Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => VB6 Mechanics => Topic started by: Haji on April 17, 2012, 08:16:45 AM
-
Greetings
It's not exactly a bug, but something I find somewhat irritating. While there is maximum greenhouse factor, there is no minimum, which means, you can terraform any hot planet you like. In fact, once (althought this was in 5. 5 not 5. 6, but I don't think this was changed) I managed to get Mercury to -20K. Yes, I have frozen it below absolute zero. By accident I should add, I forgot about my terraforming fleet there.
In gameplay terms this means, that, there are planets too cold for terraform (Titan for instance) but never too hot. For that matter the "1% increase in solar output per year" distaster isn't really a disaster (unless you RP, which I did) becouse you can easily couter this via AGHG.
All in all I think there should be a limit to what Anti-Greenhouse Gas can do, similar to the cut off effect of Greenhouse Gas. Personally I would make it so you can't lower a base temperature by more than half.
My apologies if this have been posted/discussed. I did a quick and dirty search in this subforum, but I didn't see anything.
-
Yes, it is too easy to cool a planet, and going below 0K is ridiculous.
But it should still be possible to drastically cool any planet. It basically means using reflectors or something similar in effect. Personally, I'd change that to some type of infrastructure dedicated to this. Right now, a race with a lower acceptable temperature has access to more potential ideal worlds, way too easily.
-
As a rule, it does make some sense that too much energy is a much smaller problem than not enough. Blocking light is much easier than spinning it out of thin air. Still, good call, sub-absolute zero is a pretty weird bug.
-
I agree, heating a planet is much more difficult as you cannot readily increase the amount of solar energy a body is receiving. Because of this there is only so much you can do. You should be able to cool a planet to a vastly greater degree by either lowering atmospheric pressure or adding more reflective elements to the atmosphere. If you wanted to destroy the habitability of the planet there really is no reason why you should not be able to make any body 0K (within limits due to proximity of the parent star and level of solar energy it is receiving)
-
I agree, heating a planet is much more difficult as you cannot readily increase the amount of solar energy a body is receiving. Because of this there is only so much you can do. You should be able to cool a planet to a vastly greater degree by either lowering atmospheric pressure or adding more reflective elements to the atmosphere. If you wanted to destroy the habitability of the planet there really is no reason why you should not be able to make any body 0K (within limits due to proximity of the parent star and level of solar energy it is receiving)
Yes and no. Terraforming, as currently implemented, is simply manipulation of gases, nothing more. The "reflectability" of a body is already managed by the albedo, which, I believe, cannot be changed. As such, there is a limit to how "reflective" an atmosphere you can make using only common gases that could be used for planetary terraforming (nitrogen, oxygen, the things).
If we start thinking in terms of industrial terraforming (ie, using manufactured. . . things) then it should work both ways. Increase or decrease albedo to heat or cool the amosphere. Just an example.
I'm not sure how many of you have read Mars Trilogy. I hope you won't consider this a spoiler.
Still here? Ok.
The major theme of the books was terraforming Mars. One of the things they did was to make enormous mirror that increased the amount of solar radiation on Mars to Earth levels. Later it was used as a shade to cool Venus (althought it was supposed to take several hundred years and was never shown in the books). Something similar is at works here. If you argue, that cooling a planet is "easy" by application of industrial terraforming (I just can't imagine of any gas or combination of gases, that would be reflective enough to lower the temperature of Mercury to freezing point) then the same applications can be used (in somewhat diffrent form) to heat the planet. Similar to the example from Mars Trilogy.
Of course this is all technobabble. In gameplay terms I think it simply imbalances the game, screwing certain elements in favour of lower temperatures (for example, becouse of how easy it is to cool a planet, creating species capable of living in higher temperatures is pretty pointless. Or the beforementioned case with cooling/heating of the Sun).
