Author Topic: System map/bodies questions/discussion  (Read 4683 times)

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Offline Nathan_ (OP)

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System map/bodies questions/discussion
« on: August 09, 2012, 03:24:05 PM »
I have a couple of questions about how certain things will be handled so I'll ask them here:

1)Are secondary stars and asteroids going to move? while movement is more accurate, them being stationary "geographic" features could simplify some math down the line.
2)Will Earth's orbit be accurate or will it move to one of 72 predetermined places so that it can be known where earth is by knowing the date? Earth is a special case, and in the case of multifaction starts this could help out with some intense calculations.
 

Offline sublight

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2012, 04:47:50 PM »
1) They could. Tracking the orbit of an asteroid is no harder than tracking the orbit of a planet. The real issue will be database access time and how much it slows the game down to perform the simple update dozens or hundreds of times for every asteroid belt.

2) We will not create a special case of 72 predetermined places for Earth. Earth (and every other planet) might appear to jump locations if we retain movement on 5-day construction increments only however. As for accuracy, I imagine we will probably stick with simple circular orbit approximations.

2b) Yes, we could do accurate elliptical orbits. We could even model the gravitational wobbles of planets and moons reacting to each other. And we could apply the same equations to create Newtonian ship motion modeling. I started off my education as a Mechanical Engineer. Finite element modeling and discrete mathematical solutions are things I can do. However, a good solution could also easily increase the number of calculations ten fold, and may slow the turns down noticeably. This level of detail probably isn't worth it.
 

Offline Antagonist

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2012, 07:09:31 PM »
Realistic orbits are only limited by what the guy who implements orbits decides to do.

Calculating crude approximational per minute x,y positions from starting position, date and daysinyear variable I cannot imagine to be a too hard task, even using eliptical orbits. I'm far more worried about the flight time predictions, aka how many days it will take to get to Mars from Earth, considering both are moving. I'm pretty sure computational power won't be an issue on modern PCs, but this isn't simple. That said, I see no reason why this would not be done accurately.

As sublight said tho, while orbital wobbles can be done I am doubtful that THAT LEVEL of accuracy adds anything to the gameplay at all.  Orbits will likely be according to pre-established paths without neighbor interference, unless someone can forward a reason why that would be needed.
 

Offline Nathan_ (OP)

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2012, 08:38:20 PM »
1) They could. Tracking the orbit of an asteroid is no harder than tracking the orbit of a planet. The real issue will be database access time and how much it slows the game down to perform the simple update dozens or hundreds of times for every asteroid belt.

Sensors on asteroids/the earth can be simplified to a certain degree if they aren't purely dynamic.
 

Offline Redshirt

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2012, 11:41:47 PM »
I would like to see elliptical orbits as opposed to completely circular. Adds some interest, especially for situations like Pluto, where the orbit crosses with Neptune and it's sometimes not actually the farthest ... darn, it's not a real planet anymore, is it. :(
Living up to my username. . .
 

Offline Elster

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2012, 08:39:23 AM »
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darn, it's not a real planet anymore, is it.

Nope, it's a dwarf planet, like Eris, Makemake, Haumea or Ceres in the Asteroid belt.  You can consider them almost as big spherical asteroids.  :)
 

Offline Antagonist

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2012, 05:28:56 AM »
Just for your information, in our alpha we generate A LOT of planets with crossing orbits.

This is technically wrong and a bug in the stargen code, but I have been warned that it looks awesome and any attempt to fix this bug would be viewed negatively.
 

Offline Thundercraft

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2013, 09:53:20 PM »
Nope, it's a dwarf planet, like Eris, Makemake, Haumea or Ceres in the Asteroid belt.  You can consider them almost as big spherical asteroids.  :)

I don't feel like I have to acknowledge the "demotion" of Pluto from planet status. In my book, it is a planet and always will be. Anyway, that was controversial and even today there are scientists who hold that Pluto should continue to be classified as a planet.

Just for your information, in our alpha we generate A LOT of planets with crossing orbits.

This is technically wrong and a bug in the stargen code, but I have been warned that it looks awesome and any attempt to fix this bug would be viewed negatively.

So you're keeping this bug feature?

Personally, I'd prefer to see realism trump "awesome" looks. I think it breaks suspension of disbelief because any planetary orbits that cross should lead to a catastrophic collision or near-miss eventually. This reminds me: There are some theories that the asteroid field was created when a sizable solar body collided with a planet.
"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." - Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
 

Offline Antagonist

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2013, 03:31:27 AM »
Keeping the feature for now, doubt it'll get into anything resembling final.

Its an easy fix that I already coded, just held off on committing. Unfortunately the fix prevents any crossing orbits ever.

I have been looking up on the maths of orbits like Pluto that does cross and is long-term stable, aka doing it properly, but this is something that will take some time to implement and will be very rare even if it happens. But for now I see no harm keeping this bug feature in place.
 

Offline Thundercraft

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Re: System map/bodies questions/discussion
« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2013, 11:11:45 PM »
I'm not sure if it will help, but I recently stumbled across The Habitable Zone Gallery:

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This site is dedicated to tracking the orbits of exoplanets in relation to their Habitable Zones.

The gallery has orbital paths and some of the orbits are a bit odd-looking. They each have green rings indicating the calculated habitable zone. Their findings are a bit underwhelming, though:
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Planets: 634   Systems: 514
Planets with orbits entirely within the Habitable Zone: 14

That said, most exoplanets found are very large - a lot of them gas giants - as those are far easier to detect with our current technology and methods.
"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." - Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington