kerbal ftl [Min KSP 1.12.2] Blueshift: Kerbal FTL

[Rakete]

On 8/28/2022 at 10:31 PM, Angel-125 said:

again, I'm leaning towards making the Whipcrack instead of the BSG

What is the difference? What is "the whipcrack"?

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, Rakete said:

What is the difference? What is "the whipcrack"?

BSG style jump drive is precise (fully automated, usually no chance to miss) and involves a jump calculator which takes time to warm up depending on your vessel's mass, possible interference from a gravity well, and the jump distance. Your orbital parameters at the destination are usually handwaved and your orbit is generally stable and perfectly circular.

"Whipcrack" is imprecise (requires the pilot's hand-eye coordination when timping the jump ignition, and hence has a high chance to miss). Accuracy falls as distance increases because the far end of the wormhole used by the jump drive "whips around." Whipcrack's accuracy is (or should be) assisted by your vessel's mass and if you have a "Whipping Post" (a specialized vessel that the "Whip" can possibly "wrap itself around" and be caught) in orbit of the destination celestial, but its cooldown time increases with your vessel's mass. Your destination orbital parameters are -not- handwaved and made perfect so you -must- have some form of torch drive on your jump ship and the skills or separate autopilot to fix your orbit on arrival.

"Whipcrack" is a fitting name and mentality when you look at Angel's brand "Wild Blue" on the whole and the Wild West and Mexican themes in several of the existing parts. The difficulties with this jump tech mod exist at least partially because the other two FTL techs have plenty "easy mode" in them, and making this one very easy too would make it redundant after them.

[Rakete]

Not sure I understood it correctly (even with my english skills being quite okay ). So the jump may be imprecise but fast. Understood. From which Sci-fi movie/series is it inspired, as there seems to be much lore already to it already? 

So I will need a whippost ? So some kind of mass-rich jump beacon to wrap my whip around? Am I the only one who's thinking of Indiana Jones!? 

 

It sounds like it could be a technode, that is available before the jumpgates & warp enginesm- a quick & dirty solution to to get you somewhere, right? Somehow I get funny associations of the FTL in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy in my mind. Don't get out of FTL being a tea pot.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Rakete

[JadeOfMaar]

2 minutes ago, Rakete said:

Not sure I understood it correctly (even with my english skills being quite okay ). So the jump may be imprecise but fast. Understood. From which Sci-fi movie/series is it inspired, as there seems to be much lore already to it already? 

So I will need a whippost ? So some kind of mass-rich jump beacon to wrap my whip around? Am I the only one who's thinking of Idiana Jones!? 

 

It sounds like it could be a technode, that is available before the jumpgates & warp enginesm- a quick & dirty solution to to get you somewhere, right?

I can't say which series, if any. This is likely a case of "any resemblance to X is purely coincidental" because that happens. If you're really hoping for a series to watch, you'll find a strong resemblance in Space Battleship Yamato 2199. The basic wormhole timing scheme and needing a human pilot to pull the trigger are there. But there's nothing like the Whipping Post mechanic. That's straight out of my mind and the cowboy train of thought.

The FTL techs are setup in parallel branches on the end of the tech tree. (Like a fork in the (ideally one way) road you pick a path and go down that and call it a day. You don't see humankind mastering more than one FTL tech in a given story.) Warp only has 1 tech node while jump gates and Whipcrack have 2. The more capable, larger drive and the Whipping Post unlock later.

[Angelo Kerman]

4 hours ago, Rakete said:

Not sure I understood it correctly (even with my english skills being quite okay ). So the jump may be imprecise but fast. Understood. From which Sci-fi movie/series is it inspired, as there seems to be much lore already to it already? 

So I will need a whippost ? So some kind of mass-rich jump beacon to wrap my whip around? Am I the only one who's thinking of Indiana Jones!? 

 

It sounds like it could be a technode, that is available before the jumpgates & warp enginesm- a quick & dirty solution to to get you somewhere, right? Somehow I get funny associations of the FTL in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy in my mind. Don't get out of FTL being a tea pot.

