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Changing constellations


wpetula

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In the recent KSP 2 video Interstellar Travel, one of the developers mentions how each star in the sky is simulated. The skybox in the pre-alpha footage looks absolutely stunning with hundreds of shimmering stars and nebula.  This poses a few questions:

  • Does the skybox change as you travel between star systems?
  • If so, does the skybox slowly switch to another, or do the stars themselves actually move?
  • Is it technically possible to fly to every star in the sky (even if there is no solar system associated with it?

I hope the first two questions are true. It would be so cool to see constellations from the Kerbolar System morph into new ones as you travel to far-off worlds.

Green background (Kerbolar System)

89cNaJM.jpg

Red/brown background (unknown system)
ZhwgXsr.png

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3 minutes ago, wpetula said:

Is it technically possible to fly to every star in the sky (even if there is no solar system associated with it?

I don't think people realize how difficult it will be to advance to the interstellar stage and how much time it will take to build enough colonies and resources logistics.

Let alone visit more than one other close star.

I mean, most people don't even leave Kerbin SOI, remember?

"You have no idea how fast 1 light year is. This game is going to teach you." Nate S.

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10 minutes ago, wpetula said:

Is it technically possible to fly to every star in the sky (even if there is no solar system associated with it?

On first viewing the 5th video drop, I thought so, but on re-watching it, I don't think so.  I think a given star may be set as navigable, either by stock or mod, but just because it is in the skybox doesn't make it so as I first thought.  I can't imagine it being hard to make it navigable by way of stock config or mod in KSP 2 though as that would be a silly way to roll that out

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Yeah, the "other stars" that you CAN visit, will be visible as points of light in the sky (not part of the skybox at all, the two are totally unrelated). If you have ever played KSP 1 with Distant Object Enhancement and more than one star system at the same time, that's probably the thing they're referring to.

So, the other stars that you CAN visit will probably move around in the sky, but the stars in the skybox itself will not (because as far as the game is concerned the skybox is just 6 images on the inside faces of a cube, therefore the term "sky box" in the first place, tho some games use a sphere instead).

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I was going to ask the same question. I enjoy watching time-lapse videos and time warping through long kerbal journeys, and it would bother me if the backdrop was entirely stationary while moving interstellar distances. Imagine superman flying through the sky for miles, catching up to a jet, but he never catches up to the clouds in front of him or escapes the clouds behind him. It would look very wrong.

So I hope for some parallax effect on the skybox. There are some technical challenges to it, but it's not an unsolvable problem. Even if only half the stars in the sky appear to move, that might be enough to convince me.

7 hours ago, wpetula said:

Is it technically possible to fly to every star in the sky (even if there is no solar system associated with it?

This would bother me slightly. How disappointing would it be to see a star and think, "hey, I can see it getting closer, it's not that much further away!" And then you go through the trouble of flying an interstellar mission only to phase right through it. But maybe the game will present information in such a way that these thoughts never occur to the player, so it would be a non-issue.

So on the one hand I wonder if it wouldn't be better to fake the parallax effect so that stars can only shift by a certain amount before reaching a hard limit, so that the skybox effectively freezes once you've travelled outside the intended play area. That way the player is not misled. On the other hand it might be nice to fly out past all the stars, to the deep dark.

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4 hours ago, jastrone said:

no i think they just say that the other star systems will be visible.

This is what I took from it, too. Not sure how others got the impression that every star would be reachable. Dr. Dodd says that you're gonna see a speck of light in the distance, and that it's a star you can go to.

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Another thing to keep in mind is that as far as it is to the nearest stars, its way, way farther to most stars in the sky. For instance the closest star in Orion is Bellatrix at 243 ly, and the closest stars in Orions belt are 1200 ly away. That means if you were to fly to Proxima Centauri (4.3 ly away) Orion wouldn't look very different, with only his right shoulder slightly a skew.

The stars that would move the most are the ones in the local neighborhood, but since those are the ones that are most likely to be simulated they actually will move when you travel from system to system. 

Edited by Pthigrivi
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13 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I don't think people realize how difficult it will be to advance to the interstellar stage and how much time it will take to build enough colonies and resources logistics.

Let alone visit more than one other close star.

I mean, most people don't even leave Kerbin SOI, remember?

"You have no idea how fast 1 light year is. This game is going to teach you." Nate S.

Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it won’t get done.   
 

And those who do do it, they will be the vocal minority, so we will definitely hear about it.  
 

This is KSP we’re talking about, the word “kerbal” has become an adjective to describe ludicrous, grandiose, dangerous, and extreme.    It doesn’t matter how hard or difficult it is, it’ll get done.  
 

So if they half ass the end game just because only a few players will get there.....  that would be very disappointing of them.  

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@Gargamelmy comment was a direct response to the idea of visiting every start in the sky box. I just said only a few of them are in the 1-4 light years range.

Most of them in reality are 1k+ ly away and are impossible to visit in less than a few (hundred) thousand years.

We also don't have access to swarm star hopping (maybe only in multiplayer).

So, yeah, I'm an advocate of integrating curated modded star systems in the game. But they have to be close.

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