Is KSP's timewarp system flawed?

[tutike2000]

I think it got fixed a while ago.

Blasting through SOI changes is still very much possible.

Unless you've got KAC installed and set up to bring you out of warp, you're not safe.

[Jart]

Just going to chime in and reiterate what has been said. You really need 2 mods to play this game. KER and KAC. Now go ahead and play without KER if you want to get your calculator out for every flight but otherwise you are just by-guess and by-golly. KER is great for really learning the game.

Playing with these 2, I still consider the game "stock". All other mods are just flavors

I just have to have chatterer and enhanced navball

Edited July 14, 2015 by Jart

[Korizan]

Safest place to warp for multiple days is KSC Simply because everything is on the rails so to speak.

As it stands right now you have a warp to the next morning button @ KSC.

The squad should be able to add in a button next to it for warp to "add time frame here" as the OP suggested.

It might be a bit inconvenient from KSC but considering the Unity Engine I would rather take the safe road then have exploding ships due to a physics engine breakdown.

PS - And to answer the OP question, warp isn't better per say other then it does depict the passage of time where a jump function literally removes distance from the game.

With jump you could have lots of different solar systems in the game but it would break the game as well so to speak with no time reference.

OR how do I say it, the game world would become a lot smaller if that makes sense.

OR there would be no vastness of space in KSP which is exactly what the game is trying to depict.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Korizan

[John FX]

Count me in the "I don`t like the idea" crowd. I would support faster warping and a more accurate `warp to` feature but not a `fade out, fade back later` effect.

EDIT :

Just going to chime in and reiterate what has been said. You really need 2 mods to play this game. KER and KAC. Now go ahead and play without KER if you want to get your calculator out for every flight but otherwise you are just by-guess and by-golly. KER is great for really learning the game.

Playing with these 2, I still consider the game "stock". All other mods are just flavors

I just have to have chatterer and enhanced navball

And now that KAC takes numbers from KER to adjust the alarm so you always have time to do your burn it`s even better than before.

Edited July 14, 2015 by John FX

[abowl]

The only thing that changes is the user experience.

You say this as if its not important

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I don't like this idea. ...

This is spaceflight. Things take time. ...

Ultimately this is a game, and what takes time is planning the mission, building the spacecraft and planning and executing the manouvers. The time you spend warping to the next manouvre or the SOI change is down time. And there should be as little as possible in a game imo.

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PS - And to answer the OP question, warp isn't better per say other then it does depict the passage of time where a jump function literally removes distance from the game.

I know this is a game so the following example can be taken with a grain of salt however i still think it applies. In Stanley Kubricks 2001 Space Oddysey alot of time passes between some of the scenes, and they tell the viewer this eloquently but fading out and fading back in. The user/viewer understands that time has passed. And thats all you need.

[Superfluous J]

Is this really cause for concern? It doesent seem neccesary to take into consideration because it doesent seem like its the goal of the player to intercept the muns SOI.

I will now recuse myself from this thread as my goals for the game do not coincide with yours. You appear to think that unintentional and unplanned SOI changes should just be ignored by the game, while I think they are critically important to both realism AND gameplay.

And I didn't even bring up other things. What if your SOI changing ship is inside Mun's SOI a the time you jumped to? Or inside Mun? Or you were PLANNING on it intercepting Mun (Or more likely Eve) at some point between these times but just forgot because you have 37 ongoing missions and are trying to play stock for some reason so don't have KAC?

But that is not recusing myself.

Edited July 14, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[Korizan]

" In Stanley Kubricks 2001 Space Oddysey alot of time passes between some of the scenes, and they tell the viewer this eloquently but fading out and fading back in. The user/viewer understands that time has passed. And thats all you need."

I just don't see how this is all I need.

Perhaps I am misreading your intent but this sounds more like removing warp and just putting in a jump system.

Which turns it entirely into a flip to frame game and much less of a simulator.

I suppose if you only ran one mission at a time I could see the appeal but what fun is there in that.

IF you did that it would take thousands of years to get anything of value done.

PS - And does lead to the question of why was the warp system put into the game instead of the jump function.

And why did the squad make the system small instead of just mirroring the Sol system.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Korizan

[cantab]

An "instant jump" feature would require quite a bit of work under-the-hood. Things like SOI changes, atmospheric entries, and impacts all need to be checked for in advance and handled. And then how you handle them? If you stop for each one and prompt the player then you lose the instantness of the jump. If you just go straight through then you will get players complaining that they weren't warned, or even saying "my ship vanished" because they never even knew it was an unexpected Mun encounter that flung it off-course or whatever.

[JLtheGrunger]

Oh, the possibilities of such thing

I agree with you, the time-warp feature has some problems, expecially in RSS, even using the Alarm Clock

But there could be other solutions, such as including mods like Time Control in the base game, that way you could reach very distant bodies without having to wait for years.

[pincushionman]

…

I'm going to say again, under the hood should be exactly the same, except all that happens "behind the black." There won't be any unexpected SOI encounters because if you click somewhere along the orbit to set your warp point, that encounter should already be estimated. Using that method it won't be possible to warp to a point tens or hundreds of orbits in the future.

…with the active vessel, that is. No promises about background flights. This is already a problem with warp-to; it just waves its hands and says "shoulda paid better attention."

Now, I'm not a fan of jump-to warp. But on the technical side, anything that this needs is already done with the current warp system. And if it's not (or not good yet; "stop-here" behavior, better forward estimation of SOI and planet surface interactions) it should be.

[uglyduckling81]

If you could select a point in orbit and have the game load up at that point, seems way simpler. 2 clicks, brief load and you are there. Imagine loading up next to jool, and have the game slowly fade it, that would be amazing.

What would be even better if you didn't have to launch either. An improvement on that would be not having to build ships either. Image how good it would be if we just double clicked the KSP icon on the desktop and BOOM and big 'You Win' comes up on the screen and then closes after a few seconds on its own and then your computer shuts down automatically a few seconds after that. What an amazing experience that would be. All the tedious game play removed and just being acknowledged as a winner.

I don't need to skip the time warping as I run many missions at the same time. I use time warp for small parts, like I have just set up a manoeuvre node 3 mins in the future so I warp to it at 50x speed. Perform my manoeuvre and the by-product is my long term mission has moved a little more towards it's KAC alarm time.

I can have missions happening with ancient tech to distant planets while my missions around Kerbin are rocking modern tech. It's a fun way to play and always has something about to happen without the need to flash light years in an instant.

Edited July 16, 2015 by uglyduckling81

[Bug_]

I believe all that needs to be said here, is that the time warp bug needs to be fixed. Even the bug is manageable if you warp to somewhere just ahead of your window, with your finger on the "turn off time warp" button.