#Kerbal Space Program

[prokopetz]

Kerbal Space Program was once afflicted by a bug the fans dubbed the "Deep Space Kraken", whereby if you travelled far enough from the origin of the game's coordinate system, floating point rounding errors would cause your spacecraft's components to become misaligned and/or clip into each other, resulting in the craft falling apart or exploding for no obvious reason.

The bug was later fixed by defining the active spacecraft itself as the origin of the game's coordinate system. In effect, the spacecraft no longer moves; instead, the spacecraft remains stationary and the entire universe moves around it. Owing to how relativity works, to the player this is indistinguishable from the spacecraft moving about within a fixed coordinate system, and it ensures that the body of the craft and its components will always be modelled with maximal precision.

While elegant, this solution introduced a new problem: it was now possible, by doing certain stupid tricks with relativistic velocities, to introduce floating point rounding errors to everything except the active spacecraft. In extreme cases, this could result in the destruction of the entire observable universe.

Some might call this one of those situations where the solution proves to be worse than the problem. I call it a perfect expression of what Kerbal Space Program is truly about.

[transhuman-priestess]

9/11 Never Forget

[cr1zz0]

To the Mun!

(Game title: Kerbal Space Program, it's a nice space sim game)

[the-alpine-glow]

At least when Bethesda makes a broken game it’s just buggy, not genuine fucking malware

[piratesexmachine420]

[sexykerbal]

[cutest-silly-nb]

this is a girl. i think

[whirligig-girl]

what’s your favorite world that you’ve made?

Torn between Mellanus/Gymnome, Mesbin from KSP mod Whirligig World, and Armstrong from KSP mod Planet Jam 2.

Gymnome:

Mass: about 0.5 Earth masses

Radius: 5,100 km = 0.8 Earth radii

Sidereal Rotation Period: 17 hours, 32 minutes, and 3.23 seconds (at KSP scale: 5 hours, 32 minutes)

Atmospheric pressure: 0.7 atm.

Moons: No permanent major moons, 1 temporary moon, 1 semi-permanent minor moon.

Orbital Period: average 286 days, minimum 271 days, maximum 302 days. (earth days)

Unofficial description:

Gymnome, or Mellanus, is the home of the Gymnomi Slimes. Gymnome's orbit is shared with the gas giant Omen in a horseshoe orbit, which results in a roughly 35-year-long cycle as the planet catches up and pulls ahead of the gas giant. These cycles are marked by drastic changes in weather and climate, like a very long set of global seasons. As a result, the inhabitants of the planet must migrate generally north or south whenever the planet Omen appears bright in the sky.

Why I like it: Gymnome is the home of my beloved slimegirl characters and some really fun train and space worldbuilding. I'm less attached to the planet itself though.

Mesbin:

MASS = 3.777e24 kg = 71.38 MKerbin

POLAR RADIUS = 1,392,609 m = 2.32 RKerbin

EQUATORIAL RADIUS = 2,367,436 m = 3.95 RKerbin

MEAN DENSITY = 136 g/cm^3 = 2.344 ρKerbin

POLAR GRAVITY = 13.2 G

TRUE EQUATORIAL GRAVITY = 4.58 G

APPARENT EQUATORIAL GRAVITY = 1.286 G

ROTATION PERIOD = 1701 s (28 minutes.) (at full scale: 1 hour, 29 minutes)

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE = 0

ORBITAL PARENT: Kaywell/Limnel barycenter, an F/K dwarf star binary.

ORBITAL PERIOD: 155.423 earth days. (491 days at full scale)

MOONS: 7, plus hundreds of minor moonlets in diffuse ring.

Official Mesbinite Astronomical Society Description: Mesbin is a uniquely shaped, massive planet. Its rotation period of 1,701 seconds is the fastest of any object in the solar system, and this allows it to be livable despite its incredible gravity. At the equator, its gravity is 1.29 gees. At the poles, the gravity is 13.24. The strange shape comes from the centrifugal force pushing material outward at the equator--and it is the centrifugal force that reduces equatorial gravity, not just the distance from the core. Mesbin was settled by a crashed colony ship: The U.S.C. Magnificent Desolation, which came from the Kerbol System over 1660 Mesbin-years ago. Slowly building up their civilization within underground caverns and lava tubes and introducing a stable subterranean ecosystem was not easy, but as evident by our existence today, they succeeded.

Why I like it: Mesbin is one of my longest lived projects, and it's been through many revisions to get to the current state, where it finally looks like how I always wanted it to. It's got the coolest gameplay gimmick--airless super-earth with lots of large moons--among my planet mods, and it's just so weird that you almost don't know how to interpret it.

Armstrong:

Radius: 950,000m (1.5 Kerbin Radii) Surface Gravity: 1.75G Atmospheric Pressure: 0.068atm Orbital parent: Pyri, a red dwarf star. Orbital and rotation period: 6 hours. (At full scale: 18 hours, 58 minutes) Moons: Buzz and Desmet

Official United Armstrong Space Probe Agency Description: Armstrong's Limit was discovered by heavyweight arm wrestler and amateur pilot Harriette "Arm Strong" Kerman thousands of years ago on the original homeland, Kerbin. It was the limit at which blood would boil at body temperature, at an atmospheric pressure of 0.0618 times that of Kerbin's sea level. Our world's sea level pressure is 0.068 atmospheres--barely above that limit, hence the name Armstrong. One wonders why our ancient ancestors--diverse and multiplanetary as they were--ever settled this planet, but for one reason or another, they did, and so that's why you have to put on a pressure suit to go to the pharmacy if you're running a fever. Some other complaints about our home, while we're at it:

It's too dry. My lips are chapped all the time.

The gravity's too high. I keep thinking I can manage to go for a run but I end up with terrible joint pain. 1.0 G sounds just right. 1.3 might be a healthy compromise. But 1.75G? Are you kidding? I don't think I can stand it.

Only half the planet is livable. One half of the planet is full-time facing a glowing red hot orb that occasionally flares up and emits deadly radiation, only half has a nice day-night cycle.

though it's better than if the planet were spinning properly I guess.

It's too cold! I'm gonna say it! It's too cold. You look at those beaches and you think "time for a nice swim!" No! Not a chance! That stuff is barely water and it will freeze you to your CORE!

though, again, I have to admit that at the very least it is better than the other half of the planet.

The fashion sense. NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO DRESS! You see pictures from the ancient times and you're like "WOW! Now there's some style!" But then you look at what everyone is wearing these days and it's like "are you really going to pair--

[Ed note: We had to stop the previous author before they went on a tirade about thigh-high socks and sandals, which are beloved to us.]

Why I like it: PlanetJam 2 was an incredibly rewarding project, and the immense gameplay difficulty of the homeworld being the centerpiece was a neat experiment. With the thin atmosphere and multi-star lighting, it's genuinely gorgeous to launch from. The exposed mid-ocean rifts, and the flooded multi-ring basins are a really unique look, and kinda paved the way for the most recent Mesbin revamp.

Honorable mention: Zhandar

the little transgender gas giant that makes the PJ2 system work (you can use it as a semi-weak gravity assists to get out to the superjupiter Bifrost, and from *there* you can sling your way to anywhere). And of course the namesake for Zhandar Ghel, the Fisher in Surviving Schwil.

[videogamepolls]

[amisonist]

All these other KSP players out here trying to maximize ΔV (change in velocity) whereas I’m trying to maximize ΔG (change in genders)

[teslapenguin1]

yippee i made a plane

[putting-kinger-in-places]

Please put him in the crew camera next to Jebediah Kerman on a space flight from Kerbal Space Program (can be either 1 or 2)

Thanks in advance!

Jebediah Kerman

[transhuman-priestess]

What If 1970s NASA had 2000s NASA-brain?

You'd get The Abomination

A truly massive single SRB and an S-IV (not S-IVb) upper stage yeeting an apollo block II into low earth kerbin orbit.

[animated-emerald]

Am I the first person to see packmother on a hp computer running windows 7 and play KSP

[we-are-siege-engineer]

You don’t gotta do like engineering or even a trade job or whatever. Comment in the tags what and why as you wish, and lemme know if I missed any