Cartageno

Devoted Member
Dec 1, 2019
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Oh for the love of...


Cait: I'll try! Can you please tell me something about your world while we're eating?"
MC: "Let me think..."
scene fades...
Cait:"Woah! So you can travel anywhere!"
MC: "Remember, the further you go, the more fuel you need, the more fuel you burn on ascent."
Cait:"But still!"
MC: "Well, theoretically, yes."


The only transport that fits is ballisic re-rentry.
Or it could just be airflight with a not totally accurate description? Yes, ascent will burn the same amount of fuel (for any flight that reaches maximum travel height, not so in shorter domestic hops) and there's only more fuel needed for the remainder.

(It could also be one level deeper and then correct, though I doubt it, in that the longer the flight -> the more fuel needed -> the heavier the plane -> the more fuel needed for ascent)
 

sillyrobot

Engaged Member
Apr 22, 2019
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Or it could just be airflight with a not totally accurate description? Yes, ascent will burn the same amount of fuel (for any flight that reaches maximum travel height, not so in shorter domestic hops) and there's only more fuel needed for the remainder.

(It could also be one level deeper and then correct, though I doubt it, in that the longer the flight -> the more fuel needed -> the heavier the plane -> the more fuel needed for ascent)
No, not really. Total ascent for a flight from New York to Cape Town is about the same height as a flight from New York to Chicago -- about 11 km. The extra fuel load for the flight to Cape Town is significant, but the extra fuel burned to reach your cruising height is not. And that is the point the MC is focused on -- fuel to ascent.

Could the MC just be wrong and confidently misinforming Cait? Sure! But, since I'm playing him, he's not. Or if he is, I'll be very disappointed. He's not a teen and has been through higher education.

It's sort of like when he's describing baking powder to Rae. He didn't know what baking powder was (starch and baking soda FWIW) but... just read the effing label.
 

Master of Puppets

Conversation Conqueror
Oct 5, 2017
7,386
9,770
Oh for the love of...


Cait: I'll try! Can you please tell me something about your world while we're eating?"
MC: "Let me think..."
scene fades...
Cait:"Woah! So you can travel anywhere!"
MC: "Remember, the further you go, the more fuel you need, the more fuel you burn on ascent."
Cait:"But still!"
MC: "Well, theoretically, yes."


The only transport that fits is ballisic re-rentry.
Oh for god's sake. :FacePalm:
He's obviously telling her about the space program, and how in our world we can fly to the moon and other planets. How on earth you get anything else out of that, I have no idea.
 
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sillyrobot

Engaged Member
Apr 22, 2019
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Oh for god's sake. :FacePalm:
He's obviously telling her about the space program, and how in our world we can fly to the moon and other planets. How on earth you get anything else out of that, I have no idea.
Because it doesn't fit as well. Sub-orbital balllistics the whole cost is the fuel ascent which is dictated by the great circle you are drawing. Interplanetary travel, as we practice it anyway, has a fixed cost to escape Earth gravity plus a highly variable amount to enter the (often very complicated) orbital path to reach your destination. Voyager 2 didn't use much more fuel than the Venus lander, but it's gone a whole lot further.
 
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segaegae

Member
Dec 5, 2021
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Because it doesn't fit as well. Sub-orbital balllistics the whole cost is the fuel ascent which is dictated by the great circle you are drawing. Interplanetary travel, as we practice it anyway, has a fixed cost to escape Earth gravity plus a highly variable amount to enter the (often very complicated) orbital path to reach your destination. Voyager 2 didn't use much more fuel than the Venus lander, but it's gone a whole lot further.
Well MC isn't from kerbal anyway. The statement ''the further you go, the more fuel you need, the more fuel you burn on ascent.'' is probably what ordinary people would think about space travel, and although not entirely true, is still not too far from truth and a good explanation for Cait. Think about interstellar instead of interplanetary travels, without all those orbital techniques to save dv, which are hard enough for ordinary people let alone Cait.
 

shitass1001

Active Member
Jun 8, 2021
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Because it doesn't fit as well. Sub-orbital balllistics the whole cost is the fuel ascent which is dictated by the great circle you are drawing. Interplanetary travel, as we practice it anyway, has a fixed cost to escape Earth gravity plus a highly variable amount to enter the (often very complicated) orbital path to reach your destination. Voyager 2 didn't use much more fuel than the Venus lander, but it's gone a whole lot further.
brother I dont want to be that guy but I think you are reading a bit too far into this
 
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Cartageno

Devoted Member
Dec 1, 2019
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No, not really. Total ascent for a flight from New York to Cape Town is about the same height as a flight from New York to Chicago -- about 11 km. The extra fuel load for the flight to Cape Town is significant, but the extra fuel burned to reach your cruising height is not. And that is the point the MC is focused on -- fuel to ascent.

Could the MC just be wrong and confidently misinforming Cait? Sure! But, since I'm playing him, he's not. Or if he is, I'll be very disappointed. He's not a teen and has been through higher education.

It's sort of like when he's describing baking powder to Rae. He didn't know what baking powder was (starch and baking soda FWIW) but... just read the effing label.
Probably an issue with which side of the pond you are on but when I said "short domestic hop" I didn't mean NY-Chicago but Paris-Lyon, London-Manchester, Hamburg-Berlin, where you do not reach full travel height.

And since we're both picking nits: yes, the extra fuel for the ascent of a longer flight does not really matter but it is there and the statement as such stays correct ;) But as I said that certainly is not what was meant. MC isn't a flight engineer and him getting facts and/or terms wrong should not be that surprising.

