Kerbal Space Program, Revisited.

[Elheru Aran]

I wonder, has anybody ever tried to actually destroy the Mun or Kerbal-Earth?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I did try once. I built an Orion ship with the largest set of magazines I could, then used a second Orion engine as a tug to launch the main one out into deep space. Once I had enough room I flipped over and fired up the main drive at full thrust on a Mun intercept course. Kept going until I exhausted all my fuel/ammunition. Eventually hit the Mun at something like 0.01c, or ~3,000 kms. Nothing much happened except for one very very dead Kerbalnaut.

Of course, that was about five updates ago, so it might have changed.

[Simon_Jester]

Celestial bodies are still indestructible; adding deformable terrain would massively increase the processing power requirements, I suspect, and keeping track of the loss of a celestial body would be pretty rough.

E_F, how much did you estimate that Orion drive-powered impactor weighed?

[Eternal_Freedom]

It was a Mk1 cockpit, an RCS fuel tank, the big Orion drive module from the mod and the largest stack of magazines I could fit. Must have been a few thousand tonnes at least.

[Elheru Aran]

It would be fascinating though if you could blow up the Mun and watch what happens. Interesting tidal effects, widespread devastation on Kerban, etc... probably old hat to anybody familiar with the physics of the situation but still pretty fun to watch (in a theoretical sense of course).

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I managed to save my Kerbalnauts. They're all well, and it turns out Comrade Lizelle of the South Kerbalistani space program is somewhat less... gloriously insane than my other pilots. Ah well.

I also landed a probe on the Mun! Sideways. I'd meant to remember to fuel the probe's descent engine, I really did... but I forgot, so I had to land using the remaining delta-V of the third stage of my rocket. Unfortunately this means the probe is now sideways, but it still works!

[Imperial528]

Celestial bodies are still indestructible; adding deformable terrain would massively increase the processing power requirements, I suspect, and keeping track of the loss of a celestial body would be pretty rough.

E_F, how much did you estimate that Orion drive-powered impactor weighed?

If I recall correctly, the mod uses the ten meter USAF Orion, which puts a lower limit at 104 tonnes.

[Grumman]

I wonder, has anybody ever tried to actually destroy the Mun or Kerbal-Earth?

I've seen somebody blow up a celestial body due to a bug: apparently if you hit the ground hard enough with a dedicated lithobreaking craft - something that uses a long pillar of high impact resistance parts like girders to break your fall - you can make the game despawn Kerbal.

[Zaune]

That would be Danny2462 on YouTube. And for better or worse the "lithobreaker" bug was fixed in one of the big updates.

[Zeropoint]

I had to read that twice. "Lithobraking" I've heard of . . . but this is the first time I've seen the term "lithobreaking".

[Napoleon the Clown]

In KSP news, they've had the official PS4 release. Seeing as I do not own a PS4 and already have the game for computer, it is unlikely I'll ever try it on PS4. But this is definitely a good thing for console gamers that don't have the money to get a decent gaming PC/don't have an interest in gaming on PC.

So if you've thought, "Hey this game looks kinda cool but I don't think my computer can handle it" and you've got a PS4... Go for it. I've heard the port is pretty good.

[Zaune]

The edited highlights of Scott Manley's livestream of the PS4 port are up on YouTube:



I couldn't watch it all the way through, but I got the feeling he wasn't too impressed with it.

[Simon_Jester]

I seem to have managed to crash an experimental jet aircraft in such a way that while the pilot was fine and the fuselage was salvageable...

The elevons took off from Kerbin at about .11c.

O_o

[Zaune]

Chalk it up to the Deep Space Kraken.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, I was very surprised when I had been fooiing around with high altitude aircraft and I suddenly got a message that I'd picked up a little prize for starting my first solar flyby.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I seem to have managed to crash an experimental jet aircraft in such a way that while the pilot was fine and the fuselage was salvageable...

The elevons took off from Kerbin at about .11c.

O_o

The physics engine still has a few... issues. I'm amazed the elevons didn't burn up in the atmosphere, however. Then again, collision detection gets wonky at extreme speeds. 33,000 km/s qualifies as extreme speeds, I would say.

[Simon_Jester]

For the first time, I have safely landed a plane!

I've flown dozens if not hundreds of flights for survey missions on Kerbin, but I've never landed one before; all my plane designs have parachutes strapped to them and when I'm done flying I just kill the engines and open the 'chutes.

But this time, after flying halfway around the world I figured I had enough fuel left to start a new altitude record... then I looked at the broad, flat grasslands fifteen kilometers below and decided to take her in for a rough field landing. And it worked!

[does happy dance]

[Simon_Jester]

It is with profound satisfaction that I received a procedurally generated "test our part in Munar orbit" contract... for the nuclear rocket engine, which I have not yet invented.

Yeah, I'm going to be taking several of those prototypes...

[Adam Reynolds]

I seem to have managed to crash an experimental jet aircraft in such a way that while the pilot was fine and the fuselage was salvageable...

The elevons took off from Kerbin at about .11c.

O_o

Is it just me or does this happen often?

I dropped Val onto the Mun and Jeb and Val onto Kerbin like this a couple times. Their command module and cockpits were fine, the rest of the lander and aircraft respectively were not. Watching Scott Manley he also seems to have done the same somewhat frequently. One of the more amusing cases involved Jeb crash landing a space plane into the ocean given that he failed to install ejection seats.

[Simon_Jester]

To be fair, it was a reasonable-speed splashdown, I didn't expect the fuselage to break up like it did. Nothing likely to kill the pilot.

Also, cockpits and command pods actually have pretty high impact tolerance, so if the rest of the vehicle acts as a crumple zone that may explain how sometimes they survive improbable crashes.

[Balrog]

In KSP news, they've had the official PS4 release. Seeing as I do not own a PS4 and already have the game for computer, it is unlikely I'll ever try it on PS4. But this is definitely a good thing for console gamers that don't have the money to get a decent gaming PC/don't have an interest in gaming on PC.

So if you've thought, "Hey this game looks kinda cool but I don't think my computer can handle it" and you've got a PS4... Go for it. I've heard the port is pretty good.

It's on the Xbox One too, been curious to see what other people's impression of it on the console before giving it a try.

[Simon_Jester]

I design a prototype four-tourist lunar orbit capable rocket. Then I realize hey... I can do crew reports and complete a few contracts!

Sure, the tourists flying in the prototype only paid for tickets to orbit. So what?

"This is your captain speaking. I was just thinking, hey, yet another circle or two around the world sounds kind of boring. Why don't we go look at the north pole of the Mun? Nobody's ever seen that before, that'll show Valentina! By the way, I checked and our planned orbit is totally safe, we'll overfly the tallest mountaintops on the Mun by at least two hundred meters, easy."

I imagine the tourists are split between "this was supposed to be a three hour tour..." and "BEST. VACATION. EVER!"

[Napoleon the Clown]

I always try to match up missions to celestial bodies with tourist trips. Test X in orbit of Mun? I'll keep it around if there aren't any Kerbals that wanna visit for vacation. Go to Duna? Try and have a tourist lined up as well. The more contracts you can get in a single mission, the better. Tourist missions don't net any real science, but they are a decent source of funds if you get as many of them done at once as possible.

[Simon_Jester]

Well yes, naturally. I just like the idea that the tourists are going "WOOOOAAAH!" as the tour rocket flies off into deep space unexpectedly because Jeb decided to hijack it and rendevous with a nuclear powered tug in Munar orbit so that they'd be able to get home.

EDIT: The tug has not, in point of fact, been launched yet. That is now being hurriedly prepped on the ground.

[Zaune]

There's a fanfic in this.