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

[LitteXMan808]

*Uses cheats to teleport*

[shdwlrd]

7 minutes ago, LitteXMan808 said:

*Uses cheats to teleport*

Only after finding the system and visiting it. Sorry, Intercept is very adamant about people not spoiling the new systems and planets on day one.

[LitteXMan808]

Officially the Kerbol system is 0.98 Au given than 1 lightyear is 63,241.1 Au that means i that 258,126.8448979592 Kerbol systems are needed for 4 light years and for it its 0.4  light years than 25,812.68448979592 Kerbol system diameter.  

[shdwlrd]

30 minutes ago, LitteXMan808 said:

Officially the Kerbol system is 0.98 Au given than 1 lightyear is 63,241.1 Au that means i that 258,126.8448979592 Kerbol systems are needed for 4 light years and for it its 0.4  light years than 25,812.68448979592 Kerbol system diameter.  

A lightyear would be different for a Kerbal. Since a Kerbin year is different than a Earth year, the actual distance would be shorter. You have to remember that one Kerbin year is about 1/3 of one Earth year. (Remember, Kerbin days are 6 hrs long and it takes 426, 6 hr days for one orbit. So one Kerbin year equals 106.5 days for Earth.) 

Edited December 14, 2022 by shdwlrd

[GoldForest]

7 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

A lightyear would be different for a Kerbal. Since a Kerbin year is different than a Earth year, the actual distance would be shorter. You have to remember that one Kerbin year is about 1/3 of one Earth year. (Remember, Kerbin days are 6 hrs long and it takes 426, 6 hr days for one orbit. So one Kerbin year equals 106.5 days for Earth.) 

The problem is, we don't know what Intercept is using. 

It could be IRL Earth Light years.

It could be 1/10th scale IRL Earth Light Years.

It could be 4 Kerbin Light years. 

We just don't know. I personally think it's either the 1st or 2nd option. @Nate Simpson Said they want us to "know how long a lightyear actually is," so I think it will be either IRL or 1/10th scale. 

[The Aziz]

A lightyear is the same distance unit as mile, inch or a meter. It's based on something.

The metre was originally defined in 1793 as

one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle, so the Earth's circumference is approximately 40000 km. In 1799, the metre was redefined in terms of a prototype metre bar (the actual bar used was changed in 1889). In 1960, the metre was redefined in terms of a certain number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. The current definition was adopted in 1983 and modified slightly in 2002 to clarify that the metre is a measure of proper length. From 1983 until 2019, the metre was formally defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second. After the 2019 redefinition of the SI base units, this definition was rephrased to include the definition of a second in terms of the caesium frequency ΔνCs; 299792458 m/s.

Light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days).

It's not an SI unit, but the speed (m/s) is, and Julian year is made of days which are made of SI units - hours, seconds.

Sure there's a chance for a Kerbal Light-year but I wouldn't count on it. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Kerbin having a longer (but also shorter) year is a consequence of the scale applied.

[GoldForest]

On 12/14/2022 at 4:18 AM, The Aziz said:

A lightyear is the same distance unit as mile, inch or a meter. It's based on something.

Light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days).

It's not an SI unit, but the speed (m/s) is, and Julian year is made of days which are made of SI units - hours, seconds.

Sure there's a chance for a Kerbal Light-year but I wouldn't count on it. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Kerbin having a longer (but also shorter) year is a consequence of the scale applied.

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 6 x 106.5 = 689,642,570,383,200 m or 689,642,570,383.2 km x 4 = 2,758,570,281,532.8 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)

Edit: I did to 3's math wrong. I accounted for 24 hours in a day and not the 6 in a Kerbin day. Number has been updated.  

Edited December 21, 2022 by GoldForest

[Luriss]

1 hour ago, 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)

I've said it before but I really hope they go with option 2 but they also scale down the speed of light by a factor of 10.

That way its both scaled consistently with the rest of the kerbal universe and the passage of time remains 1:1 with reality.

