Time warp levels improvement

[Kasuha]

I know higher time warps are on not to suggest list but I am not going to suggest them.

What I am suggesting is to change the currently available warp levels.

The lower levels go like x5, x10, x50, x100. That's rather uneven, the step between x1 and x5 is more than twice that of the step from x5 to x10 (only times two). At higher time warps (beyond x100) steps are always x10 which is a lot and that often leads to problems, especially with current rather long transition period.

What I suggest is to implement time warps in steps of x3 and x10/3, for all existing levels, i.e. x3, x10, x30, x100, x300, x1000, x3000 etc.

I understand the number of arrows in the UI would grow so I suggest to use "half-arrow" when x3 step is used, and "full arrow" when x10 step is used. That would acutally reduce the number of arrows needed by two. In the following picture is an example how it could look for warps x3, x10, x30, and x100 respectively.

Another two nice to have things would be:

- key to direct jump to x1

- configurable length of warp change transition period

[Sirrobert]

IIRC, jumping back to 1 from high warp would have a high chance of awekening the Kraken

[PrivateFlip]

I agree the steps between at the high end are a little to big. This would be a nice solution.

[Kasuha]

IIRC, jumping back to 1 from high warp would have a high chance of awekening the Kraken

I don't see any more reasons for that happening than with direct jump from x5. Currently you can get the warp to x1 pretty fast by repeated pressing the < key as the transition is cancelled by another decrease, it's just to reduce these multiple keypresses to just one because sometimes you need to act fast. It's similar idea to the X key to cancel all thrust.

[PrivateFlip]

I don't see any more reasons for that happening than with direct jump from x5. Currently you can get the warp to x1 pretty fast by repeated pressing the < key as the transition is cancelled by another decrease, it's just to reduce these multiple keypresses to just one because sometimes you need to act fast. It's similar idea to the X key to cancel all thrust.

Sirrobert could have a point. Rhere's a quite a difference between making a step of 5 to 1 and making a step of 100.000 to 1, but this could be circumvented by having the game bring the warp down in multiple safe increments while still only pressing one button

[boomerdog2000]

KAC currently steps your timewarp down at safe intervals, but then again it knows where to start. If we give that to players they may complain it's not instant enough.

[Kasuha]

Sirrobert could have a point. Rhere's a quite a difference between making a step of 5 to 1 and making a step of 100.000 to 1, but this could be circumvented by having the game bring the warp down in multiple safe increments while still only pressing one button

As far as I understand the game implementation, step from "on rails" mode to "full physics" mode does not depend on how long was the "on rails" step just preceding the current state. The ship just has certain speed, certain orientation, certain location and is in certain SOI. All these values depend strictly on timestamp and orbital parameters for which they are calculated, not on any previous values of these. There are a few things iterated such as electric charge but these don't affect physics.

[PrivateFlip]

As far as I understand the game implementation, step from "on rails" mode to "full physics" mode does not depend on how long was the "on rails" step just preceding the current state. The ship just has certain speed, certain orientation, certain location and is in certain SOI. All these values depend strictly on timestamp and orbital parameters for which they are calculated, not on any previous values of these. There are a few things iterated such as electric charge but these don't affect physics.

Yeah, this is my understanding as well and I understand your reasoning: If in extension of the above the "on rails" timewarp has no effect when going to "physics", it wouldn't matter from what timewarp you jump back to 1. However, since sirrobert recals differently and I'm not sure enough to discount his suggestion there is some residual effect from timewarp which could mess up physics, I suggested my workaround.

[vexx32]

Fun fact, folks: You can directly 'jump' to any warp speed by double-clicking the required warp arrow on the bar in the top left of the screen. However, as has been mentioned, jumping from very high timewarps back to x1 can indeed wreck your vessel entirely. As in... completely shred it, parts all scattered in space.

As far as I'm aware, this bug's been around for at least four versions, and although several fixes have been attempted, there has not been a 100% success with making sure the game engine can handle that kind of a switch yet.

I do like the idea of having a more... gradual... change in between the power-of-ten warps we currently have at the higher ranges, though. However, if the devs were to change that, I think it would be best if they redesigned the interface to be more modular -- as in, show the warp speed as the actual warp speed in text instead of the arrow bar, and have a drop down menu to directly select a warp speed to go to, or something akin to that.

[SilverWarior]

jumping from very high timewarps back to x1 can indeed wreck your vessel entirely. As in... completely shred it, parts all scattered in space.

Sorry for me going off-topic but can this be potential cause for all those "spontanuous craft explosions" pepole are expiriencing with KSP 0.22?

End results seem very similar to what pepole are describing with "spontanuous craft explosions".

[Vector]

I agree that the transition period creates real problems and should be configurable. Nowadays I always do "<<>" (left, left, right) in quick succession to skip the transition. It is a decent workaround, but it is frustrating for new players.

When I first started playing KSP it was extremely irritating to try to walk the line between overshooting and slowing down too early and having to wait for a while. Like doing a suicide burn on every time warp. And for no reason other than a bad user interface.

[Deadweasel]

Sorry for me going off-topic but can this be potential cause for all those "spontanuous craft explosions" pepole are expiriencing with KSP 0.22?

End results seem very similar to what pepole are describing with "spontanuous craft explosions".

I think that's somewhat related, actually. When you switch to a craft it's going very quickly from rails to active, and in that split-second, the craft is going from static to every component suddenly reflecting an actual velocity. Ever hear that wind noise when switching to a craft on the ground? I think that's an indicator of what's happening during the load. The ship on the ground isn't moving RELATIVE to the ground, but the planet itself is moving through space. During that moment while physics are being calculated, the ship is experiencing the sudden acceleration while relative velocities are being worked out.

That also explains why solar panels left deployed are suddenly broken off when switching away from and back to the ship.

Back on-topic: I agree it would be nice to have a shortcut key that just killed the time warp, just like there's one to cut the throttle. It doesn't have to be instantaneous; the game should be able to scale the warp back down safely enough to keep things intact, but it can probably do it much faster than the player mashing the "<" key.