Debdeb will be ~4 lightyears away from Kerbol System (Speculation)

[The Aziz]

What about a unit of work? It's clearly not Joule, I wonder if it could be, hmmm... Joole?

 

[Gotmachine]

On 10/26/2022 at 3:16 AM, GoldForest said:

At least, that's my consensus

This sentence, my friends, is the best summary of the 40k+ posts in the KSP 2 subforums.

Sorry for the interruption, could not resist. Keep going.

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, Gotmachine said:

This sentence, my friends, is the best summary of the 40k+ posts in the KSP 2 subforums.

Sorry for the interruption, could not resist. Keep going.

~50K actually, if you count the other 3 sub forums. 

[magnemoe]

On 12/14/2022 at 11:45 AM, GoldForest said:

You never know, they may decide to base KSP 2 lightyears off a Kerbin year. Developers have done crazy stuff before. I'm not saying it's a likely scenario, just saying it is one.

So we could end up with 1 of 3 options for how far Deb Deb is from Kerbol: (Light year distance was taken from William Shoetz on Quora: (4) How many meters are there in 1.00 light-year? - Quora )

1) 4 IRL Lightyears in distance = 9460730472580800 m x 4 = 37,842,921,890,323,200 m or 37,842,921,890,323.2 km

2) 4 1/10th scale lightyears in distance = 37,842,921,890,323.2 km / 10 = 3,784,292,189,032.32 km

3) 4 Kerbin Light Year in distance = 299,792,458 m/s x 60 x 60 x 24 x 106.5 = 2,758,570,281,532,800 m or 2,758,570,281,532.8 km x 4 = 11,034,281,126,131.2 km

Those are all drastically different distances that will have to be covered. 3.8 trillion kms, 11 Trillion kms or 37.8 Trillion kms. That makes a huge difference, pun not intended.

All of these are great distances and will show off a light year in game. I'm just wondering which it will be at this point. 

(Also, pardon me if my math is wrong, kind of just did some quick math)

Using kerbin years makes perfect sense for me, if you make an ship who can reach .1 c it would use 40 kerbin years reaching the star, if it used 100 kerbin years it would be weird. 
This is if light speed is an real concept in the game after all, communication is instant and its no relativistic effects after all.  

[GoldForest]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Using kerbin years makes perfect sense for me, if you make an ship who can reach .1 c it would use 40 kerbin years reaching the star, if it used 100 kerbin years it would be weird. 
This is if light speed is an real concept in the game after all, communication is instant and its no relativistic effects after all.  

I was actually wrong in my math for Kerbin year light years. I accounted for 24 hours days and not 6 hour days. Oops. The number has been corrected.

Anyway, Kerbin year light years are extremely short though. Only over 2 trillion KM. That's still a lot yes, but at .1 c (A kerbin C), it would take only 4 years in game. (If I did my math right.)

Considering that the IRL Daedalus was supposed to go up to 0.12 of C and take around like 50 years to traverse the distance, I'm doubting that they will use Kerbin light years and Kerbin light year distances more and more.

Edited December 21, 2022 by GoldForest

[Jacob Kerman]

I've been reading all the post up to this point, and I've come to my conclusion, as well as another question. I think that based on the quality of the game, as well as the limits of the consoles, It will most likely be a majority of the distance, but will not be the full 4ly. Also, how will the SoI's of a new system work? We know that solar systems have a large amount of gravity, and can even steal other systems if they wander too close. What happens in between? Will we actually be able to stop and just...sit?

Now PC.... Yeah. Definite full 4ly.

[magnemoe]

9 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I was actually wrong in my math for Kerbin year light years. I accounted for 24 hours days and not 6 hour days. Oops. The number has been corrected.

Anyway, Kerbin year light years are extremely short though. Only over 2 trillion KM. That's still a lot yes, but at .1 c (A kerbin C), it would take only 4 years in game. (If I did my math right.)

Considering that the IRL Daedalus was supposed to go up to 0.12 of C and take around like 50 years to traverse the distance, I'm doubting that they will use Kerbin light years and Kerbin light year distances more and more.

40% smaller is still decent compared to the 10% size used else in KSP.
Think most count travel time in Kerbal days and years and 100 years is an long time. More so you are likely to do stuff back in the the home system, having stuff to do inside Kerbin SOI tend to slow down interplanetary missions for me. 
Level up kerbals, collect science for new ships going out, this fades away as you get Moho and Duna returns, expanding your bases. Also expansions and new bases, rescuing kerbals. 
Same will be true for interplanetary stuff in KSP 2, you want to expand the capabilities once you have resources in the game and if you can go interstellar interplanetary is kind of an joke. I say more than 1.5 year to Jool is slow, but I tended to drop stuff from Minmus down to 100 km Pe with 6 Km/s to play with. 
Then the game bugged out on me at some time :o)  

[Skorj]

I would expect interstellar distances to scale as follows: however many Earth years an IRL journey to a star x LY away would take at 0.12 c, it will take that many Kerbal years to cross x KLY at 0.12 c.  Seems the obvious approach.

