Realism in KSP - Various Ideas with Pros/ Cons

[tater]

I still like abstracted LS. Figure out the worst possible case for a given habitat in terms of days of duration that are plausible, and that's it. A Mk1 capsule maybe 3-6 days? The limit becomes O2, likely, as dehydration (humans, anyway) is about 3 days. It's possible to imagine enough water easily for more than 3 days. I looked at the other mods, like the detail, but dislike all the added parts needed. Abstraction is fine. I might see if I can down-tweak the amount of stuff in Snacks per habitat.

I suppose the balance there is that is saves some resupply tedium in the Kerbin SoI.

[Sky_walker]

ISP:

CON: Variable fuel consumption looks like something you could safely ignore while getting into the game. Variable thrust, however... well, everybody knows that thrust is vital in rocketry. Don't know about you, but as a newb I would have wanted to know everything that relates to thrust before I even placed my first rocket on the pad. Having variable thrust (and poking that into the player's face) would place KSP in the category of games where you need to figure things out before you even get started -- and difficult things at that: Math! PHYSICS! You're aware that there's a host of people who, on the sight o any formula, shake like a wet dog and turn away in disgust? And we're not talking about a sorry few. "I always sucked at math" is nothing anyone seems to be ashamed of.

It might look more scary than it really is, but I'm underwriting the philosophy that the game shouldn't look scary. If that requires one to take certain liberties, so be it.

Again: Why would people HAVE to do maths?

Just show them the info they need to know right there, on a screen.

I know that KSP developers have an allergy to informing players about... well... anything that requires them to show numbers, but this can be illustrated with a simple red/orange/green light for Sea-level thrust and space-level thrust - is it enough, barely enough, or not enough.

You are making up an imaginary problem that doesn't really exist.

People have been building rockets with a proper Isp calculations using the mods for a long while and it works just fine - as far as I know none of the problems you mention are came out to be nearly as tragic as you try to paint them if they occurred at all. It's not even remotely close to how much of a problem is running out of fuel in a middle of a mission because one of a devs decided that a Delta-V display is taking away the magic >_>

Real life rockets neither can be restarted as often as KSP rockets can, then is KSP teaching wrong things about rockets? You have to draw the line somewhere, it will never teach the absolute truth. And it is more educational to have "Isp" rather than "efficiency", that way people know that when an enginer says the word Isp, roughly speaking he's talking about the rocket's efficiency, even though the exact concept of Isp isn't understood.

You do realize that you are saying that in a game that doesn't have Delta-V display because, let me quote:

I wanted it sometimes, and I un-wanted it other times. In the end, it takes away a gameplay element because it takes some of the guesswork and some of the trial and error and figuring out for yourself what the delta-V is. It might take some of the magic away.

Devs should either fix the thing or re-name it to "efficiency" /whatever similar so that it wouldn't take magic away. There's absolutely no reason to leave it broken other than the fact that some old-timers got used to the way it incorrectly works and now they cannot bear any thought about change. I know, I understand, some habits are difficult to get rid of after you played over a year in the same game, but... for the sake of simplicity and logic, plus all of the arguments I mentioned earlier - it should be corrected.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Red Iron Crown]

The "variable thrust will confuse new players" argument is pretty weak IMO. Jet engines in stock KSP vary their thrust greatly but that doesn't seem to stop new players from using them successfully.

[tater]

I think the challenge of life support only reveals itself in interplanetary travel. Mess up a transfer to Jool and need another orbit to fix it? Hope you brought a couple years' worth of extra snacks. It also encourages higher-energy non-optimal transfers, which can make the interplanetary gameplay a different balancing act than we have now.

When travelling around the Kerbin system it's basically a non-issue, travel times are so short that mistakes hardly matter.

Yeah, I agree. I think it makes things more interesting. BTW, a simple "slider" type difficulty related to a stock LS system would be to slide a duration modifier. Set all craft with LS duration sorta like snacks. Then have a slider that alters that duration per LS unit from 1 to infinite, or just a handful of presets (Easy, normal, hard, WTF are these guys eating?).

