Big ships and atmo - How do you guys think they will react?

[GoldForest]

This has been on my mind for a little bit, but how do you think they will react? 

Will we be able to say, turn our craft around and use the orion drive as a heat shield? 

I also wonder if we'll be able to do half in atmo half in vacuum style space stations. Will the atmosphere just drag it down? Or will it remain on its rails? Will it depend on the weight of the station, say you have a 40 tons of the station dipping into the atmosphere and then 100 tons in space, will that 100 tons tell the game to keep the station on rails, or will the computer go, "That's illegal." And force us down because of that 40 tons? I'm not sure I'm explaining this well. Basically, I'm asking if you guys wonder if this would be a 'feature,' a half in half out station. Think space elevator, but the space elevator isn't connected to Kerbin and is allowed to orbit at it's own speed/etc.

Another thing, will we be able to land the big ships? Or will the physics engine cry as it implodes and forces are ship to explode on contact with the ground?

[SpaceFace545]

3 hours ago, GoldForest said:

This has been on my mind for a little bit, but how do you think they will react? 

Will we be able to say, turn our craft around and use the orion drive as a heat shield? 

I also wonder if we'll be able to do half in atmo half in vacuum style space stations. Will the atmosphere just drag it down? Or will it remain on its rails? Will it depend on the weight of the station, say you have a 40 tons of the station dipping into the atmosphere and then 100 tons in space, will that 100 tons tell the game to keep the station on rails, or will the computer go, "That's illegal." And force us down because of that 40 tons? I'm not sure I'm explaining this well. Basically, I'm asking if you guys wonder if this would be a 'feature,' a half in half out station. Think space elevator, but the space elevator isn't connected to Kerbin and is allowed to orbit at it's own speed/etc.

Another thing, will we be able to land the big ships? Or will the physics engine cry as it implodes and forces are ship to explode on contact with the ground?

The game is being rebuilt from scratch with new code and I think a new modern engine that wasn’t from 2011 so I think it would be fine.

[KerikBalm]

As for half in/half out of the atmosphere, in real life that makes no sense as there is no definite boundary.

In KSP as it is, we have a precise boundry, but ships on rails can orbit inside the upper atmosphere drag free. I suspect KSP2 will have the same system. If the on rails orbit has a PE that goes too deep in the atmosphere, bye bye ship/station. 

If they allow hrusting on rails, they may allow drag on rails too though. Either way, I expect that either the craft is in the atmosphere, or its not.

[Bej Kerman]

On 5/5/2020 at 1:18 PM, SpaceFace545 said:

and I think a new modern engine that wasn’t from 2011

Unity is being used for KSP 2. Besides, old engines aren't inherently bad for games. It's only when they're not maintained properly do they turn into Creation Engine.