# Can Kerbal Space Program act as a suitable simulator with the right mods?

The game is great alone, but if we install a mod called Real Solar System and another called Realism Overhaul, the force of gravity, engine power atmospheric heights and everything happens to real flyers, then: under these conditions you can simulate a mission there is? What do you think, what other simulators do you recommend?

• This question is meaningless without specifying what a "suitable simulator" is. – user2705196 Mar 1 '20 at 16:12
• Relevant XKCD – qazwsx Mar 1 '20 at 17:15
• I'd say that KSP is a suitable simulator without any mods. Then, I might not have the same definition of a suitable simulator as you do. – Antzi Mar 2 '20 at 5:21
• why did you accept the generic "what is a simulator?" answer and not the one which specifically answers the question you asked? – Aaron F Mar 2 '20 at 9:48
• @AaronF using the new timeline feature and some mouse hovering it can be seen that the currently accepted answer was accepted on 2020-02-29 at 22:30z, but the other answer was not even posted until more than 22 hours later at 03-01 21:04z. So the question “Why did you X instead of Y” has a trivial and not so interesting answer. Instead, just a reminder that a quick acceptance of an answer can sometimes discourage others from posting answers, and it’s best to wait at least a few days to give some time for answers to accumulate might be a more helpful comment. – uhoh Mar 2 '20 at 10:45

For all simulators, the core question is: What is it trying to simulate?

Real world space travel has many different motivations, like for instance:

• Science
• Military interests
• Money
• Prestige

Ultimately, it's the goal that shapes what missions end up looking like. A game-like simulator will have trouble quantifying many of the underlying motivations. Can a computer program easily estimate scientific value of space activity? Geopolitics? What stuff costs and what you can get a budget for? (people often fail spectacularly predicting all of those, even in real life).

With those general considerations out of the way, the game is indeed a physics simulator, simulating:

• orbital flight
• atmospheric flight
• rocket engine operation.

As you have noted, the base game takes quite some liberties with all of those.

If we assume that your proposed mods take care of oddly sized planets and orbits, the orbital part isn't very far off. Kerbal Space Program uses 2-body patched conics to approximate orbits, which is what we care about in most "practical" space-flight anyway. But it still misses out on some n-body effects, like Lagrangian points.

Aerodynamics is a completely different beast, mostly because it's inherently much more complex than orbital mechanics. While the base game's atmospheric model and re-entry heating could certainly be modified to be more realistic, the experience is ultimately not going to hold up to most serious simulations and actual missions.

Rocket engine operation is a mixed bag. While I'm assuming that your mods can take into account the myriad of different propellant combinations, the game fundamentally has to leave out what makes stuff work. Where's the engine development, testing, quality control, assembly, equipment failure, etc.? If all the program does is applying the acceleration vector an engine produces, those same calculations could be done on the back of an envelope. A very very minor part of what managing space hardware actually entails.

Ultimately, we come back to the same question: What are you trying to achieve? Simulators fundamentally select some specific part of reality, and abstracts everything else away. This is often exactly what we desire.

Are you trying to get a feeling of how much hardware is required to get from A to B? KSP can probably help you. Are you deciding the architecture of the next generation orbital launchers? KSP will probably not give you very meaningful results.

The list goes on, and only you knows what parts of reality you want to deal with.

