Will we get to other stars?

[Canopus]

Just an fyi. NASA is funding an ftl propulsion experiment right now. The warp drive may be here sooner than we expected.

They are just doing some thought experiments.

[lyndonguitar]

They are just doing some thought experiments.

they will be conducting real experiments, but on a very small scale only

[CptNuts]

The Idea if a binary Star Systems sounds fun to me, but I have to agree with the people saying Kerbol System is enough. There are going to be so many Things in this System, gas giants, even with rings, a asteroid belt (hopefully ^^) with dwarf planets and everything open to be explored and have rockets exploded on

Maybe, in the long term, after the game is complete and everything is added, and the game officaly released, when, if, squad has added everything they set for them selves, maybe then we could start thinking about something more, but until that, there is imho enough stuff already present and enough to come to be occupied

[Daze]

I hope no, is irrealistic (yes i know that KSP is not a real simulator bla bla bla... but is totally crazy)

[TheInfamousAstronaut]

Why not fission or fusion rockets? Doesnt seem too far off.

[Tw1]

Fission and fusion is far too slow for interstellar travel. We'd still be talking decades of travel time.

[magnemoe]

Why not fission or fusion rockets? Doesnt seem too far off.

LV-N is an fission rocket, fusion should work but is pretty marginal for star travel while making travel inside the system very easy.

One reason for an jump/ hyperdrive might be that they can increase performance by unloading the kerbal solar system with ships from memory and load the new system. On going back the fast forward, to current time, easy if they separate out the few crafts who might get into other SOI for analyze.

An satelite in LKO would just require placement, something an orbit from LEO to outside Mun will have to be simulated for the duration.

[Richy teh space man]

How about hyperedit drive? lol

But seriously, I would like to see another solar system, one with a gas giant close to the main star. Then again, once they start creating solar systems ,where do they stop..

Maybe some kind of small grouping of stars perhaps?

[Mefi282]

I think it's to soon to talk about other stars. It will be more important when the kerbol system is finished and thats still a long way to go maybe you will be satisfied with it when its like the dev's want it. Altought something like in the space engine would be even more awesome its a freakin' overkill!

[Rastaman]

Fission and fusion is far too slow for interstellar travel. We'd still be talking decades of travel time.

The distances in the kerbalverse are reduced. In addition we have 100 000x time acceleration, maybe a million in later versions. What needs decades in real life only takes minutes in KSP.

NO TO FTL DRIVES! If FTL is necessary, create wormholes.

[EndOfTheEarth]

If there is another solar system, it should be campaign only, and it should be the endgame, only after every other planet, moon, asteroid, and rock in the Kerobol system has been visited, landed on, and returned from, and to build the ship is a multipart mission that requires resources from the most inconvenient places in the system being shipped to an orbital construction facility

I short, if I'm going to go to another star, I want to feel like I had to work to earn it, just like I've earned the privileges of saying that I've mastered orbiting, Mun landings, dockings, and interplanetary flight.

[astocky]

While I don't really see the need for another solar system either, at least if it is added there will need to be some reasonable way to get there. I think managing extra-kerbol SOI changes and travel between stars wouldn't be feasable and that powerful buzzard ramjets or hyperdrives would unbalance the current game. It might sound crazy but i think the best options are:

- a point jump drive that requires you to be in a specific location in the kerbol system to jump to another star (takes out the difficulty in managing multiple stars and also would not unbalance the current game),

- a wormhole - add it as a new solar body (think a new planet) and when you 'crash' into it you end up somewhere else. you could even have a linked network of wormholes to travel among loads of different stars (i think this would fit in well with the current game and still require sufficient engines for interplanetary travel)

- a stargate - some complicated structure that you need to build in orbit that allows 1 way travel to another star. then to get back you would need to send all the parts required for another gate to the other location and build a return gate (this would add some really cool long term goals to the game)

Edited May 7, 2013 by astocky
typo

[astocky]

Also if you were to go with the idea of just having powerful engines you would need to consider relativistic physics, time dilation and mass changes as ships. would would unnecessarily complicate things and might break existing systems and design.

[Akalaël]

that powerful buzzard ramjets or hyperdrives would unbalance the current game

I desagree, sorry. As I said, the busard ramjet needs intersolar hydrogen to work. It will be powerfull, all right, we are in a game after all, but this engine needs some resources that you can only encounter in the outside of the Kerbal's system.

Inside the system, it will be just inactive, as your jet engine is inactive outside the atmosphere !

For the hyperdrive, I don't like this idea, I wont comment it.

[Nao]

Instead of interstellar travel, I would like to see randomization of kerbol system possible.

Because if we think about it, we want to go to other systems to explore, if we can hit randomize button on a new save it would be almost as we just colonized a new system. And from there, we could simulate FTL interstellar travel, or even do mods that automatically transfer our ship from one save to another save with different system.

[Sir Nahme]

Fission and fusion is far too slow for interstellar travel. We'd still be talking decades of travel time.