[KerikBalm]

Aerodynamics

-Pros

After using FAR, and then NEAR, I can say... much more fun, much more intuitive.... none of this slowly creeping up at an absurdly low terminal velocity. I can actually pull some Gs and change my heading with planes when not going ridiculously slow... its just so much more fun, loops, splt S's, etc.

-Cons

Proper fairings would need to be added. The cargo bay of the SP+ pack is a start.. but we would need fairings for much much larger contraptions.

Universe Scale

-Pros

It would feel more "majestic" I guess... sometimes when landed on a small body, even duna, I can really tell that the scale is off and the body is a sphere with a very close horizon, and it does feel more like a fake ball than an alien world

-Cons

Probably computer performance issues related to the increased detail required to not make worlds 10x bigger seem "grainy" or very bland up close.

Isp

-Pros

More realistic, the aerospike would have a gameplay purpose

-Cons

None that I can really think of. Either way your ISP is worse in thick atmospheres, the only difference is if its thrust or fuel consumption... the way it is now won't be more "intuitive" to new players... so why not do it the right way?

Life Support

-Pros

More realistic, more challenging, missions require much more planning and optimization.

-Cons

More challenging, missions require much more planning and optimization.

Re-entry Danger

-Pros

An actual reason to fear those flames.

Intuitive - we've all come to expect re-entry is dangerous (films and TV at least get that mostly right, even if they get almost everything else space related wrong)

More challenging, more planning required on the return.

-Cons

[m4v]

You do realize that you are saying that in a game that doesn't have Delta-V display because, let me quote:

Devs should either fix the thing or re-name it to "efficiency" /whatever similar so that it wouldn't take magic away. There's absolutely no reason to leave it broken other than the fact that some old-timers got used to the way it incorrectly works and now they cannot bear any thought about change. I know, I understand, some habits are difficult to get rid of after you played over a year in the same game, but... for the sake of simplicity and logic, plus all of the arguments I mentioned earlier - it should be corrected.

I don't see how that's related to what I said about Isp's education value, calling it "efficiency" is less educational than what we have now.

And I don't think anyone should start saying stuff like "dev's should fix this or do this", is their game and you won't get anything with that demanding tone.

[Sky_walker]

I don't see how that's related to what I said about Isp's education value, calling it "efficiency" is less educational than what we have now.

It's more educational because you're calling it for what it is instead of straight on misinforming players that Isp affects fuel consumption.

And I don't think anyone should start saying stuff like "dev's should fix this or do this", is their game and you won't get anything with that demanding tone.

Fair enough. Though it wasn't meant to be demanding tone but rather informing about possible outcomes from current troubled situation.

[FiresThatBurn]

Why is this such a big problem? We have fantastic modders, why not just use there mods? As people said in the last thread, if its in the vanilla game it's just going to be a pain for new players to start. I'd like more realism in the game. But I truthfully think arguing about this isn't going to help anything.

[Laie]

The "variable thrust will confuse new players" argument is pretty weak IMO.

If that was said in my direction: I don't think it is about confusion. More about intimidation? Is that the right word? There's a a kind of people who shut down / are turned off whenever something seems to be complicated. It doesn't matter if it really isn't complicated: the mere looks, the appearance is enough and -poof- they're out. And from my experiece with other people in this world, the general threshold for when something appears to be complicated seems to be quite low.

[Sky_walker]

Why is this such a big problem? We have fantastic modders, why not just use there mods? As people said in the last thread, if its in the vanilla game it's just going to be a pain for new players to start. I'd like more realism in the game. But I truthfully think arguing about this isn't going to help anything.

Because this.

And if you want to know how the whole discussion begun - well, it started with some players voicing their concerns and frustrations over the game, then we had this post listing possible scenarios of improving the KSP and after that we got derailed to a separate thread which eventually got closed because of the personal attacks. Because people decided that the discussion cannot be abandoned just like that - I_Killed_Jeb started a new topic, this one, in which everyone can present their own opinion on the possible advantages and disadvantages of the realism in KSP - which was a huge topic near the end of previous thread. Some people think realism is pure evil, even in as simple form as having basic maths going behind the screen correct, other people, including me, disagree with them.

