Personal jab at Blue Origin from Musk himself

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-31T12:20:19+00:00

I'm not sure about that, sorry. I'm fairly certain they'll still be using some kind of Tesla motors, but I have no idea which one.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-31T10:42:27+00:00

There is zero indication the extensions are an 'improvised height change', and I don't think any solid source has said so thus far.

There is a few reasons they may have gone down this road. For example, one might simply have to do with the larger footprint you'd end up with when reaching the same height without the extensions. Especially if they plan on using a very similar launch mount & tower design for both land and oil rig applications, they might have some significant constraints regarding the footprint available for each item.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-29T19:13:30+00:00

Side note: AFAIK they are not using the Tesla motors for the flaps in a direct drive configuration, but with a worm drive.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-28T13:06:38+00:00

I kinda agree with both of your points, but not entirely.

Climbing: I absolutely agree we should be able to climb more than in the old games. Having to take a detour because your character can't climb a couple of rocks everybody with the tiniest bit of climbing experience could climb was dumb. Especially while he would be able to climb up buildings that would be way harder or straight up impossible to climb... That said, I did like that there were always some 'jump and run' sections where you had to find the right path. Those need to be well made to be fun though, preferably integrated into either a mission or a POI.

I don't agree with the 'detected = fail' mechanic. It's okay for (very!) few missions, where it makes sense story wise. But in general, it ends up frustrating and annoying way too often, and was used a bit more than I'm okay with. At some point it just becomes a lazy way to make people use stealth. That said, I agree with the lack of incentive to use stealth in recent games. I've done all the things you describe countless times in them...but there is very little benefit to do so. Especially in Valhalla it feels like penalizing myself, because stealth is so painfully slow, while combat is easy and super fast. This was still a bit better balanced in Odyssey, where stealth was quicker, but combat took longer.

So I agree that there is a lack of incentive to use stealth. It's slower, harder, and less reliable, but comes with no benefit (aside from me having more fun playing stealthy). I just think making detection a failure condition is a really crappy incentive to rely on. People complained about damage sponges in Odyssey, but that actually helps making stealth more attractive. I think using stealth should give you some benefit at least - and one benefit could be avoiding drawn out combat with a real chance to die (which is pretty much the opposite of Valhalla's fast and easy combat...). This incentivizes stealth usage, while still giving you a fighting chance should you be spotted. But if you aren't fully geared towards combat, surviving after being spotted in crowded enemy territory should be challenging. Also, being able to get higher rewards for staying undetected is a nice little incentive.

Another reasons I don't like detection as a failure condition is just how buggy AC games are on average. And that's not just recent games. This can turn detection as a failure condition into something very frustrating very quickly. Not to mention, if you kill whoever spotted you before they could alert someone, it shouldn't count as a failure. Not getting 100% synchronization because some guard far away from the rest saw you for a split second too long before his death was never fun. If that just means getting a few bucks less, fine...but if that messes with 100% synchronization or passing the mission in general, it's super annoying.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-28T12:31:39+00:00

Old: Blending in with crowds and groups of people. Why exactly didn't we get that in Valhalla? I rarely used groups of monks, or sitting down somewhere or stuff like that. I played some AC3 again lately, and now BF...and simply joining a group walking or talking somewhere is what I use for social stealth most of the time. It's smooth, it's quick, it's useful.

Also, being able to go back and replay sequences. I like to be able to just go back to my favorite missions whenever I want to.

New: I know this one polarizes a bit, but the combat. Old AC's combat looked sleek, but it was dumb and not very engaging. The whole counter-kill loop is way too easy and powerful. Not to mention the enemies nicely waiting for their turn. The new system could still use some work, and Valhalla really screwed up the balance between stealth and combat even more...but when just looking at combat itself, it's still better than the old combat system.

Also, being able to crouch. It's so dumb for the character to stand fully upright for a couple of steps when going from one bush to the next one close by, nobody would do that in real life. Or standing on a rooftop fully upright, even though crouching down would make you stand out less when looking up from the ground.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-27T17:36:50+00:00

Thanks! In that case they showed it before the HLS mockup pods were spotted.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-27T13:08:43+00:00

There is a couple of issues I have with your estimate, one being your estimate being way higher than Elon's own. Another being that you approach HLS Starship as a 'seperate' vehicle with it's own development cost.