Later studies indicate that the top cruise velocity that can theoretically be achieved by a thermonuclear Orion starship, assuming no fuel is saved for slowing back down, is about 8% to 10% of the speed of light (0.08-0.1c).[2] An atomic (fission) Orion can achieve perhaps 3%-5% of the speed of light. A nuclear pulse drive starship powered by matter-antimatter pulse units would be theoretically capable of obtaining a velocity between 50% to 80% of the speed of light. In each case saving fuel for slowing down halves the max. speed. Much as I hate wikipedia it's the easiest ready source XD

So assuming 10 psl on orion engines thats 10 years per light year not including acceleration and not allowing deceleration. The closest solar system is 4.42 light years away. Later studies showed with more modern advances they could push it to 12 psl. So lets assume we want to slow down XD Cut the speed in half for deceleration. 6 psl without including acceleration and deceleration time it would take 73.666r years to travel to proxima centauri. I agree with you on "way too long" there heh

A pure fusion engine based on the same principle was theorised to make 30 psl under the same circumstances (sorry no link, can't find the article, so lets just work on theory). Cut that in half and work outwards from the same line of reasoning. 15 psl at 4.42 is 29.466r years without acceleration or deceleration time. Thats getting much better, still a long flight but hey it's "FOR SCIENCE!" right?

Now on the the antimatter engines. The range given there is 50-80 psl so I'll do a short table.

50 translates to 25 psl - 17.68 years +- acceleration

60 translates to 30 psl - 14.733r years +- acceleration

70 translates to 35 psl - 12.629 years +- acceleration

80 translates to 40 psl - 11.05 years +- acceleration

All still very long but much more reasonable than fission and completely within the scope of human understanding. Due to the nature of the engine type there is no falloff for increasingly large vehicles with this drive system except for logistics and cost as the engine does not lose efficiency as it scales up.

[Jokurr]

The thing I adore about this game is how we use realistic physics and existing technology to get around the solar system, when more hypothetical engines and technologies are introduced, even if they can’t be used inside the solar system, some of that flavour is lost. For that reason I prefer to have a binary system rather than true interstellar travel to another star lightyears away.

And besides, there is still LOTS to add within the Kerbol system before we think too much about going beyond. More gas giants with unique moons please!

[iRommel]

what about simple multiple solar systems? like you go to the tracking center and select kerbol star. and you're in the kerbol system. then you could select Cream soda star and youre in a star system that might have a lot of cream soda on its planets.

perhaps even a terran system and you're in a solar system that mimics ours.... although we'd need new rocket parts i'd imagine.

so we could have multiple star systems with multiple configurations but no need to code in interstellar travel.

[Torham234]

TLDR the whole thread, but I did read one interesting article the other day...

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/warp-drive-plausible/

[falofonos]

There is a giant squid Cthulhu thing in the Kerbol system.

Wormholes are just a way to have multiple star systems without the messiness of having to model a galaxy, or anything you don't want to. Seeing as the most distant man made object hasn't yet encountered the heliopause, we have no idea what conditions in interstellar space are.

As for unbalancing the game, I'm not entirely sure how having other systems to explore would unbalance anything.

The game part of this sandbox will be about finding stuff out in space. There will be obstacles to overcome and the like to make it a challenging game. Locating a wormhole based on its' gravioli emissions and then managing to match position with it sounds pretty challenging to me...

[astocky]

Happy that you don't like the idea of a jump drive (i use jump drive not hyperdrive or warp drive because I am think of the disappear from hear appear there drive - not one that actually flies) but I felt is was the least likely to break the existing mechanics.

... the busard ramjet needs intersolar hydrogen to work...

Unfortunately that is not an entirely true statement. Bussard Ramjets need hydrogen to work and collect it using large magnetic scoops. However this is not strictly inter-solar hydrogen, but any hydrogen. In fact I believe they are likely able to work just fine near most solar systems due to the increased presence of hydrogen from the sun and gas giants. Not as well as outside of the solar system, but perfectly well to render the other types of engines obsolete.

However it would be plausible to say that Kerbol system has a lower density of interstellar gas than the surrounding area and run from there. Then you would just need some kind of powerful fusion to get up to speed to start collecting the hydrogen in the first place.

[Tw1]

There is a giant squid Cthulhu thing in the Kerbol system.

Wormholes are just a way to have multiple star systems without the messiness of having to model a galaxy, or anything you don't want to.

Maybe, once they've got the Kerbol system filled with many things, and do add another

system, a wormhole would not be a bad way to reach it.

There's the above reasons, plus the fact that you could use conventional tech to get to the wormhole, and you'd need to intercept it like any other body.

It would have to be pretty far out. My main concern is how much influence its gravity would have on the Kerbol system, but I don't know enough about wormholes to say.

It may start to feel unrealistic if there ends up being ten wormholes just outside the Kerbol system, and they all just happen to lead directly to other solar systems

Edited May 7, 2013 by Tw1

[Deadpangod3]

Have the star be smaller then Kerbol and be orbiting it VERY far away (a light year or two?)

[Holo]

Distances in KSP are 10 times smaller, so Kigel Kentaurus will only be 0.4 ly away.

Also, I say no to FTL.

[JaySmoka]

Agree for no FTL travel. Just adding feature of our system solar around Kerbol... Asteroid belt, comets, asteroid to destroy because they too close from Kerbin.... Icy moons like Europa, somewhere we can get trough the ice and where we can send submarines... Imagine lading on a moon like Io... volacanoes, io-quakes... Adding more dangers!

There's a lot of thing that can be added before other star systems...