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physical time acceleration vs time warp


Conarr

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Can someone help me understand this? Physical time acceleration is pressing the (alt+<>) and Time Warp is just <>. But I don't understand the difference. How are they different, why would there need to be a distinction and what situation require one over the other?

I know this has probably been covered all over, but I can't find it right now - here or on the wiki. Maybe I'm just defective with my search criteria.

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Physics time warp continues to simulate physics (collisions, forces, bending etc.) so you need to use it in any situation where there are forces acting on your vessel (engine burning, atmospheric drag etc.).

Standard warp works in situations where there's no forces acting on your vessel except gravity and treats your entire craft as a single point allowing much higher warp speeds when you're following an unchanging, predictable path.

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Normal time warp can run much faster, and stops physics from being calculated on your ship (it goes 'on rails'). You have no control, it's just fast forward. Physics warp doesn't run as fast, and the physics calculations are still being done. You have control of your ship, everything just runs faster. You have to be careful with this, the way it does this (as I understand it) is the game is running fewer calculations each second, so it's faster but less accurate. This means it's much easier to go off course and/or rip your ship apart.

One of the things I've been doing lately is using PW to orient my ships without wasting RCS (when I have the time to do it, it doesn't work so hot if you have a maneuver coming up in under a minute). It takes longer, but you can turn very large ships with very small probes.

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Time warp is just that, it makes time go faster, but it stops all physics calculations. If you are in a stable orbit, then you will stay that way as long as you are in time warp (you can still have encounters with other planets and moons though). You can't use it when in an atmosphere, or with the engines on, and you can't change anything when in time warp (like the direction you're heading, activating solar panels, RCS, etc.).

With physics warp everything is still being calculated. You can activate engines, enter an atmosphere, or do anything else, just a little bit faster (only 2X - 4X regular speed). Physics warp can also break things if your ship is too big or complicated, or too many things are going on at once.

Time warp is just there to make the game tolerable. A transit to Jool can take 300 days, or 75 days with physics warp. But it just takes a few minutes with time warp. Physics warp is the same principle, making you not waste so much time waiting for something to happen, it's just that the complexity of the physics calculations make it not feasible to go much faster than 4X regular speed. Also, you don't want to go too much faster than normal when important things are happening, like using fuel, or being in an atmosphere.

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However, as I'm sure you've noticed from the popup that the game gives you, calculating physics at 4x normal speed wrecks havoc with any large craft designs when forces act upon them. For example, a plane that has a small wobble with ASAS turned on inside the atmosphere can and will shake itself to pieces when on max time acceleration. Also, try to avoid any time acceleration when firing your engines (except for ion, or possibly nuclear for long burns). For higher thrust engines, this will tear your craft apart.

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Okay, I think I have it now. And the T+ clock turns red for physics warp right? And yellow for Time Warp?

That's actually another feature of the game. When your computer can't handle the current time acceleration setting, it will 'slow down' the KSP time scale, hence creating lag. The clock is yellow when you are getting slightly below the selected time acceleration level, and red when you are getting far below the selected time acceleration level. Thus, you will usually see red when on 4x time acceleration, most likely because your computer doesn't want to compute physics as 4x regular speed. When you're seeing yellow or red on 1x time acceleration, your computer is fed up with the standard level of KSP, likely because your 1000+ part space station is too complex for it to render correctly :P

Hope this helps!

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Probably does. I don't see it too often unless I'm doing something dumb - like making attack runs on my 1000 part space station to get it out of my way. Thanks for the input

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That's actually another feature of the game. When your computer can't handle the current time acceleration setting, it will 'slow down' the KSP time scale, hence creating lag. The clock is yellow when you are getting slightly below the selected time acceleration level, and red when you are getting far below the selected time acceleration level. Thus, you will usually see red when on 4x time acceleration, most likely because your computer doesn't want to compute physics as 4x regular speed. When you're seeing yellow or red on 1x time acceleration, your computer is fed up with the standard level of KSP, likely because your 1000+ part space station is too complex for it to render correctly :P

Hope this helps!

I never realised....

I hope for a more powerful computer one day. Mine's not bad, but still...

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