Enable faster physics warp for very low TWR craft

[Snark]

Having extremely low TWR craft in the game (ion drive, nukes pushing very big craft) makes for an interesting gameplay mechanic. It's a fun challenge to navigate your way in orbit when you can only make very gentle nudges to the craft.

However, having to sit in front of the computer for literally hours to complete a burn is major un-fun. It's not a difficulty challenge, it's just tedious.

Suggestion: Enable higher physics warp speeds for very low TWR craft. The first notch up from the current max of 4 would be, say, 10. Could stop there, or possibly offer higher some higher tiers in factors of two (20, 40, 80).

To make this playable and not godawfully bug-prone, the game can put some limitations on the feature that prevent going to the really-high warp unless all criteria are met:

• Craft must not be in atmosphere.
  
  • Hitting atmosphere while in accelerated mode drops the physics warp down to 4.
    

  [*]Ship acceleration (TWR) must not be higher than the allowable amount.

  • The allowable TWR goes down as the physics warp rate goes up, i.e. warp-20 would have half the limit that warp-10 does.
    
  • If the TWR increases past the limit while in accelerated mode (e.g. due to better mass ratio after burning fuel, or because the player throttled up or activated more engines), it automatically drops down to the next-lower allowable limit.
    

  [*]There can't be any other craft within the "physics bubble" (2.3 km) that causes them to run not-on-rails.

  • Or perhaps they're allowed to be, as long as they themselves meet all the criteria, e.g. are not themselves accelerating or in atmosphere, etc.
    
  • If something comes in range that breaks the criteria, the physics warp drops down to 4.
    

  [*]All reaction-wheel torque is damped down to warp-4 levels.

  • Example: if you're running at physics warp 10, the reaction wheels are running at 40% strength. At physics warp 20, they'd be running at 20% strength.
    
  • This is to make the ship controllable without light touches making it spaz out.
    
  • It also stops SAS from shaking the ship to pieces.
    

  [*]If the ship is in a location where the "normal" (non-physics) timewarp would be limited to a speed < 10 (e.g. due to being very low altitude over a planet), then physics warp is automatically dropped down to 4.

...you get the idea. If I've missed a spot, it would be handled as described above.

This wouldn't let players do anything they can't already do, and with proper care and attention to implementation details as described above, I don't see why it would cause programmatic issues or bugs in the physics simulation. All it would do is take a lot of pointless tedium out of the game, and encourage more exploration of interesting ship designs.

[Balto-the-Wolf-Dog]

Interstellar mod has a function for solar sails that allows them to operate even on rails (I assume by editing the trajectory directly). I'd love to see ions do that stock, especially in tandem with realistic performance. It would make burn-all-the-way transfers performable.

[mattinoz]

Do physics in KSP/Unity reach equilibrium?

I mean situations like this with constant acceleration in a vacuum the forces on the craft must reach a point that it obvious craft won't fall apart.

There must be a point like that when physics calculations are just going to produces exactly the same results and could be scaled back to allow higher rails like warps.

[waterlubber]

I would also like to see the game increasing joint strength by an equivalent factor, and running the thermal system at normal speed. Perhaps in a similar fashion to this multi-threaded physics warp idea I had. I agree though, this would be great!

Do physics in KSP/Unity reach equilibrium?

I mean situations like this with constant acceleration in a vacuum the forces on the craft must reach a point that it obvious craft won't fall apart.

There must be a point like that when physics calculations are just going to produces exactly the same results and could be scaled back to allow higher rails like warps.

This would be fairly difficult to implement. Maybe we just tighten up the joints?

[NeatCrown]

I found one a while ago, but I'm not sure if this is it. Also, this one's from 0.25, so it's likely not compatible (I haven't tried it out myself). But it seems someone made a patch.

[uncle_jew]

Fully agree - KSP has a great xenon engine, but it's completely useless because I would have to stare at the screen for like 30 minutes even with a 4x physics warp. I also keep using bigger chemical engines for orbital maneuvers than necessary, again mostly to avoid having to wait during the burn.

If the ship's parts are in equilibrium (as usually is the case with low thrust), this doesn't need much more calculations than coasting without thrust.