So I'm building a system right now and remembered an issue I was having the other day. I was building a system with a central moon and 2 planets orbitting it at opposite ends. After spending longer than it should have to get it to work right (was struggling with the numbers for some reason), I just realised what we need. A way to put planets on the same orbital line. "Locking" them together so they travel the EXACT same orbit at the EXACT same speed, but easier to set up. I want to do a system with a planet starting at north/south/east/west of the sun and it would be so much easier if I could just press a button to snap them to the orbital line of one planet. Thoughts folks?
I guess you van mod this since planet placement can be done trough the x and y values in the GUI you could do some calculations with angles and stuff. An other way to do it is to place a planet at say x:100 y:100 then press simulate to make it move slightly on its orbit then place the second planet again on 100,100 and you will have 2 planets on the exact same orbit And if you want them exactly at the north south east and west you can place them at 100,0 0,100 -100,0 and 0,-100 where 100 is any number you like
If you toy around with the masses of a planet, you can change their orbital settings. A high mass will allow the planet to be placed almost anywhere without going into an orbit. A medium mass will allow it to be placed almost anywhere, but it'll try to go into an orbit if it's close enough to another planet. A low mass will force the planet to only be placed at a very specific distance from the sun, and it'll try to go into an orbit if it's close enough to another planet. Radius can determine the minimum/maximum distance from a planet, but it's not all that noticeable outside the system editor.
I am aware of changing mass changes what the planet will orbit. I've used it before to have an eclipse line of planets to start the game. It's more the system creator still feels very basic. Like it's still at DOS while the rest of the game is up to Win98 or ME. At least trying to get the system to work (I do have it working now, it's a good system to fight on) taught me how the creator in it's current state works
The system editor seems like a place that mods could and probably should be used to enhance. It just needs to provide enough internals for mods to mess with. Of course if a commonly needed feature is identified it should be standardified.
I know you can manually enter all the data to get it right because that's what I did. What I'm saying is it would be nice if there was a way to do that without manually entering the right numbers. Because getting it just right, checking it, then having it all mess up when you simulate to check it is frustrating.
I think was a reasonable request and not out of realms of improbability either as far as real life is concerned. I can only imagine how many planetary bodies in real life have more then 1 thing orbiting the planet almost on the exact same orbital path that just never collide with even sized objects cause even amounts of gravity for both objects. Gameplay wise, think it would make for finer tuning of systems a bit easier.
While it's pretty useful in-game, A 3 body system with bodies of non-negligible mass set up this way would be unstable in real life. Just an FYI.
Yeah heh... but I reckon there are systems out there that do have it, considering the billions of combinations that are possible
