Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive • Hacker News Board

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#221

Post by redthrowaway » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #153

redthrowaway wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not go giving The Expanse too much credit, here. That no-thrust gravity slingshot around all of Jupiter's moons in 2 hours was...stretching it.

yeah, there is a blog post with one of the producers apologizing for it: http://www.danielabraham.com/2017/04/04/guest-post-losing-sc... (minor spoiler alert) nb. i'm in complete love with the show and that particular scene can be best described as... pretty.

That's a great writeup, and it highlights the fact that sometimes these things happen for purely pragmatic reasons.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#222

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #160

rxhernandez wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have a degree in Physics but have trouble enjoying sci-fi entertainment that includes basic physics screw ups in its story. I about pull my hair out when I hear them insert quantum entanglement in random places to make up for a lack of creativity and/or ability to hire a decent science adviser.

Well, I was just watching yesterday an episode from TNG, where Geordie detects a "deuterium leak", and Riker immediately asks "toxic?" Dude, it's hydrogen, you need to have different concerns there. At least they did acknowledge that firing a weapon in a deuterium-rich atmosphere might not be wise, depending on concentration. Eh, just push the non-chewy bits to the edge of the plate and enjoy the rest of the culinary…

As a nitpick, deuterium actually is toxic. The hydrogen bonding in molecules that substitute deuterium for light hydrogen is affected, such that if you drink enough heavy water, you will experience symptoms similar to radiation poisoning. It interferes with how your chromosomes line up during cell division.

Presumably, if you inhale enough dideuterium monoxide vapor, you may experience a similar effect. It would not be acutely toxic, though--more like an occupational exposure level of hazard. Deuterium gas is likely as harmless as light hydrogen gas.

If a retcon is necessary to preserve one's enjoyment of the show, Riker may have already been aware of the hazard level for humans, but was asking for a more informed opinion from the chief engineer, who has presumably read and memorized all the MSDS sheets, for the benefit of any nonhuman organisms on board. Vulcans and Romulans, for instance, experience an anaesthetic effect from TLTDH, similar to the effect of NO2 on humans. It would not be out of character for Star Trek to invent a bizarre species-specific toxicity if the plot demanded one.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#223

Post by larrydag » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #218

Orangeair wrote: post #206

I sometimes get the feeling that this is the only game HN plays. When people talk about not being able to switch away from Windows due to games, it seems like someone always responds, "Well Kerbal Space Program runs on Linux and that's all I care about." I don't think I've ever seen articles similar to this one about other games gain as much traction. Can't think of very many articles about games getting to the top o…

Well, KSP and Dwarf Fortress.

I still play Minecraft with my kids

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#224

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

geekpowa wrote: post #214

bigdubs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the martian was praised for generally being pretty on the money with the science content?

KSP taught me that orbital intercept to rescue Watney was nosense. (The book was slightly more believable here). also the whole swing by Earth and head back at the last minute was wrong. Orbital intercepts between planets requires very precise timing and alignment. A transfer from Mars to Earth is never going to line up with an instant return transfer window back to Mars. On KSP itself, huge weakness for me in the ga…

> A transfer from Mars to Earth is never going to line up with an instant return transfer window back to Mars.

The whole point of the Hermes spacecraft as used in The Martian, though, is that it has a high specific impulse, low thrust ion drive, that runs continually during the entire orbit (using power from a reactor to do so). Andy Weir, the author, is a programmer, and he actually wrote a physics simulator to calculate the required orbit; see here: http://www.galactanet.com/martian/hermes.mp4

So it's definitely not a Hohmann transfer orbit since there is thrust applied throughout, and you are consequently reaching your destination faster than such a transfer would arrive. It ends up being a low thrust brachistochrone orbit.

So anyway, the point is that, since you're continuously applying thrust anyway, you don't need perfect alignment, it just takes you longer if the alignment isn't correct. Andy Weir is a serious hard science fiction nerd, to the point that you can download the data that he simulated for these orbits and verify for yourself that they are in fact correct for the stated specifications of Hermes' ion drive.

Totally agree with you that the Engineer plugin is absolutely essential for playing KSP, though. The game is so frustrating without that because there's so much trial and error with randomly flipping craft thanks to the new aero model if the TWR is off for any of your stages (and it will be until you've played awhile and developed an intuitive sense of what kind of rocket is reasonable -- a proficiency you won't likely reach if you didn't have Engineer from the beginning to help get you there).

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#225

Post by adanto6840 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

Fifer82 wrote: post #104

TeMPOraL wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could do the same, and I could also tell you which games were made with Unreal Engine, which with Source Engine, etc. Game engines have distinctive traits that are hard to eliminate from a game but easy to notice while you play. That isn't an argument against Unity per se.

It is with Unity because it equals bad performance. It isn't like other games which, if you throw a beefy rig at it, you get more performance for the most part. It has a "It is 2001 and my Flash Player Animation is running at 24fps and the fans are burning out" feel to it.

It is most definitely possible to achieve great results, including performance, with Unity. It requires creating the game from the ground up with code, though -- and that does not seem to be the audience that Unity markets towards the most.

That said, it's not easy though it is certainly doable; it basically means you're using Unity largely as a "rendering pipeline" which may or may not be overkill, depending on the use case/game in question.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#226

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

sliken wrote: post #200

bigdubs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the martian was praised for generally being pretty on the money with the science content?

Except that living in fancy tents or traveling across the surface for weeks/months would result in death by radiation. Until mars gets a much larger atmosphere and a magnetic field living on the surface is going to require living under ground.

Radiation is a real problem for people on Mars, but death after few weeks or months is overstating it. Increased cancer risk, for sure.

https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1...

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#227

Post by haberman » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:39 PM UTC

sliken wrote: post #199

ouid wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interstellar had really bad orbital mechanics. You remember when they used the staged rocket to get off earth? Do you remember later, when they landed on that other planet with 1.5 times the mass of earth? Do you remember the machine that they used to leave that planet?

Mass has little do escape velocity, it's density. Consider that any planet/sun could be shrunk until it's a black hole, with effectively infinite escape velocity.

Earth density: 5.51 g/cm³, escape velocity: 11.2 km/s

Jupiter density: 1.33 g/cm³, escape velocity: 59.5 km/sec

I think it's more than just density.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#228

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

waiseristy wrote: post #156

ouid wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interstellar had really bad orbital mechanics. You remember when they used the staged rocket to get off earth? Do you remember later, when they landed on that other planet with 1.5 times the mass of earth? Do you remember the machine that they used to leave that planet?

Remember when he let go of the spacecraft and fell into the black hole?

I recall a distinct lack of spaghettification.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#229

Post by Artlav » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

ferongr wrote: post #35

mediocrejoker wrote: post #16

I hope this goes well. I would love to see a remake that retains the exact same gameplay with more modern graphics. Hopefully all the people who paid for the current in-development version are not left high and dry in terms of updates and bugfixes. I also have heard the rumors that the team was not treated well, and that the game was never really the focus of the company. I think it may have been a side project of on…

The problem is not graphics, but rather, the limitations of Unity that make it unsuitable for anything else but lowest common denominator multi-platform games with clearly defined limits. Space Engineers is another game hampered by Unity.

I remember Felipe saying that he regrets not being aware of other game engines out there back when Unity was picked.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#230

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:44 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #77

mediocrejoker wrote: post #16

I hope this goes well. I would love to see a remake that retains the exact same gameplay with more modern graphics. Hopefully all the people who paid for the current in-development version are not left high and dry in terms of updates and bugfixes. I also have heard the rumors that the team was not treated well, and that the game was never really the focus of the company. I think it may have been a side project of on…

>Hopefully all the people who paid for the current in-development version are not left high and dry in terms of updates and bugfixes. How long is a developer expected to keep improving a game? Maybe it is the old console gamer in me, but it wasn't that long ago that a game developer was done with a game when it was released. This game has been public for 6 years, been on Steam for 4 years, and been out of beta for 2…

KSP is in my top five videogames of all time. I'd suspect it's similar for many of the other game's diehard fans. Like Civilization, it's a game that scratches a unique itch, and if you have that itch, it's irresistible. So I and many others are absolutely willing to pay more money for improvements and more content. I'd love to start with first class improved graphics built into the base game itself. I run some graphical improvement mods, but they don't work 100% of the time, they're always getting broken by patches to the base game, and they're somewhat unstable.