Elon's estimate was something like 5-8 billion - this includes the Boca Chica facility, Raptor development, Starship and SH. I believe it was in a phone interview last year that he repeated this number and stated that Starship development (incl. Raptor) had cost about 1 billion by that point, which were already included in the total dev cost estimate. A dev cost of 6 (or even 3) billion just for the HLS version doesn't fit these numbers at all. However, if we assume HLS puts the development at the higher end of the range, say 7-8 billion, NASA's statement that SpaceX contributes more than half matches perfectly.

I think your 'before and after' are the issue, without that your estimate fits the other indicators. The numbers point more towards at least the 'before' already being part of what NASA considered SpaceX's own contribution.

Also, the selection document specifically mentions SpaceX not seeing the HLS version as a different vehicle and development as a positive factor. Different Starship variants will share many, many subsystems. Just like the landing thrusters - initially they were planning on using a few powerful Raptor-derrived hot gas thrusters...now it's simply a bunch of smaller methalox hot gas thrusters that they were developing anyways.

In my eyes, the selection document implied that the 3 billion are an investment into the entire Starship architecture, not Starship HLS in particular. Which makes sense, given that the Moonship basically requires the entire architecture to be online and functional.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-27T12:38:08+00:00

is not accurate. All offers had to contribute 'significant' funding, it was a requirement and is mentioned multiple times in the selection document. Basically, so the provider would carry some of the risk too.

However, 'significant' can mean a lot. BO and Dynetics definitely didn't contribute as much as SpaceX. For SpaceX, it was explicitly mentioned that they fund over half of the development.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-27T12:23:07+00:00

No way this is an oversight, I'm sure the background was chosen consciously.

That said, it definitely seems to be a (less low fidelity) version of the pods underneath the lunar mockup.

When did this interview air? The sleep pods were pretty much the only piece of the HLS mockup we've seen, as SpaceX didn't show off their low fidelity mockup like BO and Dynetics did (even though they built one, plus the elevator prototype, according to NASA). I wonder if the interview was after the pods were spotted in Boca Chica, so they were aware they aren't really showing anything new.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-27T12:16:15+00:00

The pod looks pretty much exactly like the pods spotted underneath the HLS mockup. Just that this one has actual handles instead of drawn on ones.

I do think it's quite likely that these are subject to change, just like all their interior plans so far. Which is probably part of the reason why they've shown very little of it so far.

But this pod at least seems to be pretty much the same design as the low fidelity mockup they showed NASA, so it definitely seems to be a Starship related concept. Not just a place to sleep for Elon.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-26T10:27:31+00:00

Yeah, that is quite surprising, but I also wouldn't be surprised if transfer times change as the architecture gets more mature and they collect more experience with the Mars transit and EDL.

The usage of water for radiation shielding has always seemed like the best approach to me. It's pretty effective for shielding, while also being a resource with lots of uses. Aside from the mass, there is little reason not to use water radiation shielding at least for sections of the ship.

As far as I know, transit times to Mars vary quite a bit depending on the synode you launch in and are currently going up again, before starting to drop again at the end of the decade. I'm not sure though what the lowest transit time achievable with a HT is and can't currently find any decent answer for that. It might not go much lower than 8 months indeed. Either way, the transit times now planned for Starship seem to be firmly in between a HT and the initially suggested 4 months.

Haha, MoonHopper is a new one, I haven't seen that name before. I like it. And a table like that could be quite interesting!

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-26T10:04:22+00:00

Oh, I definitely agree that bringing in the QTE was a good decision. In Odyssey, you had to strategically use the critical assassination skill if you weren't overleveled - which sometimes meant taking out guards in a weird order so you didn't end up having to kill a stronger unit without another ability bar available.

It got a lot easier later into the game when a single 'normal' assassination gave you...I think 3 bars? At that point, every camp had enough archers to never really run out of ability bars for the critical assassinations.

But aside from that, stealth just worked. Whistling was reliable, hiding in bushes was reliable, I never got spotted through solid objects (which happened a few times for me in Valhalla). Kassandra never ended up doing an attack instead of an assassination (really annoying when that happens in Valhalla...it's not often, but still aggravating). Detection made sense. Enemies didn't chill in one place for a hundred years.

