A what if: KSP in Outerra engine

[Barklight]

I know it's not going to happen. KSP is rooted firmly in the Unity Engine. The scale, physics, and orbital mechanics plugins that Squad make use of through it work out very, very well for our little Kerbalnauts.

But what if they had (or at some future point) decided to use the Outerra engine? It's a planetary modeling engine which covers all the HQ detail from orbital view to ground level, has built in vehicle and aircraft physics, and procedural generation for the environment. It's so darn pretty, it makes me wonder what KSP could have looked like had this been on the plate 2-3 years ago. Granted, it would blow system requirements completely out of the water in comparison to current... But, oh my, the possibilities!

I just stumbled upon a link to it reading Fark this morning, check it at outerra.com out if you're curious.

[Diewoe]

I ran across the Outerra engine many years ago and the detail is out of this world. Had KSP used that engine instead of the cartoonish one they use now it would have looked beautiful but this engine makes the game more fun for a larger range of players. I can not even imagine the lag that Outerra's detail would cause seeing as we get enough in the unity engine. It's a nice dream though isn't it?

[Captain Sierra]

That looks something like SpaceEngine. Makes me wonder what SpaceEngine is running on. but I can see the lag potential now. Animated grass + 1000 part Whackjob launcher do not mix well.

[Jasmir]

I've loocked at the website, but found nothing about _what_ space-physics is used in their engine. Newtonian N-Body? Patched Conics? Or some weird "space is some liquid filled stuff" - physics?

[Barklight]

Aye, sharper system requirements would cut back a lot of users and educational installations (like the upcoming KSPed version) because many PC's and most school PC's can't handle advanced graphics. But looking beyond that, just for the graphics quality, it sure would have been impressive

Ironically, considering lag or frame rates, I think the KSP would perform better in Outerra than it does Unity. Outerra natively supports multi threading through all available CPU cores and makes use of advanced GPU rendering abilities. The performance gulf current KSP players have between people with average PC's and monster Gaming Rigs would become a lot more noticable, though.

That looks something like SpaceEngine. Makes me wonder what SpaceEngine is running on. but I can see the lag potential now. Animated grass + 1000 part Whackjob launcher do not mix well.

Probably wouldn't be a big issue actually, because of native multi-threading support as mentioned above. Also, I think Outerra supports dedicated PhysX but I am not sure on that one.

I've loocked at the website, but found nothing about _what_ space-physics is used in their engine. Newtonian N-Body? Patched Conics? Or some weird "space is some liquid filled stuff" - physics?

No idea unfortunately =(

[boxman]

Can always hope they will one day start working on KSP2 using a completely different engine.

[Streetwind]

The one thing I really don't like about the Outerra engine is the way it renders a planet from orbit. Check out some videos if you want to know what I mean. If you're expecting the wonderful blue sphere of earth, you're going to be disappointed. All you'll get is a glaringly bright milky-white ball. Think "distance fog" in normal game engines, except the entire atmosphere is made of it. You can see absolutely nothing of the surface from space. No clouds, no land features, no colors.... just overbrightened white fog.

The rest, admittedly, looks great. For a game set on the ground, it'll be great. For a spaceflight sim... not so much.

[thunderstar]

i know its amazing, the level of detail it amazes me and the performance even more, but if they want to make ksp in outerra, will mean make the game from scratch, they'll have to redo everything so it will take the devs at les other 3-4 years but it will be awesome nevertheless

[RSwordsman]

Sexy. I picture years from now a spiritual successor to KSP that looks that magnificent.

[RoboRay]

Yeah, Outerra is wonderful at or just above ground level, but really breaks down at high altitudes or above the atmosphere. Here's a look at Middle Earth in the engine, showing the problem when you look at it from high-up...

Edited January 31, 2014 by RoboRay

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

That certainly looks awful, but I imagine that the devs can tweak those things, right? I mean, SQUAD has done so much tweaking for Unity limitations, so at the end it's just the same amount of work.

The problem is how well Outerra works with space stuff, calculation wise. The numbers are huuuuge.

[Stavell]

It sure would look pretty, but considering after 3 years the engine is not function complete and they only have a tech demo available . We wouldn't have the KSP we have today if squad had went with the Outerra engine. Boy the rockets would look good sitting on the pad though..... and sitting is all they'd be doing.