Would interstellar be fun?

[alex_deltav]

With current engines it takes dozens of years to reach the Kerbal's sphere of influence borders,
Without new engines interstellar would be boring, But powerful engines might break the balance in the Kerbal system. I think making interstellar fun is almost impossible. 
Would like to see your suggestions on how to. 10x probably won't help since hours for gameplay will turn to a dozens of minutes, which still unacceptable..

[Kenobi McCormick]

What made me stop playing KSP1 was that I ran out of stuff to do. I had visited every orbital body in the Kerbin system, I had landed on all of the solid ones, orbited them, drifted space cars around on them, I'd done spaceplanes, a grand tour, built colonies, explored all the easter eggs. What I pined for most of all was other star systems to fling my kerbals at.


So, yes, interstellar travel would be fun. It would keep me playing a hell of a lot longer. And with that comes trans-luminal and super-luminal engines. I wouldn't recommend using such engines inside a solar system, but between them? Hell yeah.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Kenobi McCormick

[The Aziz]

Interstellar engines are huge, expensive  and probably require exotic materials to build. By the time you have one, you probably could make a round trip in a solar system with conventional engines/ nuclear pulse. And you probably need to travel within the system to even be able to construct the Crucible. So no, it doesn't break the balance. 

As for the travel time, they're supposed to be accelerating for months, so your travel time will be significantly shorter.

[Pat20999]

Interstellar should be a fun feature and if you combine it with multiplayer you can have multiple territories. And if interstellar weapon mods come I would like to have interstellar wars.

[Superfluous J]

If you allow in the game - and the players are comfortable with - round trips taking years at the very least and more likely dozens of years - then interstellar won't be that much different than interplanetary. Just bigger engines with better ISP and/or more fuel.

If you want Star-[Trek|Wars] type interstellar where ships hop around and people can in their lifetimes* touch foot on the surfaces of dozens of planets without a thought... then no that's not going to happen.

*I know Kerbals don't have a natural lifespan and could spend a billion years coasting to each planet. You know what I mean.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Superfluous J

[Pat20999]

37 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

If you allow in the game - and the players are comfortable with - round trips taking years at the very least and more likely dozens of years - then interstellar won't be that much different than interplanetary. Just bigger engines with better ISP and/or more fuel.

If you want Star-[Trek|Wars] type interstellar where ships hop around and people can in their lifetimes* touch foot on the surfaces of dozens of planets without a thought... then no that's not going to happen.

*I know Kerbals don't have a natural lifespan and could spend a billion years coasting to each planet. You know what I mean.

Nah, I mean unmanned automated suicide ships that ruin your colonies in years time.

[Bej Kerman]

3 hours ago, alex_deltav said:

But powerful engines might break the balance in the Kerbal system

That's basically the point. If in 80 years we got torch drives that could send us to Mars in a week, you wouldn't say "NASA broke the balance of real life". Much as you don't say "the chemical engines in KSP broke the balance on surface travel". Travelling places quickly and somewhat ignoring orbital mechanics is meant to be the next stage of technological development.

[Periple]

4 hours ago, alex_deltav said:

Without new engines interstellar would be boring, But powerful engines might break the balance in the Kerbal system. I think making interstellar fun is almost impossible. 

I can think of ways that could make interstellar fun without breaking the early to mid game in the Kerbolar system. Although this will be harder to do for sandbox if you get access to everything from the get-go. 

Such as:

• Fuel scarcity. You have to mine and refine advanced fuels for advanced engines, and you can make it so you'll never have an unlimited supply. This will make the engines with plentiful fuel relevant all through the game.
• Size and materials cost. Interstellar vessels are huge, even some of the engines are too big to fit in the VAB. Using something like that for interplanetary missions doesn't make any more sense than using a Saturn V as a sounding rocket!
• Tech tree / progression. You'll only get access to the "Kerbolar system breaking" tech once you've effectively tamed the Kerbolar system anyway.

If it's done well, the interstellar and future tech will only become available when you've pretty much "tamed" the Kerbolar system. At that point it doesn't matter if it breaks the balance; interstellar itself and then the new systems will have their own balance, which is tailored for the new-tier tech.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

10 hours ago, alex_deltav said:

With current engines it takes dozens of years to reach the Kerbal's sphere of influence borders,
Without new engines interstellar would be boring, But powerful engines might break the balance in the Kerbal system. I think making interstellar fun is almost impossible. 
Would like to see your suggestions on how to. 10x probably won't help since hours for gameplay will turn to a dozens of minutes, which still unacceptable..

The travel is probably going to be moderately dull - not much to do or see for years.  Gathering the resources and building the starships, planning and plotting the burns will likely be a lot of fun.  But arriving *in a whole new and unexplored star system with all sorts of new bodies that we have never seen before, and exploring them*?

That’s going to be a blast.

Edited May 29, 2023 by Wheehaw Kerman

[Pat20999]

I think if KSP2 multiplayer comes out you must share you’re knowledge and even if you finished the game you should still enjoy it with others.

[MarcAbaddon]

On 5/28/2023 at 10:22 PM, Periple said:

I can think of ways that could make interstellar fun without breaking the early to mid game in the Kerbolar system. Although this will be harder to do for sandbox if you get access to everything from the get-go. 

Such as:

• Fuel scarcity. You have to mine and refine advanced fuels for advanced engines, and you can make it so you'll never have an unlimited supply. This will make the engines with plentiful fuel relevant all through the game.
• Size and materials cost. Interstellar vessels are huge, even some of the engines are too big to fit in the VAB. Using something like that for interplanetary missions doesn't make any more sense than using a Saturn V as a sounding rocket!
• Tech tree / progression. You'll only get access to the "Kerbolar system breaking" tech once you've effectively tamed the Kerbolar system anyway.

If it's done well, the interstellar and future tech will only become available when you've pretty much "tamed" the Kerbolar system. At that point it doesn't matter if it breaks the balance; interstellar itself and then the new systems will have their own balance, which is tailored for the new-tier tech.

I think only the third point is really a solution. I think it is really hard to make fuel so scarce that you won't use it, especially since the dV requirements in Kerbol are so small compared to what you need to travel interstellar distances in good time. A 1000-5000k m/s DV ship will basically last you forever in Kerbol. Unless you limit the total amount of material fuel and not just the production rate there's really no way that this is not worthwhile. 

Large vessels aren't an issue either, if you use it as sort of a carrier type vessel. If you have to move significant amounts of material or tug a large space station, then it's still useful.

[Lyneira]

On 5/30/2023 at 11:55 AM, MarcAbaddon said:

I think only the third point is really a solution. I think it is really hard to make fuel so scarce that you won't use it, especially since the dV requirements in Kerbol are so small compared to what you need to travel interstellar distances in good time. A 1000-5000k m/s DV ship will basically last you forever in Kerbol. Unless you limit the total amount of material fuel and not just the production rate there's really no way that this is not worthwhile. 

Large vessels aren't an issue either, if you use it as sort of a carrier type vessel. If you have to move significant amounts of material or tug a large space station, then it's still useful.

I think fuel scarcity will still make a difference because even if you're determined to use exotic fuel to trivialize travel in the Kerbol system,  it will require large scale infrastructure (a colony) to get it conveniently accessible in huge quantities. You will initially need to set up harvesting of exotic fuel and supply routes to bring it to an orbital shipyard in small amounts. Those supply ships will be using your plentiful fuel. As you scale up your resource harvesting, you can start thinking about using exotic fuel for more common applications in the Kerbin system, like replacing your supply ships with larger ones running the exotic fuel themselves. Now you're reliant on the exotic fuel just to keep your supply lines going, which means you need to harvest even more of it.

The key point is that it takes time and effort in the form of infrastructure building to get to this point of plentiful exotic fuel, not something you will have available in the early and mid game. The scarcity is the knob you can tweak to tune how early it will be feasible.

Similarly, size and materials cost of the engines may not prevent the player from using exotic fuel for trivial applications in the endgame, but if tuned properly it will make more sense to use engines running common fuels for smaller vehicles like launchers and landers. Some possible constraints of exotic fuel engines:

• Low performance in atmosphere
• Low thrust to weight ratio
• So large and massive that it doesn't make sense to build a launcher or lander with them
• Constructing them on a surface base is not possible due to VAB size limits

There's one exotic fuel I remember that might slip through all of these constraints which is metallic hydrogen. I expect this fuel will have a range of engine sizes similar to Methalox engines, but the ISP is going to be close to the SWERV, so their niche isn't actually interstellar but more potent interplanetary vehicles.

[FreeThinker]

In KSP Intersteller Extended , I tried to use the natrual properties of exotic fuel, to help with making it hard to use effectively. For example every knows, Antimatter is the most powerfull substance, however the big problem is  how to store it effectivly without it blowing up. It turns out, the most effectively way is to store it as a frozen snowball suspend by diamagnetic forces. However, creating this condition in Earth orbit is quit difficult, meaing it requires a heavy storage tank to achieve it . To lower the mass requirment, the best locaton would be to try to do the same thing far away from the sun, like at pluto distance. If you put 1 + 1  together you get that the most effective way  to use antimatter intersteller vessel, would be fuel a big interstellar ship in orbit of pluto with antimatter using conventian engines, and use the starship to travel to the edge of your destination star system, and use safer engines within the alien star system.

