max number of year?

[lammatt]

since 0.23.5 they made a kerbal day = 6hour (as it supposes to be, i had no idea they made it 24hr before.)

is the max number of years still 58? or is it 58x4= 233?

Edited June 11, 2014 by lammatt

[SkyRender]

The maximum time listed is always 2,147,483,647 seconds (or half of a 32-bit integer). That's 99,420 Kerbin days, or about 233 Kerbin years.

[lammatt]

The maximum time listed is always 2,147,483,647 seconds (or half of a 32-bit integer). That's 99,420 Kerbin days, or about 233 Kerbin years.

O... didnt realize the limitation comes from the 32bit data entries. but rethinking after reading your answer,...of cos it works that way, what was i thinkimg,...>.<

thanks bro.

[magnemoe]

That happens at 233 years?

Some players might have reached this with normal play, if they do many long missions over multiple months

[Guest]

O... didnt realize the limitation comes from the 32bit data entries. but rethinking after reading your answer,...of cos it works that way, what was i thinkimg,...>.<

thanks bro.

Generally, unless a pre hard-coded limit is added (for example money earned for doing x) the limit is always the upper/half-upper of the bit system in use. :-)

[lammatt]

That happens at 233 years?

Some players might have reached this with normal play, if they do many long missions over multiple months

it'll probably go back to 0yr and just introduce some glitch into the game because of the extra 1 in the next digit (which shouldnt be there)

[Pecan]

Oh noess! It's the millenium bug all over again. This time in space!

And here I am never progressed past year 1 yet ^^.

[SkyRender]

It would take 6 hours at constant 100,000x time warp to even get to that point. And half of a 32-bit integer is the hard limit for displayed time; the game appears to be able to keep track of time units larger than that for overall elapsed time.

[Red Iron Crown]

Could be an issue for those who want other star systems, the travel times will be quite long.

[r4pt0r]

how is a time-counter linked to memory? why cant it just go to year 234?

[montyben101]

So what would happen if you go over the year 234?

[cantab]

Hmmm...I didn't know about this when I randomised my start time. I started in Kerbin year 27, so have already lost about half my duration...

That said, the way I play I'm unlikely to hit the limit. It's a bigger problem for one-mission-at-a-time players.

[EdFred]

Pretty much the same thing that happens if you cross the streams.

[Red Iron Crown]

how is a time-counter linked to memory? why cant it just go to year 234?

Time is stored as a number of seconds. All storage of numbers in a computer is finite. When you reach the capacity of the stored number, it "overflows" with unpredictable results. See the Year 2038 problem.

[montyben101]

??? Cross what streams? Would the game just crash or would odd things happen

[r4pt0r]

wow thats bizzare. why not store seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years all separately?

store right now for example as:

25s; 44m; 12h; 11d; 6mn; 2014y

seconds/minutes roll back to zero every 60 units, hours roll over every 24, days are coded so the roll over depends on the value of the months, and leap days in february are added based on the value of the year(since it happens every 4 years consistently)

[Red Iron Crown]

That makes math with time values more difficult, and doesn't really solve the problem but instead delays it. What happens when your years counter reaches the limit?

[r4pt0r]

what do you mean? the system i propose can go 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999.......years

no digit limit. it would out live our sun

i would think a computer can deal with numbers between 1 and 60, 1-24, 1-~30, 1-12, and between 1-100,000,000,000,000. just add 1 to the second counter every second.

Like an odometer with two 60 wheels, a 24 wheel, a 31 wheel, a 12 wheel, and a 100,000,000,000,000,000 wheel.

we could actually make this analog, why couldnt digital do it?

Edited June 11, 2014 by r4pt0r

[Red Iron Crown]

The computer still needs to store the number of years and that number can only be so large, for the same reasons that the number of seconds can only be so large.

[LameLefty]

??? Cross what streams?

It's a reference to the movie GHOSTBUSTERS. You obviously haven't seen it; do yourself a favor and fix that immediately.

[SolarLiner]

One may know about the Pacman bug that, when going past the 255th level to the 256th one, levels starts to go crazy.

One might also know the Far Lands back in Minecraft Beta, where past x or y = 2^16, terrain generation became crazy.

What will happen depends to where is used the value. Here in KSP I think that the time is used for moving planets and ships. So bad things will happen to them (planets going in crazy directions, ships being eaten by the Long Time Kraken).

[EdFred]

The computer still needs to store the number of years and that number can only be so large, for the same reasons that the number of seconds can only be so large.

I ran into a similar issue with a database a while back. Someone defined the field as Integer Single, instead of Integer Double. Well when I tried to create invoice number 32768, it didn't much like it. Took me a while to figure that one out, because 32767 didn't ring a bell.

[montyben101]

Hmm I want to see what happens, I think I might install planet factory which adds higher time warp and have a look. Or does someone else want to do that as I have strange crashes already ???

[nobbers12345]

I am assuming the game would either crash or calculations would go haywire because orbits are plotted based on "Where will this be at this time?"

[Red Iron Crown]

what do you mean? the system i propose can go 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999.......years

no digit limit. it would out live our sun

i would think a computer can deal with numbers between 1 and 60, 1-24, 1-~30, 1-12, and between 1-100,000,000,000,000. just add 1 to the second counter every second.

Like an odometer with two 60 wheels, a 24 wheel, a 31 wheel, a 12 wheel, and a 100,000,000,000,000,000 wheel.

we could actually make this analog, why couldnt digital do it?

You edited after I initially replied and added a bit.

There is no such thing as a "no digit limit" number in a computer, everything is finite. If your year counter could store infinite digits, why bother breaking it up into days, months, years; it is better computationally to just store a number of seconds in that infinite digit number.

The solution is not more values for years, months, days, hours, minutes; that just makes every calculation done with time more complex and error prone. The solution is a second counter with greater capacity. More bits to store the time/date data.