Pioneer Kickstarter Preview

[Sigtrygg]

All you need to know:

the delta v a ship has available

the delta v costs for different mission profiles (you can find these on wikipedia of all places)

a ship's data sheet and a look up table are good enough for most trips - if you want more there are plenty of online sites that let you calculate bespoke journies.

Delta-v budget - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[lategamer]

I’m not looking for a game that makes me calculate orbits or DeltaV either, but I am looking for a game that accurately depicts current SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc. hardware capabilities and extrapolates them 10-20 years into the future. Shouldn’t be that hard, SpaceX publishes their expected capabilities for Starship V3 and V4 already. Also with Zubrin’s Case for Mars, if I recall, he lists numbers for nuclear generators, the Sabatier reaction and ISRU. And those figures were from 30-40 years ago.

I wouldn’t rely on predictions directly. I’d want to see something like a new dawn for space travel where we have multiple agencies and none of them are real.

I would hope the developers could do half a day’s online research and extrapolate to modern/near future capabilities of those items based on advances made in those technologies. Spacesuits as well. If I have to do that research to make the game what I’m looking for, then what’s the value of the game for me?

The Preview is confusing this way. It kind of reminds me of For All Mankind. Margery do new things but the technological progress - in spite of the additional attention space received - slowed to a crawl.

What I’m looking for is a game that provides all of those stats so that I can plug them in, rearrange them into different configurations to design a solid aerospace program and missions. That’s pretty much how Traveller does it.
I don’t even need to know how many burns it will take. Only how far (LEO, GEO, CisLunar orbits, LaGrange Points) a specific ship size will get me or how many refueling missions it will take.

For me the Burns are drama beats. To know what your margin of error is: to put everything into a single Burn because you’ve got no choice. You’ve delayed to get the best bonus from the astrodynamics team in Earth, you’ve got the team doing the best task chain … and still success is not guaranteed. Cock this up and you’re space debris.

And hot take, I wouldn’t take space program advice/predictions from NDT. He sits in front of a camera while others do, and he’s had some pretty bizarre takes on other subjects as well.

Sure, he's a TV personality with a background in science. His job is to make television. I don't think he's wrong on the prediction I quoted. America went to the moon because the Russians were ahead. They won’t go without a reason; and the past has shown that reason to be hubris.

 

[Michael S]

I get what all of you are all saying. We clearly all have an interest in Real World(tm) space filght and what WE belive to be the next 20-30, They are all correct, it's the future afterall.

I as a grumy old(er) guy, am just tired of "Hard Science" sales pitches for games that ain't. Your interest in spending your money may vary. - This is why I asked for an appendix - to check my MATHS - no one elses.

From any "Hard Science" advertised game - I just want real world details - 1 ish tons of the Real World(tm) Green MonoProp developed through the (AFRL) Air Force Research Laboratory is Great! - but will NOT get you a return trip outside of LEO, without refueling. GreenMono prop will kill a LOT of background accidents in the Real World(tm), that i would place adventures around.

My interest is programming for near future spaceflight around ΔV,- I am improving a simple tablet spreadsheet to do this for MY game., NOT yours. Real life mechanics - not game mechanics is my NERD - i will release this and if anyone want's to buy a copy for a $1 - Yeah Me!.

Otherwise I truly hope that we can all support Pioneer for our OWN reasons.

 

[fnsonin]

I envision the near future of space flight to be like the airline industry and I think that in Pioneer that would also be true.
This means that human pilots are required for at least three reasons:
1. Any technology made by humans is going to be flawed and break. This includes AI and automated systems. There is a series called Mayday on YouTube that documents airline aircraft disasters. The number of times an automated system fails is quite high, and many passengers would be dead if not for the skills of an experienced pilot.
2. Legal systems progress much more slowly than technology. Liability and not technology is why we do not have flying cars. 30-40 years from now we still will not have a legal and regulatory framework for flying cars let alone people jetting around on autopilot in near earth orbit.
3. People trust people and not technology. Ask any airline passenger if they want to fly in a fully automated airplane (Which is possible today), and the answer is not only no, but hell no.

30-40 years is many generations of technological progress, but is less than one generation of human progress. If we are 'progressing' at all. There are people still living today that remember a time without TV, Cell Phones, Personal Computers, and the Internet. Many of them are still in charge. Let that sink in for a moment.

30-40 years from now, there will still be people in charge who remember a world without Space X, Blue Origin, Cell Phones, and the Internet.
There will still be pilots in space for at least another 100-200 years no matter how much technology progresses.

