Animated stars and comets

[MarcusBritish]

Whilst the stars look bright and imposing, the flares around them are pretty static. Not sure if there can be animated better as it might cause FPS issues, but solar flars should be huge cascades of plasma as seen in this video recorded by NASA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBSqFMN-rlM – they would also add a random element to fuel scooping, as orbiting round a star until the fuel is 100% full is pretty easy, but having to keep an eye out for solar ejections and dodge them would be fun when it comes to piloting.

Also, there are no comets in the game, afaik. Haley's comet, comet Hale Bopp, etc. There are over 300 catalogued comets, it would be nice to see them, what with their bright tails. Maybe even the challenge of landing on or hovering around stable comets to mine for materials would add a further set of piloting skills to the game?

Cheers.

 

[dogsolitude_uk]

I think you'll find that kind of footage is 'sped up' somewhat. Here's some footage from NASA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFT7ATLQQx8

Quote from the blurb:

"The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012."

It's worth remembering also the sheer scale of these things. Given that the above was recorded over the course of 21.5 hours the mass is travelling at incredible speeds, hundreds of Km/s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_prominence

Plus, I don't know if you've ever noticed this when fuel scooping (I usually stop at the 'sweet spot' for this and watch the star's corona), but the coronas in E|D are actually animated. Slowly, and subtly, they shift and move. At least, I hope they do and it's not my eyes and mind conspiring to play tricks on me!

But I do agree with you, coronal mass ejections and flares are hypnotically awe-inspiring. I did an introductory course on Astronomy with the Open University, so whereas I'm far from being an expert, I can tell you that the bits about the Sun and it's behaviour are utterly mindblowing... Really made me feel small!

 

[MarcusBritish]

I don't stop for refuelling. I put the star at the top of the screen and loop round it as soon as I drop put of a supercruise jump and am able to control my distance and the prevent heat levels rising to a danger point. I'd have though it would be harder to escape if you have to go from a cold start, but when you're already cruising it's easier to pull way fast.

I've never seen the corona move much because I'm usually too busy focusing on my distance/heat readings when refuelling to stop and watch a spot for long, but it seems to me that there isn't a lot going on in the way of animation. I think they could make it more interesting visually and physically, with bigger flares and plasma ejections that can actually do damage if they engulf the ship. Every star usues the same model (within the same class) but I think by adding random flares it would add some character and definition, since no two stars are actually the same and have different cycles and bursts of activity.

Cheers.

 

[dogsolitude_uk]

I'm only a fairly casual player, so only have a Cobra III. I found that once I got the A class fuel scoop it was easy enough to 'sit' at minimum supercruise (so not literally stationary) and scoop, and just keep half an eye on your temp. Adjust your angle until the rate of heat increase levels out. Your scoop rate depends partially on the distance from the star, and there's a kind of 'sweet spot' where you can refuel via scoop at a decent rate without getting cooked.

You can get some great photo opportunities...