[LitteXMan808]

10 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

A lightyear would be different for a Kerbal. Since a Kerbin year is different than a Earth year, the actual distance would be shorter. You have to remember that one Kerbin year is about 1/3 of one Earth year. (Remember, Kerbin days are 6 hrs long and it takes 426, 6 hr days for one orbit. So one Kerbin year equals 106.5 days for Earth.) 

So I divide my results by 3? If so around

8,604.228163265307 Kerbol systems at the least and at most 86,042.28163265307 Kerbol Systems.

[GoldForest]

5 hours ago, Luriss said:

I've said it before but I really hope they go with option 2 but they also scale down the speed of light by a factor of 10.

That way its both scaled consistently with the rest of the kerbal universe and the passage of time remains 1:1 with reality.

You can't really bring down the speed of light. It's a universal law, and KSP follows universal law. 

Why would you want to bring down the speed of light anyway? There's no real reason to. We'll never reach light speed is stock KSP, even with the Daedalus engine. You'll have to turn around and start burning to slow down before you even reach any large percentage of lightspeed, let alone the fuel requirements to take your ship to full 0.999999% of lightspeed. 

The IRL project Daedalus had two stages too, and would take a total of 3.8 years to reach 0.12 of C, then coast for 46 before doing a braking burn of about another 4 to 5 years. 

With acceleration during time zoom, that's nothing at any distance. 

[LitteXMan808]

Lol the Kerbol system is 146.6 Million Km across meaning 10x bigger is 9.8Au Neptune’s orbit is Meaning 4.54 Billion Km-4.46 Billion Km means that the perihelion of Neptune is 30.42291950886767 times larger than the Kerbol system

[Luriss]

8 hours ago, GoldForest said:

You can't really bring down the speed of light. It's a universal law, and KSP follows universal law. 

Why would you want to bring down the speed of light anyway? There's no real reason to. We'll never reach light speed is stock KSP, even with the Daedalus engine. You'll have to turn around and start burning to slow down before you even reach any large percentage of lightspeed, let alone the fuel requirements to take your ship to full 0.999999% of lightspeed. 

The IRL project Daedalus had two stages too, and would take a total of 3.8 years to reach 0.12 of C, then coast for 46 before doing a braking burn of about another 4 to 5 years. 

With acceleration during time zoom, that's nothing at any distance. 

Because if you have a 1:1 scale speed of light in a 1/10th scale universe travel times and the like start to get a bit out of whack.

Say for instance I was going to hit that 0.12c max speed and my target is 5 ly away. As the KSP universe is 1/10th scale, that 5 ly becomes 0.5ly.
So, (5 x 9.461x10^{14}) / 3.5975x10^{7} = 131494093.1 seconds, or, 4.1 years. In other words, you're crossing the Kerbal equivalent of 5 ly in 4 years.

Now if we scale the speed of light down by a factor of 10 also, that 0.12c becomes 0.012c.
So, (5 x 9.461x10^{14}) / 3.5975x10^{6} = 1.31494093×10^{9} seconds, or 41.7 years. Now the time taken is 1:1 with reality while distances and the speed of light is the same 1/10th scale as everything else in the Kerbal universe.

15 hours ago, GoldForest said:

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

If you're adamant about keeping the speed of light 1:1 scale with our own universe you can do that, but in order to do that you'll have to use option 1 to keep the time taken to travel those distances consistent with reality. The problem with that however is now the Kerbal universe no longer has consistent scaling; interplanetary distances are 1/10th scale while interstellar distances are 1:1 scale. To put it plainly, it's very messy and needlessly complicated.

15 hours ago, GoldForest said:

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

Eh? It has merit. Seeing as missions are counted in Kerbin years it would make sense that Kerbin years are used to calculate interstellar distances. This would also mean that you'll have more consistency with Kerbal aging and the like (A Kerbal that's 80 years old in Earth years is 68.5 years old in Kerbin years). It is also consistent with the 1/10th universe scale as long as you calculate a Kerbal light year using a 1/10th scale speed of light.

 

 

The more I think about it the more it makes sense to do it this way. Using a 1/10th "Kerbal scale" speed of light you can use Kerbin years to define a 1/10th scale "Kerbin Light Year," which clearly denotes itself as different from normal Earth light years, has the correct scale, and is relative to Kerbal aging and mission clocks.

