Ovin is the new Eve?

[poopslayer78]

I'm really hoping that KSP2 has steam achievements, and that one of them will be "return a kerbal from the surface of Eve".  I did this in KSP1 but it was a huge (fun) struggle that consumed my weekends, all free time, and 6 failed Venera spacecraft.  The whole time I was like: dang I wish I could just build a launch pad on the highest peak!  Well guess where I'm building a colony in KSP2...

Anyway, while Eve will still be challenging, the colony buildings and enhanced engines will probably demote Eve from "the final boss" to simply "really hard".

I was thinking... if Ovin has an atmosphere, it may become the same monster that Eve was in KSP1.  To be fair, we've only seen a few celestial bodies so the new "Super Eve" may be unrevealed or non-existent.  It may be possible that Ovin fills a completely different role - maybe it doesn't have an atmosphere or is so huge that nothing is expected to reach orbit from the ground.

[TruffleSpy]

1 hour ago, poopslayer78 said:

I was thinking... if Ovin has an atmosphere, it may become the same monster that Eve was in KSP1.  To be fair, we've only seen a few celestial bodies so the new "Super Eve" may be unrevealed or non-existent.  It may be possible that Ovin fills a completely different role - maybe it doesn't have an atmosphere or is so huge that nothing is expected to reach orbit from the ground.

Ovin will most likely be a much harder challenge compared to Eve. In the Ovin show and tell video (linked at the bottom) we can see it has some kind of an atmosphere. It may not be as much as Eve but with a gravity of 4G’s Ovin will clearly be a much harder challenge. If you’re referring the “Super Eve” to be Ovin, I do not think it will be “unrevealed”, there’s already to much detail and time put into Ovin. It was also mentioned by Nate in KSP Future Video : Celestial Bodies.

 

[MechBFP]

8 hours ago, TruffleSpy said:

Ovin will most likely be a much harder challenge compared to Eve. In the Ovin show and tell video (linked at the bottom) we can see it has some kind of an atmosphere. It may not be as much as Eve but with a gravity of 4G’s Ovin will clearly be a much harder challenge. If you’re referring the “Super Eve” to be Ovin, I do not think it will be “unrevealed”, there’s already to much detail and time put into Ovin. It was also mentioned by Nate in KSP Future Video : Celestial Bodies.

 

Reminds me of Tellumo from the Galileo Planet Pack except easier, heh. 

[SciMan]

There's a factor you all seem to be missing. The new engines. Regarding landing on and returning from the surface of Eve or Ovin, some of those engines could turn that challenge into "EZ Mode", or they could have no effect at all if they don't have much thrust output at high atmospheric pressures.

I'm looking especially at the Metallic Hydrogen engines. If there's one of them that has good atmospheric and vacuum specific impulse, works well at high atmospheric pressures, and has a good thrust-to-weight ratio, then the challenge becomes much less. It might even be possible to create an Eve or Ovin SSTO using such an engine.

I just don't know enough about the new engines to be able to tell you for certain, but it would really be a shame if we were limited to old-fashioned chemical engines for everything inside an atmosphere. Metallic Hydrogen at least promises better performance, and there could even be a special MH engine designed for use in an atmosphere that can take in the local atmosphere to augment thrust (not that it would need to even react the MH with the atmosphere for this to work, the heat released by the MH recombining into regular Hydrogen in the exhaust nozzle would be enough to additionally heat the atmospheric gases that went thru the intakes, thereby boosting Thrust but not specific impulse. The concept is exactly the same as an air-augmented rocket engine, except instead of a liquid bipropellant engine you use a metallic hydrogen engine as the basis.

[Maria Sirona]

More like super Tylo

[Akagi]

Slap on a few torch ship engines?

[Laxez]

Ovin having a gravity of 4g will have a very dense atmosphere layer, which will make landing a walk, but taking off a real hell, moreover you cannot use efficient engines such as metallic hydrogen or torchship engines as they only work in the void, but there is a solution! MOAR BOOSTER

[Akagi]

1 hour ago, Laxez said:

Ovin having a gravity of 4g will have a very dense atmosphere layer, which will make landing a walk, but taking off a real hell, moreover you cannot use efficient engines such as metallic hydrogen or torchship engines as they only work in the void, but there is a solution! MOAR BOOSTER

MOAR MAMOTH

I thought torchship engines were for landings. Apparently, they're planetary transfer engines?

[SSTO Crasher]

A torch ship would be effective on ovin

[Laxez]

12 minutes ago, Akagi said:

MOAR MAMOTH

I thought torchship engines were for landings. Apparently, they're planetary transfer engines?

the so-called "Torchship engine" is actually nothing more than a fusion engine, like those used in The Expanse series (highly recommended), it is a very efficient and powerful engine to the point of being able to travel from Earth to Mars in days instead of in weeks. however this power has a cost, it can only be used in a vacuum.

here a couple of links if you want to learn more:

Fusion rocket - Wikipedia

Epstein Drive | The Expanse Wiki | Fandom

Fusion drive | The Expanse Wiki | Fandom

 

however, there are engines that are particularly powerful and useful for taking off from Ovin: solid fuel engines.

but Ovin's real problem is the friction with the dense atmosphere, which means that it will take very little speed to take off with a plane, but that it will be very difficult to increase the speed through it with a rocket. however, being denser, IN THEORY mean is also thinner because it is crushed by gravity (unless it has a lot of atmosphere) and therefore you get to space faster, where you can use more powerful motors.