To be honest, for me the simplest, and satisfactory solution would be to implement the same kind of bottom line as with heating. The preferred solution would be (in addition to the limit) to divide terraforming into two groups: atmospheric and industrial. Atmospheric would be exactly the way it is, industrial would be much more expensive and would affect planetary albedo, allowing for the heating/cooling of a planet beyond the capabilities of "classical" terraforming. For most planets, it would make no diffrence, you would just change the atmosphere the same way as now. However, by changing albedo you could make other bodies terraformable, like Titan which is too cool right now, or Mercury which would be too hot if the limiting of anti-greenhouse effect would be implemented.
-
One point of note: the dark side of Mercury can get down to -180° Celsius. So, saying that Mercury is going to be difficult to cool because it is so close to the sun sorta gets refuted by that fact. I am not saying that its proximity has NO bearing, I'm just saying that if there were a way to block the sunlight, the planet would actually cool down because it has almost no atmosphere to retain the heating from the sun.
This brings me to another thought: Mercury doesn't have an appreciable atmosphere because its gravity is too weak to keep the solar wind from blasting it away. Given this, I wonder if a mechanic could be implemented in the game that terraformers would have to be kept on planet to maintain its atmosphere? Have some sort of atmospheric loss due to realistic physics caused by the mass of a body and proximity to objects that might be capable of blasting away an atmosphere or stealing it by being more massive.
May be too much to even worry with. . . . .
-
You know, I've always just been curious where the terraformers get (or place) the atmosphere. I can see tweaking CO2 or Oxygen levels with carbon sinks or technobabble versions. But where did it get the 3 ATM with of Argon I accidently selected?
-
I've always assumed that it was locked in the ground, in mineral form or something.
-
I am not a materials scientist and do not have the specific answer off the top of my head. I just recall reading about the existence of specific gases that could be released which have a higher reflectivity. For that matter, water vapor is an interesting one. It can be both a greenhouse gas as it traps heat, and in coalesced cloud cover it functions as an anti-greenhouse gas due to the white surface reflecting solar energy. Increasing cloud cover over a broad region can lower temperatures and increasing humidity can not only raise perceived temps but actually increase heat retention.
There are so many possibilities. wedgebert brings up a funny point though. Where exactly is this stuff coming from?
-
wedgebert brings up a funny point though. Where exactly is this stuff coming from?
It came from outer space!
More seriously, I vaguely recall Mr. Walmsley remarking that the terraforming mechanics - and focus on atmospheric content - are simply an abstraction for gameplay convenience.
-
Assuming you have some of the "right stuff" in the atmosphere, you can manufacture it.
Argon is currently produced industrially via air separation from liquid air. It can also be produced from water ice, just takes longer. This same method is used from Oxygen, Nitrogen, and other inert gases.
So, in theory, your terraformers are "cracking" the existing atmosphere, or frozen elements to produce the gases. In situations where the atmosphere has none of the required elements, or doesn't exist, the gases could be produced from soils/metals or comets.
Argon and Nitrogen are incredibly common, and Oxygen is fairly common. So it wouldn't be a stretch to assume the materials are cheaply available in most systems via the asteroids or cometary halo. Obviously there is still the details of the AMOUNTS of material required. 3 ATM of Argon is a LOT of gas, and even frozen, it would take a lot of gas to produce that kind of pressure.
Still, you can argue that the "handwaivium" aspect of terraforming has some plausible basis in reality. :)
-
Terraforming in TN Aurora is highly abstract and actually makes little sense. It doesn't annoy me, as long as its mechanics are balanced.
Sure, we could rethink the whole terraforming, based on known facts and taking into account atmosphere loss due to solar winds, interactions between gases (hellooo methane and oxygen!), quantity of gas needed to get 1 atm depending of the size of the body and gravity, the actual greenhouse effect of different gases varying, and so on and so forth.
Or we could rebalance the current mechanics a bit and call it a day. Just add a lower limit of about 0.3 to the Greenhouse factor.
Of course, thinking about all that stuff is interesting. If we can figure it all out with enough precision, reliable sources, in a way that could be programmed in, that would help Steve get it done. Then the mechanics will be so complex we won't be able to do anything by ourselves, and need an extensive excel spreadsheet to predict the outcome/feasability, or need Steve to add a solution in the game.
