the asteroid belt in Sol?

[Vargur]

If I recall, there's actually very little material in this region. It's not like you see in the films with loads of asteroids shoulder to shoulder. I suspect with most of them, they're so far apart, one can't even see another.

It depends on how you look at it.
In terms of mass, yes the asteroid belt is quite small compared to even our moon, let alone the earth.

But unlike the earth and any other planet, all mass is accessible because it's fragmented into small parts.
On the earth we can only really mine the thin shell of rocky surface, and we can't even effectively mine where there is ocean.
So practically speaking, there may be many many times the amount of resources up for grabs in an asteroid belt than there is on earth.

 

[roryscarlett]

In Frontier: Elite II only the largest asteroid (minor planet) Ceres was there. Just orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Perhaps just have multiple minor planets orbiting on very similar orbits? I think it would only be worth putting in ones that would have any real impact, maybe over 100Km in diameter. I have no idea how many that is in reality though!

Would be nice to have the Trojan asteroids too just for completeness!!!

 

[mrinku]

There are a variety of "belts" known. Some stars have protoplanetary halos, dust belts, and so forth. Asteroids also clump at trojan points - we may find that many of the "belts" are trojans. But they shouldn't be anything like as dense as a planetary ring.

 

[VR Dextrovix]

Sorry but I think this is a bad idea because both Michael Brookes and David Braben have said that we wont be able to visit Sol until the final game is released. If they were to wait for information from this probe then that would mean delaying the release of the game and I and I would imagine most of us would be against that. We want the game as soon as its finished. They could always update the information the Dawn probe finds in an expansion pack or patch.

I don't think Tommyttk meant delay the game, he meant delay the addition of the fields until the DAWN probe reached Ceres. I recall Michael Brookes mentioning updating information on stars and exoplanets should things be discovered after the game's release, so the same would therefore apply to our system, especially as we know the most about how it should look compared to all of the others in the galaxy.

 

[Ishmat]

I saw an asteroid field with many Ls diameter. System Parcae (Parcae 8)
View attachment 388

 

[Bald Avenger]

Slight tangent, not sure if this has been mentioned, but will we get any of the famous comets in Sol?

Id like to fly through Hale-Bopp's tail, just for kicks. Even if it takes an hour of supercruise to get to it.

 

[nicomak]

Yes we should have comets, in fact i think they said they were "already in", just not visible yet, I guess that's just like those belts.

 

[burzum]

Er... no, I was talking about...

This doesn't matter, the effect would be the same. You know how much space there is between Mars and Jupiter?

 

[ScottGust]

Just depict them! we need as much in game content as possible, the focus on absolute reality is not a fun game concept.

 

[cmdr awesome]

Honestly I hope they ARE modelled, even though it's essentially pointless. Just somewhere (boring) for us to visit

Sounds like a perfect spot for a secret base.
I hope they feature heavily in missions.

 

[Simon853]

Yes we should have comets, in fact i think they said they were "already in", just not visible yet, I guess that's just like those belts.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone's still playing the game in about 30 years time when Haley's Comet comes to life in 3043.

 

[Ulysses_W]

It'll be interesting to see if anyone's still playing the game in about 30 years time when Haley's Comet comes to life in 3043.

Only if I can rig a HOTAS to my zimmerframe...

 

[PremiereBoris]

It is my understanding (probably too much discovery channel but what the hey) that the asteroids in the asteroid belt are actually hundreds of miles apart. This being the case i don't see the benefit of depicting it in game.

Try Millions of miles apart =P

 

[Dash]

I was expecting things like an asteroid belt just to be places where rocks would occasionally rock-up (haha, I'm so funny) on your scanner. Where as not being in an asteroid belt you wouldn't be encountering bits of rock drifting around the place.