trains for colonies

[silent raft]

I thought recently about colonies in ksp2 and I wondered is it possible to add trains to colonies. This form of transport could take kerbals and resources from colony, to colony creating simple net of transporting resources such as fuel, steel, you name it.I didn't thought about classic trains, more about inverted ones such as in Wuppertal ,Germany this would simplify the procces of projecting the railroad tracks because the tracks itself barely touches the ground, the only thing in the construction that does touch the ground is the pillar.
I'm not a dev but i suppose that it would take quite a lot of fps, when looked at. Another problem is what is construction of that structure would be like. Is it going to be like one part, or we get to construct our own train. I think, that it should be a one part, but this idea creates another question.Is it going to be custom design for each space agency in multiplayer, or is it going to be all the same for all agencies. Don't you think, that it would be a little goofy if all agencies would have one design for the trains. I dont yet know if the devs would make custom design for diferent colonies designs of different agencies, but if they do, I think that it would be the same for trains.

[placid island]

Would be cool

[tawdry raft]

Hyperloops on Duna would be a sight to see

[placid island]

What about mag levs on laythe

[true tree]

Kerbal engineers can do tracks itself, most definitely would not be able to be upside down though, makes no difference tbh

Kerbals can only hold so much weight, the trains itself would have to be launched onto the platform or track, but after that kerbals should be able to hold a qrtr of a meter long track per inventory, and rockets can hold the rest making it a railway

But railways would be obsolete on moons and such, since you can literally burn a couple dV and be halfway across the moon.

[wet bridge]

The hyperloop is dumb

Why would you take a nice, efficient system with good economics of scale, then break it up into small inefficient bits and start calling them pods

[tawdry raft]

Not on Duna its not it’s not hard to pull a vacuum on a tube when you’re basically in a vacuum already

[wet bridge]

Well why would you bother with the tube in the first place then, or the pods, or the airlock, because those are clearly a bottleneck

[tawdry raft]

Dust protection, and there’s still some atmosphere that has to be removed. Whatever you think of its irl credibility, just look at how cool it could look on a colony!

[wet bridge]

Hyperloop isn't that good

At all, if your focus is not on speed, but, capacity, then WHY DONT YOU BUILD A TRAIN

[tawdry raft]

This is just a thread about trains for colonies in ksp dude, no need to talk about whether or not they’d work in reality

[ember zenith]

The hyper loop would work great on body’s with no atmosphere

No shielding needed

[wet bridge]

Why would you use pods tho

Just build a normal maglev or something

You don't need to bother with the pods which are obviously a bottleneck

[tawdry raft]

Arent there some hyperloop concepts with connected pods?

[wet bridge]

nope

all of them have stupid individual pods

Why
dont you just
BUILD A TRAIN

[placid island]

You really dont know why you would build a hyperloop instead of a train? You cant be serious right? 🤨

[wet bridge]

Maglevs are literally better, hyperloop is just an elon musk dumb idea

To cause the whole system to fail, you just need to blow a hole in the pipe with explosives and have the pods run into a wall of 1 atmosphere air, or just shoot a big enough gun at the pipe

And hyperloop is just a maglev, in a pipe, with small disconnected inefficient pieces

Just do away with the airlock and the pods because that's clearly a bottleneck

[wet bridge]

It's automated, and has much better economy of scale

[placid island]

No one tell him

[true tree]

So what does that have to deal with one kerbals incapability of making a truss every couple meters, track, and the bridge… Waste of recourses autonomous or not all you need is a drone pod.

An upside down railway doesn’t just spawn magically, it’ll be the same way you use the construction buttons as an engineer to fix a space station and what jot

[wet bridge]

And I don't think upside down railways are good

Literally just extra stuff you need to add for 0 reason

[true tree]

Exactly

[wet bridge]

Hyperloop is worse

And also, nobody said that railways have to be built in the way the lousy 1.11 construction system works

[austere sundial]

What ever type of train system It could also be cool if it can be underground. Then it wouldn’t take up space. Thought actually it might not even be a problem and the developers has not made a system for underground.

