A "Space Engine" use for Stellar Forge...

One of the best moments I ever had in ED was when I had landed on a moon, and was driving in my SRV across a large plain with a ridge of mountains to my right. I was driving in the dark/dusk, and then all of a sudden daylight was upon me, and the shadow I had been driving in was rushing away from me across the plain, and across the mountain range. I had been driving unknowingly in an eclipse shadow, which I'd then seen rush off into the distance!

All I managed to catch of the event was the last few seconds of me looking right, and screen capturing three times...

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Consider for a moment if you could adjust ED's time to allow you to see a system, planet, moon, star position at anytime, in effect so as to be able to predict alignments, events and eclipses? So of course we can't do this in ED because it's realtime, but imagine if instead there was a simplified tool using the Stellar Forge engine allowed you to render a system, planet, moon, star position at anytime (within reason) to be able to predict when interesting alignments, events and eclipses would occur. In effect a cut of the Steller Forge engine, and graphics renderer we see in the game, to allow a simple tool somewhat like Space Engine, dedicated for the ED universe.

ie: So you could be back on the moon I was on, ready for the next eclipse I witnessed. Or be in system X, on planet Y, to catch the alignment of Z stars on the 3rd of January 2021?

ps: I doubt we'll ever see this of course, as it would allow players to view locations in the Universe they've never been too. But, it's an interesting thought :)
 
I witnessed the fleeing shadow a few times during the SRV planetary circumnavigation jaunt. The first time, I parked up on a nearby mound and just watched for a few minutes (it looked awesome in VR) and the game, with perfect accidental timing, started playing that plinky-plonk piano mood-music that sometimes kicks in. Sublime.

As for your suggestion - that looks to me like the perfect thing to be added to the Orrery, just like how it functioned in Frontier: Elite 2. Fast-forward & reverse controls, allowing you to check for interesting syzygy and stuff.
 
I witnessed the fleeing shadow a few times during the SRV planetary circumnavigation jaunt. The first time, I parked up on a nearby mound and just watched for a few minutes (it looked awesome in VR) and the game, with perfect accidental timing, started playing that plinky-plonk piano mood-music that sometimes kicks in. Sublime.

As for your suggestion - that looks to me like the perfect thing to be added to the Orrery, just like how it functioned in Frontier: Elite 2. Fast-forward & reverse controls, allowing you to check for interesting syzygy and stuff.
I think as long as all non-natural features were removed from the rendering (eg: crash sites, bases etc) then that would overcome the issue of CMDRs being able to see features they shouldn't be able to.

My issue is, if CMDRs can render a view on any body's surface, anywhere, doesn't that risk detracting from exploration? So maybe planet surfaces should be rendered in a clearly false, computer CGI type of way. eg: Lots of big flat polygon surfaces, instead of super duper hires like normal? So it looks fake instead of realistic?
 
I think as long as all non-natural features were removed from the rendering (eg: crash sites, bases etc) then that would overcome the issue of CMDRs being able to see features they shouldn't be able to.

My issue is, if CMDRs can render a view on any body's surface, anywhere, doesn't that risk detracting from exploration? So maybe planet surfaces should be rendered in a clearly false, computer CGI type of way. eg: Lots of big flat polygon surfaces, instead of super duper hires like normal? So it looks fake instead of realistic?
I imagine it’d be the same limited zoom-in as the System map, and if it’s an addition to the Orrery then you’ll have to FSS’d the place anyway.

Are you talking about an anywhere-in-the-Galaxy sort of thing? Interesting places you’ve never been to?
 
Are you talking about an anywhere-in-the-Galaxy sort of thing? Interesting places you’ve never been to?
That would be the risk wouldn't it - Offering such an easy way to view a location, why go there? Hence the suggestion of not showing features (eg: crash sites, bases and even things like features such as brain trees and vents etc)? And the suggestion to show surfaces in a very obviously false CGI effect, so as to only give a basic indication of them, with minimal detail. Ultimately just enough to give an indication of surface levels and the view from it (eg: other star/body positions such as for eclipses etc)
 
Or allow a truly detailed/accurate view of surfaces in this Orrery view for planets you've landed on and done a new scan only available when you've landed? Which is also then sellable exporation data?
 
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