Can a lot of debris slow down your game?

[OUScooby]

I was just wondering how much resources it uses up if you have a lot of debris. Can it significantly slow down you game, or does it not have any noticeable effects on performance? I've been a bit of a litter bug and currently have 380 pieces of debris scattered about the solar system.

[FlamedSteak]

It would take up some processing power, but I wouldn't imagine anything significant enough to cause lag.

[Qumefox]

It would only cause lag if you were close enough to it for it to be rendered and get physics calculations done.. while it's just an icon on the map and 'on rails', it doesn't take up much in the way of resources.

The only downside is it clutters up your map. though since you can turn off viewing debris now, even that doesn't really matter.

[Flixxbeatz]

I disable debris for failsafe and smooth operations.

[RawChicken]

I dont know exactly, but back on my first savegame, I had tons and tons of debris and abandoned ships all around space, the game got laggy, thou, i thought is was my laggy PC.

After starting a new savegame I saw some improvements in game speed, I think is was for not having so much debris around.

[KerbMav]

A litter bug like you might have a fortune on his hands, when career mode comes and everything will start cost money/resources - salvage mission anyone? ;o)

That is if the game's final version will accept beta save files.

[Merinsan]

Short answer, yes.

It really depends on how much you have. It's probably going to take a long time before it becomes noticeable, ie if you have millions of pieces it will probably lag you, with 1 piece it wont. When it becomes noticeable is somewhere in between.

[Brotoro]

Sure. Parts is parts, as they used to say.

[Tommygun]

I had a bad unplanned Rendezvous that left my equatorial orbit around Kerbin looking like Saturn.

It didn't cause any lagging, but it did make getting into orbit more dangerous and I had a few near misses with debris.