What do yellow time numbers really mean?

[strider3]

I am having an issue with the time numbers, in the upper left of the KSP window, flashing to yellow. I'm told this indicates a problem that will start a "physics warp" issue, which is causing my orbital station to come apart when setting a port on the station as "target" or when actually docking with the port. What, exactly, is the time numbers turning to yellow momentarily telling me? Is it a RAM issue, a CPU issue? What exactly should I be looking at to troubleshoot and alleviate the problem?

[Lisias]

It's a performance issue. Your rig is not being able to keep up the pace of the simulation, and so the Kerbal Time is slower than real time.

When that numbers get red, things start to get hairy.

There's an option on the Settings that define the "granularity" of the simulation, but by changing that the Kerbal Time quantum (the smallest amount of time jn which a event can be detected) can be too big and so the gaming is compromised. The name of the thing is "Max Physics Delta-Time per Frame" and you can reach it on the first page of the Settings from the Main Menu.

The two canonical ways to solve this issue is dropping the part count or mangling that option above (I forgot the name, I'll be back with it later).

There's an Add'On called Time Control that allows you to "bullet time" the game, so the physics engine can have more time to do its thing. It's annoying, as you would be playing at a fraction of the real-time, but at a least things will work.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Lisias
Added the name and the link

[strider3]

To try and eliminate possible resource "stealers" (viruses and such) I did do a scan of my system and found some items to quarantine and remove. Where these stealing resources while playing KSP...I don't know.

But which "performance issue" are we talking about...what part of my rig is not able to keep up with the simulation...RAM, CPU, GPU? Will any of these cause the yellow flashes on the time indication...or does it come from only 1?

The part count on this station is much smaller (at this point in it's construction) than previous stations I have built, so I don't get why this has suddenly become an issue.

Edited January 26, 2020 by strider3

[HvP]

1 hour ago, strider3 said:

But which "performance issue" are we talking about...what part of my rig is not able to keep up with the simulation...RAM, CPU, GPU? Will any of these cause the yellow flashes on the time indication...or does it come from only 1?

What the color change is trying to tell you is that the game can no longer compute physics in real time. It has to take more than one second in real time to process one second's worth of in-game time. This makes your simulation appear to run in slow motion. Every experienced player gets this a few times in every game, especially for a yellow clock. Occasional yellow clocks are normal and shouldn't be a concern unless it's running in the red frequently and causing the game to be unplayable for you.

Unless you are using certain mods the CPU is the main bottleneck - especially when using high part counts, during moments of extreme physical stress on the craft (like explosions, atmospheric shock, or decoupling several parts at once), and when using physics time warp. Accelerating physics time warp in atmosphere will almost always cause the clock to turn yellow or red.

The graphics card of your computer isn't really being used to simulate the physical interactions of parts in your ship, and the game has been balanced so that you'll usually have graphics options that don't slow down a computer too much. Some stock graphics setting that can slow things down quite a bit on some systems are "terrain scatter" in the main settings menu, and atmospheric effects quality.

But having said that, several graphics mods such as Scatterer and visual packs for textures can increase the complexity of the rendering enough to slow things down too. Usually this results in loss of frame rate and sluggish control, but I've had it slow down the physics clock on my older system too.

RAM is not an issue with the physics clock at all. If you run out of RAM at any point the game will simply freeze and/or crash to desktop.

Edited January 26, 2020 by HvP

[strider3]

57 minutes ago, HvP said:

What the color change is trying to tell you is that the game can no longer compute physics in real time. It has to take more than one second in real time to process one second's worth of in-game time. This makes your simulation appear to run in slow motion. Every experienced player gets this a few times in every game, especially for a yellow clock. Occasional yellow clocks are normal and shouldn't be a concern unless it's running in the red frequently and causing the game to be unplayable for you.

Unless you are using certain mods the CPU is the main bottleneck - especially when using high part counts, during moments of extreme physical stress on the craft (like explosions, atmospheric shock, or decoupling several parts at once), and when using physics time warp. Accelerating physics time warp in atmosphere will almost always cause the clock to turn yellow or red.

