Units of measurement

[terse scaffold]

my country does actually use imperial measurments

...for determining the size of LCD screens

it also has traditional units of measurment (step, bench, elbow, inch, stop, foot)
despite being officially abandoned in the 19th century, they were still used in some rural areas as late as 1969

[waxen pollen]

All of the aerospace math is in imperial too I hate it

Some of it works in metric but they make us learn it all in imperial as well

[fresh raft]

isn't it USCS not imperial

[waxen pollen]

I call em the same thing

Whatever the heck america uses

[fresh raft]

United States Customary System...

I don't even get why everybody is so bent up about the Imperial system, it is really not that hard to remember

it's converting which is the issue

[terse scaffold]

it's also nice when units are split into powers of 10 (e.g. 1 km = 1000 m)

meanwhile 1 foot is split into 12 inches

[small night]

Least mean European 😢

[gusty meteor]

yeah, idek how many feet are in a mile

like 4000 something?

[median star]

5280

now try converting that to yards, lol.

[fresh raft]

1760 yards to a mile. If you're rehearsed in the imperial system you should just know this number by default but if you don't, really not hard if you're competent with mental math

-3000:1000
r:2280
-1500:500
r:780
-600:200
r:180
-180:60

[violet spoke]

Metric vs imperial is quite the topic

[calm agate]

bro what? forget about it, metric is way easier

[nova helm]

We don't use imperial in space for a reason

Imperial generates very large numbers that aren't scalable at a certain point. The bigger the number and more math that goes into a distance measurement, the more likely it is to be incorrect and just plain unreadable

[waxen pollen]

It's not that it's hard to remember, I just don't like it lol

I am American and learned it first, through ksp I learned metric and now use it in my aerospace classes at school

And man

Both are perfectly functional and usable measuring systems

[nova helm]

It's less a situation of personal taste or more a situation on what is better to use logically for the vast distances required

[waxen pollen]

But figuring things out in metric tends to be faster because conversions are simpler

Or communicating a measurement to someone else

[nova helm]

Mhm

[waxen pollen]

That's about it

Both work, just one is simpler

And if u really have trouble with like speeds or something you can just say that a meter is about a yard

[nova helm]

It's much easier to visualize the meters in 100km than 5000ish*100 ft in 100miles

[waxen pollen]

Or saying oh I need this 1.5 meters big vs 3 feet and 3 and 3/8th inches

[nova helm]

Mhmmm

[waxen pollen]

Because if you say 3.28 feet people will have no idea what that is

I should stop ranting

[nova helm]

Yards even less as the US really doesn't use yards that often, it's either inches, ft, or miles

[waxen pollen]

Basically it's simple to learn, and easy enough to convert in your head if need be, so no need to add uscs conversations

[nova helm]

Mhm

[waxen pollen]

1m roughly = 1 yard
1kg roughly = 2 lbs

That's really about all you need for ksp I think?

[median star]

I fly in a game where you can use metric, knots or imperial in a hud off to the side,(ya, WT) and the gauges are in whatever the country used in that plane and we all manage to use different ones and still understand each other due to long term use.

And the original OP question was about whether this game could have same kind of function, which is a valid question. The rest of the kibbitzing has just been for fun.

[obsidian elm]

i prefer measuring things in stones and fathoms

or perhaps the cubit and the span

[nova helm]

i prefer hogsheads and metric feet (300mm) tbh XD

[severe abyss]

How is this thread still active lol?

[coral shadow]

Congratulations @terse scaffold , this message was the 2000th message in this thread!

[tepid quail]

Good god

[thin venture]

Bonjour

[nova helm]

god was not here for these days

[potent thorn]

and i use KMH but ksp has MS, nobody understands whats going on when flying

[tepid quail]

Just multiply by 3.6 :3head:

[mortal cosmos]

because amerika can't handle sensible measurements

[severe abyss]

The solution is simple, every country in the world needs to switch to the measurement of doughnut width.

[little mulch]

Even NASA uses metric now. Sorry, you will just have to adapt.

[little mulch]

Because even most of us Americans make fun of the fear of the metric system in our country!