The Whipcrack was actually inspired by watching YouTube videos on whip cracking, and realizing that the whip could be an analogy to a wormhole with one fixed end and one flailing end. As I started thinking about it, having some kind of sinewave graph that is displayed on screen, whose goal is to be at zero in order to get an accurate jump, was the perfect way to involve the player with making the jump. @JadeOfMaar is right, the Space Battleship Yamato 2199's warp jump would be the closest example, though nowhere near as dramatic. It's more like you'd see something like this in a window on screen:

with a dot traveling along the wave, and you, the player, must hit the jump button as close to 0 as possible in order to leap as close to forward as possible. If you don't your ship will leap in some other direction. From a special effects perspective, think like this:

A slider control lets the player control the jump distance- up to the Whipcrack’s maximum jump distance- and thus, the sine wave’s frequency. The amplitude of the wave is affected by how close the ship is to the solar system’s star as well as the distance to the nearest celestial body- if any- that the vessel orbits. The angular frequency is affected by the star’s mass and the mass of a celestial body- if any- that the ship currently orbits.

Pilots, engineers, and scientists can all affect the sinewave, but not by a lot. To really improve it, you need a whipping post. Think of the whipping post as a jump beacon or an anchor point for a wormhole; it isn't as good as having a jumpgate at the other end, but it does make it easier to jump towards a target star.

Hopefully the above makes sense.

If players think the Whipcrack is too cumbersome to use then it won't be worth my time to make it. When I built Blueshift's Space Anomalies, I did so with the intention that players can discover the pre-populated mass relays alien jumpgates already circling distant stars. Players could then build warpships, fly through interstellar space once, discover the jumpgate and add it to the network. Then it's just a matter of warping around the star system, head to the gate, and jump to another distant star's jumpgate. Traveling interstellar with warp tech can be a bit tedius but you'd only have to do it once if you have Space Anomalies turned on, or you research the current version of Blueshift's jump tech and build your own gates.

[SkyFall2489]

27 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

The Whipcrack was actually inspired by watching YouTube videos on whip cracking, and realizing that the whip could be an analogy to a wormhole with one fixed end and one flailing end. As I started thinking about it, having some kind of sinewave graph that is displayed on screen, whose goal is to be at zero in order to get an accurate jump, was the perfect way to involve the player with making the jump. @JadeOfMaar is right, the Space Battleship Yamato 2199's warp jump would be the closest example, though nowhere near as dramatic. It's more like you'd see something like this in a window on screen:

with a dot traveling along the wave, and you, the player, must hit the jump button as close to 0 as possible in order to leap as close to forward as possible. If you don't your ship will leap in some other direction. From a special effects perspective, think like this:

A slider control lets the player control the jump distance- up to the Whipcrack’s maximum jump distance- and thus, the sine wave’s frequency. The amplitude of the wave is affected by how close the ship is to the solar system’s star as well as the distance to the nearest celestial body- if any- that the vessel orbits. The angular frequency is affected by the star’s mass and the mass of a celestial body- if any- that the ship currently orbits.

 

 

Pilots, engineers, and scientists can all affect the sinewave, but not by a lot. To really improve it, you need a whipping post. Think of the whipping post as a jump beacon or an anchor point for a wormhole; it isn't as good as having a jumpgate at the other end, but it does make it easier to jump towards a target star.

Hopefully the above makes sense.

If players think the Whipcrack is too cumbersome to use then it won't be worth my time to make it. When I built Blueshift's Space Anomalies, I did so with the intention that players can discover the pre-populated mass relays alien jumpgates already circling distant stars. Players could then build warpships, fly through interstellar space once, discover the jumpgate and add it to the network. Then it's just a matter of warping around the star system, head to the gate, and jump to another distant star's jumpgate. Traveling interstellar with warp tech can be a bit tedius but you'd only have to do it once if you have Space Anomalies turned on, or you research the current version of Blueshift's jump tech and build your own gates.

How do you make these animations in KSP anyways? Is it all handled by Waterfall, or do you need plugins or parts of the model? Because if you end up not using the Honkai: Star Rail warp animation, I'll probably end up trying to get it ingame myself... However, I don't have Blender or Unity. Also, I definitely think that the whipcrack is a great idea as long as it doesn't end up wasting too much time.

On 8/25/2022 at 5:15 PM, SkyFall2489 said:

Request for the Whipcrack effects:

Make it something like this. You don't have to actually change part colors, you can probably find a way to put a transparent-blue field around the whole vessel.

