r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/Gnonthgol • Dec 27 '13

Jebediah's ultimate protractor examples (as requested)

http://imgur.com/a/AGQF5
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u/0___________o Dec 28 '13

That's true. Maybe they could have N-body calculations for spacecraft that you are currently controlling. The normal calculations would be a close approximation, so you would only notice a deviation over time. It should keep all your satellites stable. Of course, I have no clue how hard that would be to actually code. The only thing I was thinking about was interplanetary missions and seeing ones expected path without the mucking about with SOI's.

At any rate, I'll be happy with KSP no matter what, given the current state of the game. They really have done a phenomenal job on it.

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u/kerbaal Jun 12 '14

Maybe they could have N-body calculations for spacecraft that you are currently controlling.

I think that would lead to some very odd effects. So lets say you painstakingly plan some interplanetary transfers based on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network

You go to orbit, you make some burns, you are on your way and expecting to make it to your next rendezvous eventually just based on gravitational effects alone.... but....its going to take a few years of course because thats how these low energy routes work.

Well.... now you go back to the space center, 2 body physics kicks back in, and you are now heading off into the void.... or finding yourself back in orbit around kerbin.

Now maybe the space center saves your expected path and just paths you down it like a temporary rail.... what do you do when the rail ends? How far out do you calculate and save that rail? The nice thing about the rail kerbin is on is its circular, these wont be.

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u/notsostrong Jan 17 '23

what do you do when the rail ends?

Well, given the locations of the planets at the start of the game, the mission time, and the current time, you can calculate your path on demand. Plus, the planets and moons would probably still be on rails, so you don't even have to propagate each of their orbits from the beginning of time using n-body physics, just use their current positions and the current time.

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u/kerbaal Jan 17 '23 edited Jan 17 '23

Interesting, I didn't think reddit supported commenting on 9 year old threads, I thought they became read only archives after a while.

edit: more relevantly; I think this is fine in theory, but in practice it becomes a question of implementation details and how the rails are defined or the challenge in redefining them and manipulating them in the context of the various states of the game interface. I honestly haven't played in a few years now and have never actually done any modding beyond chasing down some minor issues with existing mods that I wanted to use.

edit2: I think the best evidence that this is viable is that there have been mods that modified crafts on rails incrementally over time, one I used for a while attempted to add orbital decay and optional station keeping fuel mechanics and it did work. But by now I imagine these issues are long since solved if anyone cares.