[Idea] The Interstellar Collaboration

[Whirligig Girl]

There are several mods out there which add some aspects of interstellar travel. KSP Interstellar is the obvious one, but many users (including your truly) find it too difficult to get into. Now there's a nearly complete Warp Drive mod by RoverDude, and between RoverDude and Nertea with his NearFuture packs, Interstellar will be outdated with a more stockalike feel and easier to use interface and less complexity.

There's also some other mods which add the physical places of interstellar travel. The "Kerbal Warp Drive" (who's name is somewhat a misnomer) adds a procedural system for re-ordering the planets, and the StarSystems mod adds two stars. (Without any planets)

So a lot of these elements are ready, but not fitted together right. How can we fit them together?

Use AlcubierDrive and NearFuture Technologies for transportation to other StarSystems, and explore the planets that are procedurally generated from a seed relating to it's distance from the black hole.

Edited November 21, 2014 by GregroxMun

[_Augustus_]

I would love simply just having duped planets around new stars like Corbo.

Unfortunately when I tried Kopernicus it didn't work because you need to add the new stars as templates.

[CaptRobau]

That would be cool, but no idea how to make them work. One problem is that the Kerbal Warp mod doesn't add the new planets in another 'universe' that you can jump too. As such its incompatible (out of the box) with the Alcubierre Drive and StarSystems.

[_Augustus_]

It is possible to make duped planets around other stars, but you need to add the new stars as templates to Kopernicus.

[Pigbear]

That would be cool, but no idea how to make them work. One problem is that the Kerbal Warp mod doesn't add the new planets in another 'universe' that you can jump too. As such its incompatible (out of the box) with the Alcubierre Drive and StarSystems.

How is it incompatible with Alcubierre Drive? And i'm pretty sure it would treat the stars in Starsystems as planets so that could be a problem

[RoverDude]

If anything I'd happily extend my work as needed.

[_Augustus_]

If anything I'd happily extend my work as needed.

Could you perhaps add the Kerbal Warp Drive warpdrive module to your Alcubierre?

[NecroBones]

I haven't looked at any mods that attempt to add new star systems. But I'm assuming that it should be possible to add them as if they were extremely distant "planets", with their own "moons", right? Or does the Kraken do really bad things at those kinds of distances?

I guess that also raises the question of what distances we'd be talking about. Even at the speed of light, a lightyear is a pretty good long distance.

[problemecium]

I think I've mentioned this concept before, but lemme share it here.

I have a feeling that having all the various star systems simulated at once is going to seriously bog down KSP's performance, so as far as implementation goes I suggest having only one active at a time (which will be the Kerbolar system in the Space Center view, the currently selected system in the Tracking Station, and the system the active ship occupies when in flight). The Tracking Station could have a menu to pick a solar system to view, and only the active solar system's orbits, planets, and light source would be rendered, the rest just being stored in a save file until needed. On selecting a solar system, the Kerbolar system as seen in the Tracking Station would be completely replaced by the new system (a la Kerbal Warp Drive), the positions of the objects in it would be left in the save file, and the new system's object positions would simply be updated based on their orbital parameters and the current time.

This of course is a much larger task than just hacking in extra stars as distant "planets" the way Kopernicus and Planet Factory do presently, but if successful should be much better in terms of performance and Kraken resistance.

Another note is that for a real interstellar ship, someone's going to have to make us some proper interstellar ship parts, i.e. big crew centrifuges, big lightweight fuel reservoirs, meteoroid shields, ultra-super-duper nuclear engines, etc. I suggest looking over the Space Engine ship editor's part selection for inspiration. We could easily replicate "Interstellar"'s Endurance with existing parts, but keep in mind that wasn't a real interstellar ship; it was just an interplanetary ship that made use of a conveniently located wormhole.

Edited November 23, 2014 by parameciumkid

[Deadpangod3]

i have some experience with planet factory so i could help create planets if you decide to use kopernicus.

[Whirligig Girl]

@RoverDude: We'd need a higher-power drive, maybe 3.75m, with a much higher warp factor. (Up to 70c?)

@Deadpangod: I don't think we should start working with new planets until we have some kind of framework that can unload and then procedurally generate planets around other stars, else there's too much memory drain on adding another 8 planets to each of the stars.

@Parameciumkid: The Interstellar wormhole is a really good idea!