Also, it's worth considering the unknown acceleration.  IRL, it takes 1 year at 0.1 g to reach 0.1c (give or take).  If Daedalus is much lower thrust, the acceleration could end up being the bottleneck.

Also also, for those planning to asparagus stage the rocket to get there faster, that won't help if it takes 100 years (for some reason) to build and fuel 1 of them, which I think would be a cool mechanic.

[tstein]

All we can be sure is that it will be  further away than the grocery store in a rainy day.

[obney kerman]

I really think there's no reason lightyears in-game can't just be "the length of distance that light travels in 1 Kerbal year". It'd fit in with the scaling of everything else, while not being overly unbelievable (you can't just change the speed of light, after all). After all, having measurements based on Earth years wouldn't make sense in a game that is very much not set on Earth.

[Drakenred65]

I think the issue is one m is one m, be it a Human or Kerbal. .

 

one m is one m. They don’t discriminate, there the same to every species.

[The Aziz]

And one second (standard SI unit), is also the same. it does not matter how long it takes for a planet to travel around its parent star otherwise we would have different lightyears for every planet in our own solar system. A distance is a distance. If it's already known as 9.460.730.472.580.800 meters, why change it.

[Bej Kerman]

20 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

And one second (standard SI unit), is also the same. it does not matter how long it takes for a planet to travel around its parent star otherwise we would have different lightyears for every planet in our own solar system. A distance is a distance. If it's already known as 9.460.730.472.580.800 meters, why change it.

But a light year is defined by the time it takes for the planet (specifically the planet whose species is so concerned about the speed of light) to orbit the sun, and in the Kerbal universe a Kerbal's standard year, the length their calendar says a year is, isn't the same as an Earth year, and an Earth year isn't important to Kerbal physicists.

[SolarAdmiral]

39 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

And one second (standard SI unit), is also the same. it does not matter how long it takes for a planet to travel around its parent star otherwise we would have different lightyears for every planet in our own solar system. A distance is a distance. If it's already known as 9.460.730.472.580.800 meters, why change it.

Why would kerbals use a measurement based on the length of earth's year?

Ksp already has planets reduced in size 1/10th as a sacrifice of realism to improve the fun of gameplay.

I don't see the usefulness in mixing together real distances between systems with the smaller planets and systems. When it could be consistently scaled down. Players will be smart enough to know it is a kerbal scaled universe and in reality the distances are 10 times larger.

It isn't like we're also asking for the Mun to be placed at the same distance from kerbin as the moon is from earth. Or for kerbin to be at 1 au from kerbol. Why mandate that debdeb be at 4 earth light years?

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, SolarAdmiral said:

Why would kerbals use a measurement based on the length of earth's year?

Ksp already has planets reduced in size 1/10th as a sacrifice of realism to improve the fun of gameplay.

I don't see the usefulness in mixing together real distances between systems with the smaller planets and systems. When it could be consistently scaled down. Players will be smart enough to know it is a kerbal scaled universe and in reality the distances are 10 times larger.

It isn't like we're also asking for the Mun to be placed at the same distance from kerbin as the moon is from earth. Or for kerbin to be at 1 au from kerbol. Why mandate that debdeb be at 4 earth light years?

 

1 minute ago, SolarAdmiral said:

Why would kerbals use a measurement based on the length of earth's year?

Ksp already has planets reduced in size 1/10th as a sacrifice of realism to improve the fun of gameplay.

I don't see the usefulness in mixing together real distances between systems with the smaller planets and systems. When it could be consistently scaled down. Players will be smart enough to know it is a kerbal scaled universe and in reality the distances are 10 times larger.

It isn't like we're also asking for the Mun to be placed at the same distance from kerbin as the moon is from earth. Or for kerbin to be at 1 au from kerbol. Why mandate that debdeb be at 4 earth light years?

I think there is some valid design tension between the game aspect and the educational aspect of KSP that results in these oddities.  The SI units are almost certainly for educational reasons so that what is learned while playing is useful directly in STEM

[Drakenred65]

You know we should all demand that all interstellar distances be rendered in parsecs.

[The Aziz]

It's not based on any Earth's calendar. Or the time it takes to orbit the Sun. Read up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_year_(astronomy)

If you stop using artificial years in your measurements and start using seconds, as any species using SI would do, all your problems with light-year being shorter or longer disappear. If they used yards instead of meters, would you argue that imperial measurements are unclear because their origin is unknown? Because a Kerbal's foot or elbow is different from human's?

As I was saying before, it's not that they can't do it for the game, it's just that it's effectively pointless.

[SolarAdmiral]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

I think there is some valid design tension between the game aspect and the educational aspect of KSP that results in these oddities.  The SI units are almost certainly for educational reasons so that what is learned while playing is useful directly in STEM

I do agree. But I also think using real light years next to the greatly reduced sizes of planets and systems creates just as much confusion as it solves. Like I said, distances to the mun are much smaller than the moon. And kerbin isn't at 1 Au which is also a widely used measure. As are earth and solar radii.  Rather than mixing 1/10th size planets and real scale lightyears, why not simply include a note that the scale of the kerbin universe is approximately 1/10th the real world? And obviously real light years can be used for any real scale planet mods.