The graphics card of your computer isn't really being used to simulate the physical interactions of parts in your ship, and the game has been balanced so that you'll usually have graphics options that don't slow down a computer too much. Some stock graphics setting that can slow things down quite a bit on some systems are "terrain scatter" in the main settings menu, and atmospheric effects quality.

But having said that, several graphics mods such as Scatterer and visual packs for textures can increase the complexity of the rendering enough to slow things down too. Usually this results in loss of frame rate and sluggish control, but I've had it slow down the physics clock on my older system too.

RAM is not an issue with the physics clock at all. If you run out of RAM at any point the game will simply freeze and/or crash to desktop.

I'm still at a loss. I get a few, short "yellows" but whenever I have them, I can't dock or even target a port on my station without it coming apart. There are no "moments of extreme physical stress"...unless you count targeting a docking port as such? I have no graphics mods installed...I prefer performance over "pretty pictures". So...anybody else have a suggestion on what is going on?

[linuxgurugamer]

4 minutes ago, strider3 said:

I'm still at a loss. I get a few, short "yellows" but whenever I have them, I can't dock or even target a port on my station without it coming apart. There are no "moments of extreme physical stress"...unless you count targeting a docking port as such? I have no graphics mods installed...I prefer performance over "pretty pictures". So...anybody else have a suggestion on what is going on?

Two things.  First is part count, second are the installed mods.  Parts only mods usually aren't a problem, but functional mods which have to be running all the time can hurt.  I include various graphical mods in this list.

[HvP]

4 hours ago, strider3 said:

I get a few, short "yellows" but whenever I have them, I can't dock or even target a port on my station without it coming apart.

Does the yellow timer start happening when you come into physics range of your station? In space the game loads in nearby vessels when you approach within 2.5 km of each other.

Also, does your station hold together if you never attempt to dock or target it? Or does it start flying apart even if you don't?

If the station shakes apart even if you aren't trying to dock then I think you might have the order of causation backwards. You could be getting the yellow timer BECAUSE the station is unstable and beginning to shake itself apart - which would count as extreme physical stress.

Try switching to your station when there are no other ships around and see if it still flies apart. If it does then you may have a glitch that can strike vessels that have either 1) too many autostruts across flexible parts of your station, or 2) very weak joints with flexible parts causing uncontrollable oscillation. The possible fixes for either of these problems on existing vessels are mutually exclusive. For (1) you need to turn off as many autostruts as you can as quickly as possible, for (2) you need to turn on autostruts for key parts of the station as soon as you can.

It's possible to pause the game (ESC) and then bring up the cheat menu at the same time (ALT+F12) even before the scene finishes loading in. This should give you time to turn on the check box for "Unbreakable Joints" which might give you time to test the autostrut hypothesis.

I don't know if any of this will help, but it's my best guess based on what you've said so far.

Edited January 27, 2020 by HvP

[strider3]

On 1/26/2020 at 7:10 PM, HvP said:

Does the yellow timer start happening when you come into physics range of your station? In space the game loads in nearby vessels when you approach within 2.5 km of each other.

Also, does your station hold together if you never attempt to dock or target it? Or does it start flying apart even if you don't?

If the station shakes apart even if you aren't trying to dock then I think you might have the order of causation backwards. You could be getting the yellow timer BECAUSE the station is unstable and beginning to shake itself apart - which would count as extreme physical stress.

Try switching to your station when there are no other ships around and see if it still flies apart. If it does then you may have a glitch that can strike vessels that have either 1) too many autostruts across flexible parts of your station, or 2) very weak joints with flexible parts causing uncontrollable oscillation. The possible fixes for either of these problems on existing vessels are mutually exclusive. For (1) you need to turn off as many autostruts as you can as quickly as possible, for (2) you need to turn on autostruts for key parts of the station as soon as you can.

It's possible to pause the game (ESC) and then bring up the cheat menu at the same time (ALT+F12) even before the scene finishes loading in. This should give you time to turn on the check box for "Unbreakable Joints" which might give you time to test the autostrut hypothesis.

I don't know if any of this will help, but it's my best guess based on what you've said so far.

I've gone to a backup save where no other ships but the station are in Kerbin orbit, and started the Window Performance Monitor. Flying the station, I'm getting regular flashes to yellow but I do not see CPU or Memory maxing out on the performance monitor?

