Question about active radius of ships

[Richy teh space man]

When I land my ships, what kind of "active radius" do I have, by active I mean theres moon rocks and such visible.

Also if I have another ship with a command pod 2km away, does it boost that radius?

The reason I'm asking is because I was thinking of making a line of them across a planet, each ship 2km from the last

[Tommygun]

I believe the active radius is just the vehicle/object you currently have selected.

[HarvesteR]

It's not as simple as an active 'radius' around your ship actually. The terrain will go from max detail near the ship to progressively lower levels of detail as distance increases. For a planet like Kerbin, there are up to 10 levels of detail, each with double the mesh resolution than the one before it. At the maximum level, you also get scatter meshes (trees and rocks), and physics colliders.

Ships other than your own (including crews on EVA) are handled differently. Vessels have three states of existence in the game. Nearest you, they are fully loaded, and simulating physics, same as your own ship. After a certain distance, they stop simulating physics, and are moved along on-rails (or held to the ground). Even further away, vessels unload all of their parts, and are treated as a single point with no visual representation, other than a UI icon.

It should be ok to set up a string of vessels along the surface, each a few km apart. They will be loaded and unloaded as you switch focus.

Cheers

[Richy teh space man]

Ahh I see thanks Harvester