 

[rinku]

Honestly? I'll likely NOT be worrying about the travel between places that much, or what it took the very large and very rich organisations and governments to get the players there. If it's required, it's basically handled at a level well above that of the actual crew - they get told when to do a burn, if they even have to do that. Their job as astronauts happens AT the locations. In orbit, during takeoff and landing, at the bases. On the surface of the asteroid.

My interest is more about what happens there.

The cited fiction that Pioneer uses as examples are all that. The Martian. Gravity. 2001 A Space Odyssey. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

So... while there needs to be stuff in the rulebook that discusses all this, I see it as more of a Referee thing than a player thing. Something you work out before the session, like a colony map or a NPC description.

 

[Michael S]

I envision the near future of space flight to be like the airline industry and I think that in Pioneer that would also be true.
This means that human pilots are required for at least three reasons:
1. Any technology made by humans is going to be flawed and break. This includes AI and automated systems. There is a series called Mayday on YouTube that documents airline aircraft disasters. The number of times an automated system fails is quite high, and many passengers would be dead if not for the skills of an experienced pilot.
2. Legal systems progress much more slowly than technology. Liability and not technology is why we do not have flying cars. 30-40 years from now we still will not have a legal and regulatory framework for flying cars let alone people jetting around on autopilot in near earth orbit.
3. People trust people and not technology. Ask any airline passenger if they want to fly in a fully automated airplane (Which is possible today), and the answer is not only no, but hell no.

30-40 years is many generations of technological progress, but is less than one generation of human progress. If we are 'progressing' at all. There are people still living today that remember a time without TV, Cell Phones, Personal Computers, and the Internet. Many of them are still in charge. Let that sink in for a moment.

30-40 years from now, there will still be people in charge who remember a world without Space X, Blue Origin, Cell Phones, and the Internet.
There will still be pilots in space for at least another 100-200 years no matter how much technology progresses.

Mayday is a great resource for that once in a while emergency!

 

[lategamer]

This means that human pilots are required for at least three reasons:

Cool, let’s have them.

1. Any technology made by humans is going to be flawed and break. This includes AI and automated systems. There is a series called Mayday on YouTube that documents airline aircraft disasters. The number of times an automated system fails is quite high, and many passengers would be dead if not for the skills of an experienced pilot.

Automated systems are already more reliable than humans in most industries and common autopilots are no exception.

Where humans shine is in the breakdown moments (which may not included the automated system but can be related to something else. Like landing gear failure).

2. Legal systems progress much more slowly than technology. Liability and not technology is why we do not have flying cars. 30-40 years from now we still will not have a legal and regulatory framework for flying cars let alone people jetting around on autopilot in near earth orbit.

Here I’m a little more sceptical.

30-40 years from now we will still be flying a lot of aircraft which are being built today. That’s just the operational life of them. But while the autopilots today are still relatively primitive, we absolutely use the heck out of them.

In some regions you may get a law passed quicker. (For example, for cars on the road the US has a specific ban on models whereas the UK has a specific allowance on models. Therefore it’s much easier to get your weird contraption on the road in the US.)

3. People trust people and not technology. Ask any airline passenger if they want to fly in a fully automated airplane (Which is possible today), and the answer is not only no, but hell no.

I don’t know if that’s a good benchmark. There’s lots of automation in many industries that you just don’t hear about because people don’t understand things. Like medtech. They may not even realise what an autopilot is capable of.

Also people still smoke in 2025 so I don’t see why we should trust any decision they make.

30-40 years is many generations of technological progress, but is less than one generation of human progress. If we are 'progressing' at all. There are people still living today that remember a time without TV, Cell Phones, Personal Computers, and the Internet. Many of them are still in charge. Let that sink in for a moment.

I think that’s a bit of a red herring. Even with the concept of increased longevity, in 40 years I’ll be in my 90s (which will put me firmly in the demographic for running the country). I think the Octogenarian Gen X rulers of the world will be very open to change.

It took 13 years for the Car to almost completely replace the horse in urban centres.

30-40 years from now, there will still be people in charge who remember a world without Space X, Blue Origin, Cell Phones, and the Internet.
There will still be pilots in space for at least another 100-200 years no matter how much technology progresses.

Even now, the majority of space travel is done through automation. There may still be pilots but the need for them to be onboard is reduced.

In 40 years, I think things will either go very good or very bad but I’m not in the mood to share my odds.