400 billion stars but only one moon

Dejay

Dejay
Maybe this is correct from an astronomic standpoint, but I have a pet peeve:

Moons that orbit other planets are called "planets" not moons in the system map. The only moon in the whole game is the moon orbiting earth. Even titan is described as a planet.

I would classify a moon as a significantly smaller object orbiting another object that isn't a sun.

For me approaching a moon or landing on a moon base is just part of the narrative. Without it the game lacks a bit of flavour.
 

light487

light487
Agreed. It's one part of the game I haven't really looked at closely, spending my previous time testing out other game systems/mechanics rather than considering the aesthetics etc. Definitely need to have them classified as moons for immersion factor.
 

Lokes

Lokes
Good point. I noticed this myself the other day but I thought maybe there was some astronomical explanation for it. Like how we call the sun, the sun, instead of our star or something.
 

King Hrothgar

K
Honestly, I never noticed anywhere about it saying moons or planets. Guess I haven't been paying attention. In any case, planets and dwarf planets are large bodies orbiting a star, a moon is a significant body orbiting a planet. There are technical definitions with mass requirements, but I don't know them off the top of my head. Pretty sure I've suggested it before, but I'll do so again here. "The Moon" should be changed to "Luna" in game to eliminate ambiguity. It's also more correct.
 

cygnusa

cygnusa
Moons are planetoids.. maybe that is what they intended. But yeah, I agree the terminology may need a bit of a fix.

I'm curious if Pluto is considered a planet in SOL. LOL.

It is theoretically possible to have a planet in orbit around a large planet.. along with moons.

I'd suspect that we'll see a larger revamp of planets and moons in general whenever the planets are enhanced for landings. The devs seem to be focusing a lot of detail on planets, composition, and surface features. I'm eager to see what sort of stuff they come up with!
 

Saiidin

S
cygnusa said:
Moons are planetoids.. maybe that is what they intended. But yeah, I agree the terminology may need a bit of a fix.

I'm curious if Pluto is considered a planet in SOL. LOL.

It is theoretically possible to have a planet in orbit around a large planet.. along with moons.

I'd suspect that we'll see a larger revamp of planets and moons in general whenever the planets are enhanced for landings. The devs seem to be focusing a lot of detail on planets, composition, and surface features. I'm eager to see what sort of stuff they come up with!
Click to expand...

Yes it is. And so is Charon. No mention is made of Pluto's other dozen or so "micro-moons" at all.

I just assumed that for the 34th century, astronomers have settled the "is it a planet, is it not a planet?" debate by calling everything with enough mass to form a sphere without enough mass to fuse hydrogen a planet.


It's all point of view, anyway. I've read at least one sci-fi where sapient life forms that evolved in the upper atmospheres of gas giants consider rocky "planets" to be rubble...if it isn't a gas giant, it's not a planet!
 
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Dejay

Dejay
cygnusa said:
Moons are planetoids.. maybe that is what they intended. But yeah, I agree the terminology may need a bit of a fix.

I'm curious if Pluto is considered a planet in SOL. LOL.

It is theoretically possible to have a planet in orbit around a large planet.. along with moons.
Click to expand...

Pluto is listed as a planet together with it's moon Charon! Unfortunately Sedna is nowhere to be found. The solar system has to be accurate :p

Yeah about the large moons with "submoons" that would be planets there it gets tricky of course. I wouldn't care too much about the finer details as long as there are moons in the game.
 

Renso

Banned
Renso
The Moon technically doesn't orbit the Earth. Both Moon and Earth orbit a common center. Our's is actually a dual planetary system.
The correct term is, satellite... So Jupiter has 4 principal satellites, ... and so forth.

With that said.. the word itself "planet" means "wandering star"... but this of course comes from primitive observation before Galileo's optical telescopes.
 
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Herik

Herik
Fomalhaut said:
That's funny and interesting but i have not been to sol system yet. In our own Starsystem there are hundreds of Moons http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/moons_table.html . Perhaps that would be too much for the system to handle, too much data. It would make the Game so much richer and better why on earth didn't they implement this ? A Dev answer to that would be nice.
Click to expand...

(Time available); to do what they could for the release of the game - more to come....
 

Aticain

Aticain
Renso said:
The Moon technically doesn't orbit the Earth. Both Moon and Earth orbit a common center. Our's is actually a dual planetary system.
The correct term is, satellite... So Jupiter has 4 principal satellites, ... and so forth.

With that said.. the word itself "planet" means "wandering star"... but this of course comes from primitive observation before Galileo's optical telescopes.
Click to expand...

That's a silly technicality to bring up. With that train of thought, Earth doesn't orbit the Sun...they orbit about a common center (called the barycenter). But, seeing how pedantic that is, no one looks at it that way.

For the proper definition of a planet, refer to the International Astronomical Union's definition established in 2006:
A planet is a celestial body which...
1) orbits a star,
2) has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round), and
3) has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

So yeah, calling all of the moons planets is a little incorrect. However, for the sake of the ED universe, these definitions may have been updated in the millennium since the IAU made their definition.
 

Dabba

Dabba
Aticain said:
That's a silly technicality to bring up. With that train of thought, Earth doesn't orbit the Sun...they orbit about a common center (called the barycenter). But, seeing how pedantic that is, no one looks at it that way.

For the proper definition of a planet, refer to the International Astronomical Union's definition established in 2006:
A planet is a celestial body which...
1) orbits a star,
2) has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round), and
3) has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

So yeah, calling all of the moons planets is a little incorrect. However, for the sake of the ED universe, these definitions may have been updated in the millennium since the IAU made their definition.
Click to expand...

Except that 2006 is ancient history in 3033 and anything those apes "established" isn't worth the price of a food cartridge.
 
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