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[Talfryn]

Just shut up, and take my money IF: We get space stations, and a moon. Then I'm set.

[puke]

My best crash was a design that produced a repeatable mid-air collision.  I had a multi-stage design where I could jetison an upper ring of solid fuel boosters while they were still running, and then catch up to them when my lower stage ignited.  it was pretty great.

I had another where I had built too many SFBs in my outer ring, and I thought I could just jetison them before they overheated and exploded instead of going back and redesigning for less thrust.  I was right, but the entire outer ring tipped slightly inwards and converged on my center stage.  big-badda-boom.

[Pnx]

See... I saw all this talk about steam, and all I could think about was a steampunk space program. Someone is going to have to make that mod eventually. Unrealistic physics and all.

[Fikes]

Jettisoning SRBs while they are running is always fun. One of my favorite designs involves a bunch of SRB's connected to a module underneath an SRB. When I fire of the SRB's the module holding the others in place overheats and I create a fireworks show.

I hope they add the moon and time compression. That would be so awesome. I hope they add it before they improve the HUD so landing is a major difficulty. Pro landing job who ever made it back to the space center. That is impressive.

[TheBronzePickle]

See... I saw all this talk about steam, and all I could think about was a steampunk space program. Someone is going to have to make that mod eventually. Unrealistic physics and all.

Actually, rockets wouldn't be that hard to do even with steampunk tech. The main issue would be oxygen supplies for both the crew and the liquid rockets since we couldn't cool oxygen to liquid form until recent refrigeration developments. Otherwise, any computer systems could be replaced with high-quality gear systems and momentum-based sensors to determine acceleration and whatnot. The interface would be even harder to get into, though.

[Pnx]

Actually, rockets wouldn't be that hard to do even with steampunk tech. The main issue would be oxygen supplies for both the crew and the liquid rockets since we couldn't cool oxygen to liquid form until recent refrigeration developments. Otherwise, any computer systems could be replaced with high-quality gear systems and momentum-based sensors to determine acceleration and whatnot. The interface would be even harder to get into, though.

Extremely complex interfaces that somehow work extremely well are a staple of steampunk! This must be done, to the steam lab!

[TheBronzePickle]

Almost every steampunk interface I've ever seen involves a bunch of levers and the occasional button. Despite none of these ever being marked except for maybe different colors, the people operating the system somehow seem to magically know what everything does. It looks cool, but one would imagine that the user needs an outrageous amount of training to keep from pulling the "fire" lever instead of the "move forward". I don't think people are going to get that hardcore with steampunk to be willing to learn all that.

[Dutchling]

All that steam hate made me create an account at those forums just to make some propaganda for steam 

[Sensei]

I think usually it's implied that the person operating the machine also designed it. Steampunk generally lacks mass production and consumer-ready products.

[TheBronzePickle]

Are we supposed to combine KSP with the Bureau of Steam Engineering then?

Why does that actually sound kind of interesting?

[Aklyon]

Are we supposed to combine KSP with the Bureau of Steam Engineering then?

Why does that actually sound kind of interesting?

Because Steampunk?

[Fikes]

It would be cool, but it would never work. Gears and fuel would weigh so much you'd never generate enough lift. Steam power is generall used to turn turbines which is a different form of energy than jets/rockets.

[TheBronzePickle]

You imply that steampunk is completely confined to realistic physics.

[Fikes]

You imply that steampunk is completely confined to realistic physics.

No, I mean you'd really really have to stretch it to the point where it wouldn't even be remotely believeable.

If you wanted to make it as believeable as possible, you could have a "mother ship" blimp that takes you up really really high and has a huge payload of water. Your ship could have a tube connected to the playload so it wouldn't have to carry its fuel directly and then a bank of giant solar panels to boil it and create steam. So you'd have this gear covered rocket off to the side of this blimp slowly... well, gathering steam... until you blow the restraints and it starts to climb like a real rocket. It would have to be slow though, like an old steam engine, at least for a while.

Hmm. Now I really want to make a blimp module...

[Aqizzar]

Aaaaand "steampunk" rears its horribly overused and balding head again.  It has its times and places.  Hilarious recreations of Khrushchev-era spaceflight is not one of them.

The Kerbal Space Program is already basically "rocketpunk", to possibly coin a term.  The theme is plenty good as it is, be happy with it.