Showing people the actual math

[LHACK4142]

I always thought that it would be good if KSP told the players about the equations and formulae, etc. that impact the orbits and such. Everything makes more sense and the game is easier after learning them, because you know roughly what does what. It would be a bit of a challenge to not get people turned off by seeing math, but I'm sure that the devs could figure out a good solution.

[Bej Kerman]

59 minutes ago, LHACK4142 said:

I always thought that it would be good if KSP told the players about the equations and formulae, etc. that impact the orbits and such. Everything makes more sense and the game is easier after learning them, because you know roughly what does what. It would be a bit of a challenge to not get people turned off by seeing math, but I'm sure that the devs could figure out a good solution.

One word. Why

[ColdJ]

36 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

One word. Why

not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too

[Bej Kerman]

9 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

46 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

One word. Why

not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too

1. What

2. Isn't the point of KSP that you learn orbital mechanics by being hands-on with it and come to terms with cause and effect in the context of orbital trajectories, and not having to figure out a bunch of math?

[PDCWolf]

7 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

1. What

2. Isn't the point of KSP that you learn orbital mechanics by being hands-on with it and come to terms with cause and effect in the context of orbital trajectories, and not having to figure out a bunch of math?

And you could just not look at the math, the same way a lot of people have no idea what the Isp, DeltaV and TWR readouts are until they take interest on them.

+1 to the idea.

[ColdJ]

5 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

1. What

2. Isn't the point of KSP that you learn orbital mechanics by being hands-on with it and come to terms with cause and effect in the context of orbital trajectories, and not having to figure out a bunch of math?

1. JFK Moon Speech.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon

2. Everything in KSP "IS" a bunch of math, Trajectories, TWR, Part interactions, Drag Cubes, volumes, gravitational affect and a long list more. @LHACK4142 wasn't asking to make it harder, they were just interested in how the formula and algorythms work in the background to produce the way the game responds to things. Be glad you aren't the first Astronauts, having to work things out with a pencil, pad and sliderule.

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

2. Everything in KSP "IS" a bunch of math

That the player doesn't need to know about, yes.

[LHACK4142]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

2. Isn't the point of KSP that you learn orbital mechanics by being hands-on with it and come to terms with cause and effect in the context of orbital trajectories, and not having to figure out a bunch of math?

I guess so, but you probably won't figure out  , an equation for the orbital period, on your own with trial and error, and it just gives you an interesting bit of insight as to, say, why my orbit around Jool has a period of 3 years. 

[darthgently]

23 hours ago, LHACK4142 said:

I always thought that it would be good if KSP told the players about the equations and formulae, etc. that impact the orbits and such. Everything makes more sense and the game is easier after learning them, because you know roughly what does what. It would be a bit of a challenge to not get people turned off by seeing math, but I'm sure that the devs could figure out a good solution.

This is a good idea.  Of course there a lot of resources on the web but it would be great if some it were integrated into the game such that a settings option could make it more visible.   I mean imagine if KSP2 cracked the education market and school districts were ordering it 100 packs the way they used to order Oregon Trail.  Educators could even create add on missions that taught specific vector math concepts and such in-line with the game

[t_v]

In theory I agree with this, but I feel that the implementation has to be really good for it to work, which might rule it out of the stock game. First, the default options need to appeal to the least interested people, so the math should be off by default to not scare away math-phobic people. Second, the UI can’t simply display equations but instead needs to let players interact with the math in a way that is relevant to the mission. For me, this means a menu where players can see the equations with numbers plugged in and can enter a desired characteristic (orbital period, inclination, apoapsis etc) and then see the changes that need to be made to get that, and then on top of that there would need to be an easy way to integrate that with maneuvers, probably with a one-click to create maneuver option. The benefit to this is that you could really get precise and make much more complicated maneuvers such as getting gravity assist chains by tweaking orbital period without having to fiddle with stuff. But all of this is very very difficult to get right and imo, it should not be implemented into the game if it is half-complete, as that would worsen the game for a lot of people. 

[Bej Kerman]

Maths feels like something the game actively wanted to avoid. 

[PDCWolf]

37 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Maths feels like something the game actively wanted to avoid. 

 

Math is already there, copious amounts of obscure terms and numbers most people already don't know or chose to ignore, we only want to also be shown how to arrive at this information.

[t_v]

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

 

Math is already there, copious amounts of obscure terms and numbers most people already don't know or chose to ignore, we only want to also be shown how to arrive at this information.

I think that it is very important to distinguish between numbers like we are being shown here and mathematical formulae, abbreviated to maths in this thread. In particular, I want to try to explain @Bej Kerman’s comment which created this reply. I get the feeling that a fair few games have numbers in them that players interact with, from survival games managing resources to strategy games managing… well, resources, even to platformers which represent their numbers in distances in a tile system. One thing platformers do well is that the numbers are presented very intuitively and are well incorporated into the games, literally being the levels, which allows players to more easily interact with them, and I feel like KSP could also do a bit of a better job making their presentation of numbers more intuitive. But I digress. 
 

