Binary systems in PA?

Just to clear up, if you don't know what a binary system is, it is a solar system where two stars orbit eachother along the same path. Here is a wikipedia page on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_system_(astronomy)

I thought that this would work not only because not many (if any) strategy games have done binary systems, but this could also be used along with the currently suggested (and being considered mind that ) concept of solar panels, if there is no such thing as nightime on the planet with my solar planets, it means that binary systems become a focus of players attention during fighting for solar systems.

just thought i would suggest this if uber want to add day/nightime for solar panels.

Thx for reading

It would make a cool visual effect.

I think you need to go back and research binary systems
If any planets form in a binary system, they orbit the centre of gravity of the two stars, not IN BETWEEN them.
The gravitational forces would prevent any planet forming in between, or indeed anywhere close to the system.

It could only serve as a nice graphic effect.

Damnit.

I read the first post, got all excited because I thought I could point this out. *shakes fist* You win this time!

You can easily have binary systems in which the stars orbit quite a distance from each other. And even so, planets can form further away from a star and spiral in as time passes after the birth of the system.

Well watching that last livestream where they showed off the solar system and planet editor I got the impression that you could make any thing orbit any other thing in the system. They mentioned planets that had more planets orbiting planets orbiting planets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScQBJoqsR8Y

And if a "sun" just counts as another object then I'd imagine you could do anything, even dumb things like making a sun orbit another planet or something crazy.

And if you wanted to have something look like a binary system (even if it technically isn't) the editor could make a stationary spot in space (sort of a bookmark) and then have two suns orbiting that spot at the same distance and speed but on opposite sides of your point. It would look like the suns are orbiting each other.

Good point :lol: but PA is not about realism, its about AWESOME!

(and i still think even when orbiting around the center of gravity, the solar panels would get you a bit more power than normal.

Hey, they could even add systems with 3 stars for all your power needs!

This must be linked: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=36658&

How about in a binary system you could spawn on a planet between the stars and you have X ammount of time in order to escape to the asteroids before the planet is ripped apart by gravity. This could be a fun moment of gameplay trying to stop your oponent from launching while at the same time trying to move your commander out before it's too late.

All of my yes :shock:

The odds of a planet orbiting between a binary star borders on the impossible. For many reasons the orbit would be completely unstable, the surface itself may not survive, and there's a pretty good chance it'll orbit directly into the star sooner or later.

Even if it did exist in game, the orbit would still have to be synchronous with the stellar motion, lest the planet finds itself clipping through the star. Hmm. I guess a vertical orbit could potentially pass between a horizontal binary system without issue.

Planets could orbit around the barycenter that lies in between a binary star system.
There is no way they (or anything, for that matter) could survive orbiting in the space between the stars themselves.

Also, @christopher1006, I think I would rather play a normal game than a specialized game type when in a binary system. Perhaps it could it be implemented in a mod (they need to spend time making the game right now, anyway).

Ripped apart by gravity? Sorry, but no. If you are between the stars you won't get ripped apart. Either the forces cancel out or you get pulled towards one of the stars.
To be ripped apart by gravity, its pull would have to be so strong, that the part of the asteroid which is closer to the star accelarates much faster than the rest, which would rip it away. And to get that amount of strength you need a black hole, everything else either isn't massive enough or has to big of a radius to rip something apart before a collision happens.

This is precisely the sort of craziness I am hoping to see in PA's planetary simulation system. Because honestly, it's just too AWESOME!

Sure, it is highly improbable that a binary (trinary? more?) star would form with planets in between. But who cares?

Did nobody see the movie pitch black? I don't recall hearing anyone bashing that one for it's seven suns, which clearly were not all clumped up in a single ball in the center of the system. And who cares if they did? the AWESOME! greatly outweighed the realism there. And that's just the first example I can think of off the top of my head. No doubt there are a dozen others in media out there that could be referenced.

I want to see binary (trinary? more?) stars. I want to see binary planets. I want to see crazy eccentric orbits. I want to see comets and meteors. I want to see black holes. I want to see quasars.

I want craziness. The more interesting possibilities we have in the planetary simulation, the better.

If the star obstructs player view, or if planets start clipping through other orbital bodies, it will become a problem. You gotta be careful about strange orbits, lest they do something really weird or the planet simply self destructs.

i think everyone is assuming suns as all the same when they are not, how about for example, a system that has a primary sun in the center but a white dwaf orbiting that sun, that is certainly an idea, and a white dwarf is about the size of Jupiter. there could be giant suns in the game, considering galactic scale it could be possible to have a supernova.

Uber also isn't necessarily interested in over-realism, they don't mind a little lack of it here and there, so i would certainly suggest to keep your mind open.

considering multi-sun systems i think it might be interesting if there were a system that had no sun, or that sun is burnt out, dark frozen over system.

I think it is a cool concept. Might I suggest a way to make this work?

I think the current planet editor we saw, can be implemented to "add planets to a planet's orbit". Well, it should allow the option to create "stars" instead of planets. Then, it should allow the option to "destroy" the thing it orbits, creating a circular orbit between them. This would also allow planets to orbit the stars individually, or the star's center of gravity.

Not realistic they could orbit between the stars like they will, but it is pretty awesome, so I say allow it. Besides, it is actually easier in programming to not add limits. I think the possibilities, all the random stars and planets a person could create orbiting one another, could both make no sense at all AND be an amazingly fresh solar system to conquer.

EDIT: Or create "empty centers of gravity" as an addable option to the planet editor. I like this idea too because perhaps you could add a gravity well that is outside of another gravity well, like close-proximity seperate solar systems.

I remember the developers said that stars arent be "real" stars in the game...just graphics...background. So, any kind of interaction with them (as energy extraction, transform them into a black hole super weapon etc) wont be possible.

As said above, I don't care about the physics behind it. I know the probability that you'd actually find a planet in the center of a binary system at the same time as it's being ripped apart but this game would exceed any words to describe the boredom you'd experiance to have a galactic scale RTS with every bit of real world physics. If you're going to try and shoot down a mode of gameplay simply because it's not realistic how could you support the rest of the game when it's been stated over and over that they want this to be something to have some bits of realism that fit with fun, not just a flat peice of realism awkwardly squished on to an RTS?

Oh God can you cite this from Uber?
I HOPE THIS ISN'T THE CASE!