Telescopes and geostationary or tidally-locked moons/planets

Searched, didn't find anything. Rather dependent on the eventual format of planetary maps since it's all about which way things are facing.

I was wondering whether moons and planets will be able to show these phenomena.

[*]A geostationary moon (A) would always appear above the same piece of land on its planet.

[*]A tidally locked moon (B) would always show the same face to its planet.

[*]A geostationary AND tidally locked moon (AB) would always be above the same piece of land on its planet, and also show the same face.

[*] Telescopes for scouting other planets. Tier one for imaging close-by moons, tier two for imaging other planets, tier 3 for imaging asteroids. Field of aim limited to the sky direction the landmass on the planet is facing, actual field of vision chosen with the orbital interface, no need for fancy optical calculations, just make telescopes limited so that they aren't 100% coverage scouts. Possibility of space telescopes, like outwards-facing spy satellites.


Gameplay implications

[*]Artillery on the moon in (A) would only be able to strike targets on one side of the planet.

[*]A telescope on the near side of moon (B) would always be imaging some part of its planet, and artillery would be able to strike any part of its planet depending on the time of the lunar cycle. Anything on the far side would be undetectable from the planet.

[*]for (AB), the far sides of each body are undetectable from either.

These suggestions serve to differentiate different systems and moons more than just by terrain types.

A way to check when an area was last imaged might be good too, for all types of scouting. Maybe a colour coded overlay; real colour is currently visible, green was imaged within the last 4 minutes, yellow within the last 10, red within the last 20 and grey never.

Re: Telescopes and geostationary or tidally-locked moons/pla

I support the ideas of both geostationary and/or tidally locked moons/planets. Overall, I agreed with your points, but there should be ways to launch weapons / shoot projectiles around the visible hemisphere, especially for planets with a higher gravitational well.

Re: Telescopes and geostationary or tidally-locked moons/pla

Oh, and I forgot about tidally locked planets (always showing the same face to the sun). Solar power plants on one side will always be producing power, and on the other side, nothing.


All these ideas rather hinge on assuming planets will rotate and orbit at gameplay-relevant speeds, normally.

Re: Telescopes and geostationary or tidally-locked moons/pla

Would be nice if, when building power plants, you are notified about the average wind-speed, planetary rotation period (and solar power output during day).. etc

So you know when to build or NOT build certain power systems.

Re: Telescopes and geostationary or tidally-locked moons/pla

I like these ideas, orbit types and rotation speeds are like a new type of terrain characteristic.

Re: Telescopes and geostationary or tidally-locked moons/pla

If the maps actually incorporate planet rotation and orbits, these ideas are pretty awesome.

In addition to telescopes, which offer direct optical sight, there could be scanners. These scanners would act like radars, but for planets/moons/etc. It could show information about the types of resources and its habitation (neutral/enemy..). Stats could be of: wind / solar / geothermal / gravity / size / type (water/land/mixed/gas/etc) / metal concentration / rotation speed / etc.

Eg: Tech 1 scanner has range of 1AU. All solar system bodies within this range would have their stats shown to the player. Perhaps it could even be very vague estimates, but with better tech, you could get better information and longer range. Distance could also be a factor in the accuracy of the information.