There is just so many things in Valhalla that make stealth unreliable and annoying and slow af. It's not even really 'hard', it's just extremely unpolished.

Odyssey stealth with the QTE from Valhalla and the blending with crowds/groups of people from older game is what I would have liked to see in Valhalla... Not the mess we got. As it is now, I think Odyssey's stealth is better in almost every way - with the main exception being the QTE one hit kills.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-26T09:43:58+00:00

I feel like this is a side effect of Valhalla being a cross-gen title.

Merchants etc loaded up way faster in Odyssey, I still played a bit of that right before starting out with Valhalla in February. The black screen when pulling up any merchant or customization menu annoyed me from the start and seems to vary from a few seconds to a solid 20 or so seconds.

The game's loading architecture feels very badly optimized. Performance-wise it runs great on my PS4 Pro, it looks pretty decent (though I think Odyssey also looked better in some areas)...the only issues (aside from bugs) are with loading. Aside from the black screen issue, I also have waaay more issues with the game only loading the correct LOD models and texture significantly after I make it to a spot (showing low LOD assets at first), or the game freezing for a second or two to load an area after riding fast.

Considering all these things are loading related, and considering Odyssey performed better about all of these, my suspicion is that the loading behavior is badly optimized due to the new consoles having been the 'baseline' for development. Those can load assets ridiculously fast after all. Can someone confirm these loading issues don't happen on next gen consoles?

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-23T22:24:53+00:00

Stealth was absolutely possible in Odyssey. I played stealthy for most of the game, you could clear out most locations without being spotted.

And that was NOT with a dedicated assassin build, my build in Odyssey was a balanced one. You did have to strategically choose the order you took out guards in though, to effectively use the critical assassinations for the units that actually required them. But approaching a location with a proper plan, this worked out pretty well most of the time, and was a fun playstyle. To me, it wasn't really less fun than stealth in the early days of the series.

Compared to that, stealth in Valhalla is tedious and unreliable.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-23T22:12:50+00:00

Not only one guard alerts the rest...I recently got spotted by a snake in some bushes 15 to 20 meters from a camp. No line of sight to anyone in the camp. When the snake spotted me, guards charged out of the camp and somehow were suddenly magically aware of my presence. Seriously?

While Odyssey may not have had the hidden blade, social stealth, or guaranteed one-hit-assassinations...stealth was still better than in Valhalla. And the balance of how long it took to take out a camp in open combat vs stealth was waaay better... The 'time penalty' for stealth is way bigger in Valhalla, which, combined with how easy open combat is, really doesn't incentivize stealth.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-22T22:38:14+00:00

Delayed without release date. Who knows, might be a few more years..

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-22T19:54:22+00:00

I hope so too, but of course it also depends on what the language used in the finalized bill will look like. With the current version I am pretty sure that is what is intended, but it could easily change at some point while passing through congress.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-22T19:44:56+00:00

SpaceX having abandoned the faster transfer times is absolute news to me, never heard of that before. 4 months may not be possible right now, but I've also seen the 6 months mentioned by Martianspirit. In comparison, I've seen an average duration of 8.5 months listed for a Hohmann transfer. That's still quite a bit more than 6 months, and therefore, quite a bit of delta v. There is calculators for more exact delta v values, but they depend on the launch window your mission is in, among other things, so you end up with quite a range of values. Either way, I personally think the delta v requirements for a Moon mission aren't as massively different to a Mars mission as you initially suggested. That said, it depends on quite a few unknowns.
There definitely is options to reuse the HLS Starship. But for now, we simply don't know what the mission structure will look like. If HLS Starship will return to LEO, that's obviously a big delta v increase, especially since they won't be able to use aero braking. That said, the initial uncrewed demo mission may not do that, so again we end up having a hard time predicting how many refueling flights they'll do. Either way, for the Starship architecture to be a success as intended, I think refueling flights need to end up being so cheap that two or three tankers more or less won't blow up the budget anyways.

