"Natural" planet collisions are anti-natural?

"many people" meaning only you.

I mean, this is a game with planets that shoot lasers that completely destroy other planets. Metal planets are made by using metals harvested from other planets. But here your suspension of disbelief dissolves at "two planets are really close to each other in their orbit and hit each other eventually wtf?"

Also, what do you want to tell people other than you do not like planets with intersecting orbits? Any suggestions, jokes, options, gameplay? Something new?

It's not unrealisitic, you just happen to exist on a planet without another crashing into your face.

The word planetary does not in any way connote 'realism'. Your statement here is essentially saying that Star Wars shouldn't use either of it's title words because they imply that it's realistic.

plan·e·tar·y
ˈplaniˌterē/
adjective
adjective: planetary

1. of, relating to, or belonging to a planet or planets.
   "the laws of planetary motion"
   • of or relating to the earth as a planet.
     "planetary air pollution and climatic change"

It seems to me like you are unaware of/misunderstanding one of the key mechanics/features of this game.

Any and every player in P.A has the tools and ability to create a system they want(given certain parameters). Any complaints concerning orbits, planet size, metal count, or incidental collisions should be directed to the creator of the system you are playing on, which in most cases is your host. The random system generator seems to use parameters that avoid incidental collisions, but it's not impossible. (Also, don't be surprised if you're playing on a system titled 'Collision system' and something ends up crashing into you.)

Considering how picky you are with your game types/systems I would suggest making your own to fit your needs. You reserve the right to dislike the way someone has made a system, you can even complain to them until they ignore you, but, similar to the whole freedom of speech thing, that is your opinion and no one is obligated to change because of it.

In terms of the Cheddar Cup, what better way to mess with every new feature Uber has given us than to have a tournament centered around all those neat things? I found that to be a very fun and competitive display of the game.

The bottom line is that we have been given a tool from Uber. This tool allows any of us to create the games we want to play.

PS: I don't know if you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons(or any other table top RPG), but you're given a rulebook (several, really) that act as guidelines listing numerous mechanics that you as the DM(dungeon master) and players can use to create a world. These mechanics ideally emulate the real world (obvious fantasy elements included), but that many people are still able to do the most outlandish things with what they're given. You can't limit what people are capable of if you give them the tools to do so.

found this on reddit.

Been there, asteroided that.

How's this for an ‘explanation’ - in the PA universe many planets are constantly being destroyed through hales and lazors, and a few are changing orbit through use of hales that were destroyed during planetary transit. This alters gravity a fair bit and therefore alters the orbits of other planets – thereby creating orbits that intersect with one another and leading to these natural collisions. The commanders seek out such solar systems as battlegrounds as they provide nasty tricks with which to surprise their enemy, giving them a slight advantage. Knowledge is power etc.

I think we should all breathe a sign of relief that the OP hasn't yet noticed the size of the planets, the slower-than-light energy weapons, the teleporters or the rockets that push against empty space to drive moons about the place.

Actually rockets do work in space Eukanuba XD (how do you think space craft get around?).

Newtons Third Law ftw

Edit: JET ENGINES don't work due to lack of air- which is why the hybrid jet + rocket combo engine is such a big deal as it will allow 'sub orbital' flights that means travel to any point on the globe in 4 hours...

Fuel combust in the engine, turning into dense gases that will be pushin at all surfaces in the engine. By creating a hole in the combustionchamber(the nozzle), the gases wont be pushing against this part of the chamber, creating a disbalance in force between the position of the hole and the opposite side of the chamber, which creates thrust. This is a very basic explanation, there are more and better explanations probably, at least more that are scientifically right.

I'm a card carrying scientist who plays with brain scanners all day. Arguments about realism and simulation are almost entirely boring and useless. I play PA to smash planets into robots, not for a solar system sim. Every time this topic comes up I groan and a somewhere a grad student loses his funding. Realism is a nice aesthetic wherever possible but in a game like PA it will always be trumped by gameplay. Don't underestimate the design gulf between sims like Kerbal and RTSs like PA.

Well at least that's one less thing for the OP to notice, phew! Fingers crossed he doesn't find out that bipedal robots are wholly impractical and planes can't fly without an atmosphere.

What? They HAVE their own orbits? Where is the problem?
Who said that planets do not collide naturally? Asteroids (k, they're no planets) do collide with other planetary bodies all the time.
And when 2 planets' orbits cross each other, it just happens that they collide!? I don't even understand your problem.

U wot?

In a game like this, with SENTIENT ROBOTS KILLING EACH OTHER, it's the fact that two planets can smash into each other unintentionally that breaks your suspension of disbelief?
Do you even know what suspension of disbelief is?

Incidental planet smash is probably the most sensible part about this game.

Allright...., so I'm not from the united states, so I might be wrong about this one. But as far I know there are no laws or rules which describe when it is appropriate to use the word 'planetary', so I call fallacy on this one.

Again.... who is the judge who decides the 'it's not supposed to be realistic' argument cannot be used.
You want 100% realism? Go play desert bus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_&_Teller's_Smoke_and_Mirrors#Desert_Bus).
Name me one game..., ANY GAME and I'll nitpick something which isn't realistic completely free of charge.

So once again, a fallacy and completely arbitrary.

Fair enough, althought subjective, this might be true for you. The huge killer robots, planet engines and death lasers didn't break your suspension of disbelief, but the colliding orbits did (which is funny, because out of this list, the colliding planets are the only thing we know has actually happened and is actually happenning everywhere in the universe)

' Conflicting orbits' is not an oxymoron. On a long enough timescale, lots of orbits are conflicting. Apophis for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis), may or may not hit us in 2029, it may or may not hit us in 2036, and it could hit us in the future.

Conflicting orbits are only a problem if the conflicting objects are in the same spot at the same time (which could happen)

But I agree with you on one thing (even though you didn't say this): It would sure be nice if the lobby would show a 'THIS SYSTEM HAS CONFLICTING ORBITS' Message

I like the fact that you can set up a system where you know you have to rush offworld.

This means you not only have to get yourself out of harms way, but you also have to fight off the enemy while doing it, AND preventing them from getting off the planet.

Which makes game that much more intense.

I think I got your point

@icycalm , NATURAL collisions do exist in the universe, but 99.99% of them are between a planet with CLOSED orbit and another planet with OPEN orbit (i.e. parabolas or hyperbolas)
The game cannot allow open orbits, because eventually (if you miss the timing in the system designer) they would have a very high coordinates X and Y values beyond their limits, causing unexpected and undesired behavior

Hence we use closed orbits to simulate these collisions. I do understand that a collision between two closed orbits is unrealistic, since a closed orbit means that a planet's path reached a periodic STEADY STATE behavior, thus preventing SINGULARITIES existing in its path.

If you want to make an in-game collision to look like "natural", you could make one of the planets to have a very high eccentricity, so the planet "looks like it is coming from a very distant galaxy"

The size of the planets is not something that the devs can fix. I already play on almost as large planets as currently possible, and will keep pushing their size as far as tech will allow me (but until then I'll keep referring to the game as "Asteroidal Annihilation" in my mind). Teleporters are a fine sci-fi mainstay, and thrusters work fine in space. Not sure what you mean about the energy weapons. Obviously I made this thread because planned collisions bother me more than any of these things.

Maybe you can explain it to everyone else, then, because they claim the opposite.