Warp begins at 0:14.

(yes, this is the space train I said i'd make a replica of. I have one, but it's not very good yet and I'll probably replace it's current warp drives with a jump drive when that releases)

 

EDIT:

Oh, and after looking through some older trailers from the game that that cutscene is from, turns out my model is also missing the many Soyuz-like boosters that are strapped to the side of the train. My next replica will have that.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by SkyFall2489

[Ooglak Kerman]

21 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Hopefully the above makes sense.

If players think the Whipcrack is too cumbersome to use then it won't be worth my time to make it. When I built Blueshift's Space Anomalies, I did so with the intention that players can discover the pre-populated mass relays alien jumpgates already circling distant stars. Players could then build warpships, fly through interstellar space once, discover the jumpgate and add it to the network. Then it's just a matter of warping around the star system, head to the gate, and jump to another distant star's jumpgate. Traveling interstellar with warp tech can be a bit tedius but you'd only have to do it once if you have Space Anomalies turned on, or you research the current version of Blueshift's jump tech and build your own gates.

It is complex for sure, but I'm game.  Warp tech has become sort of overly easy now.  I really like that the Whipcrack throws in a healthy dose of random into the whole thing.  Do your best and you still come out <somewhere>.
My main hope is that the resource requirements for this aren't too cumbersome.  If these things require.. ohh..  antimatter, deuterium, perfect hot tea, ice-9, and helium-3 to power it..  huhhhh..

On the topic of jump gates - I'm curious @Angel-125 - have you used a jump gate to go from one star system to another?  I ask, because when warping to Nova Kerbani in tests, when I hit about the SOI of the NK system, my game bogs to nothing.  It appears that it is loading in that star system - and taking it's time about it.  It would seem that this might be made worse by just popping out in the system with a jump gate.

[Ooglak Kerman]

On 8/30/2022 at 4:58 PM, JadeOfMaar said:

BSG style jump drive is precise (fully automated, usually no chance to miss) and involves a jump calculator which takes time to warm up depending on your vessel's mass, possible interference from a gravity well, and the jump distance. Your orbital parameters at the destination are usually handwaved and your orbit is generally stable and perfectly circular.

"Whipcrack" is imprecise (requires the pilot's hand-eye coordination when timping the jump ignition, and hence has a high chance to miss). Accuracy falls as distance increases because the far end of the wormhole used by the jump drive "whips around." Whipcrack's accuracy is (or should be) assisted by your vessel's mass and if you have a "Whipping Post" (a specialized vessel that the "Whip" can possibly "wrap itself around" and be caught) in orbit of the destination celestial, but its cooldown time increases with your vessel's mass. Your destination orbital parameters are -not- handwaved and made perfect so you -must- have some form of torch drive on your jump ship and the skills or separate autopilot to fix your orbit on arrival.

I may be oversimplifying, but it seems that it should be possible to set the BSG style jump drive in between the Warp Tech and the Whipcrack in terms of accuracy.  Perhaps that accuracy defined by the level engineer on board.  Eng-0 = good luck, you'll need it,  to Eng-5 = good chance of success, may still see stellar fusion processes first hand.

Regarding orbital parameters at destination with the Whipcrack, I'd like to know more of what you think that would look like.  I'm guessing that you jump and then pop out at some destination with your starting relative velocity and vectors relative to where you come out?  Imprecision of destination could make that quite exciting and splattery.  Do you think the mod(s) would have a "look-ahead" to see if your jump to the Jool system will actually drop you at 40KM at Eve and balk?

This is cool stuff and I envy you folks able to come up with this, make the code AND artwork and put up with us needy users - (don't envy that last bit)

[kspnerd122]

then dont use warp to enter the SOI and enter it slower than light speed, I dont encounter the bug because I dont use FTL tech, so I would say just dont use it to cross the SOI boundary

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I may be oversimplifying, but it seems that it should be possible to set the BSG style jump drive in between the Warp Tech and the Whipcrack in terms of accuracy.  Perhaps that accuracy defined by the level engineer on board.  Eng-0 = good luck, you'll need it,  to Eng-5 = good chance of success, may still see stellar fusion processes first hand.

