How to break the "68 years limit"(about 2^31s)?

[Cesrate]

68 years of UT is a little too short.

Can we use more bytes? If 8 bytes are used to express UT, then the limit will be long enough.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Cesrate

[numerobis]

That would be 4 bytes already; you want to bump it up to 8 I assume.

[Cesrate]

That would be 4 bytes already; you want to bump it up to 8 I assume.

Oops I made a mistake.

Alright I've edited.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Cesrate

[Mokmo]

Too bad reseting time to zero would mess up the ships more than the planets...

[bwoneill]

I do not believe that KSP uses integers to represent time, but single precision floating point numbers. A 32-bit float has an upper limit of about 3.4e38 or 10^31 yr. However, the precision at that time would be rather low and the practical limits are much lower. If we assume that KSP can function with a maximum timestep of 2^-10 seconds (probably a very conservative estimate, the real limit is likely much higher), then the time when you can no longer achieve that level of precision from a 32-bit float is about 2^140 s or 4.4e34 yr.

Even at 100,000 times time acceleration, that's trillions of times the age of the universe.

[regex]

I do not believe that KSP uses integers to represent time, but single precision floating point numbers

UT is stored as a double.

[bwoneill]

UT is stored as a double.

Even better. That means we have a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times the life of the universe to work with .

[Cesrate]

I do not believe that KSP uses integers to represent time, but single precision floating point numbers. A 32-bit float has an upper limit of about 3.4e38 or 10^31 yr. However, the precision at that time would be rather low and the practical limits are much lower. If we assume that KSP can function with a maximum timestep of 2^-10 seconds (probably a very conservative estimate, the real limit is likely much higher), then the time when you can no longer achieve that level of precision from a 32-bit float is about 2^140 s or 4.4e34 yr.

Even at 100,000 times time acceleration, that's trillions of times the age of the universe.

The "68 years limit" seems to only affect the UT number that shows in Tracking Station. The game's still running after reaching that limit.

If that's right, the only problem is we have a lot of time but a clock to express it properly.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Cesrate

[regex]

The "68 years limit" seems to only affect the UT number that shows in Tracking Station. The game's still running after reaching that limit.

Then there might be a way to overide the display function.

[Cesrate]

Then there might be a way to overide the display function.

The problem is if the amount of bytes can be changed.

[HoneyFox]

The problem is if the amount of bytes can be changed.

No need to do that. Do the divisions in double type form and floor() it to a small integer for year/month/day/hour/minute/second units.

[Cesrate]

No need to do that. Do the divisions in double type form and floor() it to a small integer for year/month/day/hour/minute/second units.

Good idea. Can modder do this?

[HoneyFox]

Good idea. Can modder do this?

I wonder... at what moment can a plugin get into and do the update job. Because you have to update that right between the vanilla KSP UI update codes and the render calls. Otherwise your modification won't affect that.