How to got more than one Star System to work....

[rkman]

I know this is thinking REALLY big, way beyond any foreseeable future update

It has been mentioned by Squad that they want multiple star systems in KSP. In fact they intend to create an entire (small) galaxy. So it's not exactly beyond any foreseeable future update.

personally would love it if you could have a "Warp Speed"

From a gameplay perspective, do we really want to just warp ahead 100's of years *while not undertaking any other missions* - or would it be better to have the interstellar ship to just be moving really fast so that we don't have to timewarp as much and can do other missions in the mean time. Squad seems to be thinking the latter and for that purpose they have planned a warp/FTL drive of some sort.

[imasquare]

There are some interesting discussions on physics, theoretical and otherwise. Would going to other star systems be interesting? Of course. If you want that I'd suggest you go and play Spore, it has some good 'space age' flight between star systems. Flight to other systems may be a possibility for a sequel, otherwise I don't see this project scope addition being practically achieved within the current time and fiscal constraints of Squad.

[MRab2]

There are some interesting discussions on physics, theoretical and otherwise. Would going to other star systems be interesting? Of course. If you want that I'd suggest you go and play Spore, it has some good 'space age' flight between star systems. Flight to other systems may be a possibility for a sequel, otherwise I don't see this project scope addition being practically achieved within the current time and fiscal constraints of Squad.

Why? Once all the physics and gameplay elements are finalised actually building other solar systems seems relatively trivial, especially if they use a procedural generator. Of course, there has to be some point to going to other solar systems, but at the moment there's little to no point to going to other planets other than them being there. Has that stopped anyone from doing it?

[wasmic]

There is a mod that adds an Alcubierre drive, somewhere. An alcubierre drive would be a great realistic (Hey, it doesn't break any fundamental laws!) way to facilitate interstellar travel.

[MrKicker]

Well, our solar system is in a decalit part of the galaxy. The closest star is 5 light years. But who says that the Kerban is in the same solar system as us.

There are areas of the galaxy that are much more dencly populated. Who says that the Kerbal solar system isent in one of those areas. After all, they arent exactly human.

[imasquare]

Why? Once all the physics and gameplay elements are finalised actually building other solar systems seems relatively trivial, especially if they use a procedural generator. Of course, there has to be some point to going to other solar systems, but at the moment there's little to no point to going to other planets other than them being there. Has that stopped anyone from doing it?

Everything may seem 'relatively trivial' even with known procedural generation techniques for planets. However it has has nothing to do with project management and the current list of deliverables listed by Squad. If the deliverables are finalised before schedule and the project is under budget - then Squad can look at this task and see if it's feasible with the remaining time and budget for KSP 1.0.x GA release.

I'd look at scheduling this as a separate project that is a paid for DLC pack, development would be after KSP 1.0.x GA release.

[chaos_forge]

Haven't had time to read the thread yet, but barycenters (see my sig) would be a good way to implement multiple stars.

I'd like kerbin to be in a multi-star system (sig again) because it would allow distances short enough for travel to other stars without being "cheaty"

EDIT: I think the last engine to be unlocked should be the Orion Drive (the most kerbal of all engines), and that could be used to travel to other stars in the multi-star system, which combined with the shortened distances in KSP, could be reached in a somewhat reasonable amount of time.

Edited August 6, 2013 by chaos_forge

[Scoundrel]

There is a mod that adds an Alcubierre drive, somewhere. An alcubierre drive would be a great realistic (Hey, it doesn't break any fundamental laws!) way to facilitate interstellar travel.

IMHO, I don't think an Alcubierre drive is practical in KSP because putting a part that weighs 10⁵⁹ tons next to a 8 ton fuel tank would make the rocket really wobbly. It might be a little less wobbly next to an orange 64 ton tank, but I imagine we'd need at least 10³⁰ struts to keep it controllable, which might cause a little bit of lag.

[zeppelin415]

The problem, I think, with any kind of interstellar travel is that there's no real way to do it without ruining the realism in the game. I don't think I'd like having a warp engine or waiting years of game time for a probe to enter a new system.

[Mortis]

While I would love new star sytems, I definitely don't want any sort of "fast travel" or anything like that, as this is supposed to be a fairly realistic space simulator. I think that the best way to go would be a couple of designed systems like the kerbin one, and they vaguely mentioned adding "warp drives", I think

[Fifi]

I think that KSP is a physics simulator, so we should be able to timewarp more (only the timewarp mechanics should be fixed to don't magically pass ships through the atmospheres at high warps and to stop at maneuver nodes) instead of SciFi magic "warp engines" (o.O).

And btw. The first thing to fix before new solar systems should be the terrain (the closest terrain should be randomly generated noise, to don't look so blurry, but to look HD even if it's random - also the higher views on terrain should have improved resolution, cause now it looks like unsharp photography ).

Edited August 6, 2013 by Fifi

[MRab2]

IMHO, I don't think an Alcubierre drive is practical in KSP because putting a part that weighs 10⁵⁹ tons next to a 8 ton fuel tank would make the rocket really wobbly. It might be a little less wobbly next to an orange 64 ton tank, but I imagine we'd need at least 10³⁰ struts to keep it controllable, which might cause a little bit of lag.

Looks like someone hasn't been keeping up with current events. Your mass estimates are out of date.

[Cashen]

Here's an idea. Instead of having in huge gap between Kerbol and the next star, what if suddenly Kerbol was part of a binary star system, and the companion star had its own planetary system. It could be very far away, perhaps 5-10 times the distance of Eeloo's orbit. That gives you another star to play around with and you wouldn't need lightspeed stuff.

[loknar]

Here's an idea. Instead of having in huge gap between Kerbol and the next star, what if suddenly Kerbol was part of a binary star system, and the companion star had its own planetary system. It could be very far away, perhaps 5-10 times the distance of Eeloo's orbit. That gives you another star to play around with and you wouldn't need lightspeed stuff.

++++1

I like it because it is a small step forward: does not need insane development decisions and effort.

But stars are very huge and don't exactly orbit around each other in a binary system but (kinda) orbit around their combined center of mass. Does KSP support this? How about 2 stars light source effect on rendering? Or just make them separate SOI for now, for simplicity

See, just a local cluster would be a challenge for KSP - enabling galactic dimension is just too much.

As a developer I would be too lazy to do galactic level. I would summon the Kraken to attack and blow up any spaceship that ventures too deep into space.

Something like: You suddenly drop out of time warp, try to activate time warp again and get the error: "Time warp is disabled when altitude above Kraken is lower than 1,000,000 m"; Then you and your Kerbals panic.

Edited August 6, 2013 by loknar

[Beeburgers]

As far as Sci-Fi is concerned there are literally dozens (if not hundreds) of different ways to cheat relativity, and the cheaty-ness (probably not a word) tends to range from semi-realistic, (Say an antimatter sail to reach near light speed.) to somewhat less realistic (Wormholes, and interstellar gateways) to hardcore Sci-Fi (Warp Drives, Slipspace, etc.) that would require either vast amounts of energy or some kind of physics breaking engine.

The main issue we're going to run into is where should the line be drawn between realistic and entertaining? (Assuming the KSP team decides to add other star systems) While it's very realistic to use ion or nuclear engines as an interstellar tug, it would take a very long time to get to the nearest star. (Scott Manly did a video and talks about a chemical propulsion with infinite fuel taking a day or two of acceleration, to get the travel time between stars down to around a day or two at full warp) Granted you can shrink that by increasing the warp, but your still talking about a ship that takes days of in time acceleration to get to a speed that takes years to get between stars.

Personally, I would like to see a way to build some kind of orbiting gateway. Maybe not actual wormholes (I admit that's very Sci-Fi for KSP) but some kind of acceleration and catching system to sling a ship between systems. This would make it so that getting to other stars is very difficult, but also make it viable to go there again. (After all, if it takes a hundred and twenty years for one round trip (and that's a assuming you could fit a return trip, instead of having to build it on site) it won't be very economically viable) This way you could set up a base on another planet in another solar system and add onto it and expand into that solar system. It would still take lots of work and effort (and probably research in the main campaign) but still entertaining.