Regarding orbital parameters at destination with the Whipcrack, I'd like to know more of what you think that would look like.  I'm guessing that you jump and then pop out at some destination with your starting relative velocity and vectors relative to where you come out?  Imprecision of destination could make that quite exciting and splattery.  Do you think the mod(s) would have a "look-ahead" to see if your jump to the Jool system will actually drop you at 40KM at Eve and balk?

This is cool stuff and I envy you folks able to come up with this, make the code AND artwork and put up with us needy users - (don't envy that last bit)

In practice, BSG's jump style sits somewhere between Whipcrack and Warp in terms of convenience and challenge. But in terms of travel time it rates higher (re: shortening that time) than Warp but still lower than Gates. There are three dimensions to the sine wave mini-game where you can shoot for improved jump performance, and each dimension is tied to one of the stock kerbal traits, making you require a 5-star in all 3 to ensure peak performance. That much is given in the documentation in the Git issue.

What's not given, or not well settled yet (it's the kind of thing you as a modmaker won't know the limits or effect of until you actually make it and playtest it) is how your orbital parameters get shuffled and ker-fuffled after a jump. All that's said is seemingly your ship accelerates a bit during jump startup, which adds to the offset of those params. As it so happens I haven't given any consideration to how Whipcrack will decide what the minimum safe orbital altitude is before you place a Whipping Post there. Now that you have me thinking, the jump to a Whipping Post should have your destination's orbital params start with that of the Post or, say, baseline altitude of 5x the body radius (just above Kerbin's geosync altitude). If these are the case then in most cases you shouldn't need to worry about your destination Pe being too low and (as you suggest) you appear inside Eve or the Sun. But for the most part you can absolutely expect that the difference in orbital parameters can possibly cause you to arrive in an absolutely suborbital position and need to fix your orbit and fast. This is where the fierce recommendation of a torch drive mod (or Angel's KFS) comes in.

Angel's graphic and that it tells you can jump in REVERSE or get yoinked by a Whipping Post that you're NOT targetting really introduces you to the Curve ball that's going to be thrown at you, lol.

About the look ahead... idk. It would be nice to be able to get advance warning that a gravity well near your jump vector could deflect you and where you'll get deflected to, so you know which way not to jump. The prospected output would need to be the predicted arrival parameters. But that's only half the calculation, half the data you want to see. The other half is where you'll actually end up when you factor in the variable of how accurately you fire. Unless your trigger finger is already sharp enough there's a high chance your undesired destination will be far worse than the prediction.

2 hours ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

It is complex for sure, but I'm game.  Warp tech has become sort of overly easy now.  I really like that the Whipcrack throws in a healthy dose of random into the whole thing.  Do your best and you still come out <somewhere>.
My main hope is that the resource requirements for this aren't too cumbersome.  If these things require.. ohh..  antimatter, deuterium, perfect hot tea, ice-9, and helium-3 to power it..  huhhhh..

On the topic of jump gates - I'm curious @Angel-125 - have you used a jump gate to go from one star system to another?  I ask, because when warping to Nova Kerbani in tests, when I hit about the SOI of the NK system, my game bogs to nothing.  It appears that it is loading in that star system - and taking it's time about it.  It would seem that this might be made worse by just popping out in the system with a jump gate.

Overly easy? I doubt (but not too much. I feel the sentiment). Remember that Blueshift's warp, at least, is still an engineering challenge due to needing 3 or 4 types of parts and really needing to watch your ship's mass in order to have a fast...ish, working warp ship.

Blueshift being Blueshift, the Whipcrack will have the same requirements as Warp: Graviolium and ElectroPlasma (and subsequently the things you have to do to generate ElectroPlasma). The requirement on Deut and AM will only happen if players bother him to write FFT compatibility.

About the Nova Kirbani problem, these points:

• If using jump gates causes the bug, try using the stock teleporter's rendezvous function instead. See if the bug still happens. If it does then imo it's not a fault of the FTL plugin.
• As @kspnerd122 said, crossing an SOI "too fast" (not only via huge orbital velocity but especially with high time warp) can provoke this kind of problem. But..... Try using the stock teleporter instead of the jump gate and rendezvous with the same gate or just get into low orbit of some planet there. If using stock triggers the problem then it's not a fault of the FTL mod.
• Have you confirmed that the bug occurs with other GU systems? With warp and with the jump gates? The further off the system is, the worse any KSP problem that has to do with interstellar distance. If it only happens with Nova Kirbani then I'd say the bug is the effect of misbehavior of Kopernicus and possibly a config item unique to Nova Kirbani.

