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How would you feel if the planets were larger?


aliensalmon

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Alioth has a diameter of about 252 km, if I recall correctly. For comparison, Earth has a diameter of 12,756 km. The "dwarf" planet Ceres has a diameter of 939 km.

 

How would you feel if the planets were larger such that they were closer to the sizes of real life planets?

 

I'm of the opinion that more real estate can't be bad, but I also understand why planets in DU should be smaller because of data storage issues or whatever.

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They are the size of real planets, just not as big as most planets in our solar system. 😉 

 

When DU begins expanding we may see Earth sized planets.  There have also been requests for gas giants with no tiles, so that could be an interesting twist. 

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18 minutes ago, Wyndle said:

They are the size of real planets, just not as big as most planets in our solar system. 😉 

 

When DU begins expanding we may see Earth sized planets.  There have also been requests for gas giants with no tiles, so that could be an interesting twist. 

 

I think there's a minimum threshold for objects rounded by their own gravity though (a.k.a. hydrostatic equilibrium) such as for them to be defined as planets. Ceres happens to be the smallest such object. But I see what you mean.

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I was under the impression that planets formed from molten particulate matter trapped in Lagrange points and that the effect we perceive as planetary gravity is essential a vortex of energy extended from the motion of the host star.  A whirlpool of plasma filled with different layers of buoyancy and reactionary effects from the various elements trapped in the flow.

 

A-blue-water-vortex-that-funnels-below-t

Picutred:  An island of mostly plastic trash that formed in a whirlpool.

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33 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

i think i have more issues with the whole rotation system, slightly more realism would be largely welcomed. The size of these planets is no issue for me as long they are over a minimal threshold. But it would be nice to get ores back

I spent some time recently excavating one of the unknown wrecks that looked like a fallen space station.  I miss planet based ore hunting for sure.

 

If NQ could eventually implement a plasma physics inspired star and planet rotation system it would make the game so much more.  Weaker Lagrange points would be (and are) natural asteroid fields and affect direct flight paths depending on where that entire orbit disk is oriented relative to the orbit disk of your current location.  Distances would change over time within a set range.  The default gravity point would be the host star(s) instead of nearest planet switching to the nearest Lagrange point when it becomes more pronounced than default gravity.  Describing it this way just make me think about what comes after XL cores; Warp gates become random S(tar)-Class Cores.  :lol:

 

EarthMoonLagrangePoints.png

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Yeah, thats just It. This will make DU so much more interesting for people with different interests, for builders, explorers, programmers and strategists and all kind of others. There is a large unexplored potential just lying there.

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10 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

It would make the game very unfun! Realism != fun. Travel would take way too long, the planet would be mostly empty, resources wouldn't mean anything as everyone could easily get what they would want with similar distribution. If not, it would be hell scanning all those tiles.

Travel already takes too long without warp.  Sometimes the trip could be shorter than current distance due to different orbit speeds. As for "Realism != fun," that is a personal preference (ex. virtual "relations" != physical contact).

 

I don't follow on the rest of your statement.  This would not change distribution of resources or scan mechanics.  Planets being bigger or orbiting would not change the number of players or how close together they would be (most huddle near big markets anyway).

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In relation to the gas giants; having a space industry that gets benefits for higher than 1 g could make an interesting challenge in how close you could place a space core, land on, and leave with cargo.  At some point even a scripted ship wouldn't be capable of holding altitude.

 

Edit:  It would also be interesting to see what happens to the IAR system regarding totally unrecoverable ships.

Edited by Wyndle
Adding more detail.
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