I think the most likely outcome, is that the game will use kerbal sized light years as a default, with an option to toggle earth length light years instead like ksp1 does with time.

 

And yes the wiki article linked above says right in the name "Julian Year" a length of time selected based on the length of earth's year. It is indeed defined in seconds, but a completely arbitrary number of seconds unless you happen to be trying to match it approximately to the length of earth's year. A better SI unit would have been something like 100,000 light seconds removing the need to use the earth year entirely.

1 hour ago, Drakenred65 said:

You know we should all demand that all interstellar distances be rendered in parsecs.

I would agree except Parsecs are also based on earth, in this case 1AU. Which means we could have this same argument all over again with slightly different points.

[Drakenred65]

Which is exactly my point.

 

and now it’s up to someone else to prove what the difference is….

Edited January 1, 2023 by Drakenred65

[SolarAdmiral]

9 minutes ago, Drakenred65 said:

Which is exactly my point.

Let's just split the difference and use giga earth gravity fortnights as a distance measure. 

 

 

Also, I could be wrong, but I believe Julian Astronomical Years, Parsecs, and Lightyears are all not recognized as SI units. They are units that are used, the same as miles, chains, leagues and so on.

Edited January 1, 2023 by SolarAdmiral

[Drakenred65]

1 hour ago, SolarAdmiral said:

Let's just split the difference and use giga earth gravity fortnights as a distance measure. 

 

 

Also, I could be wrong, but I believe Julian Astronomical Years, Parsecs, and Lightyears are all not recognized as SI units. They are units that are used, the same as miles, chains, leagues and so on.

Nope, just 7

• Length - meter (m)
• Time - second (s)
• Amount of substance - mole (mole)
• Electric current - ampere (A)
• Temperature - kelvin (K)
• Luminous intensity - candela (cd)
• Mass - kilogram (kg)

 

you are close to the second part.

 

[obney kerman]

"Bill, what's with these units on the map screen?"

"Oh yeah, Jeb, those are lightyears. It's the distance that light travels in a year. We're using it as our unit for interstellar distances!"

"Oh... but wait, isn't that a lot farther than it should be?"

"What do you mean?"

"To get that far, at the speed of light, wouldn't it take... almost three and a half years?"

"Well yes, but it's a standard unit of measurement!"

"But... why is our standard unit of measurement based around years that apparently last... one thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one days?

"Well... it's in the SI system?"

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

It's not based on any Earth's calendar. Or the time it takes to orbit the Sun. Read up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_year_(astronomy)

Also, the Julian calendar is by definition an Earth calendar (because it was originally made on Earth, based on what people thought was the length of an Earth year), so yeah that doesn't track. We can just have a new SI unit of measurement called KLY and leave it at that.

[Drakenred65]

I think people are getting bent out of shape over nothing.

 

kids are used to time and distance compression from tv already, never mind video games. Heck one half hour show I saw last thanksgiving started somewhere in England in the morning for breakfast, Had a travel and flight segment to Sidney Australia in about 1-2 min,  and had them flying to California ( accidentally? ) In stead of back to England at the end of their weeks vacation. It’s a kids show and kind of confusing because I was only half paying attention, but they basically crammed a weeks vacation into a half hour show. 
 

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by Drakenred65

[darthgently]

19 hours ago, SolarAdmiral said:

It is indeed defined in seconds, but a completely arbitrary number of seconds unless you happen to be trying to match it approximately to the length of earth's year. A better SI unit would have been something like 100,000 light seconds removing the need to use the earth year entirely.

I have to disagree.  I prefer that our language and units and such have history embedded within them.  I inherently distrust the stripping of history from cultural semiotics.  Revising/removing historical flavor has always preceded the worst of political eras.  A "year" is not an arbitrary concept for measuring time.  A year consists of seasons that are inherently linked to culture and the planet.  Tell a farmer that a year is "arbitrary"

[SolarAdmiral]

5 hours ago, darthgently said:

I have to disagree.  I prefer that our language and units and such have history embedded within them.  I inherently distrust the stripping of history from cultural semiotics.  Revising/removing historical flavor has always preceded the worst of political eras.  A "year" is not an arbitrary concept for measuring time.  A year consists of seasons that are inherently linked to culture and the planet.  Tell a farmer that a year is "arbitrary"

I completely agree it is pointless trying to replace the year and the day. Just pointing out that the year is not SI. And maybe it would be better for us in the long term if we started using something other than the light year for distances in space. And I was just saying that length of time would be arbitrary for the kerbals, and any alien species living on a different planet with a different length year. For us it here on Earth it is not arbitrary. 

Also, for every other unit than time, revising/removing historical flavor in favor of metric was a very good idea. As a Canadian Civil Engineer who does work for a US company both in Canada and the US, the one thing all the US projects have in common, is constant revisions and error corrections due to mistakes made adding measurements in feet, inches, and fractions. I've seen thousands of man hours wasted on correcting errors and finding out where mistakes were made. There's never a project without at least once dozens of engineers in an online call all adding up measurements to find out who made the mistake. The Canadian projects just use millimeters and never run into the issue.