Scale of KSP

[Themohawkninja]

yes its in dev so isnt finished so therefore cant be talked of as we all know games that looked great but were never completed or even had a playable demo, until i see it in a game as described here i say it isnt feasible., not at galaxy size at any rate.

i am hoping that one day it will happen as i it just needs time, but it isnt happening yet and not for a long while.

To be perfectly honest, Spore is the answer. There is a galaxy of star systems, and proto-stars. It is not all generated at once (as that is probably completely impossible with current PCs). If you switch out the Galaxy->System->Planet->Surface, with Galaxy SOI->Star SOI->Body SOI->(current KSP texture streaming as you try and land).

[jinxville]

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.

It\'s a hundred thousand light years side to side.

It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,

But out by us, it\'s just three thousand light years wide.

We\'re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.

We go \'round every two hundred million years,

And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions

In this amazing and expanding universe.

not possible with todays pc\'s end of.

[jinxville]

spore again eh? spore is not the same kind of game as this by any stretch of the imagination, and was also rubbish.

[Themohawkninja]

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.

It\'s a hundred thousand light years side to side.

It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,

But out by us, it\'s just three thousand light years wide.

We\'re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.

We go \'round every two hundred million years,

And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions

In this amazing and expanding universe.

not possible with todays pc\'s end of.

A: We don\'t need to make it THAT big. Who said that Kerbin is in a Milky Way style galaxy? Maybe they are in a really small galaxy.

B: The whole galaxy doesn\'t need to exist at any given time. Only the area within a certain radius, and all other stars would simply appear as the 2D spots that they do now, until you get close enough to them.

C: Way to go with the Monty Python reference!

spore again eh? spore is not the same kind of game as this by any stretch of the imagination, and was also rubbish.

Correct, Spore has very little in common with KSP. That doesn\'t mean you can take parts of a game, and put them in another game.

[Mr_Orion]

I understand what it takes... but I also know of a psuedo-cheat way of making stuff like galaxies. It\'s called a random number generator.

Yeah, it\'s also called 'Making sure all the values entered are possible, making something that can create planets from simple numbers, making sure it\'s still enjoyable and not overly boring, making sure you don\'t have cases where a planet can orbit inside itself or a star or another planet, making sure planets aren\'t square shaped, making sure the textures aren\'t just white noise, making sure the random planet lines up with the random texture'...

[Themohawkninja]

Yeah, it\'s also called 'Making sure all the values entered are possible, making something that can create planets from simple numbers, making sure it\'s still enjoyable and not overly boring, making sure you don\'t have cases where a planet can orbit inside itself or a star or another planet, making sure planets aren\'t square shaped, making sure the textures aren\'t just white noise, making sure the random planet lines up with the random texture'...

You start out small, and you grow from there. Thereby, you can find the issues early on, and find any limit in the size before the values go nuts. That, and you progressively generate it.

[mrxak]

I think the thing to do is have just two or three additional solar systems. One can be a binary system. One can have a supergiant. One can have a brown dwarf. They\'d all be relatively close to Kerbin, and for the sake of simplicity, not moving at all relative to Kerbin.

But the three or four systems we could have in KSP, could be real, actual systems. A host of planets, a hundred or more moons. Comets, a couple asteroid belts, an Oort cloud with a hidden planet or two. Some of this stuff probably needs to be simplified. You can\'t have millions of objects, but perhaps a thousand in each system.

[Mr_Orion]

You start out small, and you grow from there. Thereby, you can find the issues early on, and find any limit in the size before the values go nuts. That, and you progressively generate it.

My point is, you make it sound easy, but it\'s not. It\'s extremely, EXTREMELY difficult. Just our (relatively basic) procedural terrain took months to create!

[jinxville]

A: We don\'t need to make it THAT big. Who said that Kerbin is in a Milky Way style galaxy? Maybe they are in a really small galaxy.

B: The whole galaxy doesn\'t need to exist at any given time. Only the area within a certain radius, and all other stars would simply appear as the 2D spots that they do now, until you get close enough to them.

C: Way to go with the Monty Python reference!

Correct, Spore has very little in common with KSP. That doesn\'t mean you can take parts of a game, and put them in another game.

a/ true

b/ yes but even that would be a gargantuan task

c/ thanks

[TheKerbinator]

I don\'t understand this discussion. One of the main drawbacks of Spore was that every planet looked different and whatever, but essentially they were all the same. The animals walked differently, but were essentially the same.

My point is, I\'d rather have twenty planets handcrafted, each one unique and interesting, rather than bulk-generated boring planets, where anything \'interesting\' is just a model randomly selected to appear there.

[Themohawkninja]

My point is, you make it sound easy, but it\'s not. It\'s extremely, EXTREMELY difficult. Just our (relatively basic) procedural terrain took months to create!

I wouldn\'t think it would be too difficult considering the vast amount of games that use texture streaming, but I have only ever programmed in 2D.

