Been creating multi-body solar systems with some orbits that aren't completely circular, just to mix it up a bit. I've found that the solar system manager will let me create the system but will not save or load the game with these eccentric orbits. All orbits revert to being circular. Anyone else experienced this oddity? Is this a bug or a feature soon to be added within the game?
soon to be added feature i think. it doesn't work. orbits do become elliptical when units and planets are moved from place to place in a live game. But setting planets to have irregular orbits in the system editor doesn't work. The game will load but the orbits will be standard circular orbits.
It also doesn't save opposing orbits, for example I had a system set up where the inner moon was in a clockwise orbit with the outer in a counterclockwise orbit. When the game loaded both were in a clockwise orbit.
Why i really want is a way to set Apoapsis, periapsis and phase with a keyboard so we can create bodies that have the same orbit and speed, but are a set distance apart. This is because currently when i try to do that it too often happens that one planet over the time catches up to the other planet traveling through it.
@zweistein000 Apoapsis and periapsis are easy to calculate once you know: Periapsis or apoapsis and the orbit eccentricity, or; average distance and eccentricity. This style of orbit creation I've suggested in one of my previous threads as I find it, personally, more logical system then trying to guess position and velocity vectors to get the orbit i want. This system should also be fairly easy to create the kind of systems you're wanting to create. By also including a longitude of periapsis, some off-set can be created. Obviously if the orbits cross there will be interesting effects as orbit inclination isn't addressed in the orbit mechanics