My Best Idea For Exploration in Star Citizen | Comets and Planetary Orbits

[@elfwyn8707]

Orbiting Planets will have some heavy implication on travel within the confines of Star Citizen physics. In SC there is a Speed of "0". Once a Ship is caught within the orbit of a planet it is simply swept away with its rotation. When a Planet moves through a System then planets will move so incredibly fast that you could be swept away by a passing planet that happens to cross your route. Quantum travel routes would need to be plottet with an intercept course in mind as you try to catch them at the right point in time. If they find a way to implement this in a managable way im all in for it.

[@jrzgcwrocks]

I am also all in for actually using gravity slingshots & actually requiring plotting a route. Brings the use of a navigator. It's fabulous. However. Let's do that like last 🤩 maybe gib missions & economy first plan

[@a.j.9722]

I was wondering about the same thing! The maximum speed of around 1000 ms does not make sense anymore, QT travel would have to ‘recalibrate’ your reference frame.

[@elfwyn8707]

Thinking about it even further there might be another logical problem on top of orbits.... If planets and Space Stations have their orbits around the sun, why are all other places in space static? Why are all other "random" places you find in space not also orbiting but frozen in place and with a coordinate to find again? So many implications... I can just guess that they brought all those edge cases to a high level meeting and decided not to go down that rabbit hole anytime soon. Navigation and even waypointing locations in space might become so convoluted that the entry barrier for players might become quite high. What if Players build a space station in deep space? will it start to orbit around the sun once finished? If it does not orbit on its own, why not build a construction dock in space and let it be swept away by the next planet passing by... How about doing that and then build another space dock, just to let it crash into the previous space dock on the next roundabout? In order to conserve fuel you could just log out in space and log in in 2 Hours, so the target planet is right next to you. In a universe with a simplified physic, trying to make it "half-realistic" might not work out as well as we would like...

[@elfwyn8707]

@@a.j.9722 I think Quantum travel is fast enough at the moment to compensate for the planet movement. Lets say a planet rotates around the sun in a month. Passing through the whole system takes maybe an hour or two. There is still some room to make quantum even slower without it impacting orbiting planets. Its the fact that planets would "move at all" that can break things.

[@elfwyn8707]

@@jrzgcwrocks I don't see them doing any kind of newtonian pyhsics for a multitude of reasons. By far the most gamebreaking would be the millions of entities suddenly needing pyhsics calculations istead of just being at point X/Y. I could see a very simplified version where every ship is located on a disk that rotates around the sun, maybe with different orbital-disks spinning at different speeds, going slower the further away from the sun. That could simulate dynamic planet positions while not breaking the main game mechanics.

[@DaKineGuy]

All in for orbits. They don't need to be fast either, I wouldn't expect to see a planet circumnavigate it's entire orbit in a few hours. I'm down with more of what Tomato said, takes something like 6 months for a planet to orbit with each planet having different rotational speeds to create some cool natural positional events. Like the guy said, the system is already basically capable of doing it, but other dependent systems would need to be adapted for game play like QT. Not sure what these other comments are going on about with relative speeds and janky transitions. The game already solved this with the planetary "box" that already exists today and locks you into it's rotation. When I'm going 0 m/s in orbit around MicroTech I'm still moving relative to the Stanton star proper since it's locked me to MicroTech's rotation. When we QT right now we're exiting and entering them with no issues. It's why you have to redo your nav selection sometimes after a long QT and the planet rotated your OM nav point to the other side of the planet from your point of entry while you were in QT.

[@Zalatian]

3-6 month periodization has precedent in other games as seasons, so planet positions paired with dynamic events could be SC's equivalent on a similar timeframe. Route adaptation would have a major upside keeping the travel fresh and make navigation more of a player skill and less about wiki research.

[@billmccoy8232]

Orbits in general might be a great way to evergreen the exploration loop, like your comet example. Could also evolve into an entire navigation gameplay loop where jumping off the static map get's you close, but you might still need a secondary jump. Whereas a ship with a navigator (e.g. Carrak) would be able to shorten the trip by jumping to a proper coordinate. Maybe you could also misjudge and literally crash into a planet if you get it totally wrong or cut it too tight.

[@GW2Vids1]

God damn yes, comets, neutron stars, dark stars and all that exciting stuff would be peak exploration!

[@Mindbulletz]

This is a very good idea. Agree that it deserves to be its own video.

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

Thank you!

[@RustikMcLovin]

Plz CIG make planets orbiting

[@TennysonEStead]

100% agree. This is how you do resource gameplay special events. Great idea.

[@emessar]

I love the idea of orbiting planets and moons. I think it would make the systems exponentially more interesting, particularly with regards to the economy ... especially if jump points were orbiting the star as well. The biggest problem with things like comets that I see is figuring out how they can both move through eccentric orbits realistically AND have that work in an environment where ships have a top speed. There would be some serious challenges in how you nest those physics grids. Circular orbits have their challenges but aren't AS hard. That could mostly be done with nested physics grids and concentric physics grids. (Maybe I should probably make a video to show what I'm thinking?)