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

It is complex for sure, but I'm game.  Warp tech has become sort of overly easy now.  I really like that the Whipcrack throws in a healthy dose of random into the whole thing.  Do your best and you still come out <somewhere>.
My main hope is that the resource requirements for this aren't too cumbersome.  If these things require.. ohh..  antimatter, deuterium, perfect hot tea, ice-9, and helium-3 to power it..  huhhhh..

On the topic of jump gates - I'm curious @Angel-125 - have you used a jump gate to go from one star system to another?  I ask, because when warping to Nova Kerbani in tests, when I hit about the SOI of the NK system, my game bogs to nothing.  It appears that it is loading in that star system - and taking it's time about it.  It would seem that this might be made worse by just popping out in the system with a jump gate.

I did testing with Galaxies Unlimited and didn't have problems with my game locking up. I also used GU to test the jumpgates, also without issues.

2 hours ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I may be oversimplifying, but it seems that it should be possible to set the BSG style jump drive in between the Warp Tech and the Whipcrack in terms of accuracy.  Perhaps that accuracy defined by the level engineer on board.  Eng-0 = good luck, you'll need it,  to Eng-5 = good chance of success, may still see stellar fusion processes first hand.

Regarding orbital parameters at destination with the Whipcrack, I'd like to know more of what you think that would look like.  I'm guessing that you jump and then pop out at some destination with your starting relative velocity and vectors relative to where you come out?  Imprecision of destination could make that quite exciting and splattery.  Do you think the mod(s) would have a "look-ahead" to see if your jump to the Jool system will actually drop you at 40KM at Eve and balk?

This is cool stuff and I envy you folks able to come up with this, make the code AND artwork and put up with us needy users - (don't envy that last bit)

Your ship will keep whatever velocity vector that it had at the time of the jump. You can simulate this now by using warp tech: just point your ship in the desired direction, fly forward at top speed, count to- oh, 20- and then stop warping. Your ship will be in some kind of orbit at that point. Technically, in the game, the Whipcrack will move just like a warp engine, except that the distance traveled is done in one big jump instead of several small ones like the warp engine does.

There won't be any "look ahead" except for telling you how far away a selected target is (warp engines do this already).  To make it easier, it might be helpful to have a window that lets you select a star from a list of stars so you don't have to go out to the map view and do a lot of scrolling. Then you could use the SAS to point your ship at the star before making the jump.

[JadeOfMaar]

8 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

To make it easier, it might be helpful to have a window that lets you select a star from a list of stars so you don't have to go out to the map view and do a lot of scrolling. Then you could use the SAS to point your ship at the star before making the jump.

KER's RDZV panel provides this, along with text input and closest match as you type.

[Ooglak Kerman]

18 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

I did testing with Galaxies Unlimited and didn't have problems with my game locking up. I also used GU to test the jumpgates, also without issues.

Your ship will keep whatever velocity vector that it had at the time of the jump. You can simulate this now by using warp tech: just point your ship in the desired direction, fly forward at top speed, count to- oh, 20- and then stop warping. Your ship will be in some kind of orbit at that point. Technically, in the game, the Whipcrack will move just like a warp engine, except that the distance traveled is done in one big jump instead of several small ones like the warp engine does.

There won't be any "look ahead" except for telling you how far away a selected target is (warp engines do this already).  To make it easier, it might be helpful to have a window that lets you select a star from a list of stars so you don't have to go out to the map view and do a lot of scrolling. Then you could use the SAS to point your ship at the star before making the jump.

I'm gonna go with it may be some issue with my game then.  It will be a little while yet before I bring GU into my main game but I've have clones with which to test.

Regarding the velocity vectors, I've learned to use them to very excellent effect for achieving nearly exact arrivals with the warp drive.  I generally try to maneuver so that my vector is away from the destination in case I get sloppy.  This strategy has saved me several times.  Just recent, I had the planetary speed brake disabled on the way into Kerbin.  Flamed out and floated sedately back out.