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by strider3

[strider3]

On 1/26/2020 at 3:49 PM, HvP said:

What the color change is trying to tell you is that the game can no longer compute physics in real time. It has to take more than one second in real time to process one second's worth of in-game time. This makes your simulation appear to run in slow motion. Every experienced player gets this a few times in every game, especially for a yellow clock. Occasional yellow clocks are normal and shouldn't be a concern unless it's running in the red frequently and causing the game to be unplayable for you.

Unless you are using certain mods the CPU is the main bottleneck - especially when using high part counts, during moments of extreme physical stress on the craft (like explosions, atmospheric shock, or decoupling several parts at once), and when using physics time warp. Accelerating physics time warp in atmosphere will almost always cause the clock to turn yellow or red.

The graphics card of your computer isn't really being used to simulate the physical interactions of parts in your ship, and the game has been balanced so that you'll usually have graphics options that don't slow down a computer too much. Some stock graphics setting that can slow things down quite a bit on some systems are "terrain scatter" in the main settings menu, and atmospheric effects quality.

But having said that, several graphics mods such as Scatterer and visual packs for textures can increase the complexity of the rendering enough to slow things down too. Usually this results in loss of frame rate and sluggish control, but I've had it slow down the physics clock on my older system too.

RAM is not an issue with the physics clock at all. If you run out of RAM at any point the game will simply freeze and/or crash to desktop.

Here's 2 screens of my settings. I've been playing with them maxed out with no real issues...until now. Which of these settings might help in getting the station completed? I've heard that my open docking ports can also be a "drag" on my system. I'm hoping once these port are filled, things will return to normal.

 

[strider3]

On 1/26/2020 at 7:10 PM, HvP said:

Does the yellow timer start happening when you come into physics range of your station? In space the game loads in nearby vessels when you approach within 2.5 km of each other.

Also, does your station hold together if you never attempt to dock or target it? Or does it start flying apart even if you don't?

If the station shakes apart even if you aren't trying to dock then I think you might have the order of causation backwards. You could be getting the yellow timer BECAUSE the station is unstable and beginning to shake itself apart - which would count as extreme physical stress.

Try switching to your station when there are no other ships around and see if it still flies apart. If it does then you may have a glitch that can strike vessels that have either 1) too many autostruts across flexible parts of your station, or 2) very weak joints with flexible parts causing uncontrollable oscillation. The possible fixes for either of these problems on existing vessels are mutually exclusive. For (1) you need to turn off as many autostruts as you can as quickly as possible, for (2) you need to turn on autostruts for key parts of the station as soon as you can.

It's possible to pause the game (ESC) and then bring up the cheat menu at the same time (ALT+F12) even before the scene finishes loading in. This should give you time to turn on the check box for "Unbreakable Joints" which might give you time to test the autostrut hypothesis.

I don't know if any of this will help, but it's my best guess based on what you've said so far.

Yes, the station holds together just fine, no "death wobbles" at all, until I set one of the ports as a target. Note that, as I approach the station, the station is set as target (the root part, a cupola in this case). Everything is fine until I try and change the target to one of the empty docking ports...then several large parts just "disconnect"...no wobbles. The parts disconnect at joints created in the VAB, never at joints using the "weldable" docking ports.

I am going to try the "Unbreakable Joints" thing now.

Here's a screen of the station, in it's present form:

Edited January 30, 2020 by strider3

[strider3]

"It's possible to pause the game (ESC) and then bring up the cheat menu at the same time (ALT+F12) even before the scene finishes loading in. This should give you time to turn on the check box for "Unbreakable Joints" which might give you time to test the autostrut hypothesis."

I do not see this option anywhere after Alt+F12?

Never mind...found it. 

Edited January 30, 2020 by strider3

[HvP]

Docking ports can cause sluggish performance because every open docking port is constantly checking to see if there is another port nearby to connect with. A large number of lights added to your station can also slow things down.

