why the spacestations are yet so distant from planet's atmosphere ?

Sterlino

Sterlino
Re- watching the (now old) early concept arts every single rappresentation of a space station were very near to planets .. even when they are gas giant...
Why in this actual beta all the spacestations are so distant from the planets ?

keeping the Spacestations so distant it's a lack of spectacularity and phatos.:eek:

there is a precise reason behind that ?

I would really like to read something from devs about it..
 

Zalamander

Z
It would make perfect sense to make them more aceccible for ships that require less energy to work against the gravity to get into a lower orbit.
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Jenner
Well eventually you'll be able to land on planets and visit spaceports there anyway, so having stations right next to them may be a bit redundant.

Also it may be simply that they want some space for players to super cruise in and 'hit' these stations. Put 'em too close to planets and it will further complicate your approach. As it is, sometimes stations can be 'hiding' behind planets so that you have to adjust your course to intercept.

Just some guesses.
 

Tinman

Tinman
My guess is that the planets haven't looked good enough for close inspection previously during the different builds. This new build have greatly improved planets though so maybe soon they will lower some the orbits for the sake of variation. Still expecting the planets to improve quite a bit more though. :cool:

Also expect to see not just solitary stations, but whole groups of stations, shipyards and factories with ships flying between these as development goes forward.
 

Iain M Norman

Iain M Norman
Might simply be that FD feel the planets are not good enough yet to be so close to.

They are constantly working on increasing the detail in the procedural planet textures and shaders.
 

Dalkeith

Dalkeith
I can't remember who but someone posted video going down to the surface and the planet already looked spectacularly good. So it would be good for players to get a chance to experience that.
 

TallTroll

T
>> Why in this actual beta all the spacestations are so distant from the planets ?

Physics. Stations will be placed in an appropriate orbit for a given bodies gravity. Geostationary orbit around Earth is about 22,000 miles, for instance. Bodies with different gravity wells will have varying orbital characteristics
 

Sterlino

Sterlino
But is the plan to fix that or simple the spacestations will be distant from planet in the final release ?

p.s. i don't care if it is realistic or not, nearest spacestation are spectacular and i want it !! :mad:
 

TallTroll

T
As far as possible, FD want ED to use real physics. Stations around low gravity worlds will be much closer to them than stations around high gravity worlds. It's just how orbital mechanics works, and therefore I don't see it changing. Once we can access all the galaxy, you'll be able to find stations in lower orbits because of the wide variety of planets out there
 

Capt. Hook

Capt. Hook
maybe its so they don't fall back down to earth (so to speak).

Force of gravity is expressed as F = G (m1 m2)/r^2 , where m1 and m2 are the masses of the bodies in question (in this case one is the mass of the earth, the other is the mass of the station). R is the distance between the center of mass of the earth and the center of mass of the station

I think I read somewhere that for intensive purposes, the Earth's gravity extends to about 1.5Mkm. 0.01 AU, but really that is the distance until some other bodies gravity field is stronger so to speak.

So maybe the stations are parked faraway enough from other large objects to just hang in space. Or maybe as others have said planets will get more detailed and closer, the closer to final game release we go ;)
 

LCplCombat

L
because its a game....

If it were the real world someone on the forums, who has no connection to the game design, would suggest that if it was orbiting INSIDE the atmosphere, then it the atmosphere would cause drag and the station would eventually crash into the planet. But what does anyone answering thius question know why the devs decided to place the stations where they are placed.
 

TheDoctor

TheDoctor
Also it may be due to simple playability.

The original Elite did have the stations a lot closer to the planets, in some cases you could accidentally crash into the planet when trying to align with the letterbox.

What this did was to then place the station is a very large shadow of the planet and I remember spending hours just passing the planet at full speed (no supercruise just torus drive) until you could get near the station and hit the docking computers.

If that was implemeted now you could find yourself having to completely overshoot a planet almost constantly to get to the station rather than once in a while.

The further out the body the less time it will spend as a shadow of the thing it is oribiting.
 

Tinman

Tinman
Dalkeith said:
I can't remember who but someone posted video going down to the surface and the planet already looked spectacularly good. So it would be good for players to get a chance to experience that.
Click to expand...

If you mean the Planetfall thread then that would be me. ;)

Yes, they have indeed taken a nice leap in the latest build compared to previously, but I still expect quite a bit more detail added to them before the first release. Also, a lot more variation in terms of different types of planets.

BTW, this image from Newsletter 25 probably belongs in this thread. ;)
earthlike_planet.jpg
 

Sterlino

Sterlino
Tinman said:
BTW, this image from Newsletter 25 probably belongs in this thread. ;)
earthlike_planet.jpg
Click to expand...

YES !!!

that's what i am talking about !

BUT they show it in the newsletter only for marketing proposals ?? a shame !! a shameful shame !!:mad::mad::mad:

angry_emoticon.png

I WANT IT IN GAME NOW !!
 

Dalkeith

Dalkeith
Thanks Tinman yes it was your video.

I'm pretty sure the devs have a lot of these points covered they are keeping things at the moment until there's a bit more tome to development.
 
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