If that was said in my direction: I don't think it is about confusion. More about intimidation? Is that the right word? There's a a kind of people who shut down / are turned off whenever something seems to be complicated. It doesn't matter if it really isn't complicated: the mere looks, the appearance is enough and -poof- they're out. And from my experiece with other people in this world, the general threshold for when something appears to be complicated seems to be quite low.

Most of the new players starting the game won't even know how the thing works just like they don't know how it works in a current implementation. Remaining part will know what to expect and will get that.

After some time - everyone will learn how engines behave and... well... fly like they do now. Only instead of learning some complete nonsense - they'll learn what Isp actually is and how rockets actually behave.

It's basically a win-win. Only side loosing on a proper calculations of Isp are veteran players who are afraid of change.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Guest]

As people said in the last thread, if its in the vanilla game it's just going to be a pain for new players to start.

Why? New players will be stepping into a new game with rules they may not be familiar with (now), or that constitute actual, real facts and math they can use immediately if so inclined (realistic). The difference is actually minor as far as learning gameplay, but with more realism if the player comes in with some knowledge, they have a head start.

The people this affects most are veterans of the game.

[Hannu]

Why is this such a big problem? We have fantastic modders, why not just use there mods?

It may not be big problem, but it is annoying that after every KSP update I have to wait that ten mods are updated, which may take weeks or some modders can abandon their work. Then I hope that every mods are enough bugless to be useful and that they will work together. Stock KSP goes through official quality assurance and is probable more stable and balanced. I hope that at least the most important things could be part of the official game, but it is very nice that KSP is open for modders and we get so much different mods.

[Michaelo90]

Aerodynamics really need an update, it makes no sense at all. They should do something to compensate for the easier ascents though, that's the only reason I don't use FAR/NEAR yet.

Life support and reentry heating should also be in the game but optional in the difficulty settings, not everyone wants it.

[Red Iron Crown]

If that was said in my direction: I don't think it is about confusion. More about intimidation? Is that the right word? There's a a kind of people who shut down / are turned off whenever something seems to be complicated. It doesn't matter if it really isn't complicated: the mere looks, the appearance is enough and -poof- they're out. And from my experiece with other people in this world, the general threshold for when something appears to be complicated seems to be quite low.

It wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, I've just read the argument in this thread and the others that variable thrust will be too complicated for new players, when there are demonstrably lots of new players that use jets with varying thrust without issue.

As for your point about complication, thrust scaling is far, far less complicated than elements already in the game, such as fuel flow and orbital mechanics.

[chaos_forge]

Aerodynamics:

Personally, I think the devs should shoot for a aerodynamics system like NEAR. FAR is a bit too complex for my tastes, but NEAR occupies a perfect middle ground.

ISP:

This is a no-brainer. In fact I vaguely remember a dev (C7 maybe?) saying that the current ISP behavior is broken and they simply haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

Universe Scale

This should remain as it is: a mod for those who wish to increase their difficulty

Re-entry Danger

I've played with DR before, and it really doesn't affect your game that much. And if we want to be realistic, Kerbin reentry at 2km/s should be MUCH less deadly than Earth reentry at 9km/s. I'd be fine with it being included in stock.

Life Support

My main problem with life support is that it usually adds 5-10 resources just for life support, which can get annoying fast. I would, however, support an implementation similar to that of the Snacks! mod, for example.

In general, I think making realism options something you choose at the beginning of the game would split the player base too much. I'm more in favor of finding a middle ground between the casual and hardcore players, such as NEAR for aerodynamics and Snacks! for life support.

[Levelord]

The "variable thrust will confuse new players" argument is pretty weak IMO. Jet engines in stock KSP vary their thrust greatly but that doesn't seem to stop new players from using them successfully.

Jet engines function differently because in rockets all the reaction mass is carried on board, compared to jets where most of the reaction mass is taken from the atmosphere. So it becomes dependent on the velocity you are traveling because you will have less fuel to react due to less oxygen coming into the engine and thus producing less thrust.

