World size questions

[Entropian]

4 minutes ago, vv3k70r said:

There is no point of explaining this further if You cant calculate delivered force to output whatever output it is

If you want force, that's in newtons (N).  A newton is a kilogram meter per second squared. (kgm/s^2)

5 minutes ago, vv3k70r said:

So You took some made up unit and they do not match to directly measurable variables.

It does match, and in fact, the fundamental units are defined in terms of universal constants.  Imagine a conversion of meters (distance) to tesla (magnetic field).  That would make no sense.

7 minutes ago, vv3k70r said:

how did You measure something, disasemble this proces and tell what You really has measured.

Not sure what you mean here.  I think you would benefit from some research into dimensional analysis.  I found a wiki page that I think is in Swedish: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionsanalys

[KerikBalm]

4 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Flea has output power of 12.288MW and will deliver around 108.75MW during its lifetime giving You change in velocity 1948. So for flea can You derive it from given numbers to get something around 17mm/s. And same way for every engine You have in game? And for every designed vessel?

What? the change in velocity is 1948 what? meters per second? or 0.017 m/s (17 mm/s).

Funny, I used a flea for propulsion on my craft, and it had a dV of neither 1948 m/s nor 0.017 m/s.

Perchance you have made an error in your calculations?

[dave1904]

Im still confused. 

[shdwlrd]

5 hours ago, dave1904 said:

Im still confused. 

you're not the only one

[PlutoISaPlanet]

So if we want to tall about world size, then lets look at what we know. We know the game will have terrestrial Kerbin like worlds, gas giants, and super Earths. So expect a lot of variety and fun orbital mechanics. 

[Soda Popinski]

It would be neat if one of the star systems is RSS.

[jastrone]

On 11/14/2020 at 8:19 PM, TLTay said:

4) About half a systems worth of other stuff. Maybe a rogue planet, machine world, black hole, or even a nebula with a utopia world hidden inside?

isnt there going to be a black hole in the middle of all star systems? havent they confirmed thet somewhere?

[K^2]

3 hours ago, jastrone said:

isnt there going to be a black hole in the middle of all star systems? havent they confirmed thet somewhere?

I kind of hope not. I can't imagine anything they can put in will be remotely satisfying. Maybe a neutron star, but even that will stretch Unity's physics paper thin.

[pandaman]

4 hours ago, jastrone said:

isnt there going to be a black hole in the middle of all star systems? havent they confirmed thet somewhere?

I don't think there will be enough star sytems for it to be relevent.

Even there are as many as 10 different star systems, which I doubt.   My guess is the stars will sort of represent a chunk of the galaxy broadly similar to where we are. Take the nearest 10 stars to Earth, then think how close are they to the galactic centre?  

Doesn't rule out anything of course, but my guess is if they do model the stars moving around a 'centre' at all (rather than just maintaining set positions relative to each other) it will be too far away to be of much consequence.  I expect the 'skybox' will probably have an image of the whole galaxy, but I don't expect anything other than the few in-game stars to be more than graphic background.

[Multivac]

16 hours ago, pandaman said:

I don't think there will be enough star sytems for it to be relevent.

Even there are as many as 10 different star systems, which I doubt.   My guess is the stars will sort of represent a chunk of the galaxy broadly similar to where we are. Take the nearest 10 stars to Earth, then think how close are they to the galactic centre?  

Doesn't rule out anything of course, but my guess is if they do model the stars moving around a 'centre' at all (rather than just maintaining set positions relative to each other) it will be too far away to be of much consequence.  I expect the 'skybox' will probably have an image of the whole galaxy, but I don't expect anything other than the few in-game stars to be more than graphic background.

Now, imagine additional star systems being crafted and released all the time by KSP fans, maybe through mods, or maybe even through some more-or-less official system where any KSP2 player can design a system, submit it for review, and have it added to the game if it passes muster... I wonder how long it would take to populate a reasonably-sized galaxy, including central black hole, if something like that were implemented?

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Multivac said:

Now, imagine additional star systems being crafted and released all the time by KSP fans, maybe through mods, or maybe even through some more-or-less official system where any KSP2 player can design a system, submit it for review, and have it added to the game if it passes muster... I wonder how long it would take to populate a reasonably-sized galaxy, including central black hole, if something like that were implemented?

A single star system is home of more than a thousand hours of gameplay for the first game, having more than 10 systems or even a galaxy would only mean a lower average quality of the systems you randomly stumble in and a more frustrating experience when trying to discover interesting exoplanets to plan a mission to.

[K^2]

On 12/5/2020 at 2:06 AM, Master39 said:

A single star system is home of more than a thousand hours of gameplay for the first game, having more than 10 systems or even a galaxy would only mean a lower average quality of the systems you randomly stumble in and a more frustrating experience when trying to discover interesting exoplanets to plan a mission to.