I mean in a way I know how you feel, I had it in a different game myself and decided to do a fake outrage post over there. These things may happen in movies too, and when you see it you can't unsee it. And while it doesn't really matter for the story as a whole there is a certain amount of disappointment when a dev starts getting technical and then getting it wrong.

That being said, by applying Occam's razor I would still argue that it is more likely that this is a mistake by the dev and/or the MC instead of a subtle hint of the state of Earth technology to be used to assess later story elements by.
 
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sillyrobot

Engaged Member
Apr 22, 2019
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Probably an issue with which side of the pond you are on but when I said "short domestic hop" I didn't mean NY-Chicago but Paris-Lyon, London-Manchester, Hamburg-Berlin, where you do not reach full travel height.

And since we're both picking nits: yes, the extra fuel for the ascent of a longer flight does not really matter but it is there and the statement as such stays correct ;) But as I said that certainly is not what was meant. MC isn't a flight engineer and him getting facts and/or terms wrong should not be that surprising.

I mean in a way I know how you feel, I had it in a different game myself and decided to do a fake outrage post over there. These things may happen in movies too, and when you see it you can't unsee it. And while it doesn't really matter for the story as a whole there is a certain amount of disappointment when a dev starts getting technical and then getting it wrong.

That being said, by applying Occam's razor I would still argue that it is more likely that this is a mistake by the dev and/or the MC instead of a subtle hint of the state of Earth technology to be used to assess later story elements by.
Probably, but I can hope. I simply sat back and went. "Hmm, the determining factor is ascent fuel. What mode of transport could he be describing since the dev was deliberately vague by skipping everything but that final line. Obviously, air+. Balloons, helicopters, and commercial planes all fail to fit the basics. Sub-orbital hops fit. Orbital starts to fail again and interplanetary fails because the fuel (for us) becomes highly non-linear and "we" don't go anywhere, we send sensor probes."

Sub-orbital hops gets talked about every ~20 years or so when the new generation discovers them and thinks they're cool because well, they're a cool thought exercise.

Do I think it'll ever matter? No.
 

whichone

Forum Fanatic
Jan 3, 2018
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MC: "Remember, the further you go, the more fuel you need, the more fuel you burn on ascent."

The only transport that fits is ballisic re-rentry.
Isn't re-entry a form of descent, not ascent?
We travel down to a planet's surface from space, not up.

Regardless, MC is not an astronaut. Perhaps he just used layman's terms to describe something complex to someone who knows less than he does.
Cait has probably never even seen an aeroplane, never mind understand how space travel works (which I also doubt MC understands the intricacies of).
 
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sillyrobot

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Apr 22, 2019
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Isn't re-entry a form of descent, not ascent?
We travel down to a planet's surface, not up.

Regardless, MC is not an astronaut. Perhaps he just used layman's terms to describe something complex to someone who knows less than he does.
Cait has probably never even seen an aeroplane, never mind understand how space travel works (which I also doubt MC understands the intricacies of).
Descent typically takes almost no fuel. The fuel is spent going up.

Cait almost certainly hasn't seen anything other than drawings of flying sail ships.
 

sillyrobot

Engaged Member
Apr 22, 2019
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Exactly.
So "ballistic re-entry" (descent) doesn't seem to fit at all, when he's specifically talking about "ascent", along with fuel costs of the journey.

Have to ask, how are you determining this?
AFAIK, the only craft to successfully land on Venus were the USSR's Venera (7-14) & Vega (1 & 2).
NASA have only done fly-bys & orbiters, to the best of my knowledge.
I don't believe that the USSR shared information about anything, never mind how much fuel they used.
Sub-orbital re-entry pretty much assumes going up because it isn't a stable position to hold.

Venera 7 was launched by a Molniya 8K78M with thrusts of 220,000 lbs x 120 seconds, 220,000 lbs x 320 seconds, 65,000 lbs x 330 seconds, and 14,000 lbs x 340 seconds.

Voyager 2 was launched with a Titan-Centaur. This rocket has thrusts of 500,000x150 seconds, 100,000 x 200 seconds, and 15,000 lbs x 470 seconds, and 15,000 lbs x 42 seconds.
 

sillyrobot

Engaged Member
Apr 22, 2019
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I simply asked how you knew how much fuel it used, as the USSR didn't release much info back then, if any.
You've given me rocket specs, which tells me nothing of how much fuel they actually used.
Do you not know?
Voyager 2 left Earth with 104kg of hydrazine, I have no idea how much fuel any of the Venera lander craft carried.

Ballistic re-entry uses drag, to slow the descent pulled by gravity.
I do not see how\why anyone would assume they were "going up".
Particularly not when assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.
Using assumption as a basis for anything in space exploration seems pretty crazy.
*eye roll* The type of fuel isn't anywhere near as important as thrust-seconds, but if you really want to know, all four stages used LOX/Kerosene totaling ~150 T of propellant.
 

WindIsHowling

Active Member
Aug 5, 2017
579
644
Downloading the Win compressed version from any source stops at about 140mb for some reason... I've never seen anything like it, is the file corrupted? (Also, downloaded another game from a shared source to check, not my disk or anything that's full)
 
Oct 10, 2019
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I did not expect to find a discussion about rocket science here of all places.
Anyway since I had to restart the game because of loosing my saves I had the opportunity to revisit many parts of the game I did not remember as well before, so I just wanted to share my opinions about some things,
the game in general is really good, I cannot call it perfect, because nothing can really be, but it is definitely well made, it has a compelling narrative and relatively likeable characters, they have personality and are mostly coherent to those, they have motivations and goals and fit thogheter well, now as for some more detailed descriptions I should probably put them in a spoiler

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