Limits of the Kerbol system

[EGB9000]

Why is the stock Kerbol system inescapable?

[The Aziz]

Because there is nothing you can escape to. Try it, send a rocket, set timewarp to max and wait. See you in few months.

[cantab]

You can escape the Sun in the sense that you can get on a trajectory that will forever fly away.

You cannot escape the Sun in the sense of leaving its SOI, because it's the most massive object in the KSP universe so its SOI is infinite. However far away you get, if you aren't close to a planet then the Sun is still the strongest source of gravity.

[HoloYolo]

I once did a mission where I went to 1671 G. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes. Not even close to escaping to even the "closest star" Never will do it again.

[EGB9000]

I know that the game has limits. What I mean is: how would it be explained to Kerbals? Kind of like how we know that Kerbals live forever because it simplifies the game, but people still theorize that they photosynthesize.

Edited June 6, 2016 by EGB9000

[The Aziz]

So let's say you give enough velocity to reach another star. you fly to the boundaries of the system and what now? After hundreds of years even RTG should decay and stop providing power (well, it should!) and you're in interstellar space, which is unknown. You don't know if your vessel/Kerbals will survive exposition to galactic rays n stuff. Also if they do, they might not be able to send any useful data to Kerbin, not to mention return.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

The Kerbol system resides in "The Great Void." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boötes_void

An extremely large area of space with very few galaxies, hence getting anywhere from the Kerbol system is practically impossible. There simply isn't anything nearby to go to.

According to astronomer Greg Aldering, the scale of the void is such that "If the Milky Way had been in the center of the Boötes void, we wouldn't have known there were other galaxies until the 1960s."

Spoiler

 

Edited June 6, 2016 by Rocket In My Pocket

[The Aziz]

Could be, but skybox negates this theory. There are clearly lots of stars or galaxies or whatever shiny objects, (could be really far aways, let's say Kerbol system is at the end of galaxy arm, so there are very few nearby objects) but yeah, there is no point of travelling there unless Kerbal society develops some sort of near-lightspeed propulsion. Because sitting in damn capsule for thousands of years must be terrible.

[magnemoe]

On 5.6.2016 at 1:20 PM, cantab said:

You can escape the Sun in the sense that you can get on a trajectory that will forever fly away.

You cannot escape the Sun in the sense of leaving its SOI, because it's the most massive object in the KSP universe so its SOI is infinite. However far away you get, if you aren't close to a planet then the Sun is still the strongest source of gravity.

You even get escape trajectory off the sun contracts, probably cheaper than mission to Eeloo orbit. 
Two ways this could happen, first is an point where Ap get too high or orbit time get to long and the game calls it escaped.
However physical its also an speed where your get an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_trajectory
This have no Ap

[DChurchill]

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Could be, but skybox negates this theory.

How far out is the skybox?

[The Aziz]

Who knows (devs do, for sure). It could in place where your escape trajectory "ends" and you don't see what's behind a certain point. But it's just a picture anyway.

[EGB9000]

Maybe they are at the end of a galactic arm, but you should take into account of the small scale of the Kerbol system too.

[The Optimist]

Maybe Kerbol is a rogue star

[AbacusWizard]

Clearly Kerbol is a black hole.

[Spartwo]

It isn't inescapable but takes about 70 years. Last I checked at least but that was a long time ago.

[SorryDave]

Way back before career, I sent a crew on a solar escape trajectory when I was attacked by the Kraken on a routine trip to Eve.

[Sereneti]

1) escape Kerbol: its possible. you only need enugh speed. then you have escaped.

2) Leave Kerbols Soi: not possible. - Kerbol is "the center of the universe". If you go fahr enough, you will break the 32bit integer. your game will crash...
(or the kraken will visit...
or the vessel jump into the middle of the sun..
there are so many possible options)

[The Aziz]

I broke time integer once (also, yes, during typical "how far can I get before I get bored"), after certain time it started to show negative numbers, which was quite impressive.