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, Luriss said:

Because if you have a 1:1 scale speed of light in a 1/10th scale universe travel times and the like start to get a bit out of whack.

Say for instance I was going to hit that 0.12c max speed and my target is 5 ly away. As the KSP universe is 1/10th scale, that 5 ly becomes 0.5ly.
So, (5 x 9.461x10^{14}) / 3.5975x10^{7} = 131494093.1 seconds, or, 4.1 years. In other words, you're crossing the Kerbal equivalent of 5 ly in 4 years.

Now if we scale the speed of light down by a factor of 10 also, that 0.12c becomes 0.012c.
So, (5 x 9.461x10^{14}) / 3.5975x10^{6} = 1.31494093×10^{9} seconds, or 41.7 years. Now the time taken is 1:1 with reality while distances and the speed of light is the same 1/10th scale as everything else in the Kerbal universe.

If you're adamant about keeping the speed of light 1:1 scale with our own universe you can do that, but in order to do that you'll have to use option 1 to keep the time taken to travel those distances consistent with reality. The problem with that however is now the Kerbal universe no longer has consistent scaling; interplanetary distances are 1/10th scale while interstellar distances are 1:1 scale. To put it plainly, it's very messy and needlessly complicated.

Eh? It has merit. Seeing as missions are counted in Kerbin years it would make sense that Kerbin years are used to calculate interstellar distances. This would also mean that you'll have more consistency with Kerbal aging and the like (A Kerbal that's 80 years old in Earth years is 68.5 years old in Kerbin years). It is also consistent with the 1/10th universe scale as long as you calculate a Kerbal light year using a 1/10th scale speed of light.

 

 

The more I think about it the more it makes sense to do it this way. Using a 1/10th "Kerbal scale" speed of light you can use Kerbin years to define a 1/10th scale "Kerbin Light Year," which clearly denotes itself as different from normal Earth light years, has the correct scale, and is relative to Kerbal aging and mission clocks.

You're forgetting one thing though, the thrust of the engines are nerfed to 1/4th of their IRL speed. So, Daedalus will effectively go at max speed about 0.012 of C due to this in the KSPverse. It still gives you your long coast time after you take that into effect. 

And as others have pointed out, you can't change the speed of light. It has a set definition and is a scientific/universal constant. KSP doesn't change what the size of a meter is, and seeing as light speed and the meter are kind of interlinked with each other, you can't change one without changing the other. You 1/10th the speed of light, you need to 1/10th the size of the meter. 

[Drakenred65]

Basicaly the only thing you can do to make ksp 1 more realistic is to implement some king of time delay for long distance communications, which, yes there is a mod for it. I used it for a bit then stoped because it was hyper annoying

[GoldForest]

4 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Basicaly the only thing you can do to make ksp 1 more realistic is to implement some king of time delay for long distance communications, which, yes there is a mod for it. I used it for a bit then stoped because it was hyper annoying

[Drakenred65]

18 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

To me it was largely a case of be careful what you wish for, you Will get it.

[shdwlrd]

@GoldForest I agree, we really don't know how Intercept will interpret a lightyear. But it shouldn't be what we expect a lightyear will be. Somewhere in the early interviews, Nate say they increased the playable area from about 1.3 ly of KSP1 to several lys when talking about their new PQS upgrades. Now, I do believe at this point, he is using the typical definition of a lightyear.

Lets say the playable area is 6-8lys by our standards. If the Kerbol system in the center of this playable area. I can't see them adding the new star systems at the very edge of the playable area. That is what will happen in they use the standard definition of lightyear. So a lightyear will have to be reduced. But again, we don't know how they will define a lightyear in KSP2. 

Yes, they can scale the distance the same way they did for the Kerbol system. That doesn't make sense in this scenario. It will take less than one Kerbin year to reach that distance. So what can be done? Well, use the Kerbin year and adjust the definition of lightyear to that.

Also, you can't really use AU as defined in KSP also. The definition of AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Well, the Earth doesn't exist in this universe. So it doesn't make sense.