Variable rocket thrust seems to be less important compared to the Isp in sea level and vacuum. Reading around, most text are concerned with Isp when determining engine performance, which is exactly what KSP has done. For example:

http://www.lr.tudelft.nl/en/organisation/departments/space-engineering/space-systems-engineering/expertise-areas/space-propulsion/design-of-elements/rocket-propellants/performances/

http://www.lr.tudelft.nl/en/organisation/departments/space-engineering/space-systems-engineering/expertise-areas/space-propulsion/system-design/generate-candidates/comparison-of-rockets/

Rocket engines have slightly increased thrust in a vacuum compared to sea level (which has a slightly lower thrust). As determined by this equation:

Rocket thrust is given by the equation

F=m˙vexit+Ae(Pe−Po)

where mË™ is the mass flow rate, vexit is the average exit flow velocity across the exit plane, Ae is the cross-sectional area of the exhaust jet at the exit plane, Pe is the static pressure inside the engine just before the exit plane, and Po is the ambient static pressure (i.e. atmospheric pressure). Provided that the nozzle is not overexpanded and flow separation does not occur, Ae remains constant, and the thrust difference is realized primarily from the change in Po.

In addition, the thrust in the rocket is equal to T=m˙V (Assuming the rocket nozzle is operating at its optimum condition)

The thrust is a strong function of the exhaust velocity

V=√[2γR∘T∘/(γ−1)μ(1−(PePc)γ−1γ)]

This equation gives the exhaust velocity of the rocket.The exhaust velocity is a function of (Pe/Pc)γ−1γ and for vacuum the Pe is almost equal to zero so the above term reduces to zero hence the exhaust velocity is maximum. For sea level the above term does not reduces to zero so the exhaust velocity is less compared to that in the vacuum. Hence the thrust in the vacuum is more than that of in sea level (within atmosphere).

In layman terms, the thrust is a little less in atmosphere than compared to a vacuum. Is it important in real life? Probably not, but getting payloads into orbit is mainly a question of TwR and rocket engineers ensure enough fuel into rockets to accomplish this anyway. Basically having an increased thrust in a vacuum is just an interesting scientific observation but the base TwR at sea level is what people count on getting the craft off the ground. Judging the change in thrust is not that important because as a general rule, the engine simply performs better the higher up you go.

Is it important in KSP? Not enough to justify re-writing, re-balancing codes and save breaking to accomplish as the general consensus of the community is to "add moar boosters" to achieve the desired TwR to get rockets off the ground. Which isn't much different from what NASA does by simply slapping on more Atlas rockets and calling it the Atlas V heavy for heavier payloads.

Given enough fuel and the desired TwR to get off the ground, the variable thrust to Isp mechanic becomes pointless because the engines get higher thrust and higher Isp the higher up you get. They essentially becomes more efficient and more powerful the higher up you go. The main governing mechanic to getting craft off the surface is TwR, which eventually becomes useless in space because the main importance shifts to the high Isp values to get the craft anywhere.

I don't see how the "this will educate people the correct way" be a valid reason for something that is not that important to begin with and its implementation simply means that you'll end up having bonus fuel to play with in orbit. Not to mention adding extra programming workloads to SQUAD, whom are better off doing optimizations and adding other features. It's not that all important for people to learn because it's simply extra stuff that has no impact on craft design or planning (except in real life where you have to ensure that there is no over-expansion of the rocket nozzle, which you can't control or design anyway in KSP).

On a final note people aren't that stupid when it comes to KSP physics and are well aware of its quirks that are contrary to real life. Anyone who uses KSP thinking they can learn anything more than basic physics is a fool. It's equally patronizing and arrogant that others assume that everyone else is stupid enough to use KSP to educate themselves on advanced space flight and physics. People instinctively add nosecones to rockets when they first play KSP because they already understand basic aerodynamics and having a streamlines shape reduces air resistance. Even when they stop using them in KSP (due to them being nothing but placeholders), does anyone here seriously believe that if these people were going to make a model rocket that they will not add a nosecone of some sort? Are you really convinced of the stupidity of the community to use a video game to override their innate knowledge of how physics works in real life? Anyone who has an honest interest in rocketry at least tries to confirm what they 'learnt' in KSP by reading actual scientific literature.