Yeah, I wouldn't want the devs to spend a lot of effort on that for this exact reason, but if it's a community-currated "galaxy" of stars that is managed by a mod you have to install? I don't know, could work out pretty well.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, K^2 said:

Yeah, I wouldn't want the devs to spend a lot of effort on that for this exact reason, but if it's a community-currated "galaxy" of stars that is managed by a mod you have to install? I don't know, could work out pretty well.

I wouldn't have nothing against such a mod, but I think such an idea will have an hard time finding people that plays so much and so fast that they feel the need for additional systems faster than the Devs can drop with updates and DLCs.

And, on the side, I hope that the gameplay will be a little deeper than "finish the teck tree in the Kerbol system and then go out collecting flags".

[SynX]

On 11/15/2020 at 4:51 AM, starcaptain said:

There are 52 visible stars within 4 parsecs (13.05 lightyears) of Sol. Assume that the maximum velocity of a given spacecraft is 0.990c, and that timewarp still has the same scale delimiters as KSP1: 100 000x is maximum timewarp, giving a Kerbin year at 92 sec/year. At this sort of scale, it would take about 20 minutes running at maximum timewarp and maximum theoretical speed (ignoring acceleration phases) to travel from the center of this imagined world, to the most extreme edge.

Map from Atomic Rockets, retrieved 2020-11-14

I have a question. If there's a limit to light speed, there must be special relativity implemented to prevent ships accelerating beyond c. Which in turns means time dilation. Does your frame of reference matches that to a near-lightspeed ship, or a static frame of reference?

[K^2]

2 hours ago, SynX said:

I have a question. If there's a limit to light speed, there must be special relativity implemented to prevent ships accelerating beyond c. Which in turns means time dilation. Does your frame of reference matches that to a near-lightspeed ship, or a static frame of reference?

I don't think there's a good way to make time dilation work, especially if multiplayer's involved. To be honest, I don't think Intercept will bother with relativity, but if they do, I'm pretty sure the time will go at Kerbin rate regardless of where you are and what speed you're traveling, as if you're still in that frame of reference.

[SynX]

On 12/19/2020 at 7:00 PM, K^2 said:

I don't think there's a good way to make time dilation work, especially if multiplayer's involved. To be honest, I don't think Intercept will bother with relativity, but if they do, I'm pretty sure the time will go at Kerbin rate regardless of where you are and what speed you're traveling, as if you're still in that frame of reference.

There is a way, the static frame of reference (time measured at space center) will be synced, however the ships will experience relativistic effects...

[SynX]

On 11/15/2020 at 4:51 AM, starcaptain said:

There are 52 visible stars within 4 parsecs (13.05 lightyears) of Sol. Assume that the maximum velocity of a given spacecraft is 0.990c, and that timewarp still has the same scale delimiters as KSP1: 100 000x is maximum timewarp, giving a Kerbin year at 92 sec/year. At this sort of scale, it would take about 20 minutes running at maximum timewarp and maximum theoretical speed (ignoring acceleration phases) to travel from the center of this imagined world, to the most extreme edge. It would take 40 minutes to go from extreme edge to opposite extreme edge.

Map from Atomic Rockets, retrieved 2020-11-14

I proposed the world of KSP2 is the galaxy that kerbals find themselves in, that besides Kerbol and maybe other star systems within a 10 lightyear distance have their own model and textures, thousands more will be generated by a few lines of codes suggesting the type of the star, its coordinates relative to Kerbol, and information regarding planets. Including planet types, surface features, their orbit and moons. Each system should need a few KB to describe,  these celestial bodies will only be generated when observed. With this kind of compactness, I envisioned the thousands of solar systems within the kerbal galaxy, stars from red dwarves, main sequence to bright red supergiants and blue giant stars, and dead stars like white dwarves, neutron stars and black holes. Maybe even a couple of nebulae scattered across the galaxy, all orbiting a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy, its mass millions times greater than the great plasma ball of Kerbol.

I propose that the code for generating solar systems probably looks like this, although what i came up in 10 minutes might not be accurate or complete

StarSystem{
   parentStar = 187K3J2X1 // 3 terrestrial planets (like kerbin), 2 gas giant (like jool), 1 unknown
   starType = F3 // O, B, A, F, G, K, M
   initCoordinate = 2317.2026, 1012.4657, 0.2 //light years relative to center black hole
   // 53.6500, -32.0516, 0.2357 light years relative to Kerbol
   planets = K3, J2, X1
   
   Planet{
      planetName = K1
      type = terran
      radius = 1500000 // 1500km
      mass = 1.135E+24 // in kilograms
      Apogee = 235056750000 // in metres
      Perigee = 217530786000 
      inclination = 0.2 // in degrees
      tilt = 17.5 // in degrees
      tidalLock = False
      moons = 2
      AtmoPresent = True
       
      Atmosphere{
        ...
      }
      
      Moon{
         moon = 1 // first moon
         moonApogee = 245400000 // 245400 km
         moonPerigee = 215300000 // 215300 km
         inlination = 15
         tidalLock = False
         }
...
     }
}
         

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by SynX

[K^2]

11 hours ago, SynX said:

I propose that the code for generating solar systems probably looks like this, although what i came up in 10 minutes might not be accurate or complete

That is a bit of an understatement. Just to get the very basics of what the planets and moons look like, you need a ton more parameters. Here's a good exploration to get you started.