You have to remember, any units of measure that are not defined in the game and are derived from characteristics from our universe, won't play well in the KSP universe. So we either have change the definitions to fit within the KSP universe or everything will seem off as how we would understand it. (Except for parsec, the definition allows for flexibility with the distances. Again, we will need to observe the KSP2 universe to define the actual distances. So at this time, it's standard distance as known from the Earth, wouldn't be valid.)

Edited December 15, 2022 by shdwlrd
Double checked my maths

[GoldForest]

4 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

To me it was largely a case of be careful what you wish for, you Will get it.

I'm just confused as to why you mentioned radio communications, when we're talking about lightyear distances.

10 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

@GoldForest I agree, we really don't know how Intercept will interpret a lightyear. But it shouldn't be what we expect a lightyear will be. Somewhere in the early interviews, Nate say they increased the playable area from about 1.3 ly of KSP1 to several lys when talking about their new PQS upgrades. Now, I do believe at this point, he is using the typical definition of a lightyear.

Lets say the playable area is 6-8lys by our standards. If the Kerbol system in the center of this playable area. I can't see them adding the new star systems at the very edge of the playable area. That is what will happen in they use the standard definition of lightyear. So a lightyear will have to be reduced. But again, we don't know how they will define a lightyear in KSP2. 

Yes, they can scale the distance the same way they did for the Kerbol system. That doesn't make sense in this scenario. It will take longer than one Kerbin year to reach that distance. So what can be done? Well, use the Kerbin year and adjust the definition of lightyear to that.

Also, you can't really use AU as defined in KSP also. The definition of AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Well, the Earth doesn't exist in this universe. So it doesn't make sense.

You have to remember, any units of measure that are not defined in the game and are derived from characteristics from our universe, won't play well in the KSP universe. So we either have change the definitions to fit within the KSP universe or everything will seem off as how we would understand it. (Except for parsec, the definition allows for flexibility with the distances. Again, we will need to observe the KSP2 universe to define the actual distances. So at this time, it's standard distance as known from the Earth, wouldn't be valid.)

I doubt the play area is as little as 6 to 8 lys. They plan on adding several star systems. Deb Deb and To Be Announced are just the start. The play area would have to be 10s of light years if not at least up to 100 to 150. And really, the playable area could be stretched in definitely. Extrasolar does this for KSP 1. It adds a new star system a few lightyears from Kerbol. "Several" could be a handful, or it could mean 100s. In this case, it's probably safe to assume that several means well into the double digits, if not the triple digits.

And you can use AU in KSP. It would just be that Kerbin isn't 1 AU from Kerbol, but instead 0.09 AU. Again, they didn't change the distances or their definitions, just the scale of things. A meter is a meter. A light year is a light year. A kilogram on Earth is a Kilogram on Kerbin. Etc. 

[shdwlrd]

26 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I doubt the play area is as little as 6 to 8 lys.

Yes, I do believe that it will be that small. (I can't believe that I'm calling 170*10¹⁵ - 227*10¹⁵ m³  a small area.)

33 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

The play area would have to be 10s of light years if not at least up to 100 to 150.

You may be right; the play area could be larger than what I'm saying. But at what point will they lose the sub mm precision that Intercept is promising and need? At point does the PQS system eat too much into your performance?

41 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

And you can use AU in KSP. It would just be that Kerbin isn't 1 AU from Kerbol, but instead 0.09 AU. Again, they didn't change the distances or their definitions, just the scale of things. A meter is a meter. A light year is a light year. A kilogram on Earth is a Kilogram on Kerbin. Etc. 

I'll concede with AU as you can define it as the distance between Kerbin and Kerbol. (13.6 million km) But the distance is much shorter than the distance between the earth and the sun. (147-152 million km)

Let's define the constants that match between RL and the KSP universe. Length/distance is meters. Velocity is meters per second. Time is seconds, minutes, hours. The speed of light in a vacuum. Now, let's define the constants that don't match between RL and the KSP universe. Time, days and years. Days on earth is 24 hrs whereas days on Kerbin are 6 hrs. A year for earth is 365.25, 24 hr days whereas a year for Kerbin is 426.09, 6 hr days.