KSP is a game that introduces you to basic simplified space flight, tickles your curiosity and desire for exploration; anything else beyond that (like learning real rocketry) is done by reading textbooks and actual scientific material.

Sources:

http://www.tudelft.nl/en/about-tu-delft/history/

http://www.lr.tudelft.nl/en/organisation/departments/space-engineering/space-systems-engineering/expertise-areas/space-propulsion/system-design/generate-candidates/comparison-of-rockets/

http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/specimp.html

http://www.braeunig.us/space/propuls.htm

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2456/why-does-a-rocket-engine-provide-more-thrust-in-a-vacuum-than-in-atmosphere

http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/SPRING/propulsion/notes/node102.html

Edited September 9, 2014 by Levelord

[tater]

If that was said in my direction: I don't think it is about confusion. More about intimidation? Is that the right word? There's a a kind of people who shut down / are turned off whenever something seems to be complicated. It doesn't matter if it really isn't complicated: the mere looks, the appearance is enough and -poof- they're out. And from my experiece with other people in this world, the general threshold for when something appears to be complicated seems to be quite low.

I don't see the intimidation here. Nothing about the UI changes. The physics is a black box no one actually sees. A new player is learning based on trial and error, and what is going on behind the scenes is meaningless to the player capable of "intimidation" that you speak about.

If we were to take two groups of new players, present them with two identical versions of the game, but tell one group the physics is perfect, are you saying that that group would be intimidated? Same experiment, one with Isp modded (in this case) to be correct. Each group (stock and correct) is further split in two, with 1/2 being told the game is "fun," and the other 1/2 told the physics is accurate. Do you think that their impressions will be more impacted by the physics, or what they are told about the physics, or do you think their enjoyment will not vary at all?

"Seeming too complicated" presumes that they could tell the difference. I honestly don't think they could, and the only people that CAN tell the difference either want it fixed, or are fixated on having their already designed stuff work, I guess (no change from 0.24.2 allowed?).

[Sky_walker]

(...very long post with fancy numbers and equations to scare people off...)

Is it important in KSP? Not enough to justify re-writing, re-balancing codes and save breaking

(...very long post continues...)

Nothing in that change is save-breaking, re-writing part is ~5 minutes, including testing, balancing might be a concern, though very limited - current mods proved that everything works fine without any changes to the game balance. If anything - stock spacecraft might require some adjustments, though not all of them.

Some of the existing rockets you have might require some readjusting to reach the orbit, but we already went through that with 0.24 release - and somehow world didn't collapse.

On a final note people aren't that stupid when it comes to KSP physics and are well aware of its quirks that are contrary to real life.

They become aware of that through learning the game, reading forums, reading wiki, etc.

Majority of KSP learning curve doesn't come from the orbital mechanics, or anything like that - it comes from all of the quirks that the game has and all of the counter-intuitive stuff implemented in it along with complete lack of explanation or information in the game for why things work the way they do. Fix that and you'll open up for much broader customer base while at the same time increasing realism.

Anyone who uses KSP thinking they can learn anything more than basic physics is a fool.

Well then - I invite you to reddit or the Science sub-forum. Tons of people you call "fool" out there. When I first posted a quote in my signature on this forum - I almost got eaten by overzealous KSP fans defending the realism in a game.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Sky_walker

[tater]

Is it important in KSP? Not enough to justify re-writing, re-balancing codes and save breaking

The rewriting looks to be trivial (someone mentioned the 2-3 lines that are changed, I suppose you could look at the mod that does this to see). The bolded bit is the actual argument being made.

Wrong should stay because it is save breaking.

I've done textbook rocket science. I don't think the under the hood should be right for any other reason than it is right. That's enough for me. If there are 2 options, one that is close enough and right, and one that is close enough and wrong, and a new player would not notice the difference, do the "right" one… just because it is right. I don't care even a little about breaking saves, I have to say. Being upset about a broken save in a 0.2-whatever version of a game is silly. If that is going to be the standard, then that needs to be the standard, BTW. Are you really suggesting that any update that breaks saves should be disqualified?

[chaos_forge]

Is it important in KSP? Not enough to justify re-writing, re-balancing codes and save breaking to accomplish . . .