[@mattoverton5526]

Even things existing events make more sense to be once a year as the orbits put the planets in an opportunistic place.

[@gamsc]

An Endeavor positioned at the edge of the system spots the comet through its telescope array and precisely calculates the route for a jump and the exact moment when it’s safe-considering the distance-for a ship like the Carrack to jump to it and still have enough quantum fuel to return.

[@brickstonesonn9276]

Putting the space gameplay in the space game

[@kingotime8977]

Summer on Microtech could be interesting.

[@lovlinator]

I love the comet idea!

[@tkc1129]

The thing that people who harp on about orbits in their space sims don't understand is just how damn fast the planets are moving, even with the 1/6 scale solar systems of Star Citizen. You wouldn't be able to descend to a planet because it'd just speed away from you. And if you were in front of its orbit, the planet would turn you into roadkill. It'd also probably look really glitchy because the server tick rate wouldn't be fast enough for how fast it is moving. Your idea would only really work for planetoids at around 1 AU. Closer and it would never leave the playspace. Further (like the highly oblique objects we know in real life) and it'd be gone for years, decades, or even centuries. If you tried speeding up the orbits, you'd just be making the problem I talked about earlier even worse. The only way to "solve" the problem is to invent a new type of superscalar, progressive physics grid that is basically a taurus around the orbit of an object that progressively sweeps you up to match its velocity. In effect, you'd basically need to create a current for all orbiting bodies. But even then, it would probably be really buggy; your motion relative to the planet might seem natural, but the game and server would both be dealing with your absolute velocities, which as I mentioned, would probably look really buggy with the server (or even client's) tick rate. For instance, at those kinds of speeds, even if you were swept up in the planet's "current," the a server trick rate of 15 FPS would mean every object near Earth would be moving 1.2 miles per tick (or 6x less than that with a scaled-down system). There would be no frames in-between the server ticks, so most things would just pass through each other. Docking with a space station would be impossible. The fact that CIG has never addressed this and let people down gently - and the fact that they are considering orbits right now - gives me a lot of anxiety about the project. This feels like their repeated flight model failures; if something doesn't even work conceptually, no amount of fine-tuning will fix it. They CAN do seasons because it's just the tilt of the planets. Maybe they could just make it so you are ALWAYS orbiting around the star at a speed that is determined by your radius from it, and redefine all game math taking that into account, but then the orbital speeds of planets would all completely scale with each other unrealistically. For context, the Earth is traveling 66,666.6666 miles per hour (uh, that's kind of a crazy number to end up with). Neptune is traveling 12,460 miles per hour.

[@ThorbjrnPrytz]

OK, IF you enable planet rotation and orbits: how long should day/night cycles be? How many days should a year ( one orbit) be? Is 1:1 the best option?

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

No idea, but it'd be so cool to see it differ between planets and systems. I don't think 1:1 is the best option, though.

[@jrspringston]

Sounds dope! On a side note, elevators are kind of broken again lol

[@emperor_pewpew2903]

For that too work the calculations for the math will have to be so random because if it's a static calculation it won't be dynamic weather..but yea i hope the do it right so the danger level could be really random and harder to predict

[@darisanshanger1616]

I would rather have them fix it to where my friends and I don’t “Axel Orbit” out of our ships when in motion. :-) there are Sooooo many things that need to come .. this would be in the “Nice to have” list

[@NovaRexus64]

I desperately hope orbits are implemented into the game. regardless of the tech and programming hurdles it would create I think a static universe with no moving planets just isnt suited for this game in the long term.

[@Northshoreboy135]

That would be amazing. The distance between planets dictates the economy to a degree!

[@GamingNostalgiaRemastered]

what economy?

[@kevinscales]

The major tech issues with anything like real orbits in this game make it basically infeasible in my mind. Ships need to know how fast they are moving (for dogfighting in space reasons), meaning you need a sensible point of reference to measure speed against, there is no single point of reference that makes any sense (with speed-limits to consider) when things are orbiting each other and having dynamic points of reference brings up a whole other set of problems, like how do you transition between different points of reference smoothly without having effectively infinite points of reference requiring servers to track the movement of each object individually even when no one is around them, or janky transitions between fixed orbital reference frames that would be ridiculous/immersion-breaking for players to deal with. Perhaps the answer is smooth/infinite points when a player is near and janky transitions when no one is around? But still, you are going to have all kinds of weird edge cases to deal with making this a complicated system to build and it will still be severely limited as far as what orbits are possible - can't have any orbit intersect with any other orbit and orbits have to be non-chaotic 2-body systems so that you don't have to constantly recalculate how everything is moving. I don't think it is impossible, just that it will likely be janky as hell in one way or another and/or much more work than people realize.

