Is the KSP skybox infinite?

[Lundmunchkins]

Here's a question that I've been dying to know the answer: Is there a barrier somewhere VERY far out from Kerbol, and the Planets, or does one's ship just explode or get attacked by the Kraken? Or is the Skybox infinite, which would be inpossible. Have any of you ever found the Edge of the KSP universe?

[vitekc45c]

KSP "space" (playable area) in not infinite but reaching its "end" would take months of max timewarp at ridiculous speeds, and even if you reach it it would be no good since it will corrupt your savegame.

[RSwordsman]

Here's a question that I've been dying to know the answer: Is there a barrier somewhere VERY far out from Kerbol, and the Planets, or does one's ship just explode or get attacked by the Kraken? Or is the Skybox infinite, which would be inpossible. Have any of you ever found the Edge of the KSP universe?

As far as I know, if the skybox is handled the same way it is in other game engines, it is functionally infinite. It's not just a sphere with stars on the inside, but a dynamic system that appears to move with you as you get closer.

[Nemrav]

well, I've sent a probe the equivilant to the distance of 1.25 MILLION LIGHT YEARS (

) or so, and its still going... but so far, no end of the skybox so I think as RSwordman said its infinite

[MaverickSawyer]

Correct, it is "infinite" in a technical sense, but for practical reasons, you start to get floating point errors to the point where Krakensbane is of no further use, and the universe implodes.

[swiftgates24]

The universe revolves around your ship, so it is infinite.

[Lundmunchkins]

Oh ok, thanks everyone!

[nhnifong]

There is no barrier, there may be a Teapot several millions light years from Kerbol.

[problemecium]

What the others have said about the playable area is true. The skybox itself is infinitely large due to the way Unity renders skyboxes. It isn't a physical box or sphere; the camera simply renders the skybox texture behind all the other objects. Thus no matter how far you go, you will never move relative to it and can't hope to reach the edge.

[Brotoro]

So there would be no annual stellar parallax. That must confuse kerbal astronomers.

[liweih]

I once sent a probe out of the system. After that, I went to some other missions. Then I loaded the probe to see what happen. At first, everything seemed fine then some parts on the probe left without reason. Then the kraken appeared and ate every thing.

[DarkStar64]

I once zoomed the camera out relay far and I saw the sky box and it was relay a box...

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

So there would be no annual stellar parallax. That must confuse kerbal astronomers.

Heh, reminds me of that time when you said my discovery of a form of seasons would confuse them, what yo gots against mah astronomerz?

On topic: do I even need to say it is infinte, is theoretically is, but my voygegegegeger probe reached the barrer where the game breaks down, it is somewhere around 0.5 zetametres (for my hardware at least)

[Clockwork_werewolf]

In tests to make KSP work on a cruddy laptop I turn the textures down to the point most parts had 1 pixel of texture (changing the persistence file manually). The Sky-box got so blurry I could see that it is a giant cube, also the people above are right about sky-boxes they are drawn around the camera, not the object, so you are always in their center.

[SSSPutnik]

That's weird, in 0.23 I hit a barrier out past Eeloo, but it could have been Kraken...

[davieholgate]

I was playing around at laythe and a sudden 20G deployment of parachutes caused the chute to go lightspeed through laythe, and out of map view, with chutes still opened.

[99TheCreator]

Well I sent one of my probes on a trip out of the solar system and while it was flying I did some other missions. When I came back the whole screen went black with my altitude meter flipping out finally stopping at a repeating 666666 before the probe exploded.

[Whovian]

Well I sent one of my probes on a trip out of the solar system and while it was flying I did some other missions. When I came back the whole screen went black with my altitude meter flipping out finally stopping at a repeating 666666 before the probe exploded.

Sounds like the Hell Kraken; that comes up in a variety of situations, and thus might have been a result of the distance, but I suspect it isn't a limit.

Anyways, yes, the graphical skybox is a cube. Others have reported this; I personally discovered it with a bug in PlanetFactory which allows almost indefinite zoom-out. Dunno if there's any sort of distance-based limit; for some reason I doubt it, though it's very possible it is.

[SargeRho]

I think the skybox is always centered on the camera, but is rendered behind everything else.

[LordOfTheOrbits]

There has to be an edge when the game can't save your position anymore due to the limited amount of bits. I'm not sure in which units the position of you gets measured while in interstellar space, but the edge would be 4294967295 of that unit away from kerbol.

[FITorion]

If I remember right every so often as you are moving... your location gets redefined as the center of the system. So you're never very far from the point 0,0,0. But the more you move the further away from that point the other objects in the system get and there is a limit to how high 32bit numbers can go... and if we ever get 64bit... that limit will just be higher but not infinite.

[Bobnova]

You can use 64bit numbers on a 32bit CPU/OS/etc, it just takes longer to calculate using them.

That's what a "double" is in C if I remember correctly, a 64bit floating point variable. A "long long" is a 64bit integer.

[*Aqua*]

Unity uses floats to calculate positions and stuff. The maximum positive value of a float is 3.4028234 * 10^38 which is about 36 sextillion lightyears in KSP. You can't reach that distance. The kraken will strike way before that when the number density gets too low.

[KerbMav]

Therefore the skybox in KSP works just like the holodeck in Star Trek.