How might the Tracking Center and tracking/comms capabilities work?

[THE_JUDGE]

On 1/5/2022 at 10:29 AM, t_v said:

One thing that light delay could impact that the player has control over and won't be annoyed by is science. If science took time to transition between colonies, that would be interesting because colonies in a far-off star system would not have the same access to parts as the Kerbol system, and might need to spend some of their research points to unlock tech nodes that were already unlocked just to get new parts in time for important missions. This doesn't punish the player for uncontrollable (pushing buttons with delay) or easily avoidable (delay ahead of time) things, and also generates interesting gameplay. So, I think that craft should be immediately controllable as long as comms are open the entire way through, but science should spread slowly across the galaxy (maybe even slow enough that colonies could be seriously offset from each other, or make it a difficulty setting to change the speed)

I actually think this is a really cool idea. If science and new parts are limited by the speed of light it would mean that different solar systems would feel isolated to the player and would help emphasize the vastness of space between stars, something the devs have repeatedly said that they want the game to teach people. This could keep players who just rush down the tech tree to get the biggest engines and one(1) construction module from being able to send anything more than probes to other stars, because a ship that would take people to another stars absolutely has to have the ability to be self-sufficient when it gets there. Players would have to be fully prepared to make the jump to another stars because once they get there, any new technologies they might need to survive are years away. But if you take time to properly plan an interstellar mission, then you could research technologies in the field once a colony has been set up.

[mcwaffles2003]

@intelliCom It's a fun scenario to send a probe to Duna with everything preplanned and as it enters the atmosphere something goes wrong and the probe is outside your control just like the people at NASA living through the 20 minutes of terror, where no matter what you want to do, fixing the situation is outside your control so you just had to make a good enough plan that can account for any disturbance along the way.

Really hope we get that toggle, but I don't think many people care to enjoy the experience with us.

[Vl3d]

10 hours ago, THE_JUDGE said:

science should spread slowly across the galaxy

No, information travels at the speed of light. They are at most a few years behind. Only industrial infrastructure spreads slowly.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Vl3d

[THE_JUDGE]

10 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Only industrial infrastructure spreads slowly.

This is kinda what I meant from a gameplay perspective. If science is limited by the speed of light, then an interstellar colony won’t be able to just instantly create new infrastructure as soon as it’s researched at the KSC, they would have to wait years for the information to reach them

[Vl3d]

It's emergent gameplay, you need special resources to build advanced technology and it's gonna take a while to create a new extraction and logistics network on planets around the new star.

[darthgently]

15 minutes ago, THE_JUDGE said:

If science is limited by the speed of light, then an interstellar colony won’t be able to just instantly create new infrastructure as soon as it’s researched at the KSC, they would have to wait years for the information to reach them

But, in addition, the same information should be researchable at the colony.  There should be nothing magical KSC compared to a colony of some size.  A colony would necessarily have research going to some degree also.

[THE_JUDGE]

I absolutely agree. This would mean that there might be differences in the technical knowledge of each systems colonies, ex, a system with a lot of atmospheric planets would have more advanced plane parts, a system with very heavy planets could have larger engines. 

[Vl3d]

You're talking about the production / industrial specialization of the colony or the common scientific research and discovery tech tree?

[THE_JUDGE]

Both I guess. I hadn’t thought about the logistics of making new infrastructure in a new system, and the delays/specialization that would entail, that’s a good point. I still think there should be a speed of light delay for new tech unlocked on the tech tree so that even if there is a fully developed colony in a different system, it doesn’t instantly get a new tech just because some other colony light years away unlocked it.

[darthgently]

In fact, I can't see why a big enough craft couldn't do research and unlock tech nodes en route to another star, for example.  It might make sense to have some critical threshold of scientists/engineer population and experience level or something for a given unlockable level of tech tree in cases like this.

And of course anything unlocked would be shared with all other locations depending on light speed

[dave1904]

On 1/5/2022 at 5:40 AM, Axelord FTW said:

In an ideal world, KSP2 would include a speed-o'-light signal delay and a true remote guidance unit system like RemoteTech does. The ability to have a probe work on a pre-configured set of parameters even when there is no direct connection to the KSC really is a game changer.

As for signal strength, I think KSP1  got it mostly right but it will have to be reworked and expanded upon since the whole interplanetary thing is happening. I can otherwise handwave not taking into account lightlag in the Kerbol system for streamlining purposes, but being able to directly control a probe in the next system would be a huge mood killer.

In any case, the antennas roster will also need expansion. I like Nertea's solution with reflectors in NFE.

signal delay was alway a bit of a pain in the butt with remote tech. It just way to much work to set something up with signal delay and in the end you always forget something in the pre programing. I have not used remote tech in years but I do remember it was basically impossible to land on a planet with signal delay with the guidance system. All you could do were basic actions and basic burns. Maybe you can now but when I used it you could not set up the computer to land the space craft. Maybe I was using it wrong but I doubt it. I guess with all the proper mods you could get it working but its to much of a hassle for me. Im the guidance system.  KSP was always about playing the game. When you add a guidence system you basically change the fundamental point of the game. Its not like anyone flys a rocket by hand into space. 

Now im wondering. Has anyone ever flown a rocket into space even as a test? I think they shuttle was landed by hand once but even that was slightly automated. Not sure. Dont know enough. 

Edited April 15, 2022 by dave1904

[Nazalassa]

On 1/5/2022 at 5:40 AM, Axelord FTW said:

The ability to have a probe work on a pre-configured set of parameters even when there is no direct connection to the KSC really is a game changer.

2 words: Built-in kOS.

And why not QUANTUM COMMUNICATION?