[terse scaffold]

i propose a compromise

instead of introducing an imperial system option, there should be some sort of tutorial or reference window that compares the length, velocity, weight etc of different objects in metric as compared to imperial

so those who don't understand metric can get a feel for it

[barren moat]

good idea

[mortal cosmos]

I believe this is a good idea, at the first time even the metric users have some trouble to understand m/s, because our common unit of speed is km/h

[fresh raft]

the hamburger standard

[severe abyss]

No, that isn’t consistent enough. A child burger at McDonald’s is about 2/3 the width of a normal burger that you find, while a normal burger at a place like Whataburger (Southern USA only) is around 3/2 the size of a normal burger. Therefore burgers is not a viable option for measuring the lengths of our rockets.

[nova helm]

Britain likes to do this thing where they give us something then change off it. Examples: aluminum, tire, and the imperial system. It's Britain's fault we're this way (tire and aluminum both being the true original spelling of the words)

[smoky frigate]

Nah, Alumium (from Alum) was proposed first, followed by Aluminum (from Alumina) three years later, followed by Aluminium just a year later by one of the same people to use Aluminium just a year earlier.

-um was occasionally used in Britain, but -ium was used by most everyone else from it's induction. -um only caught on in North America in the mid-to-late 1800s.

You are correct about tyre though. There's no good reason for that random Y.

[coarse flax]

On this note let’s make a KMS

Kerbal measurement system

distance I’m thinking 1m = 2 jeblets

So 1000M would be 2 megajebs

And even smaller than jeblet could be a jebller

[nova helm]

you can actually track the slow american shift to -um in newpaper articles. It started initially 50/50 in the 1890's then started radically shifting over to -um in 30 years

[sonic valve]

Hello I’m from the US. Have you ever tried receiving a education?

[fresh raft]

an*

[nova helm]

XD

[gusty meteor]

The best correction 💀

[barren moat]

hahaha

[eager dune]

lmaoo

[wind rivet]

I mean, that's still within say an order of magnitude

[strong ledge]

How are people still debating this…

[eager dune]

ikr

i thought the americans would just accept they'd have to use a normal measurement

[split cove]

I'm an American and I regularly just use metric because it's better

[fresh raft]

The US has been a metric country since 1975

Just about every American learns both the Metric and Imperial system in elementary school

Just about every engineering institution dominantly uses metric, the military uses metric, NASA uses metric, steel stock is dealt in metric list goes on

[waxen pollen]

It's basically just our roads, cars, and lumber things that use imperial

Actually wait a lot of our code stuff uses it too

[calm agate]

ive seen some parts of the military use imperial

[nova helm]

we're like britain in a way

a hybrid metric/imperial system, we just tend to use imperial more at the civilian level

[terse scaffold]

it's a miracle that the original poster "only understands imperial measurments"

[rose spruce]

good luck buying lumber in metric measurements. We're not a metric country, but we SHOULD be. At least when I work on my bike and my car I get to use millimeters.

[strong ledge]

Tho in Britain our vehicles have both mph and kph on our speed dials. Mainly for whenever you take your car to Europe. I’d argue that we are slowly phasing out imperial in regular use as more people take science classes and engineering related stuff not to mention maths in school we will see a decline in imperial use and metric will be the only system used

[barren moat]

Well, you may not know about the current wide state of the American education system

[fresh raft]

I do because I research these issues

The "American School System" is as performant as other first world countries

[barren moat]

[barren moat]

No idea what you are even trying to say

[eager dune]

hey americans, where's russia on this map? (impossible)

[terse scaffold]

"try to find asia" *proceeds to point at south america

[fresh raft]

I interpreted you as joking so I treated it as joking

• this server kinda discourages arguments about basically anything, specially political

[ashen birch]

to be fair the american education system varies a metric crap load depending on the state you are in

america has a lot of backwaters that most european don’t have

some states education is fine

some states there is a reason why public school is losing people to charter

charter typically has way higher performance than public schools

but in some areas public school is great

the school system is incredibly decentralized

so the level of education from high school varies a lot from state to state

I mean it varies so much by just one town

I go to mine and ask people to point out where something like kazakhstan is and 75% of people can point to it

I go one town down and people have trouble pointing out where spain is

hell some of them can’t point out where south africa is

versus where I live where most people know at least half of the countries of the world while in that town they can name like 7

[eager dune]

the country of africa

[terse scaffold]

the continent of poland

the island of mongolia

[barren moat]

Sorry - im bad at interpreting texts

[barren moat]