Your total CPU doesn't have to max out in order to slow down the physics calculations, there just has to be a bottleneck in one of the cores. And it does look like two of your CPU cores are showing around 80%-85%. So while the calculations aren't coming to a halt by freezing up the system, it is slowing down a little. Reducing the graphics settings will help a little, sure, but I still don't think this has much to do with your problem. An intermittent yellow clock is perfectly normal with large builds and I've never seen a problem quite like this before.

Having large structural parts come unglued just because a docking port is targeted is very, very weird. My first instinct would be to try and isolate one of the mods you have have installed, and the most suspicious mod would be any one that changes how parts attach to each other when docked - like the Konstruction weldable joints mod. I understand that you've raised this issue in the forum for that mod and not had much luck, though.

If it were me I'd start by reducing your graphics settings until you can play without getting yellow clock timers. If the problem persists then try starting a sandbox game for testing purposes and use cheat orbit to put a large station up with no modded parts on it, no weldable joints. Cheat a vessel into a rendezvous with it and see if you still get the disconnecting parts problem when you target a port. If it's still happening then make a copy of your KSP folder and remove all mods and test. Add them back in one by one to see if any particular one is causing the problem.

4 minutes ago, strider3 said:

"It's possible to pause the game (ESC) and then bring up the cheat menu at the same time (ALT+F12) even before the scene finishes loading in. This should give you time to turn on the check box for "Unbreakable Joints" which might give you time to test the autostrut hypothesis."

I do not see this option anywhere after Alt+F12?

If you select the "cheat" subsection on the left the option for "unbreakable joints" is near the top, just under "hack gravity."

(I like your station BTW. It's a pity it's giving you problems)

Edited January 30, 2020 by HvP

[strider3]

>HvP, I am going to try the unbreakable joints cheat...for now...that seems like an easy one. If the problem continues I think I will follow your suggestion of cheating a large station, without the weldable parts, into orbit and try a docking. If that doesn't solve it, I'll try reducing my graphics settings as a last resort. I'll hate it if that's the answer but this system is getting on in years. On a positive note, with Microsoft getting back into the flight simulator business, I see a new high powered gaming machine in my future .

[strider3]

Well...that didn't work. It almost seems like the unbreakable joints cheat made matters worse? More large chunks of the station came off as soon as I targeted one of it's docking ports. So, I will now try to cheat a station into orbit, without the Konstruction mod weldable ports, and see if that's the issue. If it is then my career is basically over. I don't see how else to build a large refueling station that will hold together without these ports? This time, the disconnects happened at welded ports as well as attachments made in the VAB.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by strider3

[strider3]

I'll try some settings first. Which settings, in the screenshots higher up, would you recommend I start with?

[HvP]

@strider3 Ok so we know that the unbreakable joints cheat won't do the trick, and it doesn't look to me like an autostrut issue either.

If you still want to test graphic settings then the only ones that should make much difference in space are the "Render Quality", "Texture Quality", and reflection refresh and texture settings. The others really only take effect in atmosphere or on the surface.

You might also want to make sure that you have "Rigid Attachment" turned OFF for all of your parts. It shows up when you right-click on a part (may be with advanced tweakables turned on.) While rigid attachment sounds like it would help, it actually makes parts break before they bend and could make the problem worse.

Did you have any luck trying a station without any weldable joints anywhere on it? Or even trying a copy of the game without the mod installed? What other mods do you currently have installed and - crucially - are they all up to date. Sometimes problems like these happen because the mod doesn't match the version of the game its running on. When this happens next time bring up the F3 report screen and see if it's telling you about any collisions or part failures on the vessel. And then also pull up ALT+F12 and look at the "Console" category to see if there are any obvious errors being reported in your log.

Except for the suggestions I've already given I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a loss to explain this. I'm not a modder myself and I've never seen a problem like this before. But I promise you, it's entirely possible to build large stations that don't do this in the game.

Edited February 5, 2020 by HvP

[strider3]

I went back to "default" settings, and only changed resolution, full screen...things like that...and left the ones you mentioned as found. I thought I had it because flying the station I had solid green numerals. Flying the approaching ship, however, resulted in the yellow flashes as I came close to 2k meters from the station and the same result when I targeted one of the weldable ports...station came apart in large chunks. It doesn't wobble or shake...pieces just separate and drift off. I guess I'll start over without the modded ports...and hope someone comes up with weldable ports that actually work without causing issues.

