The 'caulk/sky' texture defaults to the same color as the far_plane. What it basically does is help your FPS. In a well done map it can really boost your frame rates. I have started to use it a lot more. Of course you can't get the pretty day time sky with setting/rising sun, but it can be a trade off for better performance. In best case situations, you can even set the far_plane cull to ZERO and keep up good rates. You need to use a reasonable far_plane distance though, depending on layout, but the brushes will 'fade' into view as you move toward them, not pop in or out with a cull=1. Better info??? Good tool, if you need it and can use it.
the reason i want it is because i cant seem to get the farplane color the same color as the sky background... and I can see the objects "appear" in the far distance... I dont need it for fps, i need it for atmosphere. i could add 500 more trees and still get good fps.
I tried all sorts of ways to extract the color values from the sky textures. Everytime that I thought I had 'it', 'it' wasn't close, so I gave in and went with the caulk/sky.