Figuring out the distance of a light year is a function of velocity*time in seconds. 

Now, because the orbital period is vastly different between the earth and Kerbin, the distance traveled for light will be vastly different for what would be considered a year. So, light would travel 9,460,730,472,580,800m in earths orbital period of 31,557,600s whereas light would travel 2,759,153,377,863,610m in Kerbin's orbital period of 9,203,545s. Ok? So, one KSP light year will equal 106.52 light days in RL. By that measure, you can say in KSP that a star is 3 lys away whereas the position is actually about .98 ly in RL.

So yes, a 6-8 ly area is big enough to house multiple star systems is the Kerbin definition of a light year is used. But if you must insist that a star must be 3-4 RL lys away from Kerbol, then the distance as seen by the Kerbals will be 9-12ly away. 

PS. I'm leaving the full numbers for the light year distances for the effect of how far the light would have traveled.

PPS. I can't believe that a bunch of gamers can't suspend their ties to the real world and allow the rules and realties of a fantasy world to take precedence. Shesh, haven't any of you played a paper RPG and had a GM bend or break the laws of the world for dramatic effect, story, or to make things easier?

[GoldForest]

13 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

You may be right; the play area could be larger than what I'm saying. But at what point will they lose the sub mm precision that Intercept is promising and need? At point does the PQS system eat too much into your performance?

Intercept plans on having multiple systems. 2 new systems is kind of low to be using that phrasing imo. I suspect we'll see at least 4 new systems, minimum. And if they are following IRL distances from planets, then that will make the plants spread out across 4 to 8 light years. So, the play area will have to be quite large indeed. And that's assuming they're even going to follow the distances IRL. They could jump around. They might make one of their systems over 20 lightyears away. 

We'll just have to wait and see what they do. 

And you're not going to go sub-mm with an interstellar craft. I think the Sub-mm is for landing craft only, so I wouldn't worry about a star being 150 Lys away. You're not going to get sub-mm with an Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive anyway, no matter the distance, even with RCS thrusters. The distance is just too great, and the calculations are going to get screwy that far.

48 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Now, because the orbital period is vastly different between the earth and Kerbin, the distance traveled for light will be vastly different for what would be considered a year. So, light would travel 9,460,730,472,580,800m in earths orbital period of 31,557,600s whereas light would travel 2,759,153,377,863,610m in Kerbin's orbital period of 9,203,545s. Ok? So, one KSP light year will equal 106.52 light days in RL. By that measure, you can say in KSP that a star is 3 lys away whereas the position is actually about .98 ly in RL.

So yes, a 6-8 ly area is big enough to house multiple star systems is the Kerbin definition of a light year is used. But if you must insist that a star must be 3-4 RL lys away from Kerbol, then the distance as seen by the Kerbals will be 9-12ly away. 

PS. I'm leaving the full numbers for the light year distances for the effect of how far the light would have traveled.

PPS. I can't believe that a bunch of gamers can't suspend their ties to the real world and allow the rules and realties of a fantasy world to take precedence. Shesh, haven't any of you played a paper RPG and had a GM bend or break the laws of the world for dramatic effect, story, or to make things easier?

It just doesn't feel right to me to have a light-year redefined.  Just feels, off to me. If Intercept does reinvent a lightyear definition, I'll accept it, but at this point we can only speculate and comment. Unless @Nate Simpson or someone @Intercept Games comes into the thread and comments about what they've done with a lightyear.

I understand your point of view and see that A kerbal Lightyear would be actually kind of better, but at the same time, it goes against the universal constant. 1/10thing the distance of a lightyear to match in universe sizes does make sense. It would make travel easier, but at the same time, we have improved time warp, and we have acceleration under time warp, so really, distances don't matter in the long run. And if they 1/10th it, I guess they would have to 1/10th the speed as well. Hmmm... Still doesn't feel right to me.

As for suspension of belief can happen in D&D because D&D doesn't have any set rules in their universe. KSP follows IRL rules tho, that's why it's hard to suspend belief. If KSP didn't, then it would be easier.