-
Terraforming in TN Aurora is highly abstract and actually makes little sense. It doesn't annoy me, as long as its mechanics are balanced.
Sure, we could rethink the whole terraforming, based on known facts and taking into account atmosphere loss due to solar winds, interactions between gases (hellooo methane and oxygen!), quantity of gas needed to get 1 atm depending of the size of the body and gravity, the actual greenhouse effect of different gases varying, and so on and so forth.
Or we could rebalance the current mechanics a bit and call it a day. Just add a lower limit of about 0.3 to the Greenhouse factor.
Of course, thinking about all that stuff is interesting. If we can figure it all out with enough precision, reliable sources, in a way that could be programmed in, that would help Steve get it done. Then the mechanics will be so complex we won't be able to do anything by ourselves, and need an extensive excel spreadsheet to predict the outcome/feasability, or need Steve to add a solution in the game.
I vote for K.I.S.S.
-
+1 for K. I. S. S. I was just typing while my brain was wandering.
-
K.I.S.S? In Aurora? Might as well ask Toady to stop calculating the damage done to dwarven toenails. :)
I vote for M.I.S.C (make it super complicated). I'd love to see things like orbital mirrors to increase temperature and sun shields to reduce it. Limited availablity of gasses (Mercury's likely not big on iodine) and possibly even requring a more realistic partial pressure system for atmospheres (50% of the atmosphere being CO2 would be deadly to humans regardless of the Oxygen content).
-
I like complicated but it still needs to fall inside the boundaries of entertaining. If not particularly realistic it would be interesting to have the various terraformable elements have a greater effect then pressure +/- and temp +/-. Various elements could effect industry, mining, population growth, orbital bombardment and so on. If missiles are unusable in nebulae whats to say that a planetary atmosphere mimicking the make up of said nebulae would render the body impervious to ordinance?
-
I think one thing that would help with any complexity would be a terraforming queue and the ability to both save preset atmospheric conditions and maybe even some simple automation like "raise (or lower) temperature to racial tolerances" or "make atmosphere breathable". These options would queue up the necessary commands to satisfy the goal which would then be in your terraforming queue to tweak if so desired.
-
Or we could rebalance the current mechanics a bit and call it a day. Just add a lower limit of about 0. 3 to the Greenhouse factor.
I generally agree, althought the 0. 3 is a little too low in my opinion, as this means that planets up to 1000K of base temperature could be terraformed, and I don't think I have seen planets with that high temperature in the game. 0. 5 or 0. 6 would be more balanced I believe. 0. 5 would mean only planets with base temperature of 600K or so could be terraformed, which excludes Mercury. On the other hand I think (I don't remember now exact numbers and I'm too lazy to look up) that Mercury could be colonised with combination of terraforming and +50C genetic modification reaserch wich would make it similar to Titan (terraforming and -50C modification reaserch), which is partially the point (in the gameplay terms at least). To lower effect of anti-greenhouse gases enough to make genetic modifications for higher temperatures useful again.
One point of note: the dark side of Mercury can get down to -180° Celsius. So, saying that Mercury is going to be difficult to cool because it is so close to the sun sorta gets refuted by that fact. I am not saying that its proximity has NO bearing, I'm just saying that if there were a way to block the sunlight, the planet would actually cool down because it has almost no atmosphere to retain the heating from the sun.
I don't think it works that way, not once there is atmosphere. Take Earth for example. If Aurora is to be believed our base temperature is -4C. The rest is result the atmosphere. Or think of the Moon. It's more or less the same distance and, true, it can get -160C on the "dark side" while the temperature on the "sun side" is well over +150C (I'm pretty sure I'm off with numbers, but not much), while Earth with atmosphere have (usually) temperature of +10C or more. So, once you get atmosphere to the planet, assuming it is not tidally locked to a star, it will generally have the medium temperature (medium of the dark and light side) and then some over it's entire surface. Ergo, it doesn't really matter how cold can it get on Mercury, in the end, the temperature would be well over 300C over the entire planet, maybe come more.