[ForumHelper]

I would like to direct you to this website, which is for another space craft simulation/game that is in the works, but still pre-alpha. It\'s been in development for a very long time, mostly under one individual. If you look at the planned features and the challenges it faces, you will see why. But if you take a look, also, at the currently completed features, you will see some very cool things.

http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=26

Thank you! I\'ll keep an eye on this project for sure.

[jinxville]

My point is, you make it sound easy, but it\'s not. It\'s extremely, EXTREMELY difficult. Just our (relatively basic) procedural terrain took months to create!

exactly you dont just put in an number and create a galaxy, with all the orbits and gravities, what spock called the celestial ballet (well he did in the simpsons)

[Themohawkninja]

exactly you dont just put in an number and create a galaxy, with all the orbits and gravities, what spock called the celestial ballet (well he did in the simpsons)

I know it\'s not easy to program, I\'m just saying there are ways to make it easy/less taxing on your processor.

[Endeavour]

I heard recently the Voyager 1 will soon reach the edge of the solar system. It took over 30 years. In my eyes, that shows that one solar system is large enough for KSP. If the team focuses on this one system, everything can be hand polished and put in properly. There can be multiple asteroid belts, a big Oort cloud way out at the edge, comets that have rediculous orbits, and as many planets/dwarf planets as you can find orbits for.

[Bessy]

its simple do what they do in real life you take a rocket off set it on its way and wile you wait for it to get there do other missions have a alarm set in kerbal time(possible future feature) to say when its time to take back control of a particular mission

the concept already works when going to minmus etc it takes a few days to get there instead of fast forwarding just launch another mission this concept is what the devs are intending i expect when it takes 3 or 4 months to get to the other planets even fast forwarding your talking a fair few min of just sitting around and waiting for crap to happen

[Themohawkninja]

I heard recently the Voyager 1 will soon reach the edge of the solar system. It took over 30 years. In my eyes, that shows that one solar system is large enough for KSP. If the team focuses on this one system, everything can be hand polished and put in properly. There can be multiple asteroid belts, a big Oort cloud way out at the edge, comets that have rediculous orbits, and as many planets/dwarf planets as you can find orbits for.

That would be pretty cool.

They would have to promote Kerbol to a blue super-giant in order to keep people from yelling at Squad for making a system that is way to large for a red dwarf to gravitationally hold. ;P

[Endeavour]

They would have to promote Kerbol to a blue super-giant

A blue star would look better anyways

[Vanamonde]

I also would like a one-system universe, like Firefly, or the stories of Olaf Stapledon (ancient sci-fi writer).

Spore\'s galaxy was an awe-inspiring idea (I\'ve read that it has 100,000 systems?), but seriously, what percentage of that did any player ever get around to visiting?

Oh, shoot! Sorry, I thought you could zoom in on the Firefly thing. The idea is that it\'s a multi-star system with several earth-like planets, but many more terraformed moons of planets. All available by sub-light cruise, since they don\'t have FTL.

[Themohawkninja]

Spore\'s galaxy was an awe-inspiring idea (I\'ve read that it has 100,000 systems?), but seriously, what percentage of that did any player ever get around to visiting?

100,000 systems? DAMN!

But yeah, if they made something that was like twice the size of the Solar System, than I\'d be fine with that.

I just wander how many systems we will get, because I highly doubt that Squad would put in an FTL drive when we only have one star system.

[Divaglio3578]

I suggest that instead of fully navigable systems that count in the hundreds of thousands, that perhaps we have a couple of dozen or so navigable systems, and have placeholder stars to make it seem more immense. That way, we still get the awe-inspiring massiveness, but at less of a cost to our processors

[2008dragon]

I think if there were only like 5 solar systems (one is enough really but if people want more...) it would be sufficient enough. If they also added different home planets in each with a different species of aliens then the Kerbals wouldn\'t have to deal with interstellar travel. Each species could stay in their own system which would leave them with enough to explore.

Just some ideas ;D

My point is, I\'d rather have twenty planets handcrafted, each one unique and interesting, rather than bulk-generated boring planets, where anything \'interesting\' is just a model randomly selected to appear there.

This is kind of what I was thinking too

[Shadownailshot]

Procedural Generation is alot better than you might think. You can set it to craft as many different types of planets/moons/stars/asteroids/comets as you want, with a TON of different details, and it will do that, randomly, but it can save the generated item so that when you come back to it later, it will be the same as you left it. It doesn\'t make carbon copies, unless you set it to make carbon copies. It\'s very versatile, and allows for much larger play areas with a lot less lag.

[Themohawkninja]

Procedural Generation is alot better than you might think. You can set it to craft as many different types of planets/moons/stars/asteroids/comets as you want, with a TON of different details, and it will do that, randomly, but it can save the generated item so that when you come back to it later, it will be the same as you left it. It doesn\'t make carbon copies, unless you set it to make carbon copies. It\'s very versatile, and allows for much larger play areas with a lot less lag.

It\'s been proven to work with areas up to 30,000,000 m². That was with the game filled with hundreds of objects at any given time. It should work on an even grander scale, because in KSP there is much less occupying that same space.

[khenness]

I\'d rather have one well crafted star system than have loads of boring ones with no character.