The republic of australia

[obsidian elm]

the united states of albania

[barren moat]

the planet of brazil

[eager dune]

the country of paris

[wind rivet]

Except your imperial is based on metric

[wind rivet]

Kinda, but it could've been entirely metric if not for pirates

[waxen pollen]

im well aware, i like metric better lol

[wind rivet]

Then you can blame some pirates in the 1800s

[waxen pollen]

i do

i always blame the pirates

[fresh raft]

yarr

[fresh raft]

"(metric) the preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce" -DEC t 8 1975 8674

[olive slate]

just learn the metric system I did it

[wind rivet]

(and @fresh raft) Pirates abducted the guy who was bringing the units over from europe and sold them off. They did though eventually end up at NIST.

[uncut rock]

Metric better imperial stupid end of story

[calm agate]

Story ended 20 days ago

[eager dune]

exactly

[desert birch]

I feel like they could have made up their own unit of measurement that no one understands and that would go over better with the imperial people even though they don’t understand either

[eager dune]

jebimeter

[fresh raft]

embrace tradition

return to cubits

[stable dagger]

KPH

Kerbals Per Hours

Units is how high a kerbal is

[tranquil thistle]

Well I mean US is the only ones that can seem to land on Mars regurally, though I think they work in Metric lol

[split cove]

Officially, the US uses metric units in terms of government

which includes NASA

[fresh raft]

every government institution uses metric

[clever mountain]

I use metric so it's objectively the better one

[obsidian elm]

and shekels

[ashen birch]

both sides are wrong

return to stadia

[obsidian elm]

[eager dune]

no return to jebimeter

[ashen birch]

no

meters are gay
reject metric embrace stadia

[ashen birch]

fr

[ashen birch]

stadia is the greatest unit

embrace tradition

[nova helm]

reject all of it, return to "looks like its the same distance"

[eager dune]

"looks like its going pretty fast"

[wet pivot]

Imperial makes more sense for human measurment than metric and you can fight me on that

[fresh raft]

no because you're right and that's literally why imperial is much older than metric

[waxen pollen]

yeah u are right, which is why its good we arent measuring humans

and kerbals are exactly 0.75 meters tall meaning that metric is perfect for measuring on a kerbal scale

[tough gorge]

we should be measuing height in kerbals and velocity in kerbals/s

[waxen pollen]

we do, kerbals are .75 m so we just do .75 kerbal + 1/3 kerbal = 1 meter

[tough gorge]

yeh so at 100km it should read 133.33kk instead

[waxen pollen]

what no

.75 * (.75* 1/3) = 1

so 100km = 100 kk

[tough gorge]

no 100km worth of kerbals stacked on top of each other would be 133.33k kerbals

[waxen pollen]

but 5 kg of steel is heavier than 5kg of feathers

[waxen pollen]

ohhh wait i get what u mean, no i am measuring in 1.3333 kerbals

1+1/3rd kerbals

[tough gorge]

yeh but thats a meter not a kerbal

[waxen pollen]

i am basing the kerbal on a reliable unit of measurment

[tough gorge]

but then the unit cant be an emoji

[waxen pollen]

oh trust me this guy is an absolute unit

[haughty wadi]

Why not mix? In the Philippines, we buy wood board in 4ft x 8ft x 15mm. Or Metal rod in 1/4"dia. x 6m

[gusty meteor]

That’s even worse than any of the two options individually

[haughty wadi]

Insane right.

[fresh raft]

we do the same here lmao

[gusty meteor]

With wood? I’ve always just seen it in inches tbh

Most construction is in imperial system

At least I think

[fresh raft]

I've seen a metal blanks being sold with both imperial and metric measurements.

[ashen birch]

what the hell is wrong with you

[terse scaffold]

but its still understandable you just gotta look into this type of measurement

[fresh raft]

my brother in christ I ain't gonna sell you a box that's 1ft by 48cm by half a decameter

[desert birch]

That is correct, most construction is in imperial but in science it's always metric

[mortal cosmos]

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/224328-the-empire-strikes-back-ksp2-adopts-imperial-units/#comment-4376724

Finally 😂

[clever mountain]

Lol nice, i'm definitely not opposed to it but i use KM's so i dont care that much, i would like a conversion to real world measurements though.