Of course, Mercury orbits very slowly around the Sun. It's not as bad as with tidally locked planets, but close, so certain areas may stay cold for long time. But, sooner or later, unless you tidally lock the planet, those areas will enter sunny side and they'll have to whitstand 400C of solar output.
-
K.I.S.S? In Aurora? Might as well ask Toady to stop calculating the damage done to dwarven toenails. :)
The difference is, you don't have to track down every dwarf with a damaged toenail and tell him to go fix it (or not) at what passes for a hospital. The game does it for you, and you have access to the info in the obscure event that you want to know. If you complexify terraforming in Aurora, you need to reduce the micromanagement to simple decisions like "terraform this planet to X racial middle tolerences", and then have the option of looking at gases, pressures, temperatures.
-
Rather than making it more complex it would be nice if the options we do have were more dynamic. Like putting 3ATM worth of Argon into Mercury. If the action has no relevance then the only point it has is to laugh about when someone posts on the forums that they accidentally did it. It is just window dressing. Argon, for example, is a wonderfully popular industrial gas. Bodies with plentiful Argon in the atmosphere could receive a construction factory bonus dependent on the volume of the gas present on the body. Likewise, each of the various gases already present in Aurora could be given a produce bonus and minus value. There might be a way to really justify orbital habitat usage in here by making certain atmospheric combinations super productive but the combination is lethal to habitation.
-
Disclaimer : I'm not intending to get into politics here
The problem with trying to make terraforming more realistic, is that we fundamentally don't understand how planetary climate systems really work. A great deal of current climate change science is bad science. Since the technical definition of an ice age is that ice exists in quantity on the Earths surface, we're in an ice age right now. It should therefore not be surprising that some bits of ice are receding, and others increasing, and pretending that we a) really understand why, and b) can change what is happening significantly is anthropocentric arrogance of the highest order
Functionally, I agree with much of what the green lobby says : whilst I don't believe we really have the power to radically alter the whole planets climate, we can certainly pollute the hell out of it, and if the planet is warming naturally anyway, we can push it along a bit faster, or help slow it down once we actually know how. The forces at work are several orders of magnitude greater than anything we have control over though, although clearly that will change, and probably sooner than we think
-
Disclaimer : I'm not intending to get into politics here
Which is exactly what you did. Realism does not have to equal actual. It is scientifically proven that certain gases behave in certain ways. When generically applied to an atmosphere a generic result happens. If I take real Earth and add 1ATM of Carbon Dioxide all hell wold break loose in reality. Pressure goes way up and CO2 in that quantity absolutely would raise temperatures. But in a general realism sense you can do that within Aurora and still have the planet be habitable as long as O2 concentrations were sufficient. Aurora as it is doesn't deal in climates, just atmospheric numbers. Earth in that atmospheric arrangement is technically habitable. You can still deal in realistic configurations without bringing in real life climate science.
-
The problem with trying to make terraforming more realistic, is that we fundamentally don't understand how planetary climate systems really work.
(. . . )
Functionally, I agree with much of what the green lobby says : whilst I don't believe we really have the power to radically alter the whole planets climate,
Doesn't matter. First, because right now we can only adjust gas levels in minuite ways, while in Aurora we can add whole atmoshperes, which is several orders of magnitude bigger task. Second, becouse it's set several decades or centuries (depending on your play) into the future with FTL technology. I believe we can safely assume humans would know more about climate by than. Third, becouse Aurora does not deal with fine-tuning climate. It doesn't really matter whether you have nice shiny days, or rainy ones. Aurora only checks whether the atmosphere created is breathable (with very broad definition of breathable) and whether or not the temperature is survivable. However, I'd like to point out, that the temperature is median. Earth have, supposedly, temperature of 22C in Aurora, but in reality it ranges anywhere from -80 on poles to +40 on hot summer days. I guess it's similar with other bodies. Even if temperature is supposedly 2C or 44C you have huge variances there.