But this just gets you the basics. To make something that looks good up close, you need to do many times more work. Here's a sampling of talks I'd start with if I was planning something like this. Note that some of these go over artist-driven tools, but can be extended to procedural generation.

Spoiler

 

Some of these techniques I've worked with, and they require a fairly significant team to pull them off. Now, it looks like we're already getting some H:ZD style vegetation placements, so some of the work has to be done regardless, but if I was asked to plan procedural generation of planets for a game like KSP2 on the current schedule, I would budget for 3 engineers, at least one senior and two others at least solid mids, a lead, at least one additional tech artist with some experience in terrain tools, and either a design-minded artist or an art-minded designer with experience in terrain as well. Team of that size is also going to be basically a full-time job for a producer. So we're talking about addition of at least 7 fairly senior developers for two years.  A senior technical dev in  Seattle area might average, ballpark, $170k per dev per year (benefits and all), so the total cost is going to be in the $2M - $2.5M range, depending on how senior the team is.

This is a lot of money for something fairly experimental, and something that will certainly not have the same quality as the bespoke planets and star systems and with questionable benefit to the players.

I would very much like to see KSP2 team keep this open for modders, though. As I've noted, some procedural generation is almost guaranteed to be present, so having an API to control what and how gets generated on modded planets would be fantastic. And that will open up the path for either modders to create custom star systems and planets or even experiment with procedural generation. Though, I do not have high expectations, unless a talented mod team makes it their passion project and spends a few years on it.

[SynX]

10 hours ago, K^2 said:

That is a bit of an understatement. Just to get the very basics of what the planets and moons look like, you need a ton more parameters. Here's a good exploration to get you started.

But this just gets you the basics. To make something that looks good up close, you need to do many times more work. Here's a sampling of talks I'd start with if I was planning something like this. Note that some of these go over artist-driven tools, but can be extended to procedural generation.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Some of these techniques I've worked with, and they require a fairly significant team to pull them off. Now, it looks like we're already getting some H:ZD style vegetation placements, so some of the work has to be done regardless, but if I was asked to plan procedural generation of planets for a game like KSP2 on the current schedule, I would budget for 3 engineers, at least one senior and two others at least solid mids, a lead, at least one additional tech artist with some experience in terrain tools, and either a design-minded artist or an art-minded designer with experience in terrain as well. Team of that size is also going to be basically a full-time job for a producer. So we're talking about addition of at least 7 fairly senior developers for two years.  A senior technical dev in  Seattle area might average, ballpark, $170k per dev per year (benefits and all), so the total cost is going to be in the $2M - $2.5M range, depending on how senior the team is.

This is a lot of money for something fairly experimental, and something that will certainly not have the same quality as the bespoke planets and star systems and with questionable benefit to the players.

I would very much like to see KSP2 team keep this open for modders, though. As I've noted, some procedural generation is almost guaranteed to be present, so having an API to control what and how gets generated on modded planets would be fantastic. And that will open up the path for either modders to create custom star systems and planets or even experiment with procedural generation. Though, I do not have high expectations, unless a talented mod team makes it their passion project and spends a few years on it.

Very nice, I have learned a lot from you. I know the parameters are far more complexed than this, but I can’t think more parameters that are significant to me... after all I know the basics of astronomy, but I don’t know anything regarding planet generation besides it’s a great way to save storage...

[pandaman]

For me, the physical sizes do make sense from a design aspect...

They are big enough to feel like planets, and time to reach orbit is relatively short, so speeds up play.

Larger planets have much more surface area, so to get the same detail level all over is much more work.

I think if the original had them twice the size they currently are it may feel better and more 'real', but it's not a big issue for me.

I would prefer longer days though, 6 hours for a Kerbin day just feels too short.  12 hours would make more sense IMHO, it's not as if the planets' sizes, and gravities don't already 'bend the rules' a bit.  I would welcome a move to 12 hour Kerbin rotation in KSP2 should it happen, but I really don't expect it to.

[mcwaffles2003]

On 11/17/2020 at 9:15 PM, K^2 said:

There's nothing quantum about magnetism. It's all Coulomb's laws + relativity.

Magnets, on the other hand, they're deeply quantum, but that's another story. We're just talking about magnetic fields of current-carrying wires here.

great explanation to this here

Spoiler