when have you over done it with the part count?

[endl]

at what number do you start getting heavy frame drops

edit: wow this thread has certainly yielded some interesting responses, i hope it never ends.

i originally started this because of an over ambitious project of my own, ive designed a modular fuel/booster system that can couple for more power. i then docked it at my space station and began engineering several variable mission ships to slap onto the main drives, atm i have a large science base with all the trim, a heavy lander, surface fuel dump, multi rover which itself includes a single vtol transport for low grav/low atmo, light weight glider prob for any atmo, and a fuel service rover that can transfer fuel between all the previous vessels it also doubles as a buggy for kerbals

TLDR: im trying to couple too many complicated ships together and its killing my pc

Edited September 6, 2014 by endl

[DocMoriarty]

For me it starts around 400+ parts. The plane in the image has 470 parts, thats already going into the direction of a diashow.

Edited September 5, 2014 by DocMoriarty

[MeticulousMitch]

Assuming the ship is made entirely of FL-T400 fuel tanks, my framerate drops below 60FPS if the part count is over 465.

I could probably get away with a higher part count if I also used massless parts.

If this was in orbit and you stuck an LV-N on it, you would get a delta V of over 17000m/s, which is just about the theoretical maximum for a single stage rocket in KSP.

Edited September 5, 2014 by MeticulousMitch

[FacialJack]

for me, as im an old PC player, below 60 fps is again very good, its begin to be hardly playable at 15 fps, or maybe 5 fps... Have some trouble past 1200-1500 parts, close to 15 fps

[TimberWolffe]

my part trouble comes from mods. I can essentially only handle a part count of 2-300, because for some reason on lowest settings, KSP won't reduce mod textures or rendering, so I have a 10,000 polygon module when it should by all means be a 1000 polygon module.

[Frank_G]

I try to keep vessels below 1.000 parts. That goes for part count of mission craft too, which can consist of a combination of more vessels like transfer-craft, lander, spaceplane, rover and probes.

However this is not so easy, when you place looks over functionalty... And aerobraking with a 1.5k part craft in the atmosphere of Jool leads to SERIOUS lags, speaking of 5 frames a sec or so... I did that once and it made me not only fail the maneuver, it is also a fun killer... Since that day i build as part efficient as possible, even when it comes to looks.

[timsfitz]

I had a space carrier with 2 docked fighters, 4 probes, and guided missiles. Around 1500 parts. Managed to get her to a Laythe orbit, but it wasn't very fun given the low framerate. I couldn't use any time acceleration either or she tended to blow apart.

[Red Iron Crown]

This thread needs more Whackjob.

I'm severely part count limited by my old PC, anything over 150 parts is a lagfest especially at launch. MechJeb is essential for me to launch bigger stuff.

[TimberWolffe]

This thread needs more Whackjob.

I'm severely part count limited by my old PC, anything over 150 parts is a lagfest especially at launch. MechJeb is essential for me to launch bigger stuff.

same for me, 4 year old laptop with a clogged up fan that I can't clean. As soon as I get my new laptop though, I should be able to do 2500+ part count while screen recording with little to no lag at all

[Scotius]

The worst thing framerate-wise i've ever put into space was probably my combo of space tug + two solar power plants.

Here is one of those power plants deployed in keostationary orbit.

Yep. Those made my rig beg for mercy

[Guest]

Any kind of benchmarker for this?

[cantab]

By 300-ish parts the game is running at about half speed, but still feels smooth enough. By 500-600 or so things are definitely jerky.

Incidentally, even with 1 part 60 fps is in my dreams.

In terms of overdoing the part count, my "Nobel 1" mission probably fits the bill. I had a part-count-intensive payload and chose my von Braun launcher for it, which was a Saturn V workalike with lots of part-hungry features like a stock fairing round the second-stage engines, sepratron ullage motors, and weird fuel arrangements involving fuel lines for balance. My Magellan rescue mission used more parts but that was down to sheer scale rather than niceties.

[SlimeCrusher]

With 150+ parts i start to get... 10 FPS or less... I have a crappy computer, i don't think im getting a better one in some years though.

Most of the times i want to do a space station or an apollo-style mission, and i focus too much on the lander and CSM, so i end up having 100 parts for both, the CSM and the LM, plus the rocket... I mostly cancel the project after testing everything, i think its because i have more awesome ideas, and end up forgeting about it

[capi3101]

I generally start seeing serious lag around 400 parts, though I find that if I pan the camera so that the ground is out of view I get slightly better performance; I can sometimes get up to 600 parts playing that way without too bad of lag, though the launch itself is slow.

Most parts at once - somewhere around 800 for an extended Duna mission. And that was a pretty slow launch. Things improved as I started shedding parts off the booster.

I find spaceplanes are laggy as hell in that zone between 20,000-35,000 meters. And I'm not talking about some monstrosity either; maybe a 100-200 part spaceplane. Tops.

[Tw1]

Ambitious infiniglider: 1654 parts

Kerbal cup trophy: 2019 parts.

Add base: something like 2400...

I did build some pretty rediculus stations when I discovered a mod that could teleport you to orbit back in '18, but don't feel like hunting down the photo atm.

Generally, I aim to keep things around 600 or less.

[Guest]

1k parts was 10fps, playable easily. 5% GPU usage.

[vitekc45c]

Barebone girders-and-struts skeleton of my Moho class modular carrier, save file got corrupted after trying to launch.

2692 parts, including about 18 (or 16) launch clamps that held it above ground during stress tests.

[TimePeriod]

Around 1000 parts I start to get some low fps, 10-20 fps.

Around 1200 parts I'm crawling at 3-6 fps.

1200+ and I just don't bother.

[Stratzenblitz75]

When have I overdone the part count?

This.. Thing...

Javascript is disabled. View full album

At 4170 parts, this thing takes over 30 minutes to load. The lag and time dilation is so extreme that 1 minute in game = 1 hour in real life. I flew it for 3 hours before it exploded.

[Scotius]

You all are aware that even our most ridiculous creations don't hold the candle to Whackjob's monstrosities, right?

[Guest]

You all are aware that even our most ridiculous creations don't hold the candle to Whackjob's monstrosities, right?

He just has more time than us, his rig is incredibly average

[TimePeriod]

952 parts

14983 T

And yes, it lifts off.

[cantab]

He just has more time than us, his rig is incredibly average

I believe his new computer is pretty good, being as it's new and built with KSP in mind.

In any case, there's more to Whackjob's rockets than scale or partcount alone.

[Francois424]

I can handle roughly 700 parts before it starts to become annoying... 950+ really starts being slow.

2 weeks ago I launched and 5 probe to Jool, assembled from the VAB and not in orbit. Large probes so 1023 parts.

The launch to orbit took nearly 40min. Very annoying. Guess it's more docking for next time (at least 3, probes, fuel, engine). I really wish the game would allow us variable size tanks, in which case the count part would have been cut at least by 25%, maybe more.

[Frozen_Heart]

At around 600 parts I'm getting about 10 fps. :/ that's about the lowest I can stand.

Looking forward to unity 5 as I've got 2 cores each with 2 threads.