Terminology: SSTO and PhysX

[comham]

What many forum members are saying: SSTO: Single stage to orbit. That's just a description of a crafts capabilities. You can have a SSTO spaceplane or a SSTO vertical launch rocket.

What they should be saying: If it's a spaceplane, call it a spaceplane, not an SSTO. You wouldn't call the saturn 5 a MSTO, you call it a rocket.

What many forum members are saying: PhysX: A proprietary physics middleware (piece of software which serves as the physics engine of some games) originally made by Ageia to be driven by a specialised PCI card. When it turned out nobody wanted to buy a whole piece of hardware so 3 games could use fancy physics irrelevant to gameplay, nvidia bought them and now those 3 games can be run by anyone with certain nvidia graphics cards.

What they should be saying: Physics. KSP does not use the PhysX middleware and people seem to be using "PhysX" (with the proper capitalisation and everything) just as shorthand, which is rubbish, because a) you're referencing something that's just not true and it's not even that much shorter than writing "physics" and you have to faff with the capitalisation.

[Awaras]

Actually, Unity (and, by extension, KSP) does use PhysX, but without hardware acceleration:

http://unity3d.com/unity/quality/physics

[Van Disaster]

Spaceplanes aren't necessarily SSTO anyway - I've added ( rocket ) drop tanks to a couple of mine if I needed a slightly bigger payload and had to use the NERVAs as atmo boosters occasionally. That's just like staging extra tanks on your rockets.

People are using "PhysX" for "Physics"? that's not just wrong, it's very confusing if you know what PhysX is and aren't aware of KSP's engine details yet. [Edit: Thanks to Arawas for educating me so early in the morning too]

[magnemoe]

Spaceplanes aren't necessarily SSTO anyway - I've added ( rocket ) drop tanks to a couple of mine if I needed a slightly bigger payload and had to use the NERVAs as atmo boosters occasionally. That's just like staging extra tanks on your rockets.

People are using "PhysX" for "Physics"? that's not just wrong, it's very confusing if you know what PhysX is and aren't aware of KSP's engine details yet. [Edit: Thanks to Arawas for educating me so early in the morning too]

Yes, most real world spaceplane ideas are not SSTO, rather a small space shuttle or rocket on top of an fast plane who is first stage.

[shand]

totally agreed on the SSTO thing. a SSTO rocket is really easy to make (if you dont want to get much payload up). nobody seems to make multistage spaceplanes (except clearly you Van Disaster). maybe they just like the extra challange! spaceplanes arent really practical for anything anyway and they take a load more effort to A) design and fly.

but yes, would be awesome if people got the terminology right!

[ComradeGoat]

Yes, most real world spaceplane ideas are not SSTO, rather a small space shuttle or rocket on top of an fast plane who is first stage.

Skylon is a real world, practical SSTO spaceplane currently in development. Quite exciting, really!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

[Crush]

Skylon is a real world, practical SSTO spaceplane currently in development. Quite exciting, really!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

According to the wiki article, the engine is currently in development, the rest is still a dream waiting for funding. And if it will be practical can't be said before it actually flies.

[rosenkranz]

totally agreed on the SSTO thing. a SSTO rocket is really easy to make (if you dont want to get much payload up). nobody seems to make multistage spaceplanes (except clearly you Van Disaster). maybe they just like the extra challange! spaceplanes arent really practical for anything anyway and they take a load more effort to A) design and fly.

but yes, would be awesome if people got the terminology right!

Actually, I've got a SSTO lifter that will put just over 100 tons in orbit and then make a powered landing (stock + kspx). The % to orbit is kinda low at 1600 tons on the pad, but hey, it's only fuel.

[Guest]

There was a lovely glossary that existed before the forum crash. Looks like it's time to recreate it.

[EndlessWaves]

Actually, Unity (and, by extension, KSP) does use PhysX, but without hardware acceleration:

That's correct. PhysX these days is a library to do physics simulations used by many games, from Need for Speed:Shift to Batman: Arkham Asylum, including KSP and most other Unity based games.