For basic integration, I'm thinking that you use the WarpDrive to get to the SOIs of other stars, then as soon as you get there Kerbol's planets are teleported over as new planets in a procedural orbit, and the states of the planets in the Kerbol system are saved, and all the satellites are saved in low orbit around Shimmy. (The central black hole)

For even basic-er integration, it'd be as simple as renaming the Kerbal Warp Drive to "Interstellar Navigation Computer", and maybe some pretty particle FX from the alcubiere drive.

[problemecium]

I don't think saving craft in orbits around Shimmy will work due to the difference in gravity - a 1000km circular orbit around Eeloo, for instance, has a much longer period than a 100km circular orbit around Kerbin due to Eeloo's lower gravity. And when it comes time to go back home, we need a way to get everything back into its proper orbit. Thus there'll have to be some way to "unload" vessels into a save file and not have them be affected by teleporting and modifying the planets.

[Whirligig Girl]

I don't think saving craft in orbits around Shimmy will work due to the difference in gravity - a 1000km circular orbit around Eeloo, for instance, has a much longer period than a 100km circular orbit around Kerbin due to Eeloo's lower gravity. And when it comes time to go back home, we need a way to get everything back into its proper orbit. Thus there'll have to be some way to "unload" vessels into a save file and not have them be affected by teleporting and modifying the planets.

No, I mean you just save them all in the same orbit until you go back to Kerbol, where they're teleported back to the same orbit they were in before. It's just a storage place, the orbital mechanics are saved elsewhere (in a backend).

[RoverDude]

@RoverDude: We'd need a higher-power drive, maybe 3.75m, with a much higher warp factor. (Up to 70c?)

And why is this?

Show me a system that requires it and I'll take a look - but you're dealing with Unity physics issues if you need something that powerful to traverse your game space.

[problemecium]

If their orbits are going to be saved, then there's no point putting them in orbit around anything to begin with. They can just be ignored and not loaded from the save file until the corresponding solar system is loaded - in the save file, they're just a bunch of text, after all.

[_Augustus_]

Alcubierre + StarSystems = AWESOME.

Some pics:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

My only issue is doing burns with the warp drive takes forever.

[Whirligig Girl]

And why is this?

Show me a system that requires it and I'll take a look - but you're dealing with Unity physics issues if you need something that powerful to traverse your game space.

Mistyped. 7c.

- - - Updated - - -

And why is this?

Show me a system that requires it and I'll take a look - but you're dealing with Unity physics issues if you need something that powerful to traverse your game space.

Mistyped. 7c.

[Dix2lespace]

If anything I'd happily extend my work as needed.

Hi rover dude, I've tried your alcubierre drive with the Star system mod with KSP 0.25 windows 32bit.

i've travelled from kerbin to Corbos but there is 2 problems:

1/ After 1/4 of travel, the ship turn automatically, so i stop the ship and after, we can't active anything on the warp drive, i reload KSP and I can't reload the ship. (also, (without alcubierre drive) there is bug with the 2 SAS 5m of the FTT mod)

2/ The alcubierre drive is too slow for the interstellar fight. With KSPI, we can use the warp time simultaneously with the alcubierre drive. And the KSPI alcubierre can speed to 20x the light speed.

Sorry for my bad english speaking

[Dix2lespace]

Alcubierre + StarSystems = AWESOME.

Some pics:

http://imgur.com/a/6PoKs

My only issue is doing burns with the warp drive takes forever.

What is your KSP? 32bit 64bit windows linux?

I've tried the same travel but I can't finish it. There was too much bug.

[_Augustus_]

What is your KSP? 32bit 64bit windows linux?

I've tried the same travel but I can't finish it. There was too much bug.

I'm in 32-bit. Works fine for me.

Sometimes, however, my warp ship will spin out of control. Also, yes, the warp drive is a bit slow (and MechJeb thinks the warp drive is an enginer with 1001 m/s of delta-v)

UPDATE:

I added some asteroids..... hehehe

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited November 26, 2014 by _Augustus_

[RoverDude]

For folks saying the drive is too slow / requesting 7c.

I can get from Kerbol to eeloo in four minutes. Most trips I spend more time circularizing that actually flying. Does not sound too slow to me

Don't get me wrong - just I have had a rash of people posting this and thus far it's been a ton of misinformation like one dude who told everyone it took four hours to get to Jool (totally false).

RE spinning - some updates are in place to square that away (basically a rotational lock once your bubble is on).