Fine tuning climate is irrelevant in Aurora terms. And like the previous poster noted, we know how gasses affect atmosphere more or less and that's good enough. If you add too much carbon dioxide you have Venus. Of course the question is how much is too much seeing how Mars have bigger partial pressure of it than Earth but is nonetheless colder (of course it doesn't have thick atmosphere, but that's another issue).
All in all the only thing I would add to terraforming (aside from the AGHG limit of course) is some kind of minor penalty (similar to the political one for example) for planet being habitable, but far from ideal. As it is, once you reach bare minimum you have "ideal habitable world" even if it have temperature of 2C and pressure of 0. 3 atm, which is climate similar to this in very high mountains. Where you don't see much of civilization I might add. Such a penalty would affect productivity but would otherwise not limit population.
-
I think one thing that would help with any complexity would be a terraforming queue and the ability to both save preset atmospheric conditions and maybe even some simple automation like "raise (or lower) temperature to racial tolerances" or "make atmosphere breathable". These options would queue up the necessary commands to satisfy the goal which would then be in your terraforming queue to tweak if so desired.
Love this idea! Would definitely cutdown on the micro-managing of terraforming. . . although, I really enjoy terraforming and tweaking the atmospheric numbers.
-
>> Which is exactly what you did
Seriously, I'm really not trying to get into the politics of it, just the science, and the science is very unclear, partly because of political interference which makes it extremely hard to disentangle the two.
>> It is scientifically proven that certain gases behave in certain ways
This is true, but understanding the components does not equal understanding the system. There are huge gaps in our understanding of how anything to do with planetary conditions work, because the oceans are increasingly looking like being the primary drivers of pretty much everything, which is a shame, as we have no idea how they work at all.
>> Pressure goes way up and CO2 in that quantity absolutely would raise temperatures
It's less clear than that. CO2 is also known as "plant food". Most of the plant matter on Earth is actually marine algae, which we understand poorly. It's possible that increasing CO2 levels will encourage algae growth. How would that affect global temperatures? We dunno
Auroras terraforming system is much better than most similar games, and it's still fairly abstract, and it might be better to leave it that way. Any attempt to make it more complex / realistic immediately starts running up against the boundaries of our knowledge.
The current system says here are some numbers for how hospitable the body is, here are some things you can build to change them, you take some stuff out, you put other stuff in. Awesome. It's complex enough to need thinking about and some management, without descending into micromanagement hell, for no return
-
Well, my only reason for even thinking of broaching M. I. S. C. (Make it super complicated) is that terraforming planets is almost a game within a game and is one of my favorite things to do. With Steve making a large amount of changes in 5. 7, I was merely adding to the wish list :)
-
It's possible that increasing CO2 levels will encourage algae growth.
On a completely off-topic note: if only the public knew. As it is due to a combination of effects we are having algae blooms of massive densities here the last two years. Public and Private sector researchers have pinned it to considerably higher then normal temperatures, higher CO2 levels and the presence of excessive nutrient rich (i.e. fecal waste and fertilizer) farm water run off have now made most of our states water bodies toxic to touch, let alone swim or drink.
Climate science is actually very well understood. What isn't understood is how quickly our actions are affecting it: which we are finding out more and more every day how much they really are.
The bottom line is that climates and atmospheres are extremely delicate and to me it would be a very nice touch to delve into some of the greater complexities of the existing terraforming systems so that the atmospheres are more then just numbers that equal .1 O2, 22C and less then 30% O2
-
Science deals with complex problems by simplifying them.
Earth is huge, has oceans and landmasses and mountains, its atmosphere is not the same everywhere, water evaporates and condenses into rain or snow all the time, winds and water currents influence temperature distribution, and the most important : et cetera. Complex as hell (or more so).
I say Earth is a perfect sphere of a given radius and mass, with an homogenous layer of static gases around it. NOW I can determine the theoretical greenhouse factor. No climate, no vegetation favorised by CO2, no oceans and landmasses. I barely acknowledge the planetary albedo, which encompasses snow, ice, water, land and cloud coverage. For me, this is what Aurora Terraforming is about.