I don't see how you can build a very large refueling station with standard ports as attachment points for the various arms and tanks? In my experience the station becomes "wobbly" as heck, and eventually shakes itself apart because of the "loose" connections afforded by a standard docking port?

S-I-G-H 

[swjr-swis]

On 1/30/2020 at 7:48 PM, strider3 said:

Here's a screen of the station, in it's present form:

1 hour ago, strider3 said:

I don't see how you can build a very large refueling station with standard ports as attachment points for the various arms and tanks? In my experience the station becomes "wobbly" as heck, and eventually shakes itself apart because of the "loose" connections afforded by a standard docking port?

 

To be honest, that really isn't a 'very large' station, and it should have no problem working fine in stock, with stock docking ports and a bit of autostrutting.

I don't have your mod parts of course, but I mimicked the station as best I could to test:

Spoiler

Full stock station made of 6 segments joined by Sr docking ports. Approaching with heavy transport, one of the smaller standard ports targeted.

Docking successful - no wobbles on targeting, approach, docking, or afterwards. Timer stayed fully green throughout the operation.

I suspect there is a mod interaction at fault in what you're experiencing. It may be worth cutting it out; you might not need it as much as you think.

 

[AHHans]

5 hours ago, strider3 said:

I don't see how you can build a very large refueling station with standard ports as attachment points for the various arms and tanks? In my experience the station becomes "wobbly" as heck, and eventually shakes itself apart because of the "loose" connections afforded by a standard docking port?

Well, the senior size docking ports are fairly sturdy. Not as sturdy as a permanent connection made in the VAB, but still quite sturdy. Combined with autostruts to grantparent this keeps my stations together well enough.

Another thing is that I keep my space stations in free fall, and don't try to "throw them around". That includes switching off SAS on the station - so that it doesn't try to rotate the station - and moving the craft that dock to a station around the station, instead of rotating the station. Any wobble that does get induced by docking or when I do need to rotate or accelerate the station will die down eventually if you keep it in free fall and have SAS off. Hmmm... maybe that's your problem: depending on where the control point is and where the reaction wheels are, SAS can actually increase the wobble while trying to reduce it.

[RizzoTheRat]

How close are you getting before selecting the port?  Have you tried getting right up close to the station without selecting anything?

The reason I ask is because there are 2 stages to the whole physics range thing, with a Load distance where it puts in on the screen and I think starts calculating the physics for it as one lump, and an Unpack distance where it starts calculating physics on all the parts.  The default unpack distance in orbit is 200m, so it's worth seeing if you can get well inside that to ensure the station is unpacked before targeting the port, which will tell you if it's a physics problem when unpacking or an issue with targeting the port, as I think it will let you target a part before it's unpacked, but I don't know if that forces it to unpack.

Sometimes clipped parts can cause things to fall apart on unpacking.

 

 

Agree with AHHans that the Clamoptron Seniors are pretty good.  I autostrut the extremities of all my stations and ships, ie the docking ports and engines, to the root part and find everything's stable.  As above though I don't manoeuvre my stations and leave SAS turned off.

 

 

 

[strider3]

8 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

How close are you getting before selecting the port?  Have you tried getting right up close to the station without selecting anything?

The reason I ask is because there are 2 stages to the whole physics range thing, with a Load distance where it puts in on the screen and I think starts calculating the physics for it as one lump, and an Unpack distance where it starts calculating physics on all the parts.  The default unpack distance in orbit is 200m, so it's worth seeing if you can get well inside that to ensure the station is unpacked before targeting the port, which will tell you if it's a physics problem when unpacking or an issue with targeting the port, as I think it will let you target a part before it's unpacked, but I don't know if that forces it to unpack.

Sometimes clipped parts can cause things to fall apart on unpacking.

 

 

Agree with AHHans that the Clamoptron Seniors are pretty good.  I autostrut the extremities of all my stations and ships, ie the docking ports and engines, to the root part and find everything's stable.  As above though I don't manoeuvre my stations and leave SAS turned off.

