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

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#231

Post by ilamont » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #222

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the best Internet comment I have seen this month on HN or anywhere else. Thank you!

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#232

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

plopz wrote: post #203

TeMPOraL wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going for the very basic. The kind of which immediately destroys any suspension of disbelief I would have. Gravity was good enough in my book, and is also somewhat rescued by the way you could feel the vastness of space when watching it in 3D.

The protagonist-seeking-debris that ignores orbital mechanics pretty much destroyed my suspension of disbelief with Gravity.

I could suspend pretty well up until the point where the dude just had to nobly sacrifice himself for no reason. All I could see at that point was the emergency drama screenwriter shooting a blunderbuss filled with space station shrapnel into the unsuspecting back of the realistic physics consultant.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#233

Post by ouid » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:46 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.

first of all, mass contributes more to escape velocity than density. V_e=k*(m^(1/3)d^(1/6)). (scaling the mass is quadratic compared to scaling the the density). Second, the density of rocky planets is bounded from below pretty close to the density of earth.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#234

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:48 PM UTC

ferongr wrote: post #47

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KSP is nowhere close to the limits of Unity, though, as proven by the modding community which (~1 - 1.5 years ago when I was last playing) provided better textures, atmospheric effects, better particle systems, and even shader-based atmospheric scattering. It would be entirely possible to incorporate all of that, in a more polished form, into the base game, given enough development time and will. I mean, this is how…

Graphics are irrelevant, I'm talking about physics. Stock KSP graphics are "good enough".

I disagree with you here. I think it's the physics that are "good enough", and the graphics are what really need improvement. I'm playing with lots of graphical mods now, and the game is just more fun. Going to different planets is more meaningful because they're just gorgeous. Landing on Kerbin is more fun because it isn't just a flat green plain with a repeating background texture and a limited number of different biomes. Better graphics also help to widen the appeal.

Say what you will about No Man's Sky, but that game was gorgeous, which contributed in no small part to its widespread interest. Now imagine how fantastic a game with those graphics but with KSP's mechanics would be.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#235

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

cwyers wrote: post #76

gizmo385 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I'd love a new Valve game, why fix what's not broken, financially speaking? Valve/Steam definitely have plenty of other problems that I'd love to see get sorted out, but they're making tons of money.

Because I for one am not making any of that money and I want a new Portal game, damn it.

I have an unpopular opinion about Portal 2 that seems relevant here. I just don't think it was that groundbreaking. Sure, it was a fine game, but it felt more like Portal: Episode 1 (in the vein of the HL2 content packs) than it did a proper sequel. I don't recall it adding any truly meaningful/groundbreaking gameplay mechanics. Portal blew my mind the first few times I played it, and I couldn't get enough of it. The only other games within at least the past decade that also did that for me were KSP and Minecraft. Portal 2 just felt like a content pack, with admittedly well fleshed-out characters. Am I missing something? I mean, I guess the coop puzzles were cool.

Now an actual Half-Life 3 in VR, on the other hand ... if executed properly that would literally go into the history books as launching the entire next generation of gaming, more different in kind than even the original transition from sprite-based to truly 3D-rendered environments.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#236

Post by rocqua » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:55 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #79

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…

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.

I think in the show they are 'flying teakettle' which means flying on steam exhaust. That is to say, there was some thrust.

Reversing to hide behind a moon seems dodgy though.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#237

Post by geekpowa » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #224

geekpowa wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 calc…

Thanks for the link. That was well awesome. I withdraw my criticism.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#238

Post by nsxwolf » Wed, May 31, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

jpttsn wrote: post #220

nsxwolf wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unspoken, but I assume the staged rocket was used to conserve the antimatter the ship was carrying for its rocket-less launches. I wouldn't be surprised if that's in the script somewhere but ended up on the cutting room floor.

I think you're giving them too much credit. Happy that it didn't "unsuspend disbelief" for you, but it's too easy to make creative excuses for movie fridge logic.

Christopher Nolan seems like a pretty smart guy. It must have crossed his mind at some point.

Plus, the ship's engines don't appear to use propellant - they use the standard sci fi "eeire blue glow" trope. Seems like antimatter is the best explanation to me.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#239

Post by koiz » Wed, May 31, 2017, 10:06 PM UTC

It seemed something was up when a few devs went to valve.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#240

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, May 31, 2017, 10:07 PM UTC

milcron wrote: post #146

simonh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I think they were saying that Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian and The Expanse are all good examples.

...relative to the usual "not even wrong" depictions that Hollywood screenwriters can crank out after barely passing high school physics.