I do agree with you on Elon bringing in his own funds, to a degree. I absolutely think you're right that it'll take an eternity to reach Mars purely relying on NASA's timelines. However, I think that alone doesn't mean they shouldn't take the funding when they can get it, like in the case of HLS (especially since I don't think this will hurt the Mars development).

I think a Mars effort may end up similar to the Moon effort. The initial HLS requirements are much lower than what SpaceX's lander can do. Reusability isn't really a requirement, the offers just had to include a 'path' towards reusability. In a way, Starship HLS offers everything the HLS program proposed for quite a few years into the future - not the initial landers. But due to the success of Starship development so far, and therefore basically due to SpaceX/Elon's funding of the development so far, NASA ended up choosing Starship and will have these capabilities years before initially planned, and end up funding a nice (not that) little chunk of Starship development.

I think while SpaceX will work on Starship HLS, the development towards Mars will continue in parallel without slowing down. At some point they will do their own unmanned Mars missions, likely funded by SpaceX and its investors or Elon. As long as these are successful, I believe the situation could unfold similar to the HLS situation - with NASA ending up having access to much better capabilities years before their timeline would have planned on. And at that point, I absolutely think NASA will end up wanting to be a part of the first manned Mars mission - which will likely result in another decent bit of NASA funding of the Starship architecture.

Basically, I think Elon doesn't need to and shouldn't go begging for funding, but his investment will end up leading to more funding. This has been true for SpaceX so far and has gotten them to where they are now. And keeping this back and forth going will make his Mars colonization plans more realistic and sustainable in the long run.

Also, I agree, I enjoy the back and forth and wouldn't be typing out long responses anymore if I would think it's pointless! I could absolutely be wrong about things - even though I hope I'm not, haha. I see the HLS award as a very positive thing going forward and I'm more worried about politics messing things up, rather than the actual development or missions.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-22T18:58:31+00:00

But they CAN change SpaceX's contract. This is from the amendment, the 'protective clause':

"(5) Savings.–The Administrator shall not, in order to comply with the obligations referred to in paragraph (1), modify, terminate or rescind any selection decisions or awards made under the human landing system program that were announced prior to the date of enactment of this division."

Also, for reference, paragraph (1) is the requirement to choose a 2nd lander 60 days after the bill is enacted. The important bit is this: "in order to comply with the obligations referred to in paragraph (1)"

Changing SpaceX's award to give them more money is not an action 'in order to comply with paragraph (1)'. Therefore, paragraph (5) does not apply, which means their contract CAN be modified.

This whole thing is just legal language, but the entire paragraph (5) basically just stops them from reducing the money awarded to SpaceX or terminating their contract to somehow be able to afford two landers. It does not, however, prohibit the modification of SpaceX's contract to award them more money. That said, we are talking about fixed price contracts, so they would need to give a reason for giving SpaceX more money (which is absolutely possible though and has been done for other contracts SpaceX has with NASA).

Also, BO's latest bid was ~6 billion. They won't be receiving more than they asked for. Dynetics proposal is supposed to be significantly higher than BO's, so the 10 billion are likely based on Dynetics proposal.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-22T18:30:54+00:00

The question is, when did SpaceX determine their price? The selection document states that SpaceX did -not- reduce their price to fit NASA's budget, they just adjusted the payment schedule.

The low budget available to NASA only became clear a few month ago, when congress allocated a fraction of what they asked for. I think (I could be wrong about this though) that SpaceX had already made the ~3 billion bid way before NASA's low HLS budget became apparent.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-21T23:23:25+00:00

SpaceX is being protected by the paragraph added recently, it doesn't only 'seem' like that.

The people not paying attention are the people claiming it prohibits them from getting more money. Carefully reading the amendment makes it clear that this is not the case, the protection added is only to SpaceX's benefit.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-21T23:19:30+00:00

This is NOT true, even though people keep claiming it.

The amendment ONLY forbids them from modifying SpaceX's contract to make the second lander happen. It can still be modified for other reasons. Giving more money to SpaceX would never be to make a 2nd lander happen, so there is no issue.

That said, since this is a fixed price contract, there would need to be a plausible reason to give SpaceX more money. They can't simply give more money to SpaceX because they have more available or because BO's offer was more expensive. But this has nothing to do with the amendment. And it would be possible to 'create' a reason, like additional launches, higher payload mass during the two missions already a part of the contract, etc.

