Well we all have our levels of acceptable immersion in this game; FD is more than hitting mine...
Elite Dangerous: Horizons - How to Make a Real World Livestream on our official YouTube Channel 7PM BST 14th Oct
- Thread starter Edward Lewis
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Well we all have our levels of acceptable immersion in this game; FD is more than hitting mine...
Such a shame, considering that Frontier stuck so authentically to conventional science when it came to faster-than-light space travel and hyperjump technology.
I think I misread something. Are planets created using pirate tectonics?
Legacy_LuckyLuke
Banned
Looks amazing. Can't wait to experience it first hand
Quoting this as some people may have missed it, it seems.
Howdy folks.
I wanted to try and explain a little more about our system to hopefully lay some concerns to rest. For a plate-based tectonic system on a planet, a large enough temperature gradient is required to have a phase difference between a relatively thin crust and the deeper innards. That temperature gradient can be driven by things such as gravitational compression on a large enough body, or gravitational stress from orbiting a much larger body closely.
So yes, smaller terrestrial worlds, unless under rather specific conditions, will likely have crustal plates too thick for a tectonic mask to make sense. However, tectonic interactions is not the only way in which surface features can be formed.
Asteroidal impacts can create shockwaves across an entire planet's surface, deforming the crust in interesting patterns. The formation of a planet from the cataclysmic merging of two planetoids would liquify most of the material, but there is the chance for old solid outcrops to survive or influence the shape of the resulting body. Gravitational stressed can be enough to drive volcanism which forms mountain ranges on a surface. An event in a planet's past might alter its orbit from the previously stressful one to a wider/eccentric one, solidifying the new features. Impacts can cause rifts, ridges, and hill ranges as well as the expected crater.
To get back on topic, our 'tectonic mask' system takes into account various factors from Stellar Forge, such as:
expected gravitational stress / sibling and parent orbits
gravitational compression heating
material of the planet
size of the planet
tidal locking state
expected core, mantle, and crust temperatures
viscosity of mantle
deformability of the materials
age of the system
expected frequency and magnitude of meteorite collisions
nearby sources of regular debris
and more
The system creates masks for areas of potential crustal deformation activity. Those areas may reflect the shapes and activities of tectonic plates if it's sensible for that particular planet.
It may reflect other shapes if the sources of those deformations isn't bona fide tectonic activity. The same system is used for large and small planets, and adapts as it needs to.
We ended up calling it the 'tectonic mask' because it's short, snappy, and places the same kind of visual features (even if what physically would have generated them might have been different).
TL;DR "tectonics mask" is a shorthand way we've been describing all the regions of crustal major deformation from a variety of sources.
(p.s. similar thing with the limestone material on an oceanless planet question. Limestone is a short, relatable name for development compared to "calcium carbonate rich analogues"
You entirely missed my point. Of course they want Beta as long as possible... but sometimes (often) development takes much longer than expected. For ED v1.0 they were willing to ship a basically unfinished product, cutting the Beta/Gamma period rather shorter than it should have been, so they could make their "December 2014" release date. Similarly for Power Play (which seemingly had a hard deadline for release, so they cut the Beta period far too short, leading to a rather buggy mess for v1.3).
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I'll be even more interested to see how they build on this in future updates. It's rather smart how they're going about it. After all, it's not like they need to re-do how planets work when they do atmospheres, water, and whatnot. Simply start with what they have and build on it - weathering effects over time, for example, but it would still start with this as their base. Same thing for life if they ever get there, once they have worlds with atmosphere and water they can use that as the starting model to have evolutionary trees pop up based on how old the system is and other variables... maybe even taking Mass Extinctions into account?
The first thing Braben did, was he wrote the sky.
The second thing Braben did, was he wrote the stars.
And He looked over the maelstrom of stars in the void, and He saw that it was good.
The third thing Braben did, was he wrote the planets. And he wrote the hills and valleys, the rocks and the crags, and the icy mantles. And the stars shone on the planets, and stoked the fiery bellies at their core so they brought forth magma and sulfer.
The fourth thing Braben did, was he wrote the air and the clouds, and the wind and rain. And the rain fell upon the planets and gave birth to the seas and the plants and the trees. And life crawled from the seas and the trees, and spread across the planet and gazed up to the stars. And in time, it reached up.
And thus it was that life went amongst the maelstrom which had stoked its fire. And Braben looked upon His work, and saw that it was good.
The second thing Braben did, was he wrote the stars.
And He looked over the maelstrom of stars in the void, and He saw that it was good.
The third thing Braben did, was he wrote the planets. And he wrote the hills and valleys, the rocks and the crags, and the icy mantles. And the stars shone on the planets, and stoked the fiery bellies at their core so they brought forth magma and sulfer.
The fourth thing Braben did, was he wrote the air and the clouds, and the wind and rain. And the rain fell upon the planets and gave birth to the seas and the plants and the trees. And life crawled from the seas and the trees, and spread across the planet and gazed up to the stars. And in time, it reached up.
And thus it was that life went amongst the maelstrom which had stoked its fire. And Braben looked upon His work, and saw that it was good.
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God Braben, grant us, your goodness, your generosity, your patience, your tolerance. And also your forgiveness, to have criticized so hard the game from time to time
So... what you guys are saying is that the bobblehead I got is some kind or religious artifact. Good to know in case I get interdicted by religious extremists, I guess.
You could obtain the permits more easily. And conversely, hide it, in the pagans systems
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That they arrrrrreeeee
The fifth thing Braben did, was he rewrote some of it and put some Thargoids in it! And thus Frontier First Encounters was born.
The sixth thing Braben did, he rewrote it again but without them Thargoids.
Here's hoping for the seventh thing!!
The seventh thing ..... he rested.