[true tree]

…how else would it be built… lol

[true tree]

Underground wouldn’t work unless a large drill would be made and underground would have to be developed

[austere sundial]

Yes

[signal stirrup]

Using the code similar to launch clamps (you designate a height and the size themselves) it would be neat to have a pylon structure attached to the planet you can rotate and adjust the height so you can “string” a track together and then run a monorail along the surface.

Then you can make the actual monorail out of whatever parts you want and string cars together like KAS in KSP1

[rotund beacon]

Trains would be amazing, you wouldn’t have to go through the process of docking and undocking a rover to get from one place to another.

[wet bridge]

Idea considered
The concept is ok
Polishing it could work
It is applicable in some context
Keep going

[rotund beacon]

Would also make roads within a colony for rovers unnecessary.

[true tree]

not necessarily and don’t forget this would be talking ab MP but there’s no point if you can only see 3rd person and can’t walk around in your own creations

[rotund beacon]

Ab MP?

Oh, “about multiplayer”

[valid shuttle]

bro thinks he is the game director

[alpine geyser]

Ksp is not real life

Hyperloops would be cool to have

[wet bridge]

Look cool, but absurdly inefficient and/or unneeded

[alpine geyser]

bangs on table DID YOU NOT JUST HEAR WHAT I SAID

[wet bridge]

Like, on any airless body, why use the pods in the first place, just use a maglev (made easier by the lower G and you would need this for a hyperloop)
On planets like duna drag is negligible if you make it aerodynamic
On Kerbin you wouldn't really need it, since it's more work to build the vac tube than it's worth (literally just use a normal train)
On eve, use a normal train, hyperloop is EXTREMELY dangerous there due to the fact that you need MASSIVE airlocks and pipes capable of holding back 5atm, ANY breach leads to the pods ramming into 5atm at insane speeds, that hits like a BRICK WALL and will just obliterate the pods, likely punching a bigger hole in the process, and the pods must be pressurized on top of that, just pressurize a train if it needs to be, if it doesn't, don't it doesn't need to be pressurized if it's a car full of metal ore or something

Pods are incredibly dumb

[alpine geyser]

Bros ignoring me and talking to himself 💀💀

[next vault]

i swear to god every time i see someone suggest an idea that i know will never make it into any game where that idea isn't the main topic of the game i have a little aneurysm

gaming industry is an industry and every game dev gets hazed with a free stroke upon entering the part of society that actually has the power and personality traits to produce things

this means those devs will always have a screw loose and in this case it means ksp2 is not gonna have trains

just like why age of empires doesn't have chess, red dead redemption doesn't have vehicle building, why rambo 4 didn't include goku etc. nobody is simultaneously free-minded and productive enough to make something like that

look at game trends, look at every suggestion forum, you can figure what will and what won't happen with games in the following 30 years unless something major changes

we all know what we imagined when we saw the concept of "Second Life" and we all know what we got instead

[void cobalt]

hyperloop is indeed a worse solution to a problem we've already solved in better ways (although, at least it's better than suggesting multi-layer personal car road tunnels under LA instead of building a metro system...) but part of the idea that people forget is that it's called "loop" because the idea is that the trains all travel the same direction and that causes the air that does remain in the tunnel to circulate with them. i have no idea if it would even work that way, but that is one reason why you might possibly want to build the tunnels even on mars

anyway, i love the idea of building monorails all over duna to harvest Spice to fuel my interstellar engines. obviously the game isn't really set up to build tracks piece by piece across the surface, but maybe if you had a main colony and some satellite colonies you could just pay some resources to build a railroad between them once you've made the journey one time by rover or something

[weak quarry]

In reality it would be a horrible idea, really just something made to be "next gen." Though, I could see it as being a mod tbh

Just now noticing that this debate has spanned across a week or so. Whoops, just adding more fuel to the fire.

