Cataclysm Campaign Part 4

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Only a fairly short update but I wanted the campaign history to match the state of the campaign in the published database for v1.1

On June 6th, the Nelson class cruisers Nelson and Somerville returned to Earth, joining the carriers Ark Royal and Nimitz and the missile cruisers Yorktown and Enterprise. Enterprise had completed a major overhaul only eight days previously and Yorktown

[TrueZuluwiz]

Steve, that habitable planet in Olympus bothers me. A life-bearing planet with an oxygen atmosphere shouldn't have evolved in less than a billion years, yet the star is only a hundred million years old. Maybe it was terraformed by somebody?

[vergeraiders]

I also have trouble believing an asteroid belt 15+ LY from the primary. Unless there is a huge baren area (which such a star might create) gravity from other 'nearby' stars would prevent this from happening.

Does the system creation routine just scale everything up based on mass and luminosity? My (unprovable for now) gut feeling is that there is some natural upper limit for formation of a planetary system.

Mike S.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I also have trouble believing an asteroid belt 15+ LY from the primary. Unless there is a huge baren area (which such a star might create) gravity from other 'nearby' stars would prevent this from happening.

Does the system creation routine just scale everything up based on mass and luminosity? My (unprovable for now) gut feeling is that there is some natural upper limit for formation of a planetary system.
Mike S.

Sol is supposed to have an oort cloud one light year out so a star with a mass 60x greater having a similar belt at 15 LY may not be that unrealistic. The point about nearby stars is a good one though, although I don't know what effect a truly massive star would have on nearby star formation.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve, that habitable planet in Olympus bothers me. A life-bearing planet with an oxygen atmosphere shouldn't have evolved in less than a billion years, yet the star is only a hundred million years old. Maybe it was terraformed by somebody?

I think in reality most scientists believe that stars of this type wouldn't have any planets. But what fun is that though?

Steve

[vergeraiders]

[quote="Steve Walmsley]Sol is supposed to have an oort cloud one light year out so a star with a mass 60x greater having a similar belt at 15 LY may not be that unrealistic. The point about nearby stars is a good one though, although I don't know what effect a truly massive star would have on nearby star formation.

Steve[/quote]

But gravity drops in proportion to distance squared. A star with the mass of 60 suns would have the same gravitaional effect at 7.7 LY as the sun has at 1.

Mike S.

None the less your system generation system is great, I just think whatever math its based on might not apply at the extremes And this is an extreme star!

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

But gravity drops in proportion to distance squared. A star with the mass of 60 suns would have the same gravitaional effect at 7.7 LY as the sun has at 1.

None the less your system generation system is great, I just think whatever math its based on might not apply at the extremes And this is an extreme star!

It is, although there are larger and rarer monsters hiding away in the database. I think you are right about the maths starting to break down at the extremes though. Probably the easiest thing is to reflect current scientific thinking and remove any planets from very high mass stars. Any such planets would be too far away to be useful in the game anyway.

Steve