The hardware support is still in there, but generally only used for visual effects and then only rarely and badly.

[shand]

Actually, I've got a SSTO lifter that will put just over 100 tons in orbit and then make a powered landing (stock + kspx). The % to orbit is kinda low at 1600 tons on the pad, but hey, it's only fuel.

...and i bet that wasnt "really easy" to make. i can throw together a SSTO sat deployment rocket (parachute landing) quicker then i can make the probe!

also i tend to define the size of the payload by the size of the rocket. "not much payload" means "more rocket" - and of course you get diminishing % the larger the mass due to heavy engines and what-not.

gettting very offtopic, could you post a pic of it? i'm curious to see the design style!

[chainedlupine]

The physics comment is just flat out wrong. KSP does indeed use the PhysX physics engine, because that is what Unity utilizes at its core.

In fact, the problems with rockets going all wobbly without tons of struts is a direct symptom how PhysX works -- And not just PhysX, but almost all contemporary physics engines.

[Panichio]

Another thing that I myself am not really clear on is 'Mün'. It's pronounced 'moon', but that doesn't mean it's 'the moon'. I don't know what the devs think of it, but I think it's without 'the'. It would be like saying 'the Minmus', or 'the Jool'.

[Guest]

Another thing that I myself am not really clear on is 'Mün'. It's pronounced 'moon', but that doesn't mean it's 'the moon'. I don't know what the devs think of it, but I think it's without 'the'. It would be like saying 'the Minmus', or 'the Jool'.

From the wiki: "Mün, also known as the Mün and sometimes written as Mun..."

The full article is here: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/M%C3%BCn

[Spatzimaus]

Actually, I've got a SSTO lifter that will put just over 100 tons in orbit and then make a powered landing (stock + kspx). The % to orbit is kinda low at 1600 tons on the pad, but hey, it's only fuel.

I've got a 4000-ton SSTO lifter that can either put a 450-ton payload into a safe LKO, or get it almost entirely out of Kerbin's SOI. Its percentage is lower than an asparagus design, but it's actually very easy to fly. And it simply can't be replaced with a more traditional stack; part of the Bucket's appeal is that its U shape allows me to hold awkward payloads inside it in an extremely stable way, by strutting horizontally. Sure, you don't need that for small satellites, but for a 400-ton fuel bunker and 50-ton refueling lander that you're sending to Jool, it's critical.

But back to the OP, here's the thing. I could call my design an SSTO, and I do. But if someone says "SSTO" without any other clarification, I assume they're talking about a spaceplane, since the vast majority of SSTO design work on these boards is done on planes. Not because SSTO rockets are terrible, but the bragging rights for doing a spaceplane "right" are much higher. With a rocket, you just hear people yell "moar boosters!" and can make the rocket as big as they want, but with a plane you try to keep things small, and doing it perfectly has a big appeal.

And the PhysX comment was just wrong. This game DOES use it, and people here aren't using it as a short hand for the word "physics", they're talking about the actual software package. Now, Unity might not use as much of PhysX's features as we'd like, but the physics-related bits are being used, and they're what people comment on here.

[iamaphazael]

I'm glad I'm not the only one around here who gives a crap about terminology

[ThatBum]

Let's just call it 'fizz-eks' and confuse even more people.

I'm not really having a problem with the physics, but then again I have an i7-950 at 3.8GHz. I crash sometimes, mostly because of running out of RAM because of the 32 bit ~3GB limit, even though it's a 64 bit OS and I have 12GB. What would really do well is to have a 64 bit port, but that's a whole different hornet's nest to deal with...

[Fel]

Let's just call it 'fizz-eks' and confuse even more people.

That's a great idea! Add in "K"s to make it more kerbal-like.

Also, does my 2,868,750m launchClamp count as a SSTO?