In the system editor, I notice that there's an option for specifying the mass of a planet. What is mass for? It doesn't seem to affect gameplay, as far as I can tell.
It affects where you can place planets and what bodies they will orbit. A planet can only orbit another object with a higher mass; a planet will also only orbit an object if it has a greater gravitational influence at that position than some other object (such as the sun). So a larger mass means moons can orbit the body further out. I think it might be used for more than just that, since Garat keeps insisting we not set mass below 5000 for anything. Not sure why that is though.
It means that when celestial bodies with enough mass collide, they will turn into a star That would be a nice twist/feature in-game, for a new star to form mid-game after a planet smash.
Or new object classifications e.g. *asteroids* being defined as having a mass less than 5000? Edit: We're probably putting 2 + 2 together and getting 12! but it's fun to speculate
Atm a metal planet will orbit nothing besides the sun i believe. its like 35000 ive tried to change that but then the game crashes Its kinda funny to think about. Because yeah sure metal is heavy right? But would 2 planets of equal size, would the metal one actually be heavier than earth ? i honestly dont know. Somehow i feel like the metal planet would actually be lighter.
Kind of unrelated, but what affects speed of orbit? Is there anyway to increase speed so that two planets on exactly the same orbit will eventually collide?
No, because that's not how physics works. Two planets in the same orbit have the same speed, otherwise they'd be in different orbits. (Unless the game is doing pseudo-physics, then I don't know.) But you can have two planets go towards each other at the same speeds -- i.e. one goes clockwise and the other goes counterclockwise. Or you can have two planets at slightly different orbits, and thus slightly different speeds. One will eventually overtake the other and collide.
But what about air resistance on the bigger planet. More air resitance = less speed. Lol. They see me trollin' they hatin'..
The atmosphere doesn't reach that far up, so moons and whatnot are essentially travelling in a vacuum. Things closer to Earth, like the ISS for example, do experience a small amount of atmospheric drag that slows them down. This doesn't change the fact that a specific orbit requires one specific speed. So if it weren't for small rockets that push the ISS up every now and then, the ISS would fall into the Earth because it has lost the speed it needs to maintain its particular orbit around the Earth.
I do think the game runs on pseudo physics. In the system editor you can change the velocity of a celestial body (I sometimes use this to reverse the direction of orbit). I've also noticed that you can create elliptical orbits with this as well. I think it's possible to have a planet orbiting the sun at a physically impossible speed, and thus, have 2 planets in the same orbit with different speeds
You are forgetting the term for the objects mass, as two objects with differing masses orbiting a planet at the specified distance will travel at slightly different orbital curvatures due the the perturbation that the orbiting object causes in the orbited object. Note that this perturbation is not significant unless the two objects in the orbital system are close to the same mass. Of course, I doubt PA simulates barycenters properly.
I really wish there was an easier way to set this up. As it stands, trying to get two planets to run into each other at a specific time in the game feels so tedious and ends up taking forever.
