Kerbal Space Program - space flight simulator game

by dexen • 13 years ago

142 57 13 years ago

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

This is neat and cute. Considering that NASA's cut its budget for public outreach and education to zero, we need more educational tools like this. Well done!

fmax30• 13 years ago

Am i the only one who read this as Kernel Space program ?

harkenthus• 13 years ago

Nope, at first glance I did too.

jdavid2• 13 years ago

I first read it as Kabal Space Program.

fox91• 13 years ago

I did it too, that's probably the reason why it's in frontpage LOL

anonymousab• 13 years ago

Notch's 0x10c would fit that name.

kiba2• 13 years ago

I wonder if the developer put any thought into promoting space exploration with their game or donating some of the proceed into space exploration.

Another thought: how can ordinary people help with support space exploration other than writing to congress?

mikeash5• 13 years ago

I'd say the mere existence of the game serves to promote space exploration. I doubt their revenues would make any noticeable dent if donated.

Arelius• 13 years ago

Exactly. A link to NASA or the like would hardly help any sort of promotion. People enjoying this game immediately get the value of space exploration. And revenues on this scale would make little significant difference to any significant project, and be better spent funding the developers making more games that promote space exploration.

mikeash5• 13 years ago

I've had a lot of fun with this game. It's entertaining and educational. Designing and flying different rocket designs is really interesting, and there's a lot of depth to it. Highly recommended.

kiba2• 13 years ago

I think it's could be a lot of fun but none of my computer are equipped to run this game. So, it's a bit of a drag.

lucaspiller2• 13 years ago

Have you checked out the demo? They recently switched to Unity 4 which has increased performance a fair bit.

endlessvoid942• 13 years ago

A friend showed me this game last week and I have been enthralled. It's incredibly fun, with a depth that I'm not used to in video games.

It does require a ton of system resources though. I wonder if you could offload the processing to a server and just display graphics on the client?

joezydeco2• 13 years ago

KSP uses the Unity engine for rendering. They've recently switched to version 4 I believe. There are options in the game to hold back on the graphics rendering and get some CPU back. I love this game as well, there's a tongue-in-cheek approach to some stuff that keeps it from getting too serious about itself.

endlessvoid942• 13 years ago

Definitely -- if I pull back on the settings, will it be less "realtime"? Pardon my lack of understanding! I don't know much about graphics, how closely tied is the graphics engine to whatever Kerbal uses for physics?

I love the names and faces of the astronauts and pilots.

tjdetwiler• 13 years ago

FYI I've been using the Linux version from Steam flawlessly (Arch Linux, GTX560Ti/Nvidia Drivers)

exch5• 13 years ago

Same here. While the wine approach worked, this seems to run just a bit smoother.

jdavid2• 13 years ago

Ok so one of the coolest things in this game is that you can have multiple flights occurring at once. Has anyone been able to intercept another flight they have put into space?

What other crazy feats would be interesting to accomplish?

From what I can tell you can only attempt things based on this solar system.

This game is so enthralling for an engineer. It plagues me every moment since I got the game I love this sandbox space simulator. I hope they keep taking my money and really improve the game. It seems to work slightly better on my mac than on my pc, and the ship builder is a bit wonky, but I hope they improve that soon. Right now I spend too much time building things that should be much easier to construct.

Are any of you sharing designs on the wiki yet?

bstx• 13 years ago

> Ok so one of the coolest things in this game is that you can have multiple flights occurring at once. Has anyone been able to intercept another flight they have put into space?

Well, yes. That's how you assemble space stations :)

exch5• 13 years ago

It is also mighty practical for interplanetary missions. Specially the ones that require landing and return trips.

You can't realistically get the entire contraption + all the required fuel and engines up into orbit in one go. It is just too heavy. It is considerably more practical to send the mission up into orbit in smaller chunks, then reassemble it and optionally refuel at an orbital station, before you begin the actual flight.

Of course, this hangs on the premise that you are capable of docking with orbiting vehicles, which does require practice. So far, I've managed to do it a few times, in order to build my space station/refueling depot. But I'm still losing missions left and right, because I messed up the approach to the target vehicle.