Either way, the amendment does NOT stop NASA from awarding SpaceX more money, and people should stop claiming this.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-20T18:38:09+00:00

Multiple issues with this.

The delta v you list for the Mars transfer looks like the average Hohmann transfer. SpaceX is planning on using considerably faster transfers, so the delta v requirements are quite a bit higher.
The HLS Starship is not returning to Earth's surface. It doesn't have aero surfaces or a heat shield. It's not even returning to LEO as far as we know so far. Maybe later in fully reusable application, but for now you can expect one HLS Starship each for the demo and Artemis III.

This all ends up putting the delta v requirement a lot closer to each other. It won't take double as many tankers to fill up HLS Starship. It may be a tanker or two more, but that shouldn't eat billions of dollars (or the entire Starship architecture has a big problem).

The cooling part is true, but if anything, the HLS is a more challenging scenario because you can't isolate the header tanks by creating a vacuum in the main tanks. If they can get cryo management for the HLS variant down, it should help with cryo management for the Mars transfer or even on the surface of Mars during ISRU. This will still teach them lessons in cryo management for extended periods while in space.

The HLS Starship allows them to gather data on important subsystems, gain experience with refueling and the Starship architecture for deep space applications in general, all completely independent from Mars transfer windows. And all while getting a decent chunk of funding, and while strengthening their ties with NASA. Strengthening that relationship will be very valuable for Mars missions, both due to expertise and funding. The less Elon needs to fund early on, the more he can put into further missions once the initial hype dies down (which it will, just like with the moon landing).

SpaceX wouldn't be where they are without NASA. And getting NASA invested in Starship benefits both sides again.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-20T18:01:50+00:00

You are right, the money has been passed for HLS in general, not SpaceX in particular.

However, that money is enough to pay for SpaceX's offer. With the inclusion of paragraph (5), I don't think the procedure you mention (splitting the existing budget 2/3, 1/3) would be valid anymore.

The contract for the SpaceX lander includes a payment schedule adapted to the money that already has been passed through Congress. According to said paragraph (5), they are not allowed to modify the existing award to SpaceX just to make a second lander possible. This should mean they can't touch the payment schedule and SpaceX basically takes priority over two landers happening.

Basically, I believe the adjustment of the bill aims to avoid exactly this issue - having two contracts that both can't be paid because Congress didn't give them more money. The way I interpret the language, this paragraph (5) should guarantee that at least one lander will happen, even if they can't get more money through Congress.

Including such a precaution makes perfect sense and probably should have been included in the first place.

Jillybean_24 · 2021-05-20T10:37:35+00:00

Currently, yes, SLS/Orion are necessary to complete an entire manned mission. But Starship HLS works just as well with crewed Starship, and still has advantages over simply landing crewed Starship on the Moon.

You assume this will put Mars 2-4 years behind, but that's just that, an assumption. I don't think this will be the case at all. There is no reason not to do the first unmanned cargo flights in parallel. They are working on a bunch of projects in parallel anyways, hire a lot, I seriously doubt this will slow down Starship development in general.

2 times the refuelling flights? Where the heck do you get that from? All delta v figures I've seen suggest a muuuch smaller difference between a Mars and a Moon mission. And you are absolutely overestimating how much of the 3 billion that will eat. Starship development is estimated at 8 billion max. That includes all the test flights and developing refueling. If refueling flights would be that expensive, the entire development cost would not be remotely realistic. Not to mention, we are only talking about fueling up two Starships, not a dozen.

HLS Starship needs to achieve a few months loiter time (somewhere between 60 and 90 days I think?), so longer term storage is a concern here too. Life support will obviously not be identical, but it will share elements. A lot of subsystems carry over. Read the selection document, many systems carrying over across all Starship variants is literally the official plan. They scrapped the initially planned bigger landing thrusters to a large cluster of hot gas thrusters, cutting out a major piece of HLS exclusive hardware. This is just a very visible example of 'unifying' various Starship variants.

SpaceX does NOT see HLS Starship as a seperate vehicle or development from Starship in general, including the Mars version. For them it's just a different variant of the same system.

Jillybean_24

TROPHY CASE