[digital patio]

just use a transporter device

[inner wolf]

After thinking about this for a few minutes, this could technically work if it were just an expensive building that just dives into the ground. You'd often want trains underground for protection from radiation anyway.

[wet bridge]

Well, if it's an automated train hauling metal ore or something, it just doesn't care about radiation

Also, If radiation was a thing, laythe, as shown, couldn't exist

[digital patio]

then make dedicated trains and lifts for personal transport and trains that haul stable cargo

[next vault]

i feel like these types of suggestions are entirely supported by teens that can't see anything wrong in having goku play a role in every tv show

[azure lark]

i feel like this would already be possible with parts we already have or will have

[next vault]

how much performance do you expect to get over the years

name one game where handmade physics trains don't snail fps

[inner wolf]

Factorio

Well, I suppose that's not "handmade", but nevertheless, trains could be implemented to not tank FPS. Even handmade.

[tawdry raft]

Who says they need to have physics?

[next vault]

that's implied when you say "with parts we already have or will have"

if you want trains i suggest having some lowpoly model with LoD+normalmap ride between settlements that are connected via even lower poly rails that have a procedurally generated model or texture when looked at from far away, where the rails can just be setup via an interface at the control buildings, while settlements themselves can be handbuilt through contraptions and rocketry. include a building that accepts and sends trains, then assemble this on the spot either in EVA or through some vehicle part

that way nobody has to be a level 500 genius to get a working high-performance convenient user-friendly method and mechanism for creating trains

laying rails manually is going to be a travesty and a glitchy hell, so best to just track a path across the surface between point A (control station) and point B (settlement) which doesn't have to be laid piece by piece and doesn't have to be rendered as the player is looking at a screen-wide menu at KSP control station

procedurally generating a series of object models that fit across that landscape ensures that devs don't have to work on alignment and eliminates the need to have every part of the railway individually loaded and rendered

[tawdry raft]

i dont think anyone here was advocating for a completely part-by-part player build rail line

[next vault]

none of this needs physics as you can just connect two places on a sphere by calculating the path with the shortest length and the lowest amount of total angle of inclination

[tawdry raft]

agreed

[next vault]

best to write it in such a way that it saves people who don't understand computer resources from having to write suggestions

"how cool would it be if we could make machines that lay the tracks"

[tawdry raft]

that'd be taking the concept a bit too far imo. just having it be some kind of colony building that automatically extends the rails as you put in resources should be more then sufficient

[next vault]

yeah you understand that there's people out there who aren't going to you for your opinion

they're just gonna waste their time writing suggestions here and i'm saving them that by creating a point of reference for others who are gonna end up explaining why a part-by-part isn't gonna work

[tawdry raft]

sure

[next vault]

actually that last part is a bit of a thing isn't it because that would mean that procedural model generation method is either going to have to be repeated an awful amount of times or scrapped

it would look better to input resources to build these rails in advance since you can see your work gradually being completed

though that again adds another layer of complexity and i really don't think they're gonna put in this much effort

i've already got a bet with someone that they're not gonna reach their goals in 3 years

the bet's for 50 euros

so why thumb that up when you know that's going to kill performance

[tawdry raft]

meant to do the second message lol

[next vault]

it would look better yeah but how are they going to implement that

if they implement trains they will want them to look as good as the rest of the game and i don't see that happening simultaneously with performance in mind

if we suggest this thing and we really want it to be in the game then we gotta be realistic and present it in a way that makes it appealing for them to work on it

imo i think this could go straight in the trash but yall seem to want it this much and if it makes you happy i'd write a bunch of stuff which is what i did here

i hope this thread isn't just some septic tank for people's imagination overflow

[tawdry raft]

nah, there are very realistic pieces of feedback and also more far fetched ones like this. both are helpful; they give the devs a glance into what players would like to see in the game (regardless of how possible it is), which is something they can incorporate into the development of future features (like colonies in this example). better to think about this kind of stuff beforehand rather than after, lest you end up with something like the janky robotics of ksp1