[@Qwarzz]

I'm not sure what you mean the issue is here. I assume the orbits around planets and moons will stay the same as they are now. So if anything is out of the atmosphere, then it's in stationary orbit. Moons orbiting the planets and planets orbiting the star won't change this. Sounds like the main issue right now is that quantum travel isn't designed for moving targets. I expect they'll fix that at some point as we're getting quantum boost again too.

[@Mindbulletz]

Complicating piracy is a GOOD thing. 😂

[@sinisadovijanic]

we have that in ED and what is the problem with 2 systems and 20 planets/moons (Realistic space game with static planets LOL)

[@RazSkull673]

I just want surprises that are nit ruined by a dumb preview…

[@aleclowry7654]

Then don't watch?

[@kevinscales]

I like the comet idea, just have no idea how you transition to the comets orbit in any non-janky way without it being something like an instance that you can only get to with quantum travel. (Elite: Dangerous supercruise style)

[@moomanseven]

Rogue planet

[@vheypreexa]

sounds great, put it in after 1.0

[@taylormurphy2551]

For the love of god, just deliver gameplay loops. We a real game, not tech demo. The engineers that implement these kind of features need to be doing more important things. As cool as it is, orbital mechanics is just further creep.

[@trell1011]

Let them cook and we as gamers need to be patient

[@GamingNostalgiaRemastered]

I don't think we'll ever see orbiting planets and moons. The reason? It's simply too difficult for CIG to program. I don't even think their core engine supports it. Face it, if they could do it, they would have done it by now. Frontier Development, however, has proven orbits are quite possible in Elite Dangerous. But let's face it... This is CIG we're talking about. They can't even be bothered to make NPC's function as anything more than non-interactable placeholders standing on chairs after 12 years of development. Hell, they can't even make elevators function reliably to this day. Orbits create too many variables for them which will only get even more intricate with server meshing. Intersecting trajectories of moons and planets, Quantum Travel paths, the need to keep track of every planet's position at any given time relative to your position in space,... It's sad to see a space simulation game fail on one of the most basic aspects of planetary physics while claiming their technology is cutting edge.

[@secretweapon7764]

This type of stuff is exactly why the game is so far behind. They shouldn't even be thinking of things like orbits and seasons until they can get things like doors, elevators, and missions working reliably. There are WAY too many unfixed bugs and missing game loops they need to prioritize.

[@FuriousImp]

That's not how development works. Tell me you're not working in the field without telling me you're not working in the field.

[@moontreecollective6718]

Exactly. I’ve been saying this for years. Its absolutely insane the things they choose to focus on without having the basics nailed down

[@moontreecollective6718]

@@FuriousImpI DO work in the field, and it is undeniable how bad the scope creep is at CIG. Ex-employees have come out and confirmed it. I personally spoke to a CIG dev about it. It’s bad. Stop coping.

[@GamingNostalgiaRemastered]

So true. They need to set their priorities. But what's the point. The only eternal answer we'll ever get is "because,... ALPHA".

[@secretweapon7764]

@@FuriousImp That is EXACTLY how development works. When your base product doesn't work, adding additional layers of complexity on top of it is just bad design. That makes everything slower and less stable. Which is exactly what we have. Their problem isn't the developers, it's whoever is setting priorities at the top.

[@RioTFF]

Why are they over-engineering this shit? WE JUST WANT A WORKING GAME not advanced physics This is a complete waste of time

[@felian9562]

You would be suprised how many people hate the game for not having realistic physics. If cig gets hate whatever they do, they just do what they want. But yeah, less bugs would be nice.

[@sirrebelpaulc3439]

First!

[@Trillineatus]

Seriously, you americans need an explanation on how seasons work? Haha

[@Ricardojmsl]

It´s a game.... here we go again with some sim backers wanting for the simulation to be acurate and wanting devs to spend too m uch time that doesnt bring any added value to gameplay. i dont care about the tilt or that it needs to be scientificly acurate for the seasons to happen.

[@haramberinokripperino7770]

It’s not hard to tilt the planet, the hard part is making everything seasonal: flora, fauna, temperature and climate.

[@StrikerWolf91]

You and many others, possibly even I, don't care about that too much. I mean, if it's there "yay", but I really don't care one way or the other. The thing is (and you can call it an issue if you want) that CIG is aiming for realism, and keep trying to push both software and hardware towards that goal. Take volumetric clouds for example. They are COMPLETELY unnecessary. In fact many people, including me, turn them off and the game still looks amazing. But CIG did it anyway.

[@GamingNostalgiaRemastered]

Ever played Elite Dangerous? Then you should be aware of the awe-inspiring views you can get when standing on a planet looking at the slowly rising moon above your head. It really creates a sense of dynamic scale to the universe. I'd argue, if your aim is to create a space simulator, then planetary space physics are a key component.

[@Ricardojmsl]

@@GamingNostalgiaRemastered we had enough wallpaper printscreen "gameplay" already. Bring on the gameplay loops and leave the realism beatifull wallpaper prints on hold for a mint ( until after 1.0 would be nice ).