With that being said, KSP strikes the balance between accuracy and simplicity. Patched conics give a good idea how space works, without being so overly complicated that itsit's no longer fun to deal with. And that means it makes people learn stuff they otherwise wouldn't. The mantra "Space isn't high up, itsit's about going sideways fast" can be repeated thousands of times, and people won't get it. But when they actually try it out and see for themselves why it is how it is, they suddenly understand. When they fall back onto the planet after launching straight up, and then finally learn to pitch over and do a gravity turn to achieve orbit.
The fact that orbits are always influenced at the opposite side of the burn. That deceleration (retrograde burns) lowers the orbit and so forth. What radial burns do, what normal burns do, what inclination is and why it is important, how ascending and descending nodes work and why they are important, why rendenzvousrendezvous takes so long and what you need to do to actually make it. All those things are taught by KSP and make spaceflight accessible to people that otherwise wouldn't "get" it.
The "mun"Mun - the(the equivalent to the Moon in KSP) is in an equatorial orbit to make it easier for new players to get there (no launch window, no inclination change), but those things can be used to get to the second, much smaller moon, Minmus.
Re-entry heating exists and matters somewhat, depending on the settings. You learn that you should neither plow too fast too deep into the atmosphere neither too low so that you skip it. The concept of re-enryentry is hard to grasp for some people, but with KSP, you can easily see why it works how it works and whatswhat's important about it.
The rocket equation, and especially the tyranny of the rocket equation, is important in KSP. You learn good engineering techniques. You learn that you can't bring what you want, that rocketrockets grow exponentially. theThe concept of staging and why it is important comes naturally with KSP. Some basic aerodynamics -— how CoM and CoL work, how drag affects the path of your rocket -— are explained.
In short: KSP teaches a lot, while using physics and orbital mechanics that are not so overly complicated that it gets too frustrating. itIt stays in the area that most people can still grasp.
So yeah, itsit's not a 100% accurate simulator. But its close enough to teach the concepts, and simple enough so that its accessible for a very wide audience. In that regard, I think it offers a great example for how educational games should work in the future. because itsBecause it's actually fun to play and makes stuff easy to understand.
Some random thingthings I haven't mentioned: Aerodynamics (Rudder, Elevons, Trim, placement of wings, CoM, CoL and concept of lift for planes), how an FDAI (called Navball in KSP) works, reference frames (the FDAI has "surface" mode [rotating reference frame of the body] and "orbital" reference frame [non-rotating frame of the body], as well as "target" frame [frame centered around the own vessel]), connectivity of antennas and signal strength (inverse square law), solar power output (again, inverse square law, you learn why solar panels don't work well for outer planets), you learn about the pendulum rocket fallacy and a lot more things.
On accuracy and computing power: ###On accuracy and computing power:
Being a game, the simulation has a hard realtime requirement. Patched conics are not only far easier to understand for a wide audience, but they are also much faster. Patched conics have an analytical solution. That means itsit's cheap to calculate positions. Furthermore, finding closest approach / intercepts is cheap, which is needed for maneuver planning. The added benefit is that it makes finding a rendezvous something accessible for a wide audience. ItsIt's not fun to try to find a close approach for two vessels when you need a simulator to make that decision. The base concepts apply whether you use patched conics or not. A more realistic model does not add much educational value, but a lot of frustrations for players -— who mostly have no background whatsoever in orbital mechanics. Furthermore, the game needs to be able to simulate literally hundreds of vessels at the same time -— something that is only possible with patched conics in real time. The aforementioned mod for n-body physics quickly breaks down after collisions of vessels that generate lots of debris.
Furthermore, it doesn't matter whether a vessel is in atmosphere or not from a physics point of view. The physics engine still needs to simulate all parts and all joints between all patsparts to figure out how the vessel behaves, especially under thrust.
Those hard realtime requirements put a hard cap on what you can realistically achieve on the average home computer. Again, itsit's a game, it needs quick results, itsit's not an academic simulation. ItsIt's close enough to teach the concepts. It doesn't claim to have 100% scientific accuracy.