If so, Eve would still remain the most difficult planet to take off, due to its denser atmosphere, higher gravity and higher altitude required to get into space which is 90km compare to Kerbin's less denser atmosphere, minor gravity and 70km to reach  space.

(if indeed Ovin will have an atmosphere below 90km).

for comparison, Venus has a thic atmosphere that technically allows to float in it, like in this scene of the expanse:

in theory is possibile the same on Ovin

[shdwlrd]

42 minutes ago, Akagi said:

I thought torchship engines were for landings. Apparently, they're planetary transfer engines?

34 minutes ago, SSTO Crasher said:

A torch ship would be effective on ovin

It will depend on the TWR of the craft. The torch engines revealed so for would have TWR much lower than 1 in an 1g environment, yet alone a 4g environment. Your best bet would be a CeMH engine or a monster LFO booster. But remember, the rocket equation will always keep you in check.

[Pthigrivi]

Wouldn't spaceplanes make a lot of sense here? Especially if the atmosphere has oxygen? Climb your way to the middle atmosphere and then power up to orbital velocity? Really makes me hope we get something like this: 

[Laxez]

39 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Wouldn't spaceplanes make a lot of sense here? Especially if the atmosphere has oxygen? Climb your way to the middle atmosphere and then power up to orbital velocity? Really makes me hope we get something like this: 

in reality, absurdly, a rocket with jet engines would make sense on Ovin, always assuming there is oxygen, but in the first trailer of Kerbal 2 we see a plane traveling in the atmosphere of Duna, so I deduce that there is an engine capable of go without oxygen.

Or maybe it makes more sense to make a rocket that is launched from a plane.

[Davi SDF]

I hope there are some Nuclear Ramjets that use atmospheric mass as propellant... PLEASE.

Otherwise, Ovin will be really REALLY hard to get out of. Possibly Eve XL.

[MechBFP]

On 4/21/2022 at 10:08 PM, Davi SDF said:

I hope there are some Nuclear Ramjets that use atmospheric mass as propellant... PLEASE.

Otherwise, Ovin will be really REALLY hard to get out of. Possibly Eve XL.

Nah, it will still be easier than Eve in KSP 1 for numerous reasons.

[t_v]

48 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Nah, it will still be easier than Eve in KSP 1 for numerous reasons.

For what reason? From what I can tell, you also think it is easier than Tellumo, despite having the same radius but twice the gravity. Lots of people have talked about Ovin's atmosphere and from what I can tell it will be a nightmare either way, with a very thin/nonexistent atmosphere meaning that landing will take up precious fuel and with a very thick atmosphere, hurting engines a lot. Someone did a calculation in the Ovin thread and it came out with something like 11,000 m/s (or 15,000, I can't remember) which is higher than Eve's 8,000 m/s or Tellumno's 7,000

[MechBFP]

9 minutes ago, t_v said:

For what reason? From what I can tell, you also think it is easier than Tellumo, despite having the same radius but twice the gravity. Lots of people have talked about Ovin's atmosphere and from what I can tell it will be a nightmare either way, with a very thin/nonexistent atmosphere meaning that landing will take up precious fuel and with a very thick atmosphere, hurting engines a lot. Someone did a calculation in the Ovin thread and it came out with something like 11,000 m/s (or 15,000, I can't remember) which is higher than Eve's 8,000 m/s or Tellumno's 7,000

1) Better engines/better fuels. 2) Orbital shipyards.

All that is needed to make it easier than Eve.

[t_v]

Well, still harder than Eve, just at a different tech level. If you were to take those same technologies to Eve, you would have a similarly easy time. I get what you mean though, by the very end of the game, Ovin will be easier than Eve is at the very end of KSP 1

[mikegarrison]

You know what works great in a really dense atmosphere?

A balloon.

[Nazalassa]

Yesss...

A HUGE balloon to bring the rocket as high as possible for launch.

Funny, maybe it'll work.

[Davi SDF]

1 minute ago, Nazalassa said:

Yesss...

A HUGE balloon to bring the rocket as high as possible for launch.

Funny, maybe it'll work.

*Brings the entire colony 30km up in the atmosphere just to get one Kerbal out of Ovin

[Nazalassa]

Not the colony, just the massive, colony-like rocket.

[Catto]

Hmm, does Ovin have a noxious gas that will kill everyone who dares to breathe it? No? Then it isn't like eve by the atmosphere.

[t_v]

I put a suggestion in the big suggestions list when I saw this video where a spaceplane with vacuum optimized engines is lifted to altitude with a big balloon. 

I found the solution ingenious - it saves a bunch of delta-v and if you engineer the ballon right, it is low mass and reusable. Looking at it again, the official KSP YouTube account commented on it, so I am hopeful that there will be balloons - if it were not for the scarcity of helium and the danger of hydrogen, airships would be a very efficient way to move around on a gas giant or over a rough surface. But once again, if Ovin has little to no atmosphere, balloons might not do much.