Also,I think something got broken in recent versions, when one was fast enough, furthest visible point was about +200something years. Recently I tried to make a maneuver node as far as possible to keep apoapsis visible. It said that I'm gonna get there in 940904904094 years. Or somethin like that, lots of 9s, 4s and 0s.

[icedown]

I've decided to see what it looks like out there. I've never actually been past Eeloo.  I launched 4 hours and 40 minutes ago and just accelerated past 0.01c (3Mm/s). Still inside the orbit of Dres at 30,400Mm.  Also wanting to see if there is a speed limit.

Edited June 7, 2016 by icedown

[Sereneti]

3 hours ago, icedown said:

I've decided to see what it looks like out there. I've never actually been past Eeloo.  I launched 4 hours and 40 minutes ago and just accelerated past 0.01c (3Mm/s). Still inside the orbit of Dres at 30,400Mm.  Also wanting to see if there is a speed limit.

the 32 bit integer is the speed limit

 

[DChurchill]

3 hours ago, icedown said:

I've decided to see what it looks like out there. I've never actually been past Eeloo.  I launched 4 hours and 40 minutes ago and just accelerated past 0.01c (3Mm/s). Still inside the orbit of Dres at 30,400Mm.  Also wanting to see if there is a speed limit.

Meh. Kerbol just gets real small.

[wumpus]

How long it takes to do interstellar travel in KSP:

Max delta-v of a kerbal vessel ~100km/s (I had a 50km/s thrown together for a test, but Kerbal engineer wouldn't include more than one ion stage (20km/s of drop tanks for my nuke).

Max speed of such a vessel (assumes three times the delta-v) .001C

Time to get to Alpha Centauri: 4000years.

Real time at maximum time warp: 2 weeks.

Or less than two days if the distance to Alpha Cent is scaled down to 1/10th the size like everything else.  Note that 600km/s (assuming you want to slow down) with ion propulsion is *slow* and can only be warped to 4x physical time warp.  My guess is that you might take a few weeks of travel to cut down the delta-v requirements.  The first 30km/s or so was nukes and "only" took 3 hours of burn.  A second try with three stages of ion engines came up to 50km/s during a 2 day burn (this was accelerating a mark 1 capsule, but changing to a command chair (with the needed NTGs) didn't make enough difference).  the ~600km/s (in real time) would be ghastly: no idea how many weeks the break-even time in real time would be, but I suspect it would take at least a month.

[ZooNamedGames]

I've spoken to some of the dev team and those members didn't seem to know the limits of the game. I have used HyperEdit to basically get over a yottameter or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meters. After that the game NaNs out and becomes unoperable, so basically I don't know. The issue with attempting to reach those distances without cheats (such as infinite fuels or HyperEdit) is that no matter your thrust eventually you reach a max speed and max distance you can apply to your distance and over time you will see that you will need your thrust to increase exponentially in order to continue to reach those higher distances within a reasonable amounts of time, which eventually you reach a point even with maximum thrust the game can handle that it would take millions of years to add "1" to the value of the following unit of measurement (such as a yottameter). So HyperEdit is the way to go if you don't want your greatest descendants to be figuring out the answer.

As to where is the skybox? I believe it's inaccessible and that no matter how far out you get you cannot reach it as it likely is just a sprite that moves with you making it beyond the players reach. I believe its like the sun which players who have gone past Eeloo will know, that the sun will only shrink to a certain point and after that it remains the same size no matter the distance (try for yourself using HyperEdit).

[Tw1]

4 hours ago, DChurchill said:

Meh. Kerbol just gets real small.

It is kind of creapy though. So far from anything... No way back.... 

[DChurchill]

12 minutes ago, Tw1 said:

It is kind of creapy though. So far from anything... No way back.... 

Yeah it is a little. Just a little slingshot around Kerbol and you're never coming home.