• Just as a sidenote: There's a mod for KSP called Realism Overhaul/Realistic Progression 1. This makes the game a lot more realistic=harder. They makers of the mod tried to mimic realistic rocket engineering as well as possible. So if you're interested in a more realistic insight into rocket flight it's maybe worth checking out. github.com/KSP-RO/RP-0/wiki – CKA Mar 1 '20 at 18:58
• Without engines with ridiculous ISPs, the way I build SSTOs is out of the question. That's somewhat meaningful. – Mazura Mar 1 '20 at 21:09
• I'd also like to note that if the "Physics" simulation is meant by OP; KSP's physics engine is known to be unstable so In that case it would not at all be suitable for simulation. – Stefan Teunissen Mar 2 '20 at 11:24
• @nick012000, no, it's more fundamental than that. The physics integrator in KSP is not symplectic -- it fails to conserve either energy or linear momentum. There's an easy way to see this in action: put something into a circular orbit around Kerbin with an altitude of 70,050 meters above sea level and let the game run for a few hours. If the integrator were stable, you'd be able to watch it indefinitely; in practice, the orbit will elongate and the spacecraft will re-enter after two or three orbits. – Mark Mar 3 '20 at 0:54
• To Science, Military interests, Money and Prestige can "Fun" and "Inspiration" be added? – uhoh Mar 3 '20 at 2:59

I help develop the RSS/RO/RP-1 mod suite (which, respectively, are and do: Real Solar System, which gives you the Sol system, appropriately sized and massed; Realism Overhaul, which gives you historical engines with historical masses, thrust, specific impulse, and rated burn times; and Realistic Progression One, which requires star trackers/radio beacons for vehicle control & provides a career progression & tech tree roughly approximating the historical development of space-related hardware).

The mods that I consider critical for making KSP "simulation worthy" are:

• Real Solar System. You can't even start to be realistic if you're flying between fictional planets.
• Realism Overhaul. Otherwise, you have ridiculous mass fractions and crazy engines which lead to schemes like the famous (but completely unrealistic) "asparagus staging". FAR and RealFuels are required for RO to work.
• FAR (Farram Aerospace Research). FAR overwrites the stock aerodynamics model with one that properly simulates supersonic and hypersonic flow phenomena & drag characteristics.
• RealFuels. Otherwise, you have "oxidizer" and "liquid fuel" instead of LOX and LH2. Models boiloff of cryogenic propellant and feed issues caused by ullage under negative acceleration.
• Principia. This is by far the single most important mod to take KSP from "game" to "simulation". Principia applies a high-speed, very accurate n-body gravitation model to KSP. You can accurately simulate the ISEE-3 mission in KSP. Essential if you hope to do anything resembling real spaceflight. Also models the "lumpiness" of real planetary bodies.

Honorable mentions:

• Kerbalism with ROKerbalism configuration (the best stab at realistic life support requirements yet)
• RealAntennas (highly simplified yet still the most realistic antenna model so far)
• MechJeb & kOS (real spacecraft are nearly fully automated)

What these can't do (a partial list):

• RealFuels doesn't properly model mass distribution within propellant-filled tanks nor the effects of bulkhead positioning.
• RealFuels models tank mass solely as a function of tank volume, not tank area. Ends up being a pretty decent model for most tank shapes (I did a project testing this model against historical data for an upcoming tank materials overhaul) because while skinnier tanks might have the same surface as a wider tank, it carries less propellant mass so doesn't need as much mass to meet structural demands.
• In general, there is no modeling of the vibrational demands of spaceflight more finely than the component (part) level. This is a limitation of the base KSP engine & its modular approach to vehicle design.
• FAR cannot model shockwave compression lift (no droop wing Valkyrie for you!).
• FAR always models the atmosphere as a perfect gas even at high hypersonic speeds.
• Principia cannot model the force of solar radiation or atmospheric drag at altitudes above 140 km.
• Principia cannot model conservation of angular momentum and hence the Джанибеков effect. But this is about to change! egg, the brilliant mathematician behind Principia, has announced as of a few days ago that he has solved this equation & is incorporating it into an upcoming Principia release.

• +1 for an authoritative and well-sourced answer! You might be interested in adding answers to Will Kerbal Space Program 2 have Lagrange points, halo orbits, and other 3-body goodies? (which really needs a better answer than my placeholder) and possibly Are patched conics (and by induction, KSP) “useless” for simulating ion propulsion? – uhoh Mar 2 '20 at 0:48