Settings
From Kerbal Space Program Wiki
 | This page or section is in need of being brought up to date. Please help Kerbal Space Program Wiki by fixing inaccurate or outdated information. |
An explanation of the Settings in KSP and what they do, as version 0.24.2. All of these settings can also be accessed outside of the game via settings.cfg in the root directory (near the KSP executable).
Contents
Saving
Explanation on the bottom three buttons:
- Apply: Applies only the settings, but keeps the settings menu opened.
- Accept: Applies the settings and closes the menu too.
- Cancel: Upon pressing, it resets the settings to their last saved values.
General
Gameplay
- Show Vessel Labels
- This option controls whether or not waypoints will appear over vehicles nearby the one you are currently piloting.
- Default: On
- Show Space Center Crew
- Display Kerbin Time
- Controls whether to display global times based on Kerbin's cycle (6 hr day, 426 d years), or regular Earth time, with 24 hr days and 365 d years.
- Default: On
- Contract Deadlines as Dates
- Toggles between showing contract deadlines as the amount of time remaining, or as a future date.
- Default: Off
- Temparature Gauges
- Temperature gauges are enabled at the start of each flight.
- Default: On
- Thermal Highlights
- High-temperature parts will be highlighted when this setting is enabled.
- Default: On
- Double-Click Mouse Look
- When enabled, the rotation of the camera can be locked enabled (i.e. does not require holding down a button to move the camera) by double clicking the right mouse button.
- Default: Off
- EVAs Auto-Rotate to Camera
- Retain Control Point on Enter IVA
- This setting controls whether or not going on IVA will change the method of control from the original root part to the part currently being viewed. The setting is useful to perform landings or flights directly from the cockpit, but unorthodox vessels with control sources facing in non-standard directions may find this a hindrance.
- Default: Off
- UI Scale
- Controls the size of various UI elements, like the navball, the toolbar, and the various gauges around the screen.
- Default: 100%
- Camera Wobble External
- Adjusts the magnitude of camera wobbling from explosions and high G loads when viewing the vessel from the outside.
- Default: 1.0
- Camera Wobble Internal
- Adjusts the magnitude of camera wobbling from explosions and high G loads when in IVA.
- Default: 1.0
- Advanced Tweakables
- Toggles extra tweakable options for parts, such as increased fuel flow options and autostruts. It is recommended for new players to leave this disabled.
- Default: Off
- Default Throttle in Prelaunch
- Autohide Navball in Map View
- When disabled, the Navball will no longer hide itself when switching to map view, allowing for maneuvers to be performed there without requiring a direct view of the vessel. This is useful for fine-tuning one's orbit.
- Default: Off
- KerbNet Map Aligns with Orbit
- When enabled, the KerbNet map will show the prograde direction on the top, otherwise north will be at the top.
- Default: On
System
- Show Exit to Main Menu Confirmation
- When enabled, it will ask for confirmation when quitting a running game.
- Default: On
- Show Wrong Vessel Type on Launch Confirmation
- Warns the player when trying to launch a vehicle that's not the correct type for the launch site (e.g. launching an SPH vessel on the launch pad or an VAB vessel on the runway).
- Default: On
- Simulate in Background
- Controls whether KSP continues to run the simulation (or is paused) when you switch to another window.
- Default: On
- Don't Show Game Launcher
- The game will start into KSP.exe or KSP_x64.exe directly, even if you start from Launcher.exe. When starting from Steam the Launcher will also be skipped.
- Default: Off
- Show Version Watermark in Game
- When enabled, the game version is always displayed.
- Default: Off
- Max Persistent Debris
- Sets the max number of debris-class objects that can exist at the same time. Higher numbers mean more work for the CPU. Ranges from 0 to unlimited. Min:0, Max:Unlimited.
- Default: 250
- Tidy up debris cluttering KSC
- Max Physics Delta-Time per Frame
- This setting determines how many physics calculations the program can run per game second. So, as the number increases, gameplay slows down, as more calculations happen every game second. It slows down, but not in the usual way. There is no lag, but now one second that passes on Kerbin takes more than one second in real time. This setting is good for keeping very large ships from falling apart. Additionally, in settings.cfg, this value can be increased beyond the range of the GUI slider.
- Default: 0.04 sec
- Orbital Drift Compensation
- Ease in Gravity
- When loading/switching to a vessel on a planet/moon (like launching from KSC) the gravity starts lower and eases to full power so that heavy vessels don’t get ripped apart by sudden forces.
- Default: On
- Verbose Logging
- Log files will contain more detailed information. Useful for bug hunting or mod development. Could slow down the game on weaker computers.
- Default: Off
Graphics
Scenery
- Terrain Detail
- Determines how detailed the ground is on all planets/moons.