I don't think changing the the ISP mechanic would be nearly as catastrophic as you make it out to be. First of all, the code that governs ISP behavior can't be that complicated, as 1) the behavior isn't that complicated (it's a single variable equation), and 2) the plugins that fix the behavior aren't that complicated. In regards to re-balancing, changing the aerodynamic model would require a rebalance anyways, so if the change the aero model, they may as well include correct ISP behavior. Finally, I see absolutely no reason why changing the ISP behavior would break saves. If they can change the thrust of the Ion engine without breaking saves, they can change the ISP behavior without breaking saves. In fact, I've installed mods that have a plugin that corrects the ISP behavior, and didn't even notice it until 2 weeks later!

TL;DR: Yes, the pros of correct ISP behavior are small, but so are the cons.

EDIT: wow I got triple-ninja'd XD

Edited September 9, 2014 by chaos_forge

[peadar1987]

I think everybody knows that a nose cone is going to make your craft more aerodynamic. It's not that people are going to learn bad things from stock KSP, it's that there's nothing to learn from here.

From personal experience, I've learned a lot about aerodynamics from playing with FAR, and tweaking dihedral angles, wing placement and so on. That's stuff I didn't know already, and it is things I either wouldn't have learned, or learned wrongly, from playing with stock.

[Red Iron Crown]

Jet engines function differently because in rockets all the reaction mass is carried on board, compared to jets where most of the reaction mass is taken from the atmosphere. So it becomes dependent on the velocity you are traveling because you will have less fuel to react doe to less oxygen coming into the engine and thus producing less thrust.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Specific-impulse-kk-20090105.png

That's not relevant to whether varying thrust affects gameplay in a negative way. If players can handle varying thrust with jets, they should be able to handle varying thrust with rockets.

Variable thrust seems to be less important compared to the Isp in sea level and vacuum. Reading around, most text are concerned with Isp when determining engine performance.

Variable thrust is a major way in which varying Isp at different air pressures affects rockets.

-Math about exhaust velocity snipped for brevity-

Exhaust velocity, of course, is another way of expressing Isp for a rocket engine. Ve is exactly equal to Isp*g₀. I'm not sure what you're getting at here, other than reduced Isp at sea level means reduced thrust at sea level, assuming constant mass flow rate for propellant.

In layman terms, the thrust is a little less in atmosphere than compared to a vacuum. Is it important in real life? Probably, but getting payloads into orbit is mainly a question of TwR and rocket engineers ensure enough fuel into rockets to accomplish this anyway. Basically having an increased thrust in a vacuum is just an interesting scientific observation but the base TwR at sea level is what people count on getting the craft off the ground. Judging the change in thrust is not that important because as a general rule, the engine simply performs better the higher up you go.

I don't see a good reason why this cannot be simulated correctly in KSP.

Is it important in KSP? Not enough to justify re-writing, re-balancing codes and save breaking to accomplish as the general consensus of the community is to "add moar boosters" to achieve the desired TwR to get rockets off the ground. Which isn't much different from what NASA does by simply slapping on more Atlas rockets and calling it the Atlas V heavy for heavier payloads.

http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/a/atlasfam.jpg

KSP is many things to many people. If changing the way KSP handles atmospheric pressure will not affect the "moar boosters" crowd while simultaneously pleasing the "spaceflight simulation" crowd, that would seem like a win to me.

Saves and designs are going to get broken one way or another given the game's alpha state, I don't accept that as a valid argument to resist change.

I don't see how the "this will educate people the correct way" be a valid reason for something that is not that important to begin with and its implementation simply means that you'll end up having bonus fuel to play with in orbit because the engines are better the higher up you are. It's not that all important for people to learn because it's simply extra stuff that has no impact on craft design or planning (except in real life where you have to ensure that there is no over-expansion of the rocket nozzle, which you can't control or design anyway in KSP).

There will not be extra fuel in orbit, the delta-V of the craft will not change at all. Just because you (and others) don't consider this to be an important part of the simulation doesn't make it universally true. My feeling is that realism should be the starting point and should only be modified to make gameplay better or accomodate performance limitations. (And of course, to account for the incomplete development of the game.)

