for something even slower than ion drive... at least for the first few weeks/months of travel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 1 hour ago, Loskene said: What? You make interstellar space a transition where the ship looks like it's thrusting but isn't actually moving. To avoid issues with floating point precision. When enough time has passed the the ship transfers to the other stars SOI. I.e. the different start systems and interplanetary space would be separate scenes rather than sharing the same space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loskene Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 11 minutes ago, Citizen247 said: You make interstellar space a transition where the ship looks like it's thrusting but isn't actually moving. To avoid issues with floating point precision. When enough time has passed the the ship transfers to the other stars SOI. I.e. the different start systems and interplanetary space would be separate scenes rather than sharing the same space. That's not how krakensbane works mate, it just makes the active vessel the centre of the universe to avoid FP issues, afaik SoI changes don't have any impact on it. When unfocused the craft is on rails and doesn't really exist, only its orbital parameters, which you can change on the fly to simulate thrust. We have no indication yet whether they've had to change how this works for extremely long range brachistochrone trajectories, but since beyond a certain speed they can be roughly approximated as straight lines, they might not have to. However, assuming they stick to real physics and the sandbox nature of KSP, we should be able to brake halfway between two star systems in order to set up a waystation there (for a laser highway perhaps, or just a void colony for fun). They can't really "compress" or abstract away the distance between these systems without removing the ability to stop a ship once it escapes Kerbol. Given that we have interstellar travel mods in KSP1 already and they work just fine with krakensbane, I don't see what necessitates any changes there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Loskene said: That's not how krakensbane works mate, it just makes the active vessel the centre of the universe to avoid FP issues, afaik SoI changes don't have any impact on it. This literally has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said. 1 hour ago, Loskene said: They can't really "compress" or abstract away the distance between these systems without removing the ability to stop a ship once it escapes Kerbol. If course they can. There's no reason the ships velocity has to move the ship within the local space. I'm not talking about how is presented to the user, I'm talking about separating different contexts out to different scenes. 1 hour ago, Loskene said: Given that we have interstellar travel mods in KSP1 already and they work just fine with krakensbane, I don't see what necessitates any changes there. Except for all the floating point precision problems... Plus the issue that KSP has to keep all it's assets in memory all the time and can't stream from disk. Also, the current way of adding in multiple star systems is a hack of the game engine. Edited August 23, 2019 by Citizen247 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaerbanogue Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 1 hour ago, Citizen247 said: You make interstellar space a transition where the ship looks like it's thrusting but isn't actually moving. To avoid issues with floating point precision. When enough time has passed the the ship transfers to the other stars SOI. I.e. the different start systems and interplanetary space would be separate scenes rather than sharing the same space. Highly against this idea. Reminds me of the Reentry (game) orbital mechanics. I think that fairly against the KSP identity. I want to do manœuvres by myself, returning my big spaceship halfway, learning by doing... They said Build, Fly, Dream. Just checking if my spaceship powerfull enough than teleporting it is no fun at all. Let's not KSP2 become a PowerPoint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 1 minute ago, Kaerbanogue said: Let's not KSP2 become a PowerPoint Again, not what I'm saying. I'm talking about preventing problems of floating point precision by using separate coordinate systems for interstellar and system space. Each system would have it's own coordinate system within its Sphere of influence. If you had every system within the same coordinate space you end up with greater and greater problems of floating point precision errors. These are actually noticeable in the stock system of KSP already. Anytime something is hovering just above ground or sunk beneath it is due to floating point error. The bigger the space the more you stretch the floating point precision, the worse the error. If you're sticking all the systems in to one big coordinate space you're losing a lot of precision on effectively empty space. I was proposing a way around that issue without teleporting between systems, which is what I was arguing against. That's under the hood. From the players point of view movement and transition should be as seamless as moving between SoI in the current game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loskene Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 22 minutes ago, Citizen247 said: This literally has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said. If course they can. There's no reason the ships velocity has to move the ship within the local space. I'm not talking about how is presented to the user, I'm talking about separating different contexts out to different scenes. Except for all the floating point precision problems... Plus the issue that KSP has to keep all it's assets in memory all the time and can't stream from disk. If it doesn't then you weren't talking about anything relevant to interstellar travel simulation and avoiding FP issues because that's exactly what krakensbane is for, and even that's a bit of a half-measure with less annoying edge cases than other solutions, so it works for 99% of our purposes. The ship doesn't move within local space. Space moves around the ship. How it's presented to the user is just an abstraction of the same numbers used to calculate its position and velocity in the first place, they're not separable like that. What they've most likely done is just take a freeze frame of the Kerbol system (and all your craft in it) and stop calculating/rendering it once you get a certain distance away, then running catchup calculations when you switch back to determine where everything is now. That way you don't get FP issues ruining all your on-rails orbits while you're very far away from them. I'm sure this is mostly wrong too and they have some even more complex mechanism to make interstellar travel viable, but they won't be taking such drastically game-limiting measures like the ones you propose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 3 minutes ago, Loskene said: If it doesn't then you weren't talking about anything relevant to interstellar travel simulation and avoiding FP issues Or you didn't understand what I was getting at. 4 minutes ago, Loskene said: What they've most likely done is just take a freeze frame of the Kerbol system (and all your craft in it) and stop calculating/rendering it once you get a certain distance away, then running catchup calculations when you switch back to determine where everything is now. You don't need the entire scene and all it's assets in memory to do background processing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loskene Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 ok pal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen247 Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 Nothing I'm talking about is complex. So ok indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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