You want to complexify it? Add a tiny bit to the simple model : tectonic activity indicates nuclear reactions in the planet's core, heating it enough to keep it liquid, and so increasing slightly surface temperature. Another tiny bit : by using reflectors, we can reduce or increase exposure to solar radiation, thus in a way modify planetary albedo.
This is lightyears from climate and vegetation, there's not even geography involved!
-
You forgot to add planetary rotation to the mix. Living on Mercury where day is longer than year, would be much more. . . interesting then living on Earth. Then there are tidally locked planets. Then there are moons of Gas Giants within habitable zones, which can have orbits of 2 mln kilometres, ie, within a several weeks they move 4 mln kilometres closer to the star, than back, not including ecliptical orbit of the giant itself. And that reminds me of plantes with high eccentricity, but those are not included in Aurora, so that is no problem.
-
I just cracked myself up thinking about this thread.
Not belittling it AT ALL. . . just the discussion is about planetary atmospheres and how to make the game more realistic or should an atmosphere have to be maintained or if other things should affect the given balances of gases and habitability.
All this, and I don't know if I have ever seen a discussion about the Jump Gates. I mean, we go build them and forget about them. No upkeep required, no breakdowns, no "Ooops!! Our fleet just went 'POP!'". Seems Jump Gates would be a pretty tricky bit of engineering and we just take it at face value for game simplification. Maybe terraforming should be taken in the same light.
I am, however, enjoying the different turns this thread has taken. Learning more here than on Wikipedia.
-
I just cracked myself up thinking about this thread.
Yes. We're all over the place, and it is all beautiful.
-
I am, however, enjoying the different turns this thread has taken. Learning more here than on Wikipedia.
You'd be surprised how many physicists of various types are members here :) Along with rocket scientists...
-
I just wanted to have those % points of gases do something other then look pretty on the atmospheric composition page. I didn't even want to open the climate change can of worms.
I dunno, one person trips when hanging a clock over the loo and has an epiphany and we all start in on it. Now that you opened your maw and mentioned jump gates I am sure people will start mulling that over and there will be a 14 page discussion ensuing shortly.
-
Now that you opened your maw and mentioned jump gates I am sure people will start mulling that over and there will be a 14 page discussion ensuing shortly.
LOL!!! Sorry.
-
You'd be surprised how many physicists of various types are members here :) Along with rocket scientists...
And the occasional historian!
-
I dunno, one person trips when hanging a clock over the loo and has an epiphany and we all start in on it.
I was about to remark on how Steve hasn't implemented time travel technology, but then I remembered the Space-Time Bubble he put into the game.
-
A flux capacitor would really liven things up around here.
-
In keeping with my "love to terraform" theme throughout all my posts on this topic, I just looked at my terraforming fleet. It has 35 terraforming ships in it and the fleet commander is. . . . . wait for it. . . . random name generator says, "Captain Dirk Goodpasture". I fell out laughing.
Anyhoo. . . .
-
Actually, I will say this about jump gates, which Steve has confirmed, and we should have no argument. There is no gate. The act of constructing a jump gate is actually just the act of stabilizing the wormhole. There is no structure left at the wormhole, it's slightly altering the fabric of space to make it stable. That's why the enemy can use your gates as well!
As for terraforming, I'd love to see more complexity, taking into account vegetation, climate, gas interaction, and all sorts of stuff. But with that should be some streamlining. A terraformer should be able to be programmed: "Reduce temperature to X by removing Y and Z gasses."
-
To complexify terraforming:
Atmosphere is only the minimum needed to survive. Water content and biosphere are needed as well.
Water/Ice coverage is a simple % and perhaps could make it adjustible by adding H2O to the atmosphere.
Biosphere might have their own stricter tolerances and more terraforming up to the sweet spot would be required beyond minimal habitation.
