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Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

kerbalspaceprogram.com

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Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#91

Post by TeMPOraL »

Fifer82 wrote: post #83
eriknstr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your original comment read as if you were saying that Unity was to blame for what the graphics look like.

Again I would say that if he did say that, he would be correct. Sit me down in a room of 20 games, and tell me to identify unity games by simply playing each computer. On the 20% chance that I can't instantly tell by looking, a wee swipe of the mouse and the complete lack of responsiveness finalizes all I need for 100% success rate.

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.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#92

Post by shalmanese »

marcosdumay wrote: post #59
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…

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?

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#93

Post by tomswartz07 »

DigitalJack wrote: post #90
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…

I have KSP and I've played around with it. I liked it, however what I didn't like was piloting a launch by hand. Maybe later in the game you don't have to do that or something, I don't know because it wasn't the experience I was looking for. I was hoping for flight computers and programming trajectories.

There are a lot of mods that allow you to do exactly that.

My favorite that does exactly as you mention is KOs (Kerbal OS). It's basically a programmers interface for it, allowing for really precise control.

A YouTuber, Scott Manley, has a pretty good (albeit old) video on the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPDPzsnlHOI

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#94

Post by TeMPOraL »

DigitalJack wrote: post #90
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…

I have KSP and I've played around with it. I liked it, however what I didn't like was piloting a launch by hand. Maybe later in the game you don't have to do that or something, I don't know because it wasn't the experience I was looking for. I was hoping for flight computers and programming trajectories.

Vanilla KSP makes you do everything by hand. That's part of the fun, IMO, but after you get good at landing and docking it can turn into a chore when you need to fly multiple missions to e.g. build a colony. However, there are many mods that will let you automate some or all parts of the gameplay.

Two particular mods worth mentioning are MechJeb, the autopilot for everything, and kOS, which lets you code up your own guidance system.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#95

Post by Pharylon »

marcosdumay wrote: post #59
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…

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.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

mikeash wrote: post #72
talldan wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Gravity has a few moments of dodgy orbital mechanics. Not sure if that was the point!

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.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#97

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#98

Post by jamoes »

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?

The earth rocket had a significantly larger payload than the lander. IIRC, the lander only carried a crew of ~3 people, whereas the earth rocket had to launch with a larger crew, life-support for an extended stay in space, and enough fuel to get to and from Jupiter.

edit: I forgot that they had another ship waiting for them in LEO already, so maybe the fuel point doesn't apply. But, it's still plausible that the earth rocket had to carry a much larger payload than the lander had to carry.

Re: Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

#100

Post by hoorayimhelping »

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…

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 causes people to feel the need to signal all their knowledge of science by putting down things for not being pure enough.

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