- Available Settings: Low, Default, High.
- Default: Default
- Terrain Scatters
- Adds terrain scenery like trees and rocks. Results in a fairly large performance hit when near the ground of any body.
- Default: Off
- Scatter Density
- Defines how much scenery (rocks/trees/etc) is added.
- Default: 50%
- Note: These rocks and trees are just scenery, it is impossible to make physical contact with them!
Rendering
- Render Quality Level
- Sets the quality of Unity's rendering. See Unity documentation for more details.
- Available Settings: Fastest, Fast, Simple, Good, Beautiful, Fantastic
- Default: Fantastic
- Texture Quality
- Controls the resolution of the textures in game.
- Available Settings: Eigth Res, Quarter Res, Half Res, Full Res
- Default: Half Res
- Aerodynamic FX Quality
- Controls the quality of aerodynamic effects such as re-entry flames.
- Available Settings: Minimal, Very Low, Low, Normal
- Default: Normal
- Surface FX
- Default: On
- Underwater FX
- Default: On
- Highlight FX
- Default: On
- Surface FX
- Default: On
- Conic Patch Draw Mode
- Conic Patch Limit
- Default: 3
- Orbit Line Fade Strength
- Default: 100%
- Orbit Line Fade Reversed
- Default: Off
- Always Show Closest Approach for Target
- Default: Off
- CommNet Line Brightness Factor
- Default: 50%
- Part Highlighter Line Brightness Factor
- Default: 100%
- Part Highlighter Enabled In Flight
- Default: On
Video
- Screen Resolution
- Determines how large the game window will be. Size is measured length × width, in pixels. The range depends on your system.
- Sometimes, when switching resolutions, the screen will adjust with extremely bright colors. Have no fear, just wait a few seconds and adjust the game window back and forth. It fixes itself.
- Default: 1080 × 720
- Full Screen
- This setting controls fullscreen. This will make the game run without a window border, for better game experience. If this is enabled, screen resolution now determines the number of true pixels that will be displayed.
- Default: Off
- Anti-Aliasing
- Basically, smooths out and blends the pixels at the edge of models. Higher settings means smoother transition.
- Default: 2x
- V-Sync
- A setting that prevents screen tearing: an anomaly that appears when the speed of your graphics card is significantly higher than the update speed of your monitor.
- Default: Every V-Blank
- Frame Limit
- Sets the max FPS. Basically a top on how fast the game can run.
- Default: 120 FPS
- Pixel Light Count
- Controls how many Pixel Lights can be in the scene at any time. See Unity documentation for more details.
- Default: 8
- Shadow Cascades
- Controls the quality of shadows. See Unity documentation for more details.
- Default: 4
- Ambient Light Boost
- Default: 0%
- Ambient Light Boost: Map
- Default: 0%
- Ambient Light Boost: Editor
- Default: 0%
Audio
Volume
- Spacecraft
- Refers to:Engine firing sound, parachute opening sound, and engine ignition sound.
- Ambience
- Refers to:Decouplers separating, and wind noise when traveling through atmosphere at high speed.
- UI
- Music
- Refers to:All game music.
- Voices
- Refers to:Tutorial voice volume.
- Default for all is 100%
Sound Normalizer
- Normalizer
- Enables the normalizer, which controls the average loudness of the various audio channels.
- Default: Enabled
- Threshold
- The threshold at which the normalizer starts lowering the volume of a given channel to prevent it from becoming too loud.
- Default: 1.0
- Responsiveness
- How quickly the normalizer starts adjusting volumes after the threshold is reached. Smaller values will result in choppy sound quality as the normalizer rapidly tries to adjust volumes, especially when loud but very short sounds occur (like explosions).
- Default: 16
Input
This section lets you customize the default key bindings for several different parts of gameplay. Note: Axis Bindings are for joysticks.
Other
Other Settings
- Use Staging Controls for Docking
- When docking is set as the control method in-game, the controls remain at their staging positions instead of moving to WSAD, or whatever the staging controls are set to.
- Default: Off
- EVAs Auto-Rotate to Camera
- Mouse Wheel Sensitivity
- Controls how quickly the game reacts to mouse wheel input. Ranges from 0 to 1.000.
- Default: 1.000
6-DOF Device
- In these menus you can control the 6-DOF input devices. Currently this is only supported on Windows version of KSP.
- Toggle Camera/Fight Control
- Lock/Unlock Roll Axis
6-DOF Camera Control
- Pitch, Yaw and Roll
- Sensitivity
- Sharpness
- XYZ Translation
- Sensitivity
- Sharpness
6-DOF Fight Control
- Pitch, Yaw and Roll
- Sensitivity
- XYZ Translation
- Sensitivity