[The Aziz]

Like I said, there's no point in reinventing the wheel. The gravitational constant has not been changed, why would speed of light be? If you don't like the definition of a year being different in the game, pick another unit. Seconds, for example. Then, a lightyear is a distance light travels through a vacuum in ~31 557 600 seconds. Boom, problem solved. Seconds are the same in Kerbal universe.

Aaalso, we really don't know if the capabilities of interstellar class engines will be rescaled. Yes, there's a difference in first orbital speed of Kerbin and Earth, and all the parts reflect that with different parameters than those on Earth. But then we're talking about nearly relativistic speeds. Suddenly your 2.3km/s Kerbin vs 8km/s Earth low orbital speeds don't matter, you pass those and can forget about them until you arrive in the new system.

[Drakenred65]

Oh that.

 

one of the things with ls coms is they are literaly light speed coms.

 

no matter how you slice it,  dice it, space and or time compress it, it’s going to take at least several months real world time for light speed coms to go one way without massive time dilation.

 

and that’s light speed messages. Sending a ship out in response to anything is going to take far longer. So thank god for KSP 2 s time dialation. 

 

 

 

 

[GigFiz]

I Haven't made up my mind about whether I would rather it be equivalent to 1LY or 4LY in our world, but...just one little bit of food for thought:

Voyager one has been out there for 45 years and is going 17k m/s, and has made it a grand total of 22 light hours. Even one light year is enough to make us feel it, I think. Even if we quasi-kerbal-scaled things by imagining it was going 10 times faster, that's still less than 10 light days

That said, my purely random intuitive guess is that the closest system is going to be slightly over a light year away, to give the feeling of scale, but not feel totally unsurmountable for your first interstellar expedition, and then the others will be further, maybe (assuming 3 extraKerbolar systems at 1.0) one in the 3-5 range and one in the 7-12 range. It will be interesting to see if they will be kind of center around the Kerbin system, sending you in multiple directions, or are mostly in one direction, with the main variable being distance, or...

I am also hoping that it will be possible for mods to add more systems; it would be fun to be able to fill out the stellar neighborhood

Edited December 21, 2022 by GigFiz

[K^2]

On 12/15/2022 at 3:18 AM, The Aziz said:

The gravitational constant has not been changed, why would speed of light be?

Whether or not gravitational constant changed is kind of debatable, because it's really not relevant to how the game works. The factor that the developers have explicitly set for the planets is the gravitational parameter, and that was just tuned to make surface gravity whatever it needs to be. Whether you want to think of Kerbin as ten times denser than Earth or if the gravitational constant is ten times higher is entirely arbitrary. For KSP, the former was chosen as convention, simply because we need a convention, but there is no reason why it can't be the latter for the KSP2.

But also, gravitational constant and speed of light can scale independently. You can think of the two as linked from the gravitomagnetic perspective, but then you have a gravitomagnetic permeability to play with as a free parameter. So in either case, you can set the speed of light to whatever you want independently from the gravitational constant. The only difference this will make to physics is on how the gravity waves interact with matter and things like frame dragging, where relative velocities of exceptionally massive objects play a role. Since KSP2 certainly isn't going to do any GR effects, the connection is irrelevant. These are basically two independent constants.

So I don't see any strong reason to assume that KSP2 speed of light is c, let alone whether we're using Earth year or Kerbin year for a light year as  a distance measurement. Both 3x10⁷ and 3x10⁸ m/s would feel right to me, and I would be leaning towards Kerbin years for light years, which gives us a significant range to play with. With Kerbin year being about 1/3 the duration of Earth year, this could mean light years being as much as a 30th of what we have in the real world. Which puts quite a spread on what could be meant by "4 light years," and while talking about what we'd prefer to see in the game is an entirely valid discussion, I don't know if trying to guess the actual interpretation is worth it. We'll just have to wait until we have some more info, or at least another clue to compare with this one.

[GigFiz]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

So I don't see any strong reason to assume that KSP2 speed of light is c

Indeed. In KSP universe, the speed of light is clearly k

And the gravitational constant is J (For Jebitational constant)