Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

kerbalspaceprogram.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 344 posts

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#131

Post by cydonian_monk »

itgoon wrote: post #105
cydonian_monk wrote: post #86

Hopefully this means things will "improve" without turning the community into a sterile, lifeless environmemt, but we'll see. Maybe not much changes, maybe they take the IP and run with it. Who knows. Must say it was weird to stumble on this news here on HN first instead of on the KSP forum (where admitedly it was posted first); guess it's been a busy morning and I just missed it.

Mostly, I hope they mostly improve the game. Not remake it, re-think it, re-purposed. Just clean it up, make some UI improvements. If I were to make a big change, it would be to add a stand-alone server. Not necessarily multi-player, but just something I can leave running and attach to. I have an itch for real-time missions (days and weeks long), plus I'd like to run multiple scenarios at once. I guess what I'm sayin…

Agreed.

A stand-alone server would also be great for those of us that run the game with a different integrator (such as Principia for n-body physics). I too like real-time missions, at least short duration ones, and recently flew Vostok 1 in near real time (though less successfully).

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#132

Post by kstenerud »

Pharylon wrote: post #95
marcosdumay wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so weird, looking at a perfectly normal movie and the only thing you can think about is "What? It doesn't work that way!" like if everything started falling up with no explanation and the characters found that perfectly normal. But I'll disagree on Gravity and Interstellar getting spaceflight right. Unless you are going for very basic.

Gravity was a good movie. And for a movie set in space, it's pretty realistic...ish. But it's orbital physics are terrible. Just terrible. I mean, most movies don't even try. Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars don't deal with orbital physics at all. Gravity tries, and gets it all wrong.

That really is the crux of the issue here. When a movie gets something so essential to the plot wrong, you rightfully dislike the makers for being so damn lazy and not bothering to do their homework.

When it's only tangentially related, we're far more forgiving.

It can even get downright dangerous when policymakers start getting their ideas from them. For example, shows like "24" that have suspects giving up accurate and truthful information under torture, when any expert in the field of interrogation knows it doesn't work that way.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#133

Post by mnx »

mattmanser wrote: post #119
mnx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 100 will sadly ignore physics, logical consistency, and more, if it can better serve teen drama. Which I guess is a permissible creative decision, just not one I like.

Aside from the bad space physics, which I can put down to a lack of budget, I found the 100 a pleasant surprise. It's like they told the screen writers "make a teen drama" but then didn't check the script, and the writers get extremely dark in places. The only thing thing they assiduously avoid is rape.

I mean, it's not terrible. I like the premise a lot, and the darkness, and the characters are a bit more 3D than you would expect in this genre. But it's still a teen drama first, and high-concept dark sci-fi-ish story second.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#134

Post by recursive »

panzagl wrote: post #101
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think those were examples of movies that got it mostly right. Had to read it twice, myself. It had a couple mulligans like the different space stations being in really similar orbits, but otherwise was pretty good.

The orbit of the debris cloud is kind of nonsensical, since it is co-orbital to the station but somehow faster.

If the cloud was orbiting at the same speed, but a different axis, wouldn't the collision be as depicted?

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#135

Post by marcosdumay »

Pharylon wrote: post #95
marcosdumay wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so weird, looking at a perfectly normal movie and the only thing you can think about is "What? It doesn't work that way!" like if everything started falling up with no explanation and the characters found that perfectly normal. But I'll disagree on Gravity and Interstellar getting spaceflight right. Unless you are going for very basic.

Gravity was a good movie. And for a movie set in space, it's pretty realistic...ish. But it's orbital physics are terrible. Just terrible. I mean, most movies don't even try. Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars don't deal with orbital physics at all. Gravity tries, and gets it all wrong.

> ... Star Wars don't deal with orbital physics at all.

Except at the times when a ship is disabled in an attack, and then changes course and "sink" into the nearby planet.

But yeah, I do agree. It's much easier to watch that kind of atrocity in a movie that makes no effort to look realistic than it is to watch something like gravity.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#136

Post by dragonwriter »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #96
mikeash wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from ISS to Tiangong in anything like a real-world spacecraft is, like, super impossible.

That's a movie stage setup problem though, not a physics issue.

You can assume that they just repositioned any three of Hubble, the Russian satellite, ISS, and Tiangong into inaccurate (for the things that are real, like Hubble and ISS, and maybe Tiangong, if it's a further development of the existing station of the same name) or improbable (for those that are fictions, like the Russian satellite or Tiangong, if you assume it's a complete fiction that shares the name of a a real station) orbits, or you can assume they got physics wrong. I don't think the movie provides enough information to make clear where the error is.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#137

Post by tscs37 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…

Totally agree with you.

During the height of my KSP addiction, I wrote a binder for Orbital Transfers.

I can basically lookup the required angle and dV for a transfer from any orbit to another orbit between any two planets and if not in the table, make a good approximation (and then just eyeball it from there)

It's probably my #1 Game that I would have my kids play, if I ever have some, just to teach them what real space physics are.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#138

Post by simonh »

vanderZwan wrote: post #111
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game also has a horrible habit of turning people into arrogant know-it-all armchair rocket scientists. > no longer being able to watch most space movies due to frustration caused by the filmmakers not grokking basic orbital physics Oh boy, this again. Are you not able to watch movies with guns because Rainbow Six taught you how guns work and now you're just too woke to suspend disbelief? Something about this game…

Don't be so flippant. It's not exactly controversial to say that trained musicians will suffer more when listening to bad music, so why would it be different for any other skill? One of the main gameplay mechanics is all about understanding orbital physics, and fiddling around with that for tens if not hundreds of hours will leave anyone with a grasp of it on an intuitive level. Once the brain is that trained, is it…

Maybe, but I've got hundreds of hours of KSP under my belt and thought Gravity was fantastic. I'm a proud science and gamer geek, but feel that the urge to nit pick is the scourge of the geek community. I'll happily engage in a conversation about the compromises made in Gravity, it none of them spoiled the movie for me and I'm very glad it exists. If it makes movie goers more interested in Space and feel positively about space research and exploration, that's a wonderful thing.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#139

Post by rplnt »

nirav72 wrote: post #54

I just logged into my account and grabbed the installers and portable zip files for the last 2 versions. Just in case, take-two's influence somehow breaks the KSP experience I've come to love and enjoy.

I mean, you should have done that when many (most?)of the core staff left. Or the lead dev before that.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#140

Post by marcosdumay »

shalmanese wrote: post #92
marcosdumay wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so weird, looking at a perfectly normal movie and the only thing you can think about is "What? It doesn't work that way!" like if everything started falling up with no explanation and the characters found that perfectly normal. But I'll disagree on Gravity and Interstellar getting spaceflight right. Unless you are going for very basic.

Why did they need a 2 stage rocket to get from earth to LEO and yet they had a lander that could both descend and ascend from an earth-similar gravity well in a single stage?

Oh, don't mind that... How did they maintain acceleration around that planet near a black hole for 7 years? And who the hell would think that was a good idea? (Wouldn't it be passing under the ship nearly the speed of light, and thus every few seconds anyway?)
Post reply on HN