[raw kernel]

i doubt a train would work so well in colonies, since trains rely on their massive weight to create grip to move around, but gravity on other planets are lower than it is on kerbin. though maybe they still could work just as well depending on the planet idk.

but who cares if it would work well, we need the krams no matter what

fellas at the ksp subreddits dc server calls the emoji for it "krolley", dumb as hell. i would rather have "ktreetcars" or even "kight rail transit"

[tawdry raft]

correction: they rely on their intertia. i don't think local gravity is that big of a factor, except for friction (which is actually reduced for lower gravities)

[raw kernel]

yeah on a second thought, they could work quite well unless they are at a gravity equivalent or lower than mün's gravity

[tawdry raft]

ah well, if the devs don't do it, we can always just do it ourselves

[tawdry raft]

finished version. Beat this, Devs!

[austere sundial]

That really is, done great.

hey you know what, why not make it posible to build train to space? like this one:

[wet bridge]

Space elevators arent whatsoever realistic

although you could hang elevators off orbital rings, you aint going up to geostationary

[austere sundial]

You are right.😔 but could have been cool

[tawdry raft]

for now

[fluid sparrow]

Every day KSP 2 strays closer to Factorio. Also I love this idea.

[small tangle]

culture as a game mechanic

[hasty rivet]

Now make the rails and send them to Duna on a rocket; enough to make a complete track of course.

Make a train station while your at it.

[tawdry raft]

Come back to me on that once we have colonies, chief

[void arrow]

What about for smaller celestial bodies? Materials already exist which would be capable of holding together a lunar space elevator, so i don't think it would be impossible, albeit very, very difficult and cost-inefficient.

[wet bridge]

Luna can't have an elevator anyways

Not physically possible

Just use mass drivers or orbital rings

[void arrow]

why not

[wet bridge]

It's hill sphere (the place where stuff orbits it rather than earth) is smaller than the orbital distance needed for stationary orbit

[bitter finch]

Yes you can? You just have to use L1

Or L2

[void arrow]

you could still put it through the L1 or L2 points to keep it stable and bring things into earth orbit from the lunar surface, though i dont think it would be practical with the SOI system Ksp uses

[tidal inlet]

We need this
Trains are amazing
And whilst it isn't so cool as spaceplanes and spacecrafts for cargo routes, it'd be really amazing and effective for the surface

[tidal inlet]

Oh dam, that looks amazing

Now we need cargo variant

Honestly we'd probably need like a train track system, and then we get to build our own trains
Otherwise it wouldn't fit too well in the KSP feel would it?

[tawdry raft]

I’m well ahead of them on that now they just need to add tracks and we gucchi

[tidal inlet]

Heck yeah

I meant more like stable train parts, like train wheels or whatever they be called-
Not the singular one, but the wagon thing

Which we'd also need a bit of a connector

[agile jetty]

Also add taxis

[tawdry raft]

and hot air balloons

[exotic garnet]

General idea for the actual track building: Mercator projection map of a selected planet w/colonies, and all you have to do is click on a colony (which preferably would show up as icons of some kind on the map) and drag it to another colony to connect both with a monorail. You can also start directly from an already built track, creating an intersection and switch. All colonies have to have a 'train hub' which would also act as an infinity-way intersection for all tracks connected to it (the colony). Tracks are animated getting built with construction trains, and upgrades can increase building speed. On planets with atmospheres (like eve and duna) there is an option to turn the track into a vacuum tube to boost train efficiency and speed (yes I know that this is incredibly inefficient and costly and dumb, but it would look really cool, which is what KSP is all about). Atmosphereless bodies do not need the tube.

Wow i lost track of how long this was getting sorry for subjecting you to this

[tidal inlet]

Connecting 2 colonies in a straight line is kinda lane though am I right-
But it would be the easiest to do..

[exotic garnet]

Would be easy to code, too. Maybe more advanced construction comes farther down the line or smth

[finite quail]

static track pieces along with VAB bogey parts that you can attach things on to