I would also like the m/s to be available in km/s just for QOL and autism purposes

I like a lot of features that dopnt have a real use just for the fun of having them

[calm agate]

Probably not

[rugged wigeon]

One football field per second = 109.7 m/s

[void marsh]

i smell catastrophs coming. (you know, the catastrophs that happend due to measurement conversion errors at nasa)

[steel rapids]

7 burgers per second

[void marsh]

probably gonna display the orbits in feet length. not 200km nahhh 50 billion feet distance, thats way better for knowing how far

[void marsh]

other way around for me, im used to ksp1 thus i'd like to have all that is now shown in km to be meters again

[clever mountain]

Oh yea i know what y ou mean, i would like the aesthetic of the old game i think, like the old UI with old colours and stuff just make it look a lot more modern

I hate this black background and dotty font, makes it quite hard to read for my 5/20 vision

idk if that makes sense, it's -4.00 in eu measurements

(for vision)

[visual flax]

Biblical measurements

[balmy fern]

bro got turned into a april fools joke💀

[barren moat]

the effects of the american education system and its consequences

[rugged wigeon]

I'm in it and it's terrible

[small night]

Who up arking they cubit??

[rugged scaffold]

It would be a relatively trivial thing to add, just a conversion ratio

but I think it should STAY FAAAAR OUT OF THE GAME

just as a statement to the bullet loving eagles

[ashen birch]

depends on where you are

[last otter]

A cubit is the legth from one's elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Several societies have standardized them differently over time, but a Kerbal Cubit (a Kerbit?) should either be this length for Jeb (to in-game scale) or the actual average cubit length of every member of the dev team.

[obsidian elm]

Span?

[mortal karma]

i can understand jumping in that it might be confusing to see new units, but using units you are used to gives you nearly no intuition. a meter per second is about three feet per second, but does it really matter? the orbit plannet tells you you need 100 units of velocity change and your ship has five hundred units... what does it matter what the unit is? metric happens to be the standard in spaceflight, like feet and knots are the standard in comercial flight.

[formal ermine]

Well. Seems intercept is dead. This has been by far my favorite thread in the entire server.

[upbeat carbon]

Since when commercial flights industry switched to imperial?

[lean hazel]

they use feet to measure altitude but i think thats about it. for speed they use knots

[gusty meteor]

knots is basically mph iirc

[visual flax]

I think the conversion is like 1 mph = 2.2 knots or something. I think knots is some sort of measure to do with a rope as well.

Or the conversion is the other way around with different numbers. They are definitely not the same, or kilometers, which has a conversion of like 1 mph to 1.6 kph would then be very similar.

[visual flax]

My bad, lol, my conversion for knots is off lol.
I guess they're pretty close.

[meager stratus]

All I really go off for knots is that Mach 1 is kinda near 666 knots near sea level

[lost plover]

A knot is something like 1.1 mph

1.15

[calm agate]

Bro what? I'll just stick withm/s

[violet spoke]

Agreed

Sad to see my idea wont come to fruition

[fathom ermine]

no, it will

im making the mod

[violet spoke]

😮

Now we can only hope the game gets finished

[next rain]

This is all your fault. The devs spent too much time trying to implement imperial measurements into the game! That's the ENTIRE reason for all this!

[eager dune]

for real!

[violet spoke]

I apologize Intercept Games

[clever magnet]

This still exists?

[upbeat carbon]

Yes, the imperial system does exist, unfortunately

[fathom ermine]

a standardized measurement system for engineering is very useful

but in day to day life, measurement systems are just other ways of looking at the world, like languages. for that reason i think that saying different measurement systems shouldnt exist is akin to saying that different languages shouldnt exist because they are difficult to translate between.

[subtle basalt]

guy who suggested this is the reason ksp2 died fr

[waxen pollen]

Real

[hallow sky]

Lynch him

[violet spoke]

No please 😟

[clever magnet]

still going

[nova helm]

casts necromancy reviving the thread. cubits are superior

[untold owl]

Cubits are the most American measurement I’ve heard of this week and they terrify me

[obsidian elm]

they are in fact not american

[spare warren]

incredible, in the time ive been away from this thread my life has changed fundamentally, the game has died fully, i turned 18, and the whole while people are still arguing about the imperial system

some things truly bring people together 💚💚💚

[formal ermine]

i cherish this thread. always

[clever mountain]

I wouldnt have been opposed to it, i also wanted a km/s to km/h conversion