It's a thought.

[1of6Billion]

Cool ideas!

Here's mine

Right now Kerbol is the center of the universe. I would suggest that upon completing career mode and reaching the end of the tech tree, you unlock the possibility to zoom out a bit further and find a black hole that's orbited by Kerbin and thousands of other solar systems. These systems could be procedurally generated or, even better, created and submitted by users.

The distances between these star systems don't need to be very mind boggeling. Somewhat like Cashen wrote. If you make Kerbol's SOI end a little beyond Eeloo, the next star system's SOI could start a little beyond that. You can hop from one to another in acceptable time spans.

Edited August 6, 2013 by 1of6Billion

[loknar]

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you want to add stars and keep current planet orbits stable the other stars need to be a lot further away - for realism.

In binary and + star clusters some altitudes between 2 stars would be impossible for stable orbit.

[Turd]

Were it a true binary star system the stars AND the planets would orbit a common center of mass. The only way to avoid this is to space them apart so they do not form a binary pair. The distance does not have to be an actual 4ly however, just scale it with the other shrinkage of sizes in the game.

[ScramUK]

Instead of things like 'jump gates' and 'warp drive'... The spirit of Kerbal Space Program would be better preserved with something like deep hibernation / cryogenic sleep etc.... This would unlock a much faster time warp. Though power is more likely to be the governing factor of interstellar travel in this case. Shutting down all systems and ensuring that there was enough power left over to keep life support ticking for such an extended period of time would create new challenges.

Interesting events such as anomalous activity , asteroid fields, nebulous gasses etc etc could be taken into account when in transit, interrupting warp and prompting investigation, and / or course correction.

Edited August 6, 2013 by ScramUK

[loknar]

*oops double post*

Edited August 6, 2013 by loknar
sorry

[loknar]

Nice,

So, we all agree 1-2 stars in a local cluster is reasonable expectation for expanding the vanilla game? no sci-fi engines needed.

Instead of things like 'jump gates' and 'warp drive'... The spirit of Kerbal Space Program would be better preserved with something like deep hibernation / cryogenic sleep etc.... This would unlock a much faster time warp. Though power is more likely to be the governing factor of interstellar travel in this case. Shutting down all systems and ensuring that there was enough power left over to keep life support ticking for such an extended period of time would create new challenges.

Damn.. that sounds good too. The capsules should have some power requirement for the passengers to survive, in any case.

[Fifi]

Nope. Interstellar journeys and thousands of new planets to achieve is too fascinating to give up. ^^

[MRab2]

I'm guessing those wanting to adhere to classical physics and just add more time warp (for the sake of realism) aren't expecting the kerbals to ever need to eat drink or breath.

[Fifi]

They could just hibernate. That would be better than magic warp drives (I think hibernation is less unrealistic than "warp drive").

What's actually the fun of interstellar journey if it's done in one click? Time warp at least simulates time pass and we still see increasing date. It would be nice if we'll have bigger time warp and realistic engine (huge nuclear one, bigger ion engine, electric sail or Alcubierre drive).

The issue with a long speeding up could be fixed with making hybrid warp after apoapsis of the last celestial body in planetary system possible. By hybrid warp I mean warp which could be huge (for example 10 000) but during which engines could work (altough the thrust level, roll and direction are fixed and physics disabled). There could also be a restriction that it couldn't be turned on if the ship hasn't last at least 2 minutes of speeding up at desired thrust level without structural linkage failure or changing the direction more than 5 degrees.

I made separate suggestion of it, btw.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Fifi

[Anton P. Nym]

The problem that gets glossed over repeatedly in this discussion is what happens on Kerbin for the intervening time? I mean it's one thing to launch a mission and then go back to building on Kerbin, but if you launch the mission and time warp until it arrives you're looking at decades, possibly centuries, going by at home with nothing happening. That breaks the "program" part in the title, in my opinion.

If interstellar travel is introduced Squad will have to address that somehow.

-- Steve