Will the planets actually move?

I don't think anyone was voting for not orbiting, I think some people were just suggesting using a bit simpler approximation of physics that makes things mostly accurate while being far stable and predictable.

There's three levels of orbits, First is simulation quality which is needlessly complex and difficult (for users), also, not the point of the game. There's the "It goes round at random speed, and maybe in a square" where I die a little on the inside. Last is good enough for awesome. That's in between and I bet the devs care enough to get it good enough given what was in the first video.

Yeah that's the operator in C-like languages.

Now I know.

Yeah, I probably should have used /= or something. I avoid ~= because it's often asymptotically equal to (even though it's the not-equals operator in a lot of other programming languages).

But it seems my issue about geosynchronous orbits has been resolved while I was asleep.

I'm in favour of the simple ol' moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars, where the moons' masses have negligible effect on the planets, and the planets' masses have negligible effect on stars.

There's balance and gameplay concerns (because there's two metaphorical types of high ground; gravitational, and orbital), but it acts enough like reality for everyone to enjoy it but not require a BSc to understand it.

True enough. I had brought up the Lagrangian points just because I thought they were interesting to know about (i had not known about them until I started taking my classes). I meant them as a side note; not something to be put in game.

I knew about them from watching Gundam Shows. Tangential Learning FTW!

Mike

Lagrange points are not pseudo-bodies that you can orbit around. They are points in space where, if placed, a satellite can remain stationary in relation to the other two massive bodies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_points

Technically not an orbit of the point, but relevant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_orbit