I guess I'm having a problem visualizing the use of the Whipcrack.  I see the warp is sort of analogous to the chemrocket, but going in a straight line to the target (fast) and retaining vectors and being able to just stop at any point.  I'm seeing Whipcrack as a "here one moment - there the next" with no stopping to get it all together.  Is this correct?

Thank you to you and @JadeOfMaar for taking time to engage in this discussion.  It's right exciting!

Edited September 3, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman

[Angelo Kerman]

16 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I'm gonna go with it may be some issue with my game then.  It will be a little while yet before I bring GU into my main game but I've have clones with which to test.

Regarding the velocity vectors, I've learned to use them to very excellent effect for achieving nearly exact arrivals with the warp drive.  I generally try to maneuver so that my vector is away from the destination in case I get sloppy.  This strategy has saved me several times.  Just recent, I had the planetary speed brake disabled on the way into Kerbin.  Flamed out and floated sedately back out.

I guess I'm having a problem visualizing the use of the Whipcrack.  I see the warp is sort of analogous to the chemrocket, but going in a straight line to the target (fast) and retaining vectors and being able to just stop at any point.  I'm seeing Whipcrack as a "here one moment - there the next" with no stopping to get it all together.  Is this correct?

Thank you to you and @JadeOfMaar for taking time to engage in this discussion.  It's right exciting!

Going in a straight line is precisely what the Whipcrack does when you jump at the right time. If you don't, you'll travel in a random direction based on how badly you miss-timed the jump.

[JadeOfMaar]

18 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I guess I'm having a problem visualizing the use of the Whipcrack.  I see the warp is sort of analogous to the chemrocket, but going in a straight line to the target (fast) and retaining vectors and being able to just stop at any point.  I'm seeing Whipcrack as a "here one moment - there the next" with no stopping to get it all together.  Is this correct?

Warp and Whipcrack are effectively the same...at first. You've boarded a bullet train and it's left the station. But now (how Whipcrack differs):

• The rail splits 5 ways at some point.
• The rail switching mechanism is busted and changing randomly, with respect to the sine wave timing. and stopping the train is not an option.
• Whichever path you take is a shortcut through an express tunnel through a mountain (the wormhole: folding space and piercing through) vs taking the very lengthy scenic route around the mountain (moving/scrolling the universe).
• You can't see how the terrain is at the other end of the shortcut... A landslide might be waiting for you at the end, or there's a sinkhole in the middle waiting to be sprung by the weight of the train.

[Ooglak Kerman]

3 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Warp and Whipcrack are effectively the same...at first. You've boarded a bullet train and it's left the station. But now (how Whipcrack differs):

• The rail splits 5 ways at some point.
• The rail switching mechanism is busted and changing randomly, with respect to the sine wave timing. and stopping the train is not an option.
• Whichever path you take is a shortcut through an express tunnel through a mountain (the wormhole: folding space and piercing through) vs taking the very lengthy scenic route around the mountain (moving/scrolling the universe).
• You can't see how the terrain is at the other end of the shortcut... A landslide might be waiting for you at the end, or there's a sinkhole in the middle waiting to be sprung by the weight of the train.

Important differences for sure.  With warp drive, I can see on the map view what is coming up.  With Whipcrack, I hope I get reasonably close to my intended destination and be ready to deal with exciting other destinations and residual vectors (yay for gravatic).

All right boys!  Uncertain exit point.  Possible tragic vectors on exit.  Lets do this!!

[JadeOfMaar]

3 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

Possible tragic vectors on exit.  Lets do this!!

Plot bunnies: *suddenly pour in like when Tribbles flooded the Enterprise*

[Ooglak Kerman]

37 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Going in a straight line is precisely what the Whipcrack does when you jump at the right time. If you don't, you'll travel in a random direction based on how badly you miss-timed the jump.

Straight line - but instantly with no time for admiration of the scenery.  Warping from A to B is pretty scenic if you are passing by Kerbol en-route. 

If you have time and energy for this likely not trivial endeavour, .... well.. Rah you!

[Rakete]

On 9/2/2022 at 1:59 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

You don't see humankind mastering more than one FTL tech in a given story.)

That's a bit wrong.

