Two stations, head on at 4,500 m/s...

[EBAO]

What happens when two stations are in the EXACT same orbit, 180 out of plane? Will they hit? Is it even possible? Will the physics engine have time to interact?

Lets see...

This one is going to be it!

Hmm no massive nuke explosion...

Just broke off one arm and a couple of panels...

The other stations is only missing a few panels as well.

I am sure now that they are perfectly lined up, they will shred each other after a few more orbits...

[KAO]

google the Time Control mod for ksp, and try setting it up again, but in slow motion.

[HafCoJoe]

google the Time Control mod for ksp, and try setting it up again, but in slow motion.

Sadly it's been out of date for a bit of time . It was like my favorite mod too! Extremely useful for reducing lag in video taping.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

Perhaps add more diverse parts; fuel tanks, pods, etc. that would create more of a boom! At the moment it appears not much would really collide as spectacularly as it could.

EDIT: or the game engine does not register it completely as it is a small frame of time.

[Superfluous J]

At 60fps (which lets face it, most people don't get in this game) the stations would move 75 meters relative to each other every frame. You'd have to be pretty (un)lucky for them to intersect in time even if you had them intersect in space.

[Fel]

At 60fps (which lets face it, most people don't get in this game) the stations would move 75 meters relative to each other every frame. You'd have to be pretty (un)lucky for them to intersect in time even if you had them intersect in space.

Physics isn't framerate relative, that is why it has such an impact on framerate, you cannot render frames for things that haven't happened yet.

And physics SHOULD be predictive, if something is going to collide the next frame is "suppose to" have it collide regardless if you see it or not. I know these calculations can often break with other types of physics engines, it really is just a matter of how much accuracy you want and how much speed you want; but these issues can be complicated and not just a "not in frame, not going to happen" tell all.

[Temeter]

We have have working weapon mods using projectiles, so I don't think they are limited to a specific framerate.

[magnemoe]

Physics isn't framerate relative, that is why it has such an impact on framerate, you cannot render frames for things that haven't happened yet.

And physics SHOULD be predictive, if something is going to collide the next frame is "suppose to" have it collide regardless if you see it or not. I know these calculations can often break with other types of physics engines, it really is just a matter of how much accuracy you want and how much speed you want; but these issues can be complicated and not just a "not in frame, not going to happen" tell all.

However physic opperates with its own refresh rate, you could predict this sort of impacts and done an slow motion to cure it, however it would cost performance for little gain.

Chances for two objects intercept at this speed is very low unless you did a lot of work to set it up

- - - Updated - - -

We have have working weapon mods using projectiles, so I don't think they are limited to a specific framerate.

The weapons moves far slower, bullets might also have an long collision mesh.

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Chances for two objects intercept at this speed is very low unless you did a lot of work to set it up

I've tried this myself and it was too difficult to pull off (for me anyway).

My compute wouldn't handle the stations pictured in the OP, so my craft were much smaller.

[merendel]

However physic opperates with its own refresh rate, you could predict this sort of impacts and done an slow motion to cure it, however it would cost performance for little gain.

Chances for two objects intercept at this speed is very low unless you did a lot of work to set it up

Agreed. Most times a colision occurs between 2 craft its at a couple hundred meters or less. Normaly an overly enthusiastic rendezvous is the cause but sometimes 2 craft that started in the same orbit can meet agian after one transitions into a more ecentric one. Still thats slow enough that most times the ships wont bypass eachother between physics steps. While you can intentionaly generate edge cases such as the 180 degree orbits in the OP you also have to figure that that situation has the unpioleted ship crossing the physics window in 2-3 seconds. Not worth the extra performance hit to cover those rare edge cases.

[EBAO]

Holy mother of Kessler. I just reran that save, and on the very next pass the two (slightly damaged) stations hit much harder. The screen was full of explosions. I was not able to get a quick screen shot due to weird frame lag, but the result was two severely damaged stations, 70ish chucks of debris, and both stations transferred enough momentum to drop the periapis into the atmosphere. The stations will burn up but I now have 10X the amount of debris as before. HA!