On a final note people aren't that stupid when it comes to KSP physics and are well aware of its quirks that are contrary to real life. Anyone who uses KSP thinking they can learn anything more than basic physics is a fool. It's equally patronizing and arrogant that others assume that everyone else is stupid enough to use KSP to educate themselves on advanced space flight and physics. People instinctively add nosecones to rockets when they first play KSP because they already understand basic aerodynamics and having a streamlines shape reduces air resistance. Even when they stop using them in KSP (due to them being nothing but placeholders), does anyone here seriously believe that if these people were going to make a model rocket that they will not add a nosecone of some sort? Are you really convinced of the stupidity of the community to use a video game to override their innate knowledge of how physics works in real life? Anyone who has an honest interest in rocketry at least tries to confirm what they 'learnt' in KSP by reading actual scientific literature.

KSP is a game that introduces you to basic simplified space flight, tickles your curiosity and desire for exploration; anything else beyond that (like learning real rocketry) is done by reading textbooks and actual scientific material.

Sure. I don't think anyone is suggesting that KSP become a tool for training aerospace engineers. But if it can be realistic and simulate a thing properly without adversely affecting gameplay, why shouldn't it do so?

[Levelord]

(...very long post with fancy numbers and equations to scare people off...)

Is it important in KSP? Not enough to justify re-writing, re-balancing codes and save breaking

(...very long post continues...)

Nothing in that change is save-breaking, re-writing part is ~5 minutes, including testing, balancing might be a concern, though very limited - current mods proved that everything works fine without any changes to the game balance. If anything - stock spacecraft might require some adjustments, though not all of them.

Some of the existing rockets you have might require some readjusting to reach the orbit, but we already went through that with 0.24 release - and somehow world didn't collapse.

I don't like the way you are deliberately trying to create a strawman out of my post and I don't appreciate that attitude.

I put in the time to go through through the information(which isn't that all hard to understand) and posted them as mathematical proof that I'm not simply pulling information out of my ass or making claims that I cannot back up with hard proof.

I don't think you've appreciated how often updates to KSP breaks save games. Anyone who at least played since 0.17 have gone through countless re-boots of their save games to start fresh because of ship incompatibilities, scale readjustments, model readjustments, and more.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Levelord

[tater]

BTW, saves being compromised in some fashion should be considered a given, anyway, as well as gameplay. Again, is the current "soup" a placeholder, or definitive? If it is a placeholder, then aero is changing. The specifics of how realistic it is will be open for debate once they do this planned fix. The same can be said of reentry. All the parts include a placeholder temp (set super high, past where they'd melt), and the descriptions in some cases explicitly state that they will not survive reentry. That is a plain statement that reentry is meant to be "deadly" at some point.

So honestly, reentry is not even on the table, it's going to "be a thing" even if you can turn it off as a difficulty setting. Aero presumably as well, the two really go together.

That leaves:

Life Support:

This can be a sliding difficulty modifier, and a really meaningful one for a "gameplay choice" standpoint, regardless of the level of abstraction they might go with.

Isp being wrong:

As the nature of extant rocket designs must change due to the explicitly placeholder nature of reentry, and implicit plan for a definitive aero model (they include aerodynamic parts entirely unneeded in stock), they might as well change Isp to be correct as all "ideal" designs are going to change anyway.

Scaling:

This one seems to be partially a technical issue due to aero issues, and partially a legitimate pro/con thing in terms of gameplay. I'm not dogmatic about it one way or another, but if they needed to change it a little, I'd not care even a little.

[tater]

I don't think you've appreciated how often updates to KSP breaks save games. Anyone who at least played since 0.17 have gone through countless re-boots of their save games to start fresh because of ship incompatibilities, scale readjustments, model readjustments, and more.

Breaking saves is therefore clearly not even on the radar as an issue. It's not a "con," the devs need to do what they need to do, and if it breaks saves… tough. It's a WIP, of course updates will break saves. Updates on "1.0" games break saves, that's the nature of an update. If breaking saves is to be avoided, they'd be paralyzed.

That's an unfair limitation to ask of the developers, IMHO.