 

 

 

I don't see the option to "target" a port until 200 m. I'll try again with the arriving ship much closer than 200 and see what happens.

15 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

 

To be honest, that really isn't a 'very large' station, and it should have no problem working fine in stock, with stock docking ports and a bit of autostrutting.

I don't have your mod parts of course, but I mimicked the station as best I could to test:

  Reveal hidden contents

Full stock station made of 6 segments joined by Sr docking ports. Approaching with heavy transport, one of the smaller standard ports targeted.

Docking successful - no wobbles on targeting, approach, docking, or afterwards. Timer stayed fully green throughout the operation.

I suspect there is a mod interaction at fault in what you're experiencing. It may be worth cutting it out; you might not need it as much as you think.

 

@swjr-swisI'm curious about your version of the station. What parts are those senior ports attached to? It looks like you melded a smaller tank into the orange ones forming the "arms"? And the central "hub"...apparently I'm missing something basic about ship construction as I've never seen anything like that. Also, how did you get the navball moved over to the left, like that? That's handy!

Edited February 10, 2020 by strider3

[strider3]

<AHHans> You also mentioned the location of the reaction wheels...do you find that having them close to a central point is better than having them hanging way out at the ends?

[AHHans]

@strider3: If you type the "@" symbol followed by the (the first characters of) a name, then the forum software will give you a selection of names that start with the already-typed characters. If you select one of them like that then that person gets a notification, making it easier to quickly reply to a question.

About the reaction wheels: I meant the placement of reaction wheels in relation to the control point. SAS only considers the movement of the control point when deciding which control input it generates. So if you have the control point on one side of a bendy part of, e.g., a station and reaction wheels on the other side of the bendy part, then any bending around that part will be amplified by SAS(*). Not putting the reaction wheels at the ends of a craft helps against this, but IMHO switching off SAS when possible or careful selection of the control point when it isn't is better. On space stations I have this kind of problem with docked craft: they have their own reaction wheels, and the normal (or even worse the junior) docking ports are quite bendy. So leaving SAS on for such a station is a recipe for disaster. And just today I had a similar problem with a launching rocket: I forgot to switch the control point to the probe core below the bendy part (the axle of the spin-gravity section), so SAS was using the capsule on the top of the rocket as reference with nearly all the torque coming from the engines at the bottom of the rocket...

(*) If you have the BG DLC, then you can make a demonstration case: have a docking port, some girders, some hinges with little or no torque (and no damping), some girders again and a command capsule with reaction wheels in a line (with batteries etc.), cheat that into orbit, switch on SAS to prograde (or whatever), and then select either the capsule or the docking port as control point and wiggle it around somewhat.

[RizzoTheRat]

1 hour ago, strider3 said:

 Also, how did you get the navball moved over to the left, like that? That's handy!

Escape - Settings,  and scroll to the bottom.

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, strider3 said:

I'm curious about your version of the station. What parts are those senior ports attached to? It looks like you melded a smaller tank into the orange ones forming the "arms"? And the central "hub"...apparently I'm missing something basic about ship construction as I've never seen anything like that.

It's a Rockomax X200-32 LFO tank, with a Sr port at either end. Except instead of attaching it to the node, you attach it on the side, then use the rotate and offset tools to meld them into the orange tank.

The central hub does the same trick twice, starting from a Rockomax X200-32. rotate so you got all three axes covered, then offset them into each other until their centers overlap, et voilá: a 2.5m center hub node with six Sr ports to build out from.

Spoiler

The docking arms are build by radially attaching  a Rockomax X200-32 LFO tank, offsetting it into the orange tank until the center lines cross, then placing Sr ports at either end.

The same trick times two creates the central hub, except the starting tank is the same one.

Attach radially, rotated so they each cover one of the three axes, then offset until their centers overlap.

There you go, a full stock 2.5m center hub node.

Here's the link to the craft file (made in 1.3.1, should be compatible with later versions): https://www.dropbox.com/s/2x2eaebr34pp5hq/Strider3-teststation.craft?dl=0

 

3 hours ago, strider3 said:

Also, how did you get the navball moved over to the left, like that? That's handy!

That very last slider 'Navball Pos' is the one you need.