In the interest of saving lives, I've opted to just use remote controlled modules as much as possible. All the dead kerbals are not conductive to successful future funding requests.

laureny• 13 years ago

> Are any of you sharing designs on the wiki yet?

That's what the Spaceport is for (and it will soon be incorporated in the game).

lucaspiller2• 13 years ago

Also check out /r/kerbalspaceprogram - it's a very friendly community with lots of advice.

iamdave• 13 years ago

>Has anyone been able to intercept another flight they have put into space?

If by "intercept" you mean "put something into orbit with the full intents of building another rocket to take it out of orbit" then yes.

Many times.

And it never gets old.

verelo• 13 years ago

I love the idea of this game...but how the hell do i get it??!

mikeash5• 13 years ago

This is the direct link to the purchase page: https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kspstore/index.php?c=18&p...

adventured2• 13 years ago

Can buy it through Steam now as well.

DanBC• 13 years ago

YouTuber kurtjmac has a let's play for Kerbal Space Program if anyone wants to see it played before buying it.

(http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD603D8234AE51EF0)

I'd love to see someone in the future optimise a docking procedure and say they got into it from something like Kerbal.

speeder• 13 years ago

I am proud to say that I went to.university with the game creator, and he already wanted to make it back then, and seeing it coming to fruition makes me really happy.

adventured2• 13 years ago

This is a tremendous simulation.

I only wish it had an economic side, where you could apply for contracts to complete tasks, like to launch satellites or land on the moon or build a space station, for which you got paid and would then have access to harder jobs that paid more. I understand they're working on building a game around the flight sim aspects, but merely wished it was already here now ;)

asdfs• 13 years ago

The eventual goal is to have a "career mode" (there are currently stub menu entries in the UI), which will likely be similar to what you're envisioning.

VonGuard• 13 years ago

Yeah, I was at GDC, and the Squad guys said, behind me in Rocket's talk "Gee, everyone wants resources, we should get that done really soon."

The thing I love about KSP is that the tutorial for how to play beyond the launch pad is literally a NASA video from the 70's about orbital mechanics.

Oh, and there are few things in gaming as rewarding as landing a Kerbal on Duna, and then realizing you've got to just leave him there because it was a one-way trip.

Semaphor• 13 years ago

Reddits /r/kerbalspaceprogram [1] has some nice content (if you find it amidst all the screenshots) for KSP.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/kerbalspaceprogram

yutyut• 13 years ago

I finally caved and bought the alpha about a month ago. Landing on the moon was extremely fulfilling. I had to quit when I realized I was spending all of my evenings docking imaginary rockets together.

stcredzero• 13 years ago

One could build a realtime social component that would avoid all of the pitfalls of multiplayer. Basically, let other people "ride along" on flights, but only the "host" player would be able to control. You could even allow others to spacewalk, but just "zap" them back inside when the pilot gets back inside the ship.

keithwhor• 13 years ago

This is the most fun single-player experience I have ever had, bar none. It should be a mandatory part of the curriculum for high school physics courses, as I wish I had been able to experience something like this when I was that age. Orbital mechanics can be a little bit counterintuitive on first glance, but the sense of reward this game provides for, well, understanding physics, is just phenomenal.

In an earlier build the sun (Sol) was just a single point gravity well, and I spent hours trying to figure out how to manipulate the simulator and the gravity well to accelerate my Kerbals to breakneck speeds. Think the best I got was 0.1c (and completely flung out of the solar system).

I'm glad to see they've added plenty more planets and other celestial objects to interact with. Highly recommend this.

AUmrysh• 13 years ago

I agree that kerbal should be part of a High School education. I also think that Garry's Mod with WireMod should be part of trigonometry and electronics/programming. I honed my trig by building tracking bots that followed a specified player. Without trig it still would have been possible, but it's so much easier to do it the trig way.

Fun and play should be a part of learning, without them learning becomes a rather dull and boring task of spewing back the memorized rules/formulas without a deep understanding of why or how to use them.

exch5• 13 years ago

I bought it last week. This has replaced Minecraft for me. It is magnificent fun, even in its current alpha state. Then again, so was minecraft back in the day.

datahipster2• 13 years ago

Can anyone explain as to what this game provides over the well-developed Orbiter (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/) aside from the build-your-own-space-launch-system angle?

elemeno• 13 years ago

The build-your-own-space-launch-system isn't a small difference, and I'd argue it's where much of the educational aspect of KSP comes from. It teaches you how to design a spacecraft and forces you to work out exactly what you need to get a spacecraft into orbit and then to another planet. That's something distinctly different from Orbiter which focuses on the 'how to fly a spacecraft' aspect.

arrrg• 13 years ago

It’s actually fun? It’s actually a game?

Orbiter is not really a game. Its UI is terrible, it’s full of complexity, all that. Now, that’s all fine for a simulator, but not for a game.

If you want a game that gives you better feedback and a much better UI and much more laser-focused prioritization of what’s actually important and essential to putting space travel in a game, then you want KSP.

Orbiter to KSP is like Garry’s Mod (only less accessible and even less of a game) to Minecraft.

Comparing the two doesn’t even make that much sense. You get vastly different things out of them.

(Also, it’s arguably more beautiful to look at.)

datahipster2• 13 years ago

Thanks!

AimHere• 13 years ago

Linux- and Mac-native ports, a forthcoming gamey 'career mode', and the ability to send up multiple spacecraft to dock with each other and do all sorts of concurrent space-stuff (Orbiter might have this by now, it's while since I looked at it).

The chance to build, launch, and crash your very own space jalopy ought to be worth the price of admission on it's own, though!

elteto2• 13 years ago

I don't see it mentioned in the comments but those interested in realistic space flight simulation should check Orbiter [1]. Orbiter tries to be as physically accurate as possible by using accurate drag models, elliptical gravity (no circular orbits) and many other interesting features. It has a large community behind it and is scriptable with Lua. I have only played with it for a couple of days and I am impressed by it. It is definitely not a game per se, but lots of fun can be had with it. Oh and is freeware, so no need to pay for it.

[1] http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

Fizzer• 13 years ago

I highly recommend Orbiter for anyone interested in spaceflight.

I found Kerbal to be a good stepping-stone to Orbiter. Kerbal is more instant-gratification, but it lacks the realism that I've come to love from Orbiter.

I've learned a ton about spaceflight from playing Orbiter. It makes watching real launches much more interesting, since you will actually know what's going on.

Start out with the built-in Delta Glider. Once you're comfortable with that, download the XR2 Ravenstar from http://www.alteaaerospace.com/ (free). It's a much more advanced craft with more bells and whistles to play with, but it's also a bit more challenging to fly.

mikeash5• 13 years ago

Can you explain what "elliptical gravity" is in this context, and why it means no circular orbits?

elteto2• 13 years ago

I am by no means an expert, but can try to explain it. Circular orbits are a simplification used when there is no need for high accuracy, the math is much more simpler. The problem is that celestial bodies in the real world do not follow circular orbits, they move in orbits with an elliptical shape (not always!), following Kepler's Laws. If you want to predict the position of a planet into the future, this is the model you have to use. You should check the following links, if you are interested in the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keplers_laws_of_planetary_motio...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_law_of_universal_gravit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_mechanics

alexvr• 13 years ago

After I clicked on this link I played the demo for over 4 hours on Linux. Such a fun simulator.

Untit1ed• 13 years ago

I strongly recommend Robbaz' Viking Space Program (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD1262982675D497A) for those looking to see what the game's about - particularly seeing as the game is not just about building the best rocket ever, it's about resolving to build something ridiculous and having fun failing to do so.

ecopoesis• 13 years ago

Dear game makers: please tell me in a clear and easy to find way on your landing page what platforms you support. I shouldn't have to drill down into a FAQ to find this. Microsoft and Apple even provide handy icons to help.

JDGM• 13 years ago

I'm very familiar with this game, but I've never played it! I randomly found a channel on TwitchTV where someone was playing it and had a really active commenting community. I watched him a few times in the background while I was doing something else, and even commented a little. This was months ago. Perhaps he was playing a beta or something. It baffles me slightly that now this is on the front page of HN but I love that there's that join-up with a coincidental channel I watched. What a funny age we live in :)

Kerbal Space Program - space flight simulator game

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