johnwill1235 Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 Hi all, I am curious, will KSP2 have time dilation mechanics incorporated for interstellar travel? I assume that, in order to travel between stars, one must approach a sizeable fraction of the speed of light, lest time warp take 10,000 years. With this, however, per Einstein's theory of special relativity, time must slow down for the observer. Will KSP2 incorporate this spacetime mechanic and, if so, how? Here's a good course explaining special relativity for all, currently using it in university. https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_adding/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shdwlrd Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 Not known, the devs haven't said anything. This subject has been discussed before. The general consensus is the devs will ignore it since you shouldn't be able to build enough velocity to reach a good percentage of C. Plus it would be difficult and unnecessary to program all the effects relativity. It's a game with realistic physics, not a space simulator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLTay Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 The distances between stars will be much less than in real life, and the tech will not be sufficient to reach a high enough speed to matter. It will probably be ignored or simplified in favor of putting the time and effort into more relevant tasks. I'm sure some mod team will probably add it to principia 2.0 or something a few years after release at great cpu compute cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOrbitalMechanic Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 They haven't said anything on the matter, but time dilation effects could be as simple as slowing the amount of time it takes the clock display to count off seconds, while leaving everything else the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t_v Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 I believe that the devs have said that they will not implement relativity because they would want to do it properly and it would increase the complexity of computations enough that calculating orbital trajectories would strain CPUs, even with only one body pulling on the ship. I can’t remember where that was said, but I think it was part of a question about implementing n-body physics where they said they would keep a simple SOI model. However, I would love to see the modding API allow for mods like principia to implement their own solutions for relativity, allowing for “realistic” warp drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow71 Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 (edited) Slightly, but not entirely, related question. Have the devs indicated how they are even going to handle interstellar travel? Will it be a simple "fling yourself in this direction and hope for the best", or are they going to use future tech stuff like jump gates or hyperspace? Black holes/wormholes? Edited October 28, 2021 by Scarecrow71 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLTay Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said: Slightly, but not entirely, related question. Have the devs indicated how they are even going to handle interstellar travel? Will it be a simple "fling yourself in this direction and hope for the best", or are they going to use future tech stuff like jump gates or hyperspace? Black holes/wormholes? They said explicitly no warp drives or scifi stuff. Basically interplanetary transfer on steroids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shdwlrd Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 We guessing brachistochrone transfers to other solar systems. But TLTay is correct, no warp, FTL, jump drives, star gates or wormholes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 Spoiler They will add empty CPU command loops to imitate the time dilation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bej Kerman Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 On 10/27/2021 at 10:28 PM, shdwlrd said: The general consensus is the devs will ignore it since you shouldn't be able to build enough velocity to reach a good percentage of C. Like how you can't exceed 20km/s with stock KSP 1 technology? One small glance at what people have built in KSP 1 shows you people have gone much faster with stock tech. People will find a way to approach C in KSP 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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