So, even if a planet has colony cost 0.00, that planet could require more people in the agriculture sector, up until the planet is right in the middle of racial tolerances. Say, up to an additional 5% of total people.
-
I'd suggest that realistic biosphere terraforming isn't likely to be very effective in the time scales we play games in. Algae has limits. Trees only grow so fast. Grasslands don't spread to cover continents in 30 years. There's no simulation of a hydrosphere or temperature zones, no rain, etc.
Either keep it super simple, or leave living organisms out of terraforming. Example: "You seed the planet with photosynthetic algae, causing a rise in oxygen!" Even then, we'd get into issues of how much it would rise, oxygen toxicity killing all the other forms of life that were used to the non-oxygenated atmosphere, and a whole bunch of other problems. For instance, there's no carbon cycle. Where's the carbon coming from? Should we require CO2 levels to be high enough for photosynthesis? What about other forms of life with wonky chemistry?
I initially thought the terraforming system was silly, but I've grown to like the simplicity. Terraforming is wildly complex and not something we have experience with or data on for accurate models. Not sure we need to incorporate SimEarth into Aurora.
-
Then there are moons of Gas Giants within habitable zones, which can have orbits of 2 mln kilometres, ie, within a several weeks they move 4 mln kilometres closer to the star, than back, not including ecliptical orbit of the giant itself.
Well. 2Mkm is peanuts at this scale you know...
Earth have a 5Mkm difference between its aphelion & perihelion.
And a Jovian sized object in place of the earth would have a hill sphere radius of 3Mkm. Even an object 5 time more massive will still only have a 6Mkm radius. Good ol' sun is quite massive.
Too bad Aurora generated system does not seems to take this constraint into account, leading to some quite funny results :)
More into the subject : I'm in favor of keeping it moderately simple, but adding a need for water to the mix would be welcome.
Also, the sudden "Cost 2 to 0 thanks for the 0. 0999 atm of oxygen becoming 0. 1 atm is quite annoying.
[edited : I'm still a noob as it seems...]
"An astronomical body's Hill sphere is the region in which it dominates the attraction of satellites. To be retained by a planet, a moon must have an orbit that lies within the planet's Hill sphere." Thanks Wikipedia
-
Well. 2Mkm is peanuts at this scale you know...
Earth have a 5Mkm difference between its aphelion & perihelion.
And a Jovian sized object in place of the earth would have a hill sphere radius of 3Mkm. Even an object 5 time more massive will still only have a 6Mkm radius. Good ol' sun is quite massive.
Except that if you take "real stars" option a good chunk if not most of the stars will be red dwarfs. Which means your gas giants will be located 10-50 million kilometres from the star. In that case 2-4 million kilometres change is quite big. Plus, while it's true that Earth perihelion and aphelion are further apart, in the case of the gas giants the change is more quicker. The Eart have enitre year of journey between close and far point, the sattelites would have changes occuring on a monthly basis (or 2-3 months, depends on orbit). I assume such a more sudden change would have consequences, perhaps serious, for the weather patterns. Of course I might be wrong too.
-
Except that if you take "real stars" option a good chunk if not most of the stars will be red dwarfs. Which means your gas giants will be located 10-50 million kilometres from the star. In that case 2-4 million kilometres change is quite big. Plus, while it's true that Earth perihelion and aphelion are further apart, in the case of the gas giants the change is more quicker. The Eart have enitre year of journey between close and far point, the sattelites would have changes occuring on a monthly basis (or 2-3 months, depends on orbit). I assume such a more sudden change would have consequences, perhaps serious, for the weather patterns. Of course I might be wrong too.
Ah, red dwarfs, those "runts" are indeed a weird case...
Just made the computation for Barnard's star and a jovian sized compagnon lurking at 15Mkm... Its hill sphere have a radius of less than 1mKm... A satellite at this distance would have quite a variable weather during it's 6 days orbit around the planet :)
However, life (as we know it) would be quite difficult around Barnard's star because it is, like a lot of those red dwarfs, a flare star, releasing sometime some massive radiation bursts...