This game's performance...

[GeneralVeers]

The games physics is kinda stupid.

Since it seems to be part count that's the biggest factor in determining when the game starts to go slideshow (well, on my PC anyway), I've been wondering this:

When a ship is not firing engines, and is not being subjected to significant forces from any other source except gravity, could the game not be programmed to simply bypass the physics/parts interactions entirely, and treat the whole ship as ONE part? Makes perfect sense for a space station that has no engines. And it would probably also work fine for a ship that's only firing RCS thrusters or running SAS reaction wheels; the forces are small enough that skipping the parts interaction (which makes ships wobble and flex in really unappealing ways, and also causes the nav ball to do wierd wobblies) would still be 99% simulation-accurate.

[TheTom]

Yes it could. NOTHING would significantly change though. Because it is not physics that is slow - it is the UI and it is the resource allocation which is constantly searching ALL parts to find out where to get resources from. Not talking about CPU but in game resources, mostly electricity. The more parts you have the worse it gets, and it gets bad EXTREMELY fast. Also because it really abuses the memory allocation forcing constant garbage collections.

So, no, it is NOT (only and mostly not) the physics thread.

There is a bug report on that. Make a small drone (no need it can fly). Then add 70 fuel cells to it. See the whole performance crash and burn when you turn them on and off. This is why you should use large batteries etc. all the time - many small parts are extremely taxing in the processing loop, even if ignored by physics.

[sal_vager]

Well, 70 fuel cells on a single craft is an unrealistic vessel to expect a player to build unless they were going out of their way to find performance limits, like trying to fill the entire map of an RTS with tanks, yes it will cause problems but then it really should be expected to do so.

All games have limits even if the developer has hidden them from the player, examples include using sprites and different levels of detail at a distance, simpler rendering when moving the camera and per-calculated "physics" on debris and other scenery objects because the players attention should be elsewhere.

Also, the UI is being replaced for 1.1, so you should see some improvements

As this thread is now less about support and is more about discussion it doesn't belong in here, moving!

[TheTom]

Well, 70 fuel cells on a single craft is an unrealistic vessel to expect a player to build unless they were going out of their way to find performance limits, like trying to fill the entire map of an RTS with tanks, yes it will cause problems but then it really should be expected to do so.

Yes and no. Seriously.

What about using a lot of smaller batteries for an early communication satellite. I was there once - with Community Tech Tree the larger batteries come later.

Now use a larger launcher and put 3 on one launcher.

There we went - slideshow. The total part count was relatively under control, but I had like 80 or 120 batteries or something on all satellites combined. Slideshow.

[cantab]

Regardless of whether it's "physics" or "resources", the game continues to encourage the player to spam small parts by burying the larger ones further up the tech tree. I feel there's a case for rearranging the tech tree to get rid of that. All 1.25m fuel tanks in one node, all batteries in one node, and so on. If it means a small tree compensate by upping the science point costs.