[darthgently]

15 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

And why not QUANTUM COMMUNICATION?

Maybe at a very high tech level.  I've heard of this being done in research, but is there any real world functioning communication links beyond experimental doing comms based on entanglement?  I could never see how the bandwidth could be very high.  The idea reminds me of Ursula K. Leguin's Ansible device

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

[Catto]

Laser antennae?

You should maybe be able to upgrade the Tracking Station, to learn more about planets that are far. Like, you need to put a telescope into space in career mode?

[Bej Kerman]

7 minutes ago, darthgently said:

25 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

And why not QUANTUM COMMUNICATION?

Maybe at a very high tech level.  I've heard of this being done in research, but is there any real world functioning communication links beyond experimental doing comms based on entanglement?  I could never see how the bandwidth could be very high.  The idea reminds me of Ursula K. Leguin's Ansible device

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

FTL comms are just not possible.

[Pthigrivi]

Ive had several physicist friends of mine shake their heads and slowly explain to me why FTL communication is not possible and I reluctantly believe them.

[t_v]

I once saw someone explain very clearly and easily how you cannot actually communicate with quantum entanglement only, but I can’t find the source. It boiled down to you cannot precisely manipulate the spin of an entangled particle without breaking entanglement and you cannot tell if someone else has broken entanglement on a particle. 

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, t_v said:

I once saw someone explain very clearly and easily how you cannot actually communicate with quantum entanglement only, but I can’t find the source. It boiled down to you cannot precisely manipulate the spin of an entangled particle without breaking entanglement and you cannot tell if someone else has broken entanglement on a particle. 

Yeah, I remember similar.  It almost makes one wonder what "entanglement" really is.  I don't think anyone really knows yet even if it can be somewhat described

[t_v]

36 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Yeah, I remember similar.  It almost makes one wonder what "entanglement" really is.  I don't think anyone really knows yet even if it can be somewhat described

Yeah, who knows what really goes on. But for people wondering, here is the description: When particles are entangled (which can happen in various cases, like with electrons in H2) they are both in a quantum state of spinning both up and down, but have opposite spins. Once one is measured, the other will stop spinning both directions and settle into the other spin. This happens instantly, which seems to violate causality but doesn’t for some interesting reasons. 

[darthgently]

3 minutes ago, t_v said:

This happens instantly, which seems to violate causality but doesn’t for some interesting reasons. 

As interesting as quantum tunneling for sure.  More interesting really as tunneling makes intuitive sense if once can kind of conceptualize quantum foam.  Which I think I can almost, lol

[whatsEJstandfor]

1 hour ago, t_v said:

I once saw someone explain very clearly and easily how you cannot actually communicate with quantum entanglement only, but I can’t find the source. It boiled down to you cannot precisely manipulate the spin of an entangled particle without breaking entanglement and you cannot tell if someone else has broken entanglement on a particle. 

It helps to remember that quantum entanglement isn't as spooky as pop-sci might lead you to think. It's ultimately just about a correlation between two (or more) particles. You can think of it this way: imagine you have a box that you know contains one spoon and one fork.  You blindfold yourself and randomly put one of those into another box. The two boxes can now be thought of as an entangled system. You don't know what's in either box, but, if you were to look in one, you'd immediately know what's in the other. Looking at it like this, it's easy to see why it can't be used for communication. Suppose you mailed one box to your friend across the world. If they open the box, they would instantly know which utensil you have, and vice versa. However, no information has actually been transmitted between you faster than light.

The wrinkle that makes quantum entanglement counterintuitive, and I think why a lot of scientists don't usually explain it this way, is because of the wavelike nature of quantum mechanical systems leading to what seem to be contradictions (see: Bell's theorem), but are kind of more just a failing of our monkey brains trying to intuit what a wavefunction actually represents

[Pthigrivi]

31 minutes ago, t_v said:

Yeah, who knows what really goes on. But for people wondering, here is the description: When particles are entangled (which can happen in various cases, like with electrons in H2) they are both in a quantum state of spinning both up and down, but have opposite spins. Once one is measured, the other will stop spinning both directions and settle into the other spin. This happens instantly, which seems to violate causality but doesn’t for some interesting reasons. 

I anxiously probed about gaming statistical biases and entangling multiple particles and comparing them and establishing one-time-cards ahead of time but no, in the end you're receiving coin flips and cant tell signal from noise. 

[whatsEJstandfor]

40 minutes ago, t_v said:

Once one is measured, the other will stop spinning both directions and settle into the other spin. This happens instantly, which seems to violate causality but doesn’t for some interesting reasons. 

It's not that the other instantly settles into the opposite spin; it's that, once you know the spin of one (let's call it particle A), you, in-principle, know the spin of the other (let's call it B), and you can continue to calculate the evolution of the wavefunction as if you had measured B's spin. It's not really right to say that B knows it's been measured, because it doesn't; it's just that, as far as the observer of A is concerned, they've also just measured B with the same precision, even if it was extraordinarily far away.

Edited April 16, 2022 by whatsEJstandfor
Clarified a sentence

[Vl3d]

3 hours ago, t_v said:

they are both in a quantum state of spinning both up and down, but have opposite spins. Once one is measured, the other will stop spinning both directions and settle into the other spin

They are not spinning! You shouldn't think of it like that. "Spin" is something totally different. Think of it just as a number.

[t_v]

8 hours ago, Vl3d said:

They are not spinning! You shouldn't think of it like that. "Spin" is something totally different. Think of it just as a number.

Yes, the particles are not actually rotating, because if they were, for example, electrons would be spinning faster than light speed. The wording I used still works but that is an important clarification: spinning up or down does not mean actually spinning.