Edited June 3, 2023 by FreeThinker

[MarcAbaddon]

2 hours ago, Lyneira said:

I think fuel scarcity will still make a difference because even if you're determined to use exotic fuel to trivialize travel in the Kerbol system,  it will require large scale infrastructure (a colony) to get it conveniently accessible in huge quantities. You will initially need to set up harvesting of exotic fuel and supply routes to bring it to an orbital shipyard in small amounts. Those supply ships will be using your plentiful fuel. As you scale up your resource harvesting, you can start thinking about using exotic fuel for more common applications in the Kerbin system, like replacing your supply ships with larger ones running the exotic fuel themselves. Now you're reliant on the exotic fuel just to keep your supply lines going, which means you need to harvest even more of it.

The key point is that it takes time and effort in the form of infrastructure building to get to this point of plentiful exotic fuel, not something you will have available in the early and mid game. The scarcity is the knob you can tweak to tune how early it will be feasible.

Similarly, size and materials cost of the engines may not prevent the player from using exotic fuel for trivial applications in the endgame, but if tuned properly it will make more sense to use engines running common fuels for smaller vehicles like launchers and landers. Some possible constraints of exotic fuel engines:

• Low performance in atmosphere
• Low thrust to weight ratio
• So large and massive that it doesn't make sense to build a launcher or lander with them
• Constructing them on a surface base is not possible due to VAB size limits

There's one exotic fuel I remember that might slip through all of these constraints which is metallic hydrogen. I expect this fuel will have a range of engine sizes similar to Methalox engines, but the ISP is going to be close to the SWERV, so their niche isn't actually interstellar but more potent interplanetary vehicles.

I still don't think fuel scarcity is the answer - the issue is that you require so much less for it if you stay in the system, that you can really avoid  making it more efficient to first use it in system to scale up production dramatically, before leaving the system.  Unless, you can't scale up production beyond a hard cap, which would suck for other reasons, like having a negative impact on multiplayer or artificially restricting large scale missions.

What I definitely agree with is that it is relatively easy to stop making them useful for certain mission types. Even in KSP 1 ion drives don't make for good landers on almost all bodies.  So not using them for landers is straightforward enough. It's interplanetary transfers where I think the newer engines will (and probably should) phase out old technology. E.g. I think a ship that is built to carry e.g. a sizable amounts of colonists each trip would use the new engines and then transfer the colonists to lander type vessel at the destination.

I am bit leery about how very low TWR would work out in KSP 2, since there would be a lot of problems with the current burn-on-rails solution. We can burn in time-warp now, but not keep heading or switch to other vessels/the KSP. So at the moment if you had a vessel that took 3 months to de-accelerate it could cause timing issues.  If it is your only mission you are fine, but if you'd need those burns at the same time on different vessels it would be a problem.

[RocketRockington]

On 5/30/2023 at 5:55 AM, MarcAbaddon said:

I think only the third point is really a solution. I think it is really hard to make fuel so scarce that you won't use it, especially since the dV requirements in Kerbol are so small compared to what you need to travel interstellar distances in good time. A 1000-5000k m/s DV ship will basically last you forever in Kerbol. Unless you limit the total amount of material fuel and not just the production rate there's really no way that this is not worthwhile. 

Large vessels aren't an issue either, if you use it as sort of a carrier type vessel. If you have to move significant amounts of material or tug a large space station, then it's still useful.

Seems like their time would have been better invested in either making more planets/moons for the Kerbolar system, or creating a procedural planet system like many space games, or just making it much easier to mod planets/add POIs.  

Whether the interstellar stuff will be fun or not - I'm dubious.  If the systems for interstellar craft are intricate enough - maybe.  But they've taken off many of the things that would make it intricate enough, like life support, permanent Kerbal death - or even just that its going to require generation ships and some sort of boot-strapping mechanic, vs just making it a sci-fi esque and silly interstellar resource transportation game, which is what I get the sense it will be.

[Pat20999]

5 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Seems like their time would have been better invested in either making more planets/moons for the Kerbolar system, or creating a procedural planet system like many space games, or just making it much easier to mod planets/add POIs.  

Whether the interstellar stuff will be fun or not - I'm dubious.  If the systems for interstellar craft are intricate enough - maybe.  But they've taken off many of the things that would make it intricate enough, like life support, permanent Kerbal death - or even just that its going to require generation ships and some sort of boot-strapping mechanic, vs just making it a sci-fi esque and silly interstellar resource transportation game, which is what I get the sense it will be.

I think if you begin the game you will face a lot of challenges but later if you have done everything you can do whatever you want and enjoy the view.

[shdwlrd]

The fun part is building up the Kerbal civilization to be able to go interstellar by your own design. The actual journey to the new star is going to suck until you arrive. Then you start again in a new star system without the technological learning curve. 

When talking about interstellar travel for KSP, you can't think about how many stars can I visit in a single play through. Your thinking has to shift to; How am I going to get to the next star system? How am I going to establish my Kerbals there. How am I going to thrive here? 

You have to stop thinking of Star Trek/Wars level of technology and think of more of the Expanse level of technology. Yes, visiting hundreds of stars can be fun. But that's not the goal for KSP. The goal for KSP is to get to the point where interstellar travel is possible, not practical, convenient, or quick.

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 5/28/2023 at 9:22 PM, Pat20999 said:

Nah, I mean unmanned automated suicide ships that ruin your colonies in years time.

Lol, we don't need weapons mods. We can create ballistic missiles to destroy buildings of one another. Great! 

[Pat20999]

7 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

The fun part is building up the Kerbal civilization to be able to go interstellar by your own design. The actual journey to the new star is going to suck until you arrive. Then you start again in a new star system without the technological learning curve. 

When talking about interstellar travel for KSP, you can't think about how many stars can I visit in a single play through. Your thinking has to shift to; How am I going to get to the next star system? How am I going to establish my Kerbals there. How am I going to thrive here? 

You have to stop thinking of Star Trek/Wars level of technology and think of more of the Expanse level of technology. Yes, visiting hundreds of stars can be fun. But that's not the goal for KSP. The goal for KSP is to get to the point where interstellar travel is possible, not practical, convenient, or quick.

Do you know what would be great; that every star that you see in ksp2 that they would try and make each one of them real.

[Bej Kerman]

36 minutes ago, Pat20999 said:

Do you know what would be great; that every star that you see in ksp2 that they would try and make each one of them real.

That wouldn't be great at all. I'd rather go with 3 interesting handcrafted star systems than 100 boring ones.

[shdwlrd]

3 hours ago, Pat20999 said:

Do you know what would be great; that every star that you see in ksp2 that they would try and make each one of them real.

I'm guessing you missed the not practical, convenient, or quick parts. Between the speeds and distances involved, you're basically limited to the local star cluster or just beyond. Plus, the overall play area is expected to be several lightyears (or multiple lightyears depending on the source) across. So every star in that sky box wouldn't be reachable anyway.

[Pat20999]

I would like them to announce which star in the night sky is Debdeb. (And Qeg and Tuun.)

[Bej Kerman]

12 minutes ago, Pat20999 said:

I would like them to announce which star in the night sky is Debdeb. (And Qeg and Tuun.)

Picking a specific star on the skybox to be Debdeb does not make compute.

[K33N]

Having sci fi engines make your Kerbol colonization run smoothly and easily is a good thing. In fact we should expect that the more advanced engines will make things extremely easy for "basic" rocket stuff.

I strongly disagree that having advanced engines with great capabilities would  ruin the fun, especially because you would have to unlock them.

"Balance" in a single player game is a nebulous fallacy. The mid to late game engines should be revolutionary in power and use compared to what came before.

Edited June 2, 2023 by K33N

[KSK]

I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt but interstellar travel, along with multiplayer, are the parts of the KSP2 roadmap that I'm least excited about. 

For me, a lot of the appeal of KSP was the fact that it's a game about present day space exploration with present day technology, and present day limitations. Even the far end of the tech tree (as I recall) only includes technologies that have been pretty thoroughly ground tested but not actually flown (NERVA), remain a little bit speculative but one of  their key enabling systems has been built, tested, and shown to work (SABRE, which I presume RAPIER is a riff on), or are grounded in known chemistry and engineering and bits of them have been demonstrated (ISRU).

Lots of science, very little fiction.

KSP was also nicely scaled. Yes it's built around a 1/10 scale toy star system but I can mostly ignore that when I'm playing because the journey times are still approximately scaled to travel times around our own solar system. Journeys to the Mun and Minmus take days to weeks, journeys to the nearest planets take months, journeys to the more distant planets take months to years. Allowing interstellar travel - and probably repeated interstellar journeys - within the timeframe of the game, breaks that immersion and rubs my nose in the fact that I'm playing in a scaled down toy sandbox.

I also wonder about progression time within the game. KSP already suffers from that:  a brand new space program can make orbit on day 1, get to the Mun on the same day with a bit of player experience, and be heading out to the planets on the first available transfer window, or earlier if the player isn't fussed about using minimum energy trajectories. Even allowing for the fact that interstellar travel will require a bunch of infrastructure and resource mining first, I can imagine a brand new KSP2 start going interstellar within a handful of game years, which again, rather breaks the immersion for me.

Finally, I remain skeptical (to put it politely) about the feasibility of rocket-powered, crewed, interstellar travel anyway, and like @RocketRockington, I suspect that most of the challenges involved in building an interstellar craft will be abstracted away or ignored, given that a basic stock life support still seems to be a contentious issue.

In short, interstellar travel breaks a lot of what I found appealing about KSP and turns KSP2 into just another science-fiction game. That doesn't mean that roadmap complete KSP2 is going to be a bad game, but I don't believe it will have the charm of the original.  

 

 

Edited June 3, 2023 by KSK