The point is, lots of games have numbers present, but don’t ask players to consciously do math with them. In a game of Civilization, I might be factoring in lots of numbers, from troop movement times to manufacturing delays, but I never feel that I am consciously working out the math, even though I am doing it constantly. The same thing applies to KSP. I have these numbers and I fiddle with maneuvers and I do math around delta-v, aerodynamics, electricity, comms, and even heat in modded environments constantly. But it doesn’t feel too math-intensive because there is a calculator always present in the game in the form of all those readouts above. Now, I am not at all opposed to the option to have those calculators be visible as opposed to just getting the result of the calculation, but the point here is that the numbers currently present are not to be classified as the same thing as the suggested formulas. They occupy different places in people’s brains even though they are connected, and so the case for formulas needs to be predicated on something other than the current delivery of information in the game. 

[Scarecrow71]

@PDCWolf

What mod is that last screenshot from?  I love the visualization of the transfer, and am curious about where it came from.

[Bej Kerman]

15 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Math is already there, copious amounts of obscure terms and numbers most people already don't know or chose to ignore, we only want to also be shown how to arrive at this information.

If basic addition and subtraction counts as hard, proper math to you, math that could scare anything off, then power to you I guess. The only obscure term I see there is dV, among basic stuff like km and m/s.

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

@PDCWolf

What mod is that last screenshot from?  I love the visualization of the transfer, and am curious about where it came from.

Recent stock addition.

[Scarecrow71]

26 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Recent stock addition.

Guess I'll have to update my version then.  Thanks!

[PDCWolf]

12 hours ago, t_v said:

I think that it is very important to distinguish between numbers like we are being shown here and mathematical formulae, abbreviated to maths in this thread. In particular, I want to try to explain @Bej Kerman’s comment which created this reply. I get the feeling that a fair few games have numbers in them that players interact with, from survival games managing resources to strategy games managing… well, resources, even to platformers which represent their numbers in distances in a tile system. One thing platformers do well is that the numbers are presented very intuitively and are well incorporated into the games, literally being the levels, which allows players to more easily interact with them, and I feel like KSP could also do a bit of a better job making their presentation of numbers more intuitive. But I digress. 
 

The point is, lots of games have numbers present, but don’t ask players to consciously do math with them. In a game of Civilization, I might be factoring in lots of numbers, from troop movement times to manufacturing delays, but I never feel that I am consciously working out the math, even though I am doing it constantly. The same thing applies to KSP. I have these numbers and I fiddle with maneuvers and I do math around delta-v, aerodynamics, electricity, comms, and even heat in modded environments constantly. But it doesn’t feel too math-intensive because there is a calculator always present in the game in the form of all those readouts above. Now, I am not at all opposed to the option to have those calculators be visible as opposed to just getting the result of the calculation, but the point here is that the numbers currently present are not to be classified as the same thing as the suggested formulas. They occupy different places in people’s brains even though they are connected, and so the case for formulas needs to be predicated on something other than the current delivery of information in the game. 

In this case, the math is already done for us, so it's not so much an implementation as it is a presentation of what's already there. Of course, it'll put people off if shoved in their face, but you can ignore them the same way you can ignore all those tools I presented. 

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

@PDCWolf

What mod is that last screenshot from?  I love the visualization of the transfer, and am curious about where it came from.

No mods, all of that is stock as of 12.2, and I didn't screenshot the clock because I modded it.

6 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

If basic addition and subtraction counts as hard, proper math to you, math that could scare anything off, then power to you I guess. The only obscure term I see there is dV, among basic stuff like km and m/s.

TWR and Isp formulas, and applying them to dV are not simple addition and subtraction, that only applies once everything is solved and you can just manipulate values inside the dV equation.

 

[shdwlrd]

The only reason to show the math would be satisfy the curious. Yes it could be useful to see what numbers goes where in the many equations used, but for most players, they could care less. The only reasons I can see using anything like that is in an educational setting, or in mod creation.

[Scarecrow71]

42 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

The only reason to show the math would be satisfy the curious. Yes it could be useful to see what numbers goes where in the many equations used, but for most players, they could care less. The only reasons I can see using anything like that is in an educational setting, or in mod creation.

Actually, I would love to have a tool where I could enter different values and see the potential outcome.  I might be in the minority, but I like math.  And I wish I could see the math.

[shdwlrd]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Actually, I would love to have a tool where I could enter different values and see the potential outcome.  I might be in the minority, but I like math.  And I wish I could see the math.

But you can. The maneuver planner allows very fine entry of the values. Any changes will display on the map screen. If you're thinking about the actual equation, there are sources out there that can show you what they would look like. The only exception is the rocket equation, sort of. All the info is there, but you will need to figure out which portions of the equation the game is working with at which time.

Edited December 6, 2021 by shdwlrd