Star Trek VOY: They use Warp, Borg transwarp, quantum slipstream, siikarian trajectors, a subspace catapult (which they repair at first) etc.

Star Trek Discovery: They use some kind of mushroom drive. I don't like the series due to Burnham always crying and only having exactlymone facial expression. Also the propulsion system explanation is... silly... to my mind

But I get your point.  I like variety among techs to pick and choose from. Pricy parallel technodes sounds plausible.

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Rakete

[Rakete]

3 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Plot bunnies: *suddenly pour in like when Tribbles flooded the Enterprise*

Who does not like tribbles ? One of the best scenes in TOS, when they fall out of the grain storage right on Shatner (and in the DS9-timetravel episode to this space station)

 

As for the ressources for the whipcrack : Maybe consider usage of antimatter - it would nicely hook into Far Future Tech by @Nertea where you get really nice antimatter storage tanks (with need to be powered for containment, or elsewise go boom due anihilation) and a very complex facility mechanism to generate antimatter. There are really nice mechanisms in Far Future Tech to hook into, because they are slightly underused in FFT. Yes, they are there, but you don't have the motivation to build this production chain stuff for a sublight AM torch drive. But if it would be used by the whipcrack it would be a win-win for both mods. And: You get more the complexity to the whole mechanism for free.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Rakete

[Angelo Kerman]

Actually it is already established that it costs Graviolium to warp or to use a jumpgate, so I can see the Whipcrack doing the same. 

[Rakete]

4 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Actually it is already established that it costs Graviolium to warp or to use a jumpgate, so I can see the Whipcrack doing the same. 

And that is good for the jumpgates and warp engines. It was just a proposal in order make the whipcrack a bit different - a reason to follow a slightly different development path. But just an idea. You may design it, as you wish.

[Ooglak Kerman]

There was a short story I read about how it turns out that warp/gravatic tech was just laughably simple and most civilizations found it in their early industrial age.  And then never progressed - no need.

So, you had all these early gunpowder era civilizations in the stars and then they ran into modern era humans who had not figured it out and HAD progressed.  The attempt to conquer the humans went predictably badly and now the humans had the technology.

I mention this, because in the context of a game/story, it's probably important for the ease of use of these technologies to be in inverse relation to cost of use.  (I lump time to destination into ease of use)

Consider warp drive and Whipcrack.  If I had both and the cost of use of each was about the same, why would I use Whipcrack (from a purely economical standpoint)?

Of course, all of this is a moot point if you won't allow the techs to co-exist at the same time.  Just some morning thoughts while the sourdough pancakes were baking.

[Rakete]

Evening thoughts: Why only allow one techtree path? I don't think, that I want such limitations in my gameplay. Why not whipcrack to another solar system and use there warp tech to install jumpgates along the planets? I like freedom of choice if I can afford all the neccessary science points. A game does not need to be hard. If you want that, just turn down the science point modificator in your difficulty settings for yourself.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Rakete

[Ooglak Kerman]

1 hour ago, Rakete said:

Evening thoughts: Why only allow one techtree path? I don't think, that I want such limitations in my gameplay. Why not whipcrack to another solar system and use there warp tech to install jumpgates along the planets? I like freedom of choice if I can afford all the neccessary science points. A game does need to be hard. If you want that, just turn down the science point modicator in your difficulty settings for yourself.

Here's a possibility to throw on top of what you offer.  How about if the warp drive just will not work in Interstellar?  Only Interplanetary.  Or alternatively, take away the Interstellar speed boost for warp, both strategies necessitating the use of Whipcrack.  Now you have complementary technologies in warp drive and Whipcrack and real incentive to learn and use both.

I've looked with envy on the beautiful creations that people make like in the below video of a slowboat colonization mission to Proxima Centauri, but having to basically put stuff back at Kerbin on hold for 422 years while you timewarp the fleet out feels limiting.  And so complementary FTL / Instantaneous tech like Warp and Whipcrack would allow a multi-dimensional game while being able to reach for the stars.

If you've not looked at this persons creations - they are jaw dropping and inspiring.  The ISEE-3 mission recreation in particular (Principia mod) is....  just wow.  AND... I just noticed... is Buffalo being used?  The vehicles and hab modules look like it.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman