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posted by martyb on Monday September 17 2018, @05:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the out-of-this-world! dept.

Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is a remarkably rich, open-ended physics-based space program simulator. The types of spacecraft and missions you can design and simulate, particularly with a very active modding community is practically endless. Do you want to fly the Enterprise? Which one? Perhaps see if you can survive out of Andy Weir's The Martian?

PCGamer has an article on a person who has logged more than 4000 hours on KSP. The user, known as ShadowZone in the Steam community, spends many hours designing and implementing complex spacecraft as well as calculating flight plans. It is an interesting read for anyone who has given this game a try, and if you're not careful you may learn something before it's done.

When I first spied the 39-year-old father of two discussing his playtime on Twitter, I wanted him to answer one simple question: What do you even do in Kerbal Space Program for that length of time? Well if you're Daniel, you spend it building staggeringly complex machines to then launch on missions so daring it'd make Arthur C. Clarke sweat—all while rediscovering that childish sense of wonder that makes space so captivating to begin with.


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  • (Score: 2) by hubie on Tuesday September 18 2018, @02:21PM (2 children)

    by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 18 2018, @02:21PM (#736523) Journal

    I assume that replaces all the planets with the solar system ones (as opposed to adding them in addition)? I'm pretty new to this game and I would want to exhaust the current planets before replacing them, but if it adds them to the existing ones, I would probably do that now.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:38AM

    by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:38AM (#736904)

    Yes, it also makes them real sized. DV's are much higher, distances much further, and there are life support requirements.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:39AM

    